#jim: a lot of things but Sam stole my granola this morning he had it coming

[gatersgonewild]

I need Spirk Academy Era fics to be less AOS and more SNW because I need Spock and Sam in a literal brawl in the middle of campus while Jim takes bets on how fucked up Sam is gonna be when Spock is done with him. I need Spock literally telling Sam not to test him or he’ll fuck his brother and Jim is all *whispers* ‘test him test him test him test him test him-‘ not realizing Sam isn’t the only one hearing him. I need Spock going to girls night where he complains that he can’t possibly marry Jim or he’ll be brothers-in-law with Sam and Uhura is all *pats his hair* ‘…so… can I fuck your bondmate?’ And Spock sorta just shrugs like whatever it’s not like he’s gonna, and now Spock has decided he’s gonna have to kill Sam before he marries Jim. God. What a chore.

I think making it more SNW would be funny entirely for the Kirk dynamics.

[docholligay]

Wish

For @keyofjetwolf​‘s birthday tomorrow, I wrote some stuff she definitely does not want! Pharah vs her birthday, Lena being a little shit, Pharah and Mercy being tender. Roughly 3,300 words, and I liked it enough to put it in my proper OW universe, all of which you can find here if you want to read it or just check where this is in the time line. 

Fareeha Amari was a woman of patience, intelligence, and strategy. She had earned high commendation from high school onwards for her focus and her strong drive, and she had achieved magnificent levels of success in her career due to this ability to clear the obstacles from her mind, and see clear the path.

Some obstacles are more difficult than others, however.

“What we doing for your birthday Thursday next?” Pharah looked up in horror to see the tiny British pilot grinning at her excitedly.

Ever since Tracer had been brought onto the project by Helix, she had expected to be friends with Pharah and Dr. Gamal. That they were nothing more than partners working toward a common goal did not seem to occur to her.

“I do not know what you are talking about.” Pharah was not even sure she had convinced herself, but she had to try.

Tracer whirled around to her side of the table and stood inches from her, eyes gleaming with delight, clapping merrily as she bounced.

“Your birthday!” She gave a little jump. “”S next week, right? Right,” she did not give Pharah the opportunity to respond, confirming her own question, “Saw it on your id card.”

Pharah glowered. “You stole my wallet?”

Tracer laughed. “Didn’t ‘ave to! I wouldn’t have neither,” she shook her head in sincerity, “I’m not that type, love, not at all, an ‘onest girl, I am, can ask anyone--”

Pharah brought her hand down on the table in front of her. “It does not matter how you know what you think you--”

“Saw you take it out at the pub,” Tracer added, “just so as to sate your curiosity.”

Pharah turned away from the conversation, unrolling plans for a modification to the Raptora suit, and mumbled in Arabic. “You can remember my birthday, but you can’t remember when we need to have paperwork done. How useful you are to me.”

“What was that, love?”

“I said that we have work to do and my name is Captain Amari, or Pharah--”

“Your name’s Fareeha, seen that on your ID as--”

“Captain Amari or Pharah. Not love, Corporal Oxton. Agent Oxton. Tracer. Whichever you prefer.”

“Prefer Lena.”

Pharah closed her eyes. She had spent her entire life modeling military excellence, to be the soldier her mother had been, and she was on the cusp of the first great thing to be developed since Overwatch had fallen. She wanted to be a part of something greater, and if she could not be a member of Overwatch, then she would create something new in Helix.

But this woman, who had gotten the honor of not only joining Overwatch, but being a field agent like Pharah’s mother, who got to stand in the way of evil and do good, and who had sacrificed so much to do so, did not seem to approach this, or anything, with gravity. She was a keen pilot, and her lessons had helped Pharah immensely, but her manner was brash and annoying, and Pharah could not wait for the day when she would be free of her.

“Did you not tell Ang?”

Pharah looked down at Tracer, who had reappeared at her side, though further from her and less excited now.

No, she had not told her. Mercy was a busy woman, a talented teacher, a doctor constantly being asked to consult, and running all of her volunteer work besides. She was moral and thoughtful and a shining example of everything Pharah thought of when she thought of Overwatch. When she thought of goodness.

She was also very beautiful, and her voice was soft and warm as a blanket, and she looked at Fareeha as if she were beautiful as well, but these were things Pharah barely mentioned to herself, they seemed so frivolous, so shallow and surface that Pharah would do better to ignore them.

“I have only...known her,” she said awkwardly, “for three months.”

“Keeping careful track now, aren’t we?”

Tracer delighted in the, well, Pharah was not so sure she could call it a relationship, not so sure she could explain how she felt, not even sure if it was the right way to feel. There were no manuals for this, no best practices, and Pharah had little experience in the matter herself. Her father would have called it, for love was an easy place for Sam to get to, and so many things were love in his eyes, but Pharah was her mother’s child, for good or for ill, and she could no longer ask Ana what it might be.

But whatever it was, Tracer’s pleasure in her hand in the making of it was the only thing about it Pharah found distasteful.

“She’ll want to know,” Tracer had already moved off Pharah’s memory of the dates, flitting to another topic, “She’ll want to do something, Ang’s very thoughtful you know, she’ll want to properly mark--”

“I do not celebrate my birthday.” She looked at Tracer briefly, then back to the plans. “I need your assistance with--”

“That an Egyptian thing, or just you being a general damp squib?”

“What is a,” she shook her head, deciding she didn’t care, “It is a Muslim...thing.”

“Told me you weren’t at all religious, when I asked after the tattoo.”

There it was again, the quality of Tracer’s memory, simultaneously unable to track from one task to the next and to remember in keen detail conversations from months ago.

Infuriating.

Tracer put her hands on her hips and cocked her head. “Also, discovered your birthday in a pub, love, drinking beer, which I’m fairly certain is alcohol, though if you told me that pisswater stuff wasn’t at all, I’d believe you, mind.”

She glared at Tracer, unable to mount a defense. “How I practice my religion is none of your business.”

“Lucky I’m not religious.” Tracer’s mind was already on another topic, flitting from them like a hummingbird from flower to flower. “I believe in two things for certain: The Hammers, that’s me footie club, mind, and the sky. Love flying, the feel of it when the wind just catches the edge of your wings, and it’s like you go where--” she looked down at the two fingers she had stretched out of her hand, and added another, “I believe in Winston, too, that’s another thing. And me family. Also prawn cocktail crisps though I don’t know if it’s serious as to call it a belief, but they’ve never treated me wrong, that’s for certain. Oh!” She jumped a little in her realization. “And there’s that little shop round the corner from me house what ‘as the best strawberry milks, I’ll take you there when we go to London.”

Pharah shook her head and looked down at the plans, glad enough that she seemed to be off the subject of her birthday, but carrying on again with this idea that they were, or would be, anything to each other but colleagues.

“Seems I believe in a lot of things, at the fag end of it all.” She laughed heartily at herself and pulled a few snacks out of her backpack, some of those beloved chips, a bag of granola, a bag of Slim Jims.

Pharah looked at her strangely.

“Jesse got me ‘ooked on them in Overwatch days.” She shrugged happily.

Pharah leaned over to take one of the meat sticks out of the bag, sketching on the plans with her other hand.

“That’s pork, Fareeha.”

She looked up to see Tracer giggle.

Some obstacles were impossible.

___

Pharah took the packages with a nod, already knowing who they would be from. Reinhardt’s large print that nearly echoed his booming voice, wishing her a happy birthday, sending her the same cookies and strudels she’d liked since she was a girl, the same teasing note about her sweet tooth, the same warm affection. The other was from her father, always something she had asked for, because Sam listened to her and loved her, and he always made sure to tell her so as often as he could. It would be wrapped in bright paper, the same way it had been when her mother scoffed at it when she was a child.

Her mother did not do birthdays, and had found it silly that Pharah might. Her mother did not do festivals of any sort, really, but this was the sacrifice she had made to ensure the safety of the world, a sacrifice she gave up to her own life.

And so Pharah smiled at the kindness of the cards, and popped a piece of strudel into her mouth, and shut the door to her small room behind her as she continued down the hall. No one else seemed to note any difference about today, and this was the greatest gift Pharah could have hoped for. Last year, she was lucky enough to leave the occasion totally unmarked, except for the usual packages. Birthdays were frivolous, and it was silly to lavish celebration on someone just because they had managed to be born. So had everyone else, as her mother used to say, what is so special about it?

There was, however, one loose end to tie up.

She walked into the workspace for the Raptora suit and looked around the room quickly.

“Where is Tracer?” She asked Dr. Gamal, who sat at a workbench, toying with a small piece of metal at the end of the helmet.

He answered distractedly. “She had a flight mission. Left last night, but she is expected to be checked in tonight.”

“That does not help me today.” She nodded as if in confirmed disappointment. “But perhaps she will stay gone.”

He chuckled. “She’s one of the best pilots in the world, Captain Amari,” He pulled at the metal, and it came free as he shook his head at it, “And she flew the Gnat, and the Slipstream. Her…” He tried to jam a tool into the space left by the metal, “personal manners weren’t part of the job.”

Pharah relaxed. Tracer was gone, and could not reveal anything to anyone, and Dr. Gamal seemed to either not know or not care, and did not question why Pharah was asking after Tracer first thing in the morning. It looked as if she would make it through the day without a scratch, and so she brewed herself some coffee, sat down at her workspace, and wished she had remembered to bring the strudel.

But birthdays are a full twenty-four hours, and Tracer was berthed in the same area as Pharah, sharing a common room and a kitchen in a way Pharah was forced to remember every time she found Tracer’s shoes and jacket scattered around.

She had been working out in the field, looking for sites to practice with the first Raptora suit, digging at the edges of cliffs, the wind whipping up and casting red dirt all about her. She wanted a long shower, a cookie, and to read her book in peace.

You cannot have everything you want for your birthday.

“Oi!” It punctuated the air and Pharah cringed as she tried to pass the common room, but the gig was up, and she had been spotted. “In ‘ere, come on then!”

Pharah tensed. It was going to be a surprise party. The lights were dim in the common room, and Tracer could just as easily come to her, and generally did just bounce into her life when she chose, and she would never choose the path of sitting still, so for her to beckon Pharah in...there was only one option.

But she’d been seen, and there was no way Tracer would let her get out of this.

She took a deep breath, walked into the common room, and immediately lost the breath she’d taken.

Sitting on the couch, lit softly by the candles of a birthday cake, was Mercy. The light made her glow even in the shabbiness of the common room, and the soft lilac of her dress sat beautifully against her blode hair curling gently at her shoulders. She’d dressed specially to see Pharah, blushing rose lipstick and dark mascara, a soft scent of vanilla that must be the sweetness of her perfume whispering across the room.

“Fareeha.” She said it so softly, seeming so shy and afraid of rebuke, like an awkward teenager instead of a highly respected doctor.

“Angela.” Pharah took off her jacket immediately, wiping at the sand and dust in her hair, thinking of how filthy and unkempt she must look.

Mercy stared at her, and Pharah stared back, and neither of them said anything for seconds that went on like hours.

“Right then, there’s me job done, save me a piece of cake.” Tracer’s cheerful voice jolted them out of their awkward trance, and they half-laughed at themselves.

Pharah looked over to Tracer. “I suppose I have you to thank for this.”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Tracer took off her bomber jacket and tossed it over her shoulder, “I don’t know nothing, not even that it’s your birthday, lo--CAPTAIN Amari,” she gave a small salute, “‘ave a good night, Ang. Cheers.”

Tracer left the common room, and Pharah looked back to Mercy, who sat waiting, a bottle of pink champagne, sweet, the way Pharah liked, poured for the both of them, the candles on the cake burning down, and yet neither of them seemed able to say anything. Even after these months, things felt so tender and new, and every motion was imbued with such importance, as if this relationship was as precious as it was fragile, both of them desperate to keep and be held in this love.

Mercy broke first, looking down at the cake.

“Lena was telling me you do not celebrate your birthday, as a Muslim observance. I do know two things,” She was smiling shyly, as if she were trying to urge herself on, “that your father is not Muslim, and,” She smiled brighter, “Islam is being more like Judaism, and you may have picked the commentary of the Sheikh who already agreed with you. I read commentaries on the issue, you know, when Lena was telling me this, and,” she looked more serious now, “there are some commentaries that are speaking to the merit--”

Pharah laughed and held up her hand. “I am not very religious. I had hoped it would quiet Tracer.”

“God can only work so many miracles.”

Pharah looked at the cake. She loved Mercy and hated her birthday, and Mercy had gone to so much trouble, coming halfway across the world and taking time from her important work in Boston, and she did not know how to respond. It was easy, with Tracer, and with others, to growl and grumble, and to quietly take alone the gifts of her father and Reinhardt, but Mercy was soft and gentle, and Mercy was here, and Pharah did not know how to tell her she wanted nothing special.

She was not even sure she didn’t want it, now. Mercy had made life rich and complicated.

Mercy sensed the discomfort in the room. “I did not--we do not have to. I was not meaning to be disrespectful to you, Fareeha, I am feeling so stupid.” She began to blow out the candles on the cake, trying not to show her disappointment.

“No, no, it is beautiful. I am happy you are here.” She bent over and blew out one of the candles,  her face in front of Mercy’s and she smiled in the light of the last remaining candle. “I...I am not worthy I have done nothing to deserve it.”

Mercy looked at her with great tenderness. “You do not earn a birthday, Fareeha.”

She sat down next to Mercy. “I do not celebrate my birthday. My mother never did. My grandmother never did. My aunts never did. It was not done. I am an Amari, we are a practical people, the world does not have birthdays and so why should we?.”

She decided not to mention her father’s bright card, with the loving hearts scrawled on the inside, tucked into the military sweater she had asked for, some Aero bars rolled on the inside because Sam felt she had to have something special and impractical for her birthday. Mercy would meet Sam, and Reinhardt, soon enough, and see that her mother had always had a weakness for the very sweet, and the very kind, and the very effusive.

“Well,” Mercy nodded, “I am a Ziegler, and we are an impractical people, and we try to put into the world the things we want in it. I will celebrate you.” She suddenly looked aghast at what she had said, “It is not as if the Amaris do not work very hard to--”

Pharah took her shoulders. “I know. What it is you mean. This, this is all very new to me.”

She meant the birthday, and the little cake, and the sweetly wrapped present, and someone marking a day as special simply because Pharah was born on it, but she also meant this sitting on the couch with someone, hands on her shoulders, being looked at with love.

“For me, also.” Mercy nodded at her, and Pharah ran her hands down Mercy’s arms, taking her hands.

“This is my favorite birthday present.” She kissed Mercy’s hand. “Thank you.”

Mercy blushed. “Lena was kind enough to be bringing me to you.”

“As she will undoubtedly remind me every day I see her.” She looked over at the coffee table. “You brought my favorite champagne.”

Mercy smiled and picked up a glass. “For your birthday, or,” she handed it to Pharah, “not your birthday. If that is what you want.”

Pharah took the champagne from her hand. “For my birthday. Perhaps you will give me the inspiration to celebrate,” she sighed and nodded knowingly, “Tracer has told me I can sometimes be a wet squid.”

“A what?”

“That is what I said.” She took a drink of her champagne. “English nonsense. But, I can be...serious.”

She felt something crack in her, then, not the crack of destruction but something like it must feel to be a chick in the shell of an egg, and Mercy’s hand on her face was all the warmth of the sun coming through a crack, telling her there was something out there worth breaking through for.

Mercy moved to say something more, but simply shook her head.

Pharah set down her drink and moved to blow out the last candle, then felt Mercy’s hand on her back.

“Wait! Fareeha, before you blow out the candle, you have to make a wish.”

Pharah looked to her and smiled. “But I already have what I would wish for.”

Mercy put her hand in Pharah’s, and Pharah blew out that last candle, giving them over to the warmth of the darkness. But, you see, she had lied to Mercy, that day, for she knew very well what she would wish for.

She wished that someday, she would stand in front of her loving father, and kind Reinhardt, and irritating Tracer, and all of the people who had guided her to this moment. She wished that she would takes Mercy’s hand, and promise her all the things she would do, all the things she would put her focus and her drive into for Mercy. She wished that the greatest obstacle of all, the one that had never cleared from the path, her own fears and protections, would step aside and allow her this one gift.

She wished that someday, she would marry Dr. Angela Ziegler.

And they say your first birthday wish is the strongest.