#something something overperforming your AGAB in a theatrical way

[ow-old-men]

This is enabled by the lovely @czupl, I have MANY feelings and very specific thoughts about Cassidy and Ana’s relationship, this is basically just a fic in a weird format, enjoy;

Cassidy comes to overwatch young and alone and above all else angry. His hands are stained, so is the rest of him. They are stern and he bristles back in return, he knows how to do hard, he’s heated through like stoneware. If there is one thing he knows how to do it’s grit his teeth and bear it, soldier on and pull the trigger

He would like so much to be good, effortlessly, but it has never come easy. It sits knotted in his jaw, makes him avoid looking too long in mirrors. A shame that knows no name and precious little bounds

He still watches his movies, steals and trades in ammo for an old cassette and pops it in. There, in the midst of the cliches and the stunts and the stilted dialogue; a role he could and does play. He tips his hat down and forces the smile to be sly, drinks too much and chafes and spins his revolver twice around a forefinger before it goes into the holster

Ana watches him on the shooting range. She says, “you do not need the bravado,” and the thing in her eyes is almost a smile. “It’s heavy,” she says and holds Peacekeeper out in a stretched and steady arm. “Meet me here tomorrow and I’ll show you how to stop it hurting.”

His wrist ache only for a week more, there’s an ache on the left side of his chest that stays longer. It’s an old and cramped habit to release

And then Reyes let’s a ‘son’ slip on a briefing, accidental and fleeting and Cassidy feels both seen and washed out. Maybe tired most of all. It’s a heavy thing, all the bravado that needs to be put down. There’s the instinct to add to it; grin and smoke and go crash a bar though they technically aren’t allowed while serving, get somebody beautiful and effortless to steal it all away with reassuringly soft lips and fluttering eyelashes

Ana ever only says Cass. Her hands are steady and scarred and her voice wavers on the edge of shaking, but only sometimes. “You know, you don’t have to pretend. That’s a part of it.” She says and guides his hands though dressing a wound, in case it’ll ever be needed

They kneel on the tiled floor of a destroyed mosque in one of the many cities the crisis wrecked. Ana mumbles prayers and apologies until Cassidy can feel the presence filling the entire, cavernous room, until it spills out of the broken parts of the ceiling. “It’s heavy,” she says, “sometimes, knowing somebody loves you.” She looks over and her face is stained, “it’s no easy task, doing the right thing.”

They get up and Cass staggers, unsure. Ana has an arm against his bicep, her fingers are strong and undeniable. The beard comes haphazardly off into a motel sink, Cass treats the slight burn like she’s taught him

They are standing very still and Ana looks soft and faint and tired in this light, but when don’t any of them these days. It has swelled so long in Cass chest, crystallised at last until there is no denying. And she has to know

“I think I’m a woman?” Cass says, with a voice that is achingly small and shoulders that shake.

“Of course you are, habibti,” Ana says and stands still, her eyes warm and ocean-dark. It’s a voyage that brings her home, across the space between them until Ana has her by the back of the neck and they are intertwined. Cass feels stripped raw and more relieved than ever before

She cries for a long time, shakes with it until Ana unwraps her hijab and curls it around both of them and the world swims in blue and green and something both unbearably heavy and unimaginably light