this shit with max/ime is exactly why twitter should actually crack down on hate speech, and other forms of bigotry instead of going 'hmm well, we can't because a lot of conservative politicians would then get shut down'. GOOD. People like that do not need a platform for their hate!
[Overwatch] Hold your tongue (T, Akande/Lucio, 1.7k)
The first of my fills for the writing prompts, wherein I again fail to respond to a prompt in under 1k words. I’ll just accept my handicap with grace.
Hold your tongue (Can also be read on AO3) for @slavewhotouchedastar
Doomfist | Akande Ogundimu / Lúcio Correia dos Santos (M)
Chapters 1 / 2 / 3 | Ceasefire Masterlist
Angst #21: “I wish I didn’t have these feelings, but I do.”
Lúcio shouldn’t say anything.
He shouldn’t.
His arms cross tightly over his chest and he huffs a breath when strong hands stroke down his arms in what might be an attempt of comfort.
Comfort. Here.
That’s a laugh.
He tries not to shy from the familiar touch of those calloused palms, stomach tightening, but fingers tip his chin up, and then Lúcio has to look on the face of his complication.
Not for the first time, its occurs to him that Akande is really handsome. And his eyes are gorgeous, even if he often stares a little too long and makes people uncomfortable. He’s not afraid to study people. Right now, the full intensity of that focus is narrowed on him in a careful frown, and he resists the urge to look away.
Lúcio adores the strength of his features, bold and broad unlike his own straighter face, and a form he conditioned for speed. Akande was built to brawl while Lúcio trained himself to evade the need for it altogether. Not today. No more running.
“Ìfẹ́-ọkàn mi….” Akande smooths a thumb over his lower lip and Lúcio almost turns his face towards that palm on instinct. “You are thinking very loudly.”
Don’t say anything.
Before him in their secreted Illios motel room, early morning slants across Akande’s face. He takes a seat on the edge of the bed, drawing Lúcio to follow so the shorter man doesn’t have to crane his neck to meet his eye.
They are both dressed, the work of a few minutes though it took even less than that to get them off last night. Lúcio spent most of his time this morning looking for where Akande threw his gloves and eventually found them behind the television.
At his back, the news anchor reports concerns of local unrest in the wake of tensions in Egypt. Is Talon behind that, too?
The story eclipses to silence as Akande turns off the television, giving Lúcio his full attention.
“I’m just… worried. For you,” Lúcio murmurs, drinking in Akande’s open body language, the hands he props on his knee, head tilted to listen attentively.
The bark of laughter is expected.
“You, worry? For me?” Akande smiles, squinting at Lúcio as though he will see the truth behind the joke if only he looks close enough. Lúcio’s face burns, an emotion tightening in his chest he’s not willing to study too closely as Akande laughs again, shaking his head. “And what cause have I given you for this concern?”
People are not all good or all bad.
Lúcio knows what he’s read, like everyone else: Akande Ogundimu is brilliant, aggressively forward-thinking, and persuasive. It’s these qualities that make him dangerous, more than his stolen gauntlet, more than the body count that climbs with each appearance of his name in the news. More ruthless than his own violence is the carnage Lúcio has witnessed him inspire in others: hangars of armoured Talon agents, guns raised, baying like slavering hounds for Doomfist’s glorious vision of a better world.
But Lúcio can’t ignore the other things he’s learned: the schools Akande’s subsidiaries established in his home country, the scholarships and medical care reconnecting and sustaining families still scarred decades after the events of the Omnic Crisis. The dangerous men he has recruited to his side so he can keep a close eye, and put down the worst of them himself.
The math is simple: the lives Akande has saved far outnumber those lost in his wake. That they know of. And still….
Lúcio closes his eyes with a small sigh, biting his tongue.
“I know you believe in what you’re doing, man, through and through. But….” He shakes his head, arms falling to his sides. “I want to ask you not to anyway.”
Akande doesn’t hesitate. “Then ask.”
“Don’t,” Lúcio fires back at Akande’s amused smile. “Please don’t.”
Akande stills, his smile softening into a calculated line and it’s like watching a film of ice pass over his eyes the moment he understands they have finally come to this conversation, after these three long months.
The shift from Akande to Doomfist is disturbingly seamless. A ripple seems to pass beneath Akande’s skin, every feature relaxing at the surface, but Lúcio feels the man’s strength coiling at the ready, electrifying the air with tension. And as that electricity builds, the easy comfort of the shield they erected around themselves over all these months begins to slowly and irreversibly fracture.
Lúcio doesn’t know why the break seems to start in his chest.
What would his family or friends say if they knew how long he had let this go on? That he let it happen at all?
“Years of planning,” Akande says. His voice has smoothed with a disquietingly familiar charm that gives Lúcio the chills.
“Don’t do that.”
It makes his stomach roll to hear that voice used on him, and in the sanctum of… whatever this is. He shakes his head, feeling the illusion fracture further. He stops himself from pushing the heel of his hand against the sudden pang in his chest.
Akande continues, and Lúcio’s attention is drawn to the slow, intent gesture of his hand. “Every conflict, every war makes us stronger. With our work, humanity will bear more like you who rise up and lead us forward.”
Lúcio stares at the man in disbelief. Is he for real? What exactly is he trying to start?
“And how many will die? How many who never had the means or the chance to protect themselves?” Lúcio thrusts a hand at the window to the world Akande thinks himself fit to reshape, voice rising. “Your way, Akande– it raises those you favour, and the privileged even higher. Don’t use me as a poster child for your war mongering. It could have been anyone else in Rio, but it’s dumb luck that I’m the one who stole that technology first.”
“No,” Akande rises to his feet, voice hushed with an intense passion, eyes alight. “You survived because you were the strongest, Lúcio!”
Lúcio takes a step back, unafraid, but unwilling to let the other man close the distance. “We didn’t want to fight. People were disappearing. They were being beaten in the streets. Thrown into jail without charge or sufficient cause. A building exploded and they pretended it wasn’t their fault. That was your people.”
Akande shakes his head immediately. “Not mine.” His lip curls in an ugly scowl, voice hardening. “There is nothing more cowardly than a bomb.”
Oh, right. Akande doesn’t know that Lúcio has learned Vishkar sit at his table. Which just makes everything the two of them have been doing even worse.
He swallows thickly, taking another step back when Akande reaches for him. It physically pains Lúcio not to let him. When the hell did they get so far?
Lúcio tries to swallow some moisture down his throat, even that is difficult. His body is wound so tight, trembling. It forces his words out quiet and unsteady.
“People died, and they didn’t have to. I fight so nobody has to live through that again. We just want to live. How many in places like mine, do you think would survive a war? A real war?” He tilts his head, studying Akande’s face intently, but he’s not as good at this as Akande, and Akande’s expression is stone. “Why do you get to decide that for us?”
“A war is coming, Lúcio, with or without me. But with me, we can steer its machine.” With a blink, something softens in his expression. Akande sighs, straightening. His shoulders relax and Lúcio feels some of the tension leave his own body. “You can still leave. Do not make the quarrel between us today.”
Lúcio smiles wryly, shrugging and throwing his hands up. “It was always between us. But this only worked when we pretended otherwise, huh? Listen.” He leans his hands on his hips, and watches Akande’s expression light up further when Lúcio steps in, voice gentle. “Would be easier if I didn’t, but I care about you. I wish–” His heart hammers, but he forces the words out past tight lungs and his throat closing, he has to now or he never will, “I wish I didn’t have these feelings, but I do. And I gotta fight for those people who can’t fight for themselves. You know?”
Akande is quiet, dark eyes searching Lúcio’s face long enough for Lúcio to see that he understands. He understands and it’s not relief or joy that Lúcio sees in his face, but he never expected that.
He never expected this to go for more than one night, all those months ago in Numbani.
“You won’t get the answer you want from me,” Akande says, in a strange tone that Lúcio doesn’t understand. The man doesn’t even have the decency to make it sound like an apology.
Lúcio nods, gaze dropping to the floor, adjusting his stance. He anticipated that. He just hopes Akande can’t tell he’s shaking.
Glancing to the door at his back, the silence is heavy and brings the realisation crashing down that he only has seconds before those targets return to their backs and they’ll need to raise their weapons.
Against each other? Fuck.
“… Would you do it yourself?” Lúcio asks, unable to look Akande in the face, doesn’t even consider that Akande might not understand.
He feels a huff of air on his temple a moment before a hand turns his face, and then Akande is kissing him. Deeply. A tongue slides between his lips, a gentle hand cups the back of his head, and Lúcio’s whole body gives up the fight, bowing towards Akande as it releases the tension of the last five minutes. His heart is thundering in his chest, his eyes sting – no, fuck, he’s not going to lose it –
Akande pulls back before Lúcio is ready, a sharp, wet break of sound, and Lúcio whimpers despite himself, body leaning in to follow him.
Fuck.
Akande’s eyes are dark and pupils blown. He swallows audibly, glancing from Lúcio’s lips to meet his gaze. His hands fall away. “If I see you on the field. Go the other way.”
Metal scrapes on wood as Akande swipes his earpieces from the table and when the door swings shut behind his back, Lúcio’s ears ring in the silence.
And he can’t escape the feeling that there’s something else he should have said.
@slavewhotouchedastar | @ofdraconis sent that drabble meme I reblogged last week & can’t be bothered to link9 - things you said when I was crying
The words cascade from your lips so quickly, and in such quantity, that you think you might drown if not for his arms holding you afloat.
You have never told anyone. You tell yourself that you don’t want to burden your friends — that you don’t want to worry them, or make things any more difficult than they already are. Maybe it’s true. But you never told them before the war, either. Maybe, the truth is that you’re ashamed. Maybe, despite everything, some piece of you believes that you deserved it.
He says nothing for a long time, his thin lips pursed, grey eyes scanning your face for — something, you don’t know what. Your heart sinks. Now he knows, and here comes the moment when he sees you for what you truly are: what you were before Hagrid showed up at the hut-on-the-rock and changed everything.
You’re the boy from the cupboard.
Unimportant. Uninteresting. The furthest thing from special. There have been times when you’ve yearned for this, when the weight of the world has fallen too heavily upon your shoulders, and you would have given anything to go back to the way it was before. The boy from the cupboard was nothing, but nothing can sometimes be better than something. Especially when something means watching everything you love get ripped away, one by one.
But you know the truth. Just Harry isn’t enough anymore, not for anyone. Would any of these people care about you if not for the things you’ve done, the power you wield, the prophecy that singled you out as their savior? You can’t imagine how. You can’t imagine any of them looking at the boy from the cupboard and loving him. Nobody ever has.
And then he presses you to his chest and whispers, voice shaking, “I’m so sorry.” You are dumbstruck and can say nothing, but you feel the hot prick of tears and hurriedly blink them away. You hate crying, especially in front of other people. And if you cry now, you’re not sure that you’ll ever stop.
He’s crying. You can feel him trembling, can hear the shuddering gasp as he tries to stifle his sobs. “It wasn’t your fault,” he says, and he clutches you to him even tighter. You’re glad. You don’t want him to let go. “Whatever they told you, none of it was your fault. Merlin, how could Dumbledore have…?”
This is your breaking point. It could have been worse, you almost say. The words are on your tongue. It wasn’t so bad. You open your mouth to say them, to jump to the defense of the family who shunned you — because your family is dead and they’re all that’s left, and to deny them completely means accepting that you are alone.
But the words don’t come. Tears do. You haven’t cried like this in — forever, maybe. Even as a child, you so rarely allowed yourself to cry. Crying wouldn’t bring your parents back. Crying wouldn’t make Aunt Petunia love you. Crying wouldn’t force Dudley to stop hitting you.
It still won’t. Nothing, not even magic can revive the dead. Lily and James Potter will sleep forever in the earth. Sirius will never return through the veil. Remus, and Tonks, and Fred, and Mad-Eye — none of them are ever coming back. You can cry for hours, and it will change nothing. Voldemort will still have lived, and died, and you will still be the one to have killed him. Dumbledore will still have fallen like a rag-doll from the top of the astronomy tower.
You think of the tears Snape shed for your mother. His love, his guilt, his remorse — none of it could undo what had been done.
Crying now will not undo the years of abuse. Your aunt and uncle will not appear and say they’re sorry, and would it really mean anything to you if they did? Could you forgive them?
(You think you could. You wish you could say otherwise, but it’s in your nature to forgive. It’s in your nature, too, to love what has hurt you most. Dumbledore raised you for slaughter, and you have resigned yourself to it. You cannot think badly of him. You never could.)
In spite of it all, you cry — and he never lets go. He says nothing, just holds you and makes soft humming sounds meant to console. They do. He does.
He has seen you for what you are. Perhaps he always has. You remember the day you met him, shy and uncertain, in Madam Malkin’s. He’d been so haughty, carrying himself like the royalty he’d been raised to believe he was. You often think of it, nowadays. You’d never realized, then, how strange it was. He had looked at you and seen a too-small, too-skinny boy in oversized clothes and broken glasses.
He had not known your name, and he had deemed you worthy of his attention.
He has seen you for what you are, and he has not turned away. As your sobs subside, he strokes your hair with gentle fingers. The humming has turned into a lullaby — something pretty and French that his mum sang to him when he was a child. You close your eyes.
The last thing you hear before succumbing to sleep is his voice, soft in your ear: “Goodnight, sweetheart. I love you.”
He loves you. It’s enough. It’s more than enough. And just Harry is enough for him.
if it’s more serious, digital. Hate not being able to undo especially when i can’t draw straight lines in one try :c. But if it’s doodles, just a ball point pen and a piece of paper i’m happy!
14. Do you ever collaborate with others?
yeah i love doing it!! I did a couple before, mostly with writers. for fandom art, i love collaborating with writers so i can draw a scene i loved in their stuff. also words can definitely open up a new space for imagination and story telling that visual art can’t and I find it really fascinating.
22. Are you confident that you’re improving steadily?
uh... not really? i did get better than before but not the pace i want. I haven't been drawing over 6 months, so I am def rusty right now. And it feels like my stuff fluctuates a lot in quality, which is something i need to fix.
