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The first time his eyes grace her sharp irises and tugged lips is during a mission. Her fingernails swipe electric purple patterns in the air while hacking through the security. They both startle each other, but his flash bang is quick.
It takes seconds for his gun to pin her against the wall. The barrel lies a few feet away from her heart. A smirk dances on her lips like she’s not held at gunpoint, like she knows a secret.
“Reaper said many things about you, vaquero.” Soft echoes of her accent laces over her words as he glances away for milliseconds, trying to see if she’s damaged the system and taken what she wanted.
Sombra. That’s what she calls herself. A front to hide behind. She laughs when he questions this out loud.
“That’s funny, coming from you, McCree.”
His gaze hardens, not believing the threat running along her lips.
Peacekeeper has her hands up and against the wall. Her gaze sends shivers down his spine as he keeps examining the security room. She stays silent even when he informs the rest of the team he caught someone trying to take out the security systems.
Her questions rolls off her tongue with ease, but he doesn’t miss a beat when answering.
“I don’t like shootin’ a lady.”
Her eyebrows quirk, amused and curious.
“Does that make you a gentleman?” Her voice teases him, light and colorful.
He grunts, chewing on his cigarette. “I ain’t a gentleman.”
Another all knowing smile touches her lips, purple nails clicking together for a moment as she rolls her fingers.
“You look like one to this lady.” Her gaze sweeps over him, her lips parting as he holds steady. “Cowboy hat and all.”
His gaze tilts, brow hardening as he attempts to read through her flirtations as deceit to distract him. Her back is against the wall, and the computers are untouchable now. If anything, he is in charge now.
As if reading his thoughts through all the purple tech along her body, she shifts her eyes behind his person, focusing on the space over his shoulder. As if another pair of eyes greet hers.
His reaction is lightning quick, facing whoever came to help her with a flash of his gun. The room lies empty, and he turns back with heat in his mouth.
She’s gone.
Vanished into thin air.
Cuss words fall from his mouth as he radios in to Genji.
The mission is a success, but none of the Talon operatives were captured. He still curses the woman with purple nails for playing him as a fool. The old trick got him dead because he underestimated her. A shadow playing at the edge of light, and he thinking he was the sun.
No old Overwatch reports have anything to say of a hacker with her skill level. There is little information on the internet besides of major corporates being blackmailed and going under for not fulfilling their purpose to the slippery one holding information. Talon hasn’t had such a woman until his meeting with her.
A new criminal to deal with. She will be dealt with.
A cough begins touching him as he watches news report and listens to information on Talon. The essence of something pressing against his lung tissue quickly becomes a nuisance. Smoking has always been a bad habit, one he’s always thought about quitting.
The cigarette still dangles between his fingers and lips while remembering a saying from an old friend.
Weeks pass, and Sombra is truly a shadow. A thought always strays in the back of his mind about her. Soft lips, or dark hair that fades to lavender and white. The movement of her brow, or sharp eyes.
He wakes up one night with a fit, as if a feather is lodged in his esophagus sideways. His sore throat and tired body finally lets him be when the feeling settles. Chest heaving and lungs moving after the episode, he begins wondering if his bad habit finally caught up to him.
Before he closes his eyes, purple dipped locks play in the back of his mind. A distinct laugh echoing in his eardrums.
She’s the enemy, another criminal. His voice punctures it firmly in his head as he lies back down.
A dream a few days later torments him with neon lights leading him down a black pathway. The darkness crowds around him, but the purple brightness keeps it away as he travels along. He only wakes when he finds the security room door, a purple pixel skull painted on the front.
She keeps teasing him, even when long gone.
It’s a bright morning when he feels the ticklish sensation again at the back of his throat. A cough forces its way through him as yellow petals fall from his mouth. Slender and oblong yellow things. Parts of a sunflower.
The bright petals freezes him still, caught between his metallic and flesh fingers. A disease he only thought of others getting. Poor love struck fools who wheeze and sputter until all that comes out are flowers.
He’s sick.
And he knows the reason for him being so.
Her sharp irises toy with him now, the same laughter mocking him for his own destruction. Still, there is beauty in her sly smiles. How could she ever return that love to him?
How can he ever clean himself of this without the surgical removal of the flowers within his lungs?
How could he have fallen for her?
A dry sensation on his tongue makes him choke, then yellow petals fall into his lap. Absurdly pretty in the sunlight, and he almost laughs at that. Finding beauty in a disease that will kill him is of his nature he supposes.
Danger still tugs at his mind in dark skin and glowing neon.
To get it removed will reveal the source of his problem. A secret that isn’t good from the very start. To admit he let the hacker steal his heart and vanish into the night with it, hoping to gain his life as well, is just as foolish as it is shameful. The flowers will choke him out slowly, quicker than any smoke or poison. Lies always sound pretty in one’s head but he can’t escape the reality staring at him in soft yellow.
His love is useless. Dustructive. She tugs his hearts will puppet strings all while wearing a grin, but he can’t let it go just yet. There’s a comfort in the petals spilling from his lips, a love that he knows is at least real within his chest. Something he now knows he is capable of and able to feel.
It’s not such a surprise he can’t have returned.
He doesn’t speak of it, hiding away until he’s sure the petals won’t fall from his mouth without warning. Sombra still dances around him, any thought or feeling is met with gagging and sunflowers.
He keeps it hidden for four days.
Genji is the first one to see the petals falling from his lips and his struggle to breathe as if strangled with cords and wire.
“Hanahaki…” his concern is wired into every letter. “I’ve seen it a few times before.”
McCree’s gloved hands throw the petals aside, out of his view and out of his mouth. The green visor glows sharply upon him. Cuss words echoes in the back of his mind at his distraction, at letting the image of her lips make him choke and stumble.
“Who?” Genji waits.
The girl of lies and shadows. She stole his heart and his lungs.
“Sombra.” It burns to say so, like it’s his secret to keep. As if she’s too valuable to speak of.
“McCree,” his voice is flat, settled on a decision. “You must see Dr. Ziegler.”
His coughs again, harsh breaths pushing against his throat and throwing petals off his tongue.
“She can fix this.”
He knows.
But this is the one secret the hacker doesn’t know.
The change is subtle, but he rarely misses such things. His breathing is heavier, even from simply walking up the stairs. The invisible constrictions around his chest press tighter each night, one slip higher, just enough to make him gasp.
Genji stays close, bringing him tea at night and quietly urging him to see Angela. It won’t be long, or painful, he reassures. Let her remove the flowers, let her take away the feelings of her.
It’s too soon, he always spits back. It can go away on its own if he lets it. A small victory against the hacker if he can break his own foolish bidding to her. It’s a lie they both know falls from his lips along with the sunflowers, but Genji doesn’t push it yet. His friend helps him hide, or escape when the tickling sensation springs in the back of his mouth. Excuses of too many cigarettes fall easily from Genji’s lips, but the charade will only last for so long.
The next mission proves him right.
He finds her once again, but the computers already glows her color. His gun is raised against her, but her fingers tap lightly against the control, wondering how well his teammates can fight in the dark.
The sensation to clear his throat hits hard, and he strains to sooth himself without exposing his own secret. It’s vain, her eyes miss nothing. Almost comically, she loses her playful smile at his mumbled coughs and sputters.
“Too many cigarettes can kill you,” she says, though he doesn’t have one between his teeth this time.
“There are worst ways to die.” Flowers that bloom in his chest and take his air, something that steals his throat and fills his mouth. Love… love that isn’t love but pathetic adoration to never be returned. The want of happiness, but never able to hold it between his fingers.
Her brow hardens for a moment, sensing his deeper meaning until he’s forced to turn away and cough. Yellow petals fall onto his serape and the floor. Blaring evidence against his weakness.
Does she like sunflowers?
When he turns back, she’s gone, and his gun lowers to his side. The computers still glitches with purple skulls and twitchy screens.
Her light voice carries through, simple curiosity catching him off guard to her presence behind him. “Who’s the lucky girl, vaquero?”
She’s standing by the door, holding a petal in one hand. Her arm drapes across her waist, the machine pistol resting idely while purple nails handle part of a sunflower.
“It doesn’t matter,” his own gun slips back into his holster. The disease is simply interesting to her. He chokes on flowers and struggles to breathe and move while the reason he does so is admiring one of the petals. Uncaring. Unconcerned.
Unrequited.
How many times can she make him into a fool?
“They’ll be gone soon enough.” The mission still stands, the enemy is right in front of him.
“Just like that?” She asks, one eyebrow rising in question. “Surgery will take it all away, McCree. The feelings behind the flowers.”
It’s almost spoken like a warning.
She watches as he coughs for another moment, more petals dusting his front and the floor. As his ribcage trembles against the growing weight, the pressure blooming in his lungs, he still hesitates. Her eyes stay upon him as he struggles, but not with the intent of finding weakness. The light marks her irises even sharper, but her lips part as he wipes away the petals.
The adoration still dances in his heart, untouched by flowers and breathlessness. To give it up, to not die… to not want to love her anymore.
The yellow petal falls from her fingers to the ground.
His foolishness will come with a price either way, but one choice will cost more than the other.
Her footsteps pad across the room, lazily coming to him as his hand grips his gun. A small twitch of her eyebrow raises in question, but her own gun swings loosely by her side.
Her breath is close enough to mingle with his, even though she stands a foot shorter than he. Her light voice tells him to relax as her free hand moves. Purple nails cut through the air as they tap against his serape once, before taking a petal between her fingers.
“I think I know who the lucky girl is,” she drags her tongue through the words. Intrigued, amused, but unable to save him. Her gaze sweeps back up to his, lips tugging into a sly smile at his expression.
“Sombra,” he begs on his breath, but he blinks, and she’s gone.
Left alone to choke on sunflowers.
Angela is sharp with him after the initial telling, but she sets the surgery for tomorrow morning. Her anger is with good reason, and she tells him to not do any heavy activity nor smoke until then. His lungs already have enough damage to them as it is. After the strict instructions, she softens for a moment to ask who caused it.
The question is unanswered. The thought of the name triggers his throat to choke on petals. She doesn’t push it, leaving him be. The pity in her eyes still lingers on his soul.
Like a wounded animal, he stumbles back to his room. Whiskey already waits on his bedside table, and his mouth already burns from spitting more flowers out. At least the alcohol cleans the taste out of his mouth.
“Hey,” comes the voice that’s been echoing in his mind for weeks. He twirls around, the bottle shattering on the floor while his hand holds peacekeeper to her unfazed face.
“Relax, vaquero,” her finger presses against the barrel of his gun, pushing it down. He lets her. A ticklish sensation begins pulling at the back of his throat. Swallowing has no effect against it. “I’m not here to kill you.”
“But you still are.” The words barely get past his lips before his hand covers his mouth. Yellow petals slip through his fingers as his lungs heave. Her aroma is even drowning him, watering the flowers in his lungs to take deeper root and bloom. Petals dust the floor as he chokes for another moment. A warm presence graces his shoulder. Her hand touches his serape before he grabs her wrist and straightens.
“Killing me,” he finishes, still gasping for air. All the frustration and rage at the lie of love in front of him attacks his blood. Burning him from the inside out at the hopelessness and her own taunting. Even in the dark, her skull shines and the mole on her temple stands out in the moonlight against her skin. A mark unable to mar her beauty.
“Jesse,” she breathes his name, and his chest loosens for a moment. “Is the surgery what you want, to get rid of the feeling entirely?”
His fingers lets go of her wrist, coughs raking his chest as her hand once again settles upon his shoulder. Doubling over, clutching his chest, more petals fall from between his fingers. His body settles for a moment, breathing heavily.
To trust her with his own truth, when nearly every word she speaks is a lie… It could kill him before the surgery. The flowers are attacking him in her very presence, trying to choke him out before he can be saved.
But she is the only salvation.
“I want to trust you,” he gasps quietly, letting his hand once again curl around her wrist but this time as an anchor. She doesn’t pull away, nor shake off his grip. “I want to trust that you are going to stop killing me.”
His body is hunched, gasping and wheezing as she stands steadily in front of him. The purple of her nails still hold against his shoulder, but her other hand brushes his cheek.
“McCree,” her voice strains in softer tones. “I’m only good at telling lies.”
He coughs, spilling more petals upon their feet.
“Then tell me a lie… and a truth.” More petals spill from his lips, dotting his words as sunflowers strangle him from the inside out.
He straightens, choking and struggling to keep her touch upon him but she leans up on her tiptoes. With the weight of the earth settling upon his heart, his hand touches her hip before wrapping around her waist. She breathes against his cheek, teasing her lips inches away from his.
“I love you…” Her breath tastes like foxglove. “I love you.”
She seals her words against his teeth.
Petals fill his mouth, but his lungs lighten. A gasp rips through his body as his throat clears, untouched by flowers or love unrequited.
“Sombra,” he moans against her lips. Sunflowers fall from his mouth, and her mouth catches one before once again saving his soul. He presses her closer, feeling the curve of her back and the warmth of her body. Purple nails pick away a petal resting in his beard before flicking it away. Her gaze is somber in the dark moonlight.
“McCree?” She asks, watching his throat, tracing a finger against his cheekbone.
“I’m alright,” he breathes with ease. Raising his right hand, he touches a shiny strip against her skull. Carefully outlining her ear, his fingers rest against her cheek. Foxglove decorates the air, filling him with her in a way that doesn’t stop his lungs.
“I’m alright now, darlin’.”
“Good,” the word comes out on a short breath, relief and sureness decorating it. “I need you to be.”
Laughter hurts his strained throat, but he laughs anyways. “I always will be now.”
A smile of slyness touches her lips, happy. Their own lie safe upon their lips as his lungs breathe without sunflowers.