Archive of Our Own

Amélie thinks it first.

"So," Ashe breathes, "is it French kissing, if I'm kissing you, and you're French?"

It's genuine. A distant thought snatched up as it passes them by from where they're both lying safe and sound, but Amélie knows how to deal with them by now.

"Yes."

"That was easy."

"Only if you keep kissing me."

Snicker. Joy, fulfilment. Agreeing makes it simple, makes Ashe attend what matters. Faster, more rewarding. She smiles all teeth against her, like she's about to say something else.

It was never a suggestion, but now—

"Kiss me," Amélie murmurs, less than a breath away. "Kiss me more…"

Don't stop. Don't. She does with enthusiasm. With wont. She's gravity and she's stars; nothing else beyond what borders, what binds, and she sighs contented into her outlaw's mouth, weaving fingertips along hers.

Amélie loves when Ashe kisses her, absolutely.

She has a million thoughts still. They both do. But it's really all secondary, and those can wait, because this is more important. However blissful minutes it's been, as her soulmate reintroduces herself to her over and over, in case she's forgotten.

Her soulmate. It catches, sticks out. She's hers – yours, mine – but she hasn't… is she… she is. She is. She wants to believe in her own heart. The revelation brings a vigour with it; renewal. A desperate desire where Amélie's return is a little more passionate and she withdraws from her mouth but doesn't go far, just a finger-width to her neck and Ashe's pulse is thundering, expectant, knowing what comes next.

One. Only a little. She promised. She asked. But Amélie makes it count and Ashe inhales beneath her.

"Hell…" she enunciates softly, hungrier, welcoming pain. Amélie pulls back to see and place her – somewhat lucid and eyes glossed over, black and blue and red, Ashe's words stuck in her throat as she thumbs a cheekbone: almost as though she's dreamed her up, that she'll disappear.

But she hasn't. She's here, now. Always.

There is a way to convince, as she delicately places a finger over her lips.

"Might I kiss you again, ma chérie…?"

It's so considerate. If she is what her lover wants.

And she only needs one word to let her know it.

"Yes," Ashe breathes; breaking not one heart, but two.

If she is a dream, Amélie does not wish to wake.

She wraps herself within her arms and sinks, a siren finally appeased.

Ashe thinks it a lot sooner than she'd like to admit.

Her heart's like a damn runaway train, a good enough metaphor, 'specially when she so frequently has to intervene to stop it from careening right off the rails, all so that she doesn't say something stupid that she'll never be able to take back.

Things like,

I love you,

I don't want to be without you,

And—

Well, she's already failed at two out of three.

The last thing? She doesn't just halt the speeding train. She derails the derailment. Reminds it that no, we're not getting that attached. This is pleasure, mixed with some business – not a life story. Let it stay that way.

But Ashe thinks it, all the same.

She thinks it when they're at The High Rise in the evenings with the boys, all three of them tirelessly trying to beat her girlfriend at an arm wrestle because it's the one sport they've identified as them standing a perceived chance, and Amélie remains just as rigid and immovable as stone by the third, a smug flicker in her eye and a delectable grin in the corner of her mouth, and she laughs as they admit defeat and swear fealty.

She thinks it when Amélie's working together with Bob, conversing with him in what all new Deadlock initiates learn to some degree, but she goes far beyond that. Because it's important to Ashe that she does. Because the two of them do get along – and Bob'll protect her. Anyone Ashe wants in this world he would, but… each iteration of her family's crumbled. This one she wants to last, and when it's the three of them left standing, it's hard not to believe that they won't.

And she thinks it when Amélie's doing nothing special, sat quiet with the rest of the gang as Ashe gussies up yet another story for easily impressed underlings fit for a Deadlock Queen to star, and sometimes it's something she's just making up, and other times it's not. And it's different, the way Amélie watches when she talks – not just the silent predator she so often is. There's more to it, something further: a fond look, where she's also smiling at her. Not minding if what she's saying is true or not, because she's the one telling it. And she loves her, every breath and word, and Ashe knows it, that she always will.

She's kissing her in her office and the outlaw tries to interrupt, half way through a deal with someone about something and all she has to do is sign.

"Can't do this right now," she attempts, much as she wishes to follow. "There's rules."

Her response is her need. A silencing kiss.

If there's one person to share it with, it's—

"No," Amélie says, barely audible. "There doesn't have to be."

Ashe thinks.

Significantly.

Thinks—

Swiftly she gives up on doing that, turning the lock in the door behind her all without looking, decisively investing in the business of thoroughly kissing her back.

Yeah. Better make it three.

"Amélie."

Her gaze flickers, and Ashe feels a lump form in her throat.

"Nothing," she says, as the look grows inquisitive. Reasons and purpose and she had some but now… not so much, fingers tousled in her spider's hair and her placating smile falters. "Doesn't matter."

Amélie holds those same fingers still. "It doesn't seem like it's nothing."

"It's stupid."

"Is it?"

Indignant. Maybe a little bit careless. Amélie could be far harsher than this, she knows. That she could throw and also take just as many punches. But Ashe shakes her head anyway, because she's also missing the point.

"Obviously. I can't just ask for your assurances over and over—"

She had a destination. The found point, or whatever. It's gone the moment her lips brush against hers.

"You can ask me," Amélie reasons, and she's blinding, "equally as many times as I have asked you."

The permission makes it tumble out.

"We're good together, aren't we?"

"Yes."

"I ain't worried about that, at least not— but you're— you're happy here, aren't you?"

"With you, yes."

She says it so— so easily and casual, like she really truly is, and the twisted knot in the outlaw's chest does several well practiced somersaults. Amélie's a real straight shooter. She only ever speaks like that when she's certain, when there's nothing else left to think upon.

Thing is, she's the problem, not her.

She thrives in the limelight. She's made a living off of it through spite.

But they don't know her. She tells herself it suits, and it still does.

Fury take her threatening tears, because no one ever means it. Not after it all. They don't pick calamities. Why should they? You can't break a heart that's not there. It's always conditional, a transaction: that's how you survive, and it doesn't matter. But it does. And now she's found herself a hope and the vulnerability of it is what chokes her, that this ending might actually be different.

And when she thinks of her girl now, she thinks—

She's not just a phase. She wants them to grow. Ashe could describe all the ways she wants her and it would never be enough.

It hurts. Physically, really hurts. But as she somehow always does, Amélie defines the intricacies of it.

"I choose this," her spider says, closer to her than she was. "I choose you."

She'll devour what remains of her heart and the truth is she'd let her.

It isn't an exaggeration, to say that Ashe knows her best.

When she wants to be kissed. When she'd like to dance; when to offer up her still beating heart. She knows the exact way she'll roll her eyes mid-way through her next greatest punchline and perfects the timing she has over it, wrapped up in a snicker and a grin, the rebellious spark that defines her something Amélie gets to keep. And the rest, Ashe learns. And to surprise her – Widowmaker, a mind racing with the anticipation of the probable, who sees and remembers each and every detail – is a feat and Ashe is an overachiever. She's wild and unruly and always making bets, and she lives her life fast. A perfect complement, and she thinks—

It would be so, so different without her.

Amélie meant what she said to Sombra, that she was lucky: that Ashe had chosen to persist. That she still chooses her now, even on the worst of days when all she can do is hold her until the sorrow passes.

It doesn't quite. It never will. It will be difficult. She will take work. But she doesn't have to do it all alone.

It would be… right, to say Ashe knows her now as well as Amélie knows herself.

Better, even. She's known her feelings longer because she inspired them, and one glance tells her everything. "I know that look," Ashe remarks. "Food ain't no good?"

They're eating candlelit dinner for two - a taste of home, for Bob had taken the time to learn. If the food were the issue it would break his heart… or lack thereof. She would never. Not to him. And clearly her girlfriend doesn't think it's actually that – she would side with Bob, regardless – but it's Ashe's way in, an offer that she'll willingly reason with whatever's on her mind given her date's been silently staring into space for several minutes, and Amélie blinks as she reorients. Yet she can't help the small, near sigh.

It's grief of a different sort. Indescribable. It isn't a problem. Not really. Across from her Ashe waits, perfectly peaceable and charming.

"I miss the rain," Amélie settles with. "Here lacks… ambience."

She's smiling, tongue held in check as she tries not to laugh, and Ashe only sort of fails. She shakes her head fondly at her and leans her elbows on the table, charmed herself.

"You and your moods."

"Preferences, you mean."

She shrugs one pointed shoulder. "Nah. Definitely moods."

Ugh. She's perceptively annoying. Ashe is well aware of it, shoulders expressive as she goes back to her dinner, agreeing to disagree. A kiss would smother her, Amélie thinks, and she's tempted. But it would be a sideways result, and it's not that Ashe is being deliberately obtuse, she merely… doesn't really get it. How could she? She's sharing what's hers – as she has from the day she's arrived here – but a lot of what she had, Amélie's forcibly left behind. Even before this. That's what she misses, and it's that which she would like to do: to take Ashe on a date in an entirely different, familiar place, although all of them are half a world away.

Sometimes she pictures the both of them at the château. It used to be just memories, or faded things. Now, she dreams. Of more; of nothing short of everything.

She willingly walked with Talon because it was simpler, because death and their providence of it, of that one target and that one perfect shot, was enough.

One was never enough. She embraced the alternative to deafening silence. She had to keep taking. She had never felt so alive. She chose that. She had to make it hers.

How do you feel

She doesn't.

How do you feel—

Stop asking.

How does she feel now?

Ashe is watching her watching her, even if she's pretending not to: perfectly dishevelled beneath straightened hair and accented red, wearing a high-waisted suit and a tie she never bothered to do up.

She inspires so much distracted thought. What was it, that's said? A dream is a wish that your heart makes?

How tritely foolish, for something that's so fortuitously true.

She thinks it of her again. She's thought it a lot in recent days, and Amélie looks down at her wine.

Ashe misreads, but she isn't far off.

"As good as I am I really don't think it's gonna rain out here," she muses, still figuring her out. "But there is something else we could do instead."

A glint sails towards her and reflex catches it, makeshift ammunition deftly held between her thumb and forefinger.

She looks. Bike keys; an offer. Forget dinner. Forget what you can't have and embrace what you can. Forget all manner of responsibilities when there's an endless horizon out there to keep chasing and find…

…and her thumb on her jaw and rough on her cheek as she kisses her mid-nowhere, free and alive, as she always does.

Yes. She does know her best.

Amélie lowers her hand, considering. "I can see why you lead a gang."

"Meaning?"

"You have the best ideas."

Her face changes. Lights up with a smile that pierces her cheeks and Ashe laughs, because she really did take the shot at her – as equally devastating as a bullet, Amélie supposes, if one compliment can reduce her lover to a tempered mess.

But she recovers; she isn't an outlaw for nothing. "I have plenty more," Ashe assures. "You'll hear them eventually."

Amélie hums.

"Tease," she says in earnest.

"Truce."

Perhaps. "And we can go now?"

Ashe grins. "Sure we can," she says. "We can do anything you want."

Amélie smiles, barely: it's ironic. Perhaps she does have a better read on her… ugh… mood – she's right but does she have to be so erringly smug about it? – than she thought.

"That's a lot to promise."

She's still flirting. But it weighs.

Ashe gets up. Stands beside her for something and maybe she wants the keys, but when Amélie tries to offer them Ashe closes her fingers over hers, imprint of metal stark in her palm.

"I keep my promises."

She's so intense. Right there. Alight with possibility. And she— she thinks on the château, the ache, what declarations she might make to her one day, and—

And she—

"And how can I take us anywhere?"

Not just the bike. She's never taken point. Never been the one that's driving. Hasn't had something – someone – for such a long time.

Ashe is intoxicating, in that promising smile of hers.

"But you can learn."

"We're more likely to crash."

It's her best attempt, but Ashe doesn't wither. "You can handle it," she says. She's still messing with her fingers, hasn't moved at all. "You pick everything up fast, and I'd wager this one too. Besides, you can't always ride on the back of my bike with your arms around me. Much as I enjoy it when you do."

She begs to differ. The undone tie's convenient – something else to persuade and lead her outlaw to her mouth, Amélie's other hand lazily securing her thigh as Ashe settles in her lap. Ashe's hands don't wander, wrists succinctly crossed behind her neck until it's sufficiently said – open to her persuasion, and Amélie's point is very, very exhaustive.

She loves her. Very much.

The shown affection makes them both a little ragged, thorough as it is, Ashe wordlessly studying her lips with the slightest bite, and the feeling stained in her eyes betrays her well.

And if there's one thing Amélie's learned from Ashe, it's that wanting things, no matter how small, is a worthy pursuit.

One more kiss will do, to show her the way. One for the ride that will last a lifetime.

She is not so alone at her edge anymore, and she thinks she will fly.

She's unable to sleep and she's not having a crisis about it.

Ashe has always had it figured out, how she measures up. Every link in the chain, every pearl. One for her, one for Bob, one for every member of the gang.

Even Cole. He used to consume every thought – a redirected anger she's kept burning her whole life, because proving her worth didn't fix anything. 'Course it didn't. She shouldn't have expected anything less. But Cole was different, because he knew. Because once, he did want this; wanted her way of life, the first person besides Bob to ever really take her seriously, and then something in him changed—

It was never supposed to. She was never supposed to be this bitter, this alone. But life's made her hard. Only the hole she's been digging, this pit she swore she'd never fill, she has – with somebody else.

The chain's just a bit longer now.

Amélie… she's asleep whilst she lies here awake. Role reversal, and it'd be funny if she wasn't so tired. But the outlaw realises an opportunity and instinctively she takes it, better than just lying there stewing, her toes wrinkling in protest as they hit cold floor and she moves as fast as she dares toward the target, swiping a finger along recently dusted drawers and clustered memories, and she's a damn hypocrite about Amélie hiding Gérard away.

It's almost poetic that the latch for the false base is on Amélie's side. Like she's shielding her deepest secrets. That she's trusting them to her.

Ashe had asked when it became clear. Which half do you want? Left or right? Something strangely permanent, but her response – left, for the record – had led to sinking disappointment, that it wasn't a fair exchange, and either would have done it, seeing as it meant having to give half of something of her own up. And a well thought out argument had spilled from her, like it was any other day on the job… until she met with mesmerising, ocean deep persuasion and just as quickly Ashe had given in, helplessly turning to Bob the second Amélie had turned away, rapidly asking with her hands how she does that, why she keeps letting her.

Sweet dumb blissful ignorance. If only she really knew, back then, how much she wants to make her happy.

Ashe has a lot of keepsakes from over the years, and some of them are louder and more obnoxious than others. But this hideaway's for small things – for weakness, the things with little to no material value save their leftover meaning. A nondescript rock from the flowerbeds of Lead Rose she had liked to use in her slingshot before she graduated to Viper. An actual pressed rose, the first one Bob had ever picked for her – that rose was the first rebellious thing he ever did, and Ashe had understood why he'd come back to the manor. Even if it had taken a few years for her to really believe it. Then there's the reminders from the founding days of Deadlock and lots of them; the first prototype personalised bullet casing she'd fashioned, dented and scratched and well thumbed. And photos. So many faded polaroids because she couldn't throw any of them away, from when she and the others were young and foolish and free, believing they'd run this world. They're gone from Deadlock, but she's still here.

And lastly, this.

Ashe opens the unassuming box. Such a little thing in the palm of her hand, barely weighing anything.

She doesn't change. Change is the worst, just as unkind as love. But she is changing, just a little bit. And she's in love: she's in love right now. With a spider as terrifying as the change she brings.

As daring, as bold, as beautiful—

It isn't the first time she's held it. Not even close.

But it's the first time she thinks that maybe she could.

What was that, about having it all figured out?

Amélie murmurs her name, somewhere between asleep and awake, because she isn't there with her arms around her and she wishes that she were.

She fears she'll be gone when she wakes but really, the outlaw's just the same.

Turns out she doesn't know everything. That she's still a little lost.

It doesn't matter. She's here. She will be. The priorities are long shifted. The box and its contents can wait.

In the end, everyone thaws.

"You've had too many."

She snorts. "Have I? Seems to me like I'm right where I wanna be."

She's stronger than most would assume, holding her effortlessly: arms firm beneath her knees and her frame against her, Ashe drunkenly refusing to move from The High Rise as late night turned to early morning and leaving Amélie little choice.

When she lifts her, it's subtle. Hands that crest over limbs as she holds her back, almost, arms circling her neck and listening to her heartbeat. She might deny it vocally, but Ashe's actions say otherwise, that she enjoys this when she carries her. That inexplicably she feels safe this close: here, where it's real.

She can read her well, now. And Ashe doesn't entirely shy away from it… although that might be her liquor. Not whiskey but wine and something to dwell upon and that means she'd rather not remember it.

She could ask what that something is, but she'd likely not say.

"Caught in my web," Amélie deduces, studying her. "Was this your plan all along?"

Ashe shrugs against her, more sober. "Maybe."

"Menace."

A finger follows the curve of bone that's her exposed collar – enough to make a girl shudder, but not her. Not quite.

"That threat doesn't hold much anymore."

"Dropping you will."

Try her. Find out. But the sheen in the outlaw's eye is revelling and predictable, and her silver tongue always has a comeback.

"In bed?"

Amélie sighs. Sighs more, because for a second, not even that, she imagines and desires it. Americans. Perhaps she should rescind. Should continually respond to Ashe's uninspired commentary and lack of filter by just agreeing and being done with it, but instead she's scathingly emotionless, unbalanced warning in her eyes just like she'd use for prey.

"Chérie."

"Yes?"

She's still too willing. Like everything in her world hinges upon the woman that carries her.

"Stop," Amélie says softly.

"And if I don't want to?"

"You should," she warns. Not about the quips anymore.

She meets her square. Bold and confident. Stubborn and sullen.

"Nope."

A well woven word can crumble empires. Or sometimes, convince a spider. It's everything – everything that she is, and achingly Amélie laughs, no choice at all; a laugh not unlike a charged hush that preludes a gathered storm, a movement deep within her lungs as she wanders into a remembered smile – not so desolate anymore, and she's so much more than she was created to be.

"That's what I love about you."

Ashe undoubtedly has a defiance for that, too. But it never arrives.

She just stares, filing her away. Every time she says she loves her she believes in it a little more. One day it'll be completely. And her outlaw's lips part as she exhales, just barely.

"You gonna make me?"

She doesn't say 'yours'. But Amélie hears it, all the same.

"I will."

"Will you?"

This emotion, this warmth in her—

She tips her chin. Thumb against her mouth. "Yes."

She's been saying that a lot lately. But she can't deny Ashe, herself, any longer.

She kisses her under moonlight and it blooms, the outlaw's fingers desperate on her jaw to bring her closer, and the spider meets it in kind.

That she can do this.

A dance made for two as she turns amidst stars—

And later, when Ashe is flush beneath her and shaking out her name, it grows again familiar, and feverishly Amélie shares it with her.

She sweeps you off your feet. She steals your breath. And in the end she'll kill you.

But it doesn't sound so bad to die here: at the beginning of who she'll be, now that she's decided.

Because she has a reason to feel. To want things in this life. And she has to know, that it's her.

And she thinks it as she kisses her again, spent.

Across from her Ashe shrugs, hands deep in her pockets.

"I might," she starts, tasting the words like she's diluting through poison, "have gotten a bit carried away."

Understatement. She says it often. Don't spoil me. Don't buy me things. You don't have to do these things for me. In business her lover's calculated, but in romance she indulges; whatever passing fancy takes her, leading them to bidding wars and paintings that still haven't found a home, or clothes or herbal tea or just about anything to make her life memorable and better.

Today Ashe has robbed a florist. She supposes she must have, with this overwhelming of an amount. The vases spill over with cut flowers, many of them roses, then lily's; forget-me-nots, irises, peonies, bluebells, the sorts of things that don't grow in arid desert but have persisted nonetheless, perfectly captured in a moment between life and death where for now, they're ethereal.

There's more. Overflowing in the back of the van that can usually accommodate Deadlock comfortably, replaced by flora as uncontainable as she. Ashe could have stopped. But she didn't: not at one bouquet or two or even a dozen, and Amélie runs her fingers over trimmed thorns.

They don't pierce skin. Not as careful and fragile as she's being. Ashe fidgets in her periphery, embarrassed that she's looking, all her love spilling out.

She doesn't mind; she never has. It's not why it bothers, or bothered her. She can acquire these things herself. But she does not need to be spoiled, or loved quite so much…

She looks away from her. Overwhelmed.

"Mine?" she asks, quietly.

"If you want them."

She's spent so long together but apart. Disposable as the lives she takes. If she were to allow herself something so sentimental as wanting—

Yes, then. Yes she does want. But that's less about flowers. Amélie looks at her again, the brim of her hat a convenient place for Ashe to hide, letting red petals droop. "Did you pay for these?"

"Every cent," Ashe says, ridiculing her own over-spontaneity because that's just unbelievable. She can afford it, sure. But she's not usually about keeping florists in business. "I was thinking that I hadn't bought you flowers before – that one's on me, I should've, you deserve it – but when I got there I didn't actually know what your favourite flower is, or what you'd prefer, so I just, got one of everything to make up for all the flowers you've missed out on…"

"You think I deserve flowers?"

She's smiling at her as she shakes her head, thinking she's hung up on the wrong thing.

"Of course you do."

Maybe she is. She takes her hand. Her wrist. An altogether different root.

So at home under her skin with what she inspires, and they don't worry about potential ends.

Amélie would say she's surprised.

But she knows. From the beginning she knew. And to be surprised would mean she did not choose this, and she did. She crawled, and she walked, and she ran; the first choice she made as herself in years, and it led her here to her.

Amélie Guillard's favourite…

It's changed from what it used to be. Or it hasn't at all. They were his, and they are hers.

It's so evident, how Ashe feels. And how she does.

She thought it was gone. Thinking of either of them like this.

Her chest swells.

"Roses," Amélie says.

Freshly picked.

It's dark and freezing out here on the roof and the triplets just had to choose now to argue.

It starts how it often does. On jobs she has her routines, the way she always does things, and she keeps reorganising her house. And on occasions like these, when there's an anticipated complication and a disruption to make and hell to raise and locks to break, Ashe always takes the shot herself, and if she doesn't, Bars is holding the other angle, and Bars doesn't bicker. She just gets on with it. She doesn't complain that Amélie's taken point, or her stick of dynamite to throw it higher and further than she could ever hope to achieve by herself, hopping the crowded roofline one to the next until she's where she needs to be, and she's not insulted by a made up lack of belief.

It'll be the shot of a career for some. The timing it'll take. For them, just Wednesday.

"I trust Amélie," Ashe says, so deluded. "Now zip it."

They fold their arms. Nice long outnumbered line, but the odds remain favourably stacked as Ashe expectantly holds a hand out and they collectively pass her a nondescript rifle from the spares – she's the leader of this outfit and they know it, thank you very much – which she then leans against the edge of the building proper.

"Privileges," one of them mutters. P.T. probably. She bites back a laugh, the easy grin.

"That's right. Why can't you listen to me all of the time?"

Silently they watch her back, biding their time. Time to spend thinking. She wouldn't have anyone else but family cover her. The sensation in her chest, this buzz of anticipation? Friday, if she had to pick a day; minutes to midnight and Cinderella's on her way to the ball and this time, she ain't gonna leave.

Her rules. What if there wasn't so many? Who would she be then?

Zeke speaks up first. "Hey Boss?"

She's looking down the scope now. Right at her girl, fingers gliding over smooth metal.

She probably knows she's watching from a perch.

"What?"

Does she also know she can't look away?

"We like her," Terran says. "Amélie."

Love is lawless. Love doesn't care for her pretty little rules.

It's right after she came to the Gorge to say her last goodbye, and so far as any of them knew to kill her, and they hadn't intervened at Bob's behest and she's telling them how it's going to be from now on, and they ask her how long she's going to stay.

As long as she wants.

Maybe forever.

"Yeah," Ashe exhales, as Amélie meets the rifle's meaningful gaze, and hers. "Me too."

Red is this, when she's got blood on her.

It wasn't planned. But it was necessary. An expected guard: a gun and a trigger and Amélie pulled first.

She doesn't doubt her outlaw would have fought back, that the ensuing gunfight would have been explosive and loud, even if the ricocheting sound of her rifle and the distant, rekindled thrill of its finality echoes in her ears.

Faint iron. Metal. She will not betray her. She promised her that once, when she couldn't mean it. Even now she cannot fully guarantee it. She wonders if the blood is her own, or not. Her finger skims across skin and gains a bloodied imprint for its efforts, but Ashe is considering the same and claims what was solitude for herself – eyes on me, nowhere else – touching red against redder lips as she brings her fingers higher to her mouth, a kiss not unlike any other, and all Amélie can do is watch, and think.

Perhaps they do not need to guarantee it. Perhaps they only need each other, as they are.

They're dangerous women. And right now Ashe is looking at her like she's starving.

"Yours," she affirms, and Amélie's eyebrow isn't convinced. She can tell, just from that? What is she, part vampire? Or just a hopeless romantic of an American, who thinks she can actually tell?

"You are guessing."

"Hard to guess when it's right there," Ashe counters, her fingers alight on her face now instead, musing. She has to admit, it… stings. "Fading already, though."

She remembers what she thinks – what she thought – when Ashe was the one in this position. Countless times by now, and Amélie doesn't keep track, easier that way, and forced, because she remembers. Life is fragile. She knows that better than anyone. But it's… different when the hurt is hers. A trail of blood is an occupational hazard, but also a limitation; she is not meant to make a mess of herself, and a higher pain threshold does not account for the damage that makes her slower and the hunt all the harder. Her maker, she always— did prefer her experiments come home intact.

But when Ashe sees it?

She doesn't back away, or run, or admonish it – that her hunger's quelled into desire.

Unafraid.

The only one who ever saw her as she is, and said—

Show me more.

In time the curse will break.

Why?

In time, Amélie will remember that kissing her right then is foolish.

Because you're incredible.

For now, she doesn't.

Light's bleeding pink and yellow on curtained walls and she supposes this is heaven.

Fact is she couldn't care less about the lights. It's just a perfect backdrop for her, as she pirouettes and lifts her leg high, so impossibly and yet she also somehow can, and Ashe is yet to find anything that Amélie can do that she tires of watching, and she's hyperaware of the tremor when her legs lift and she stands on her toes. Does she know her muscles do that? She must. The perfect shot sometimes takes her hours of standing still when they're out there on the firing range, and for her personally that's just too long, but for Amélie—

When she hits, it resonates. Completely. The same way as true lov—

Sure. Like that actually exists. Now she's just being silly.

But maybe— when she sees Amélie—

Tonight's a private show. She didn't even have to ask – she said she had something for her to see, stealing the both of them away from the customary after-heist celebrations where they might be missed. Now that she's here, obviously the rest of them were all in on it. She'll forgive them, this time. Honestly she'll sneak out of more if she gets to watch her dance alone. Because she's stunning, Ashe's sigh wistful on her smile as she leans against the edge of the stage where she's pulled up a chair, head dropped sideways into folded arms.

She'd do anything she asks.

Would she do anything she asks of her?

Maybe. She's certainly done so much already. She bled before but now it pours. And Ashe just— she feels like a kid does, unable to resist when sugar is within reach and you can wilfully keep piling it on your plate. When every aspect of a life has her in it, and she can't even imagine how she even lived before it.

Another pose. Picture perfect grace. Saying so much for only her to see, in every limb and bone; in every haunting gentle look, always seeking something just out of reach.

She likes watching her hands. Her face, and her mouth, and Ashe's tongue sets between her teeth as she forgets to exhale.

"Focus."

"I'm doing just fine, thank you," Ashe bluffs. Wasn't thinking kiss me on repeat. Not more than a few dozen times, anyway.

She chuckles. "You are so beautifully predictable."

Like she's any better. But if she calls her beautiful, perhaps she'll forgive her.

Amélie drops down beside her fluid in a perfect split – stop thinking about her legs, Ashe, stop thinking about her goddamn legs – and the outlaw lifts her head in time for her to touch a forefinger beneath her chin.

"So what are you thinking then, mon amour?"

Lie. Tell the truth. Which benefits her more?

"Have you got a few hours?"

Deflection's safest. And although she smiles for it Amélie seems somehow… lonely.

Once she might have wanted to know why, and Ashe still does. But now there's a flicker of something less, yet equally selfish: a faint desire, where she wants her to know—

She takes the fingers against her chin in her own. Exhales as her girl does and refuses to blink.

No. Neither of them are lonely anymore.

"Never mind me," she says, when she thinks she understands. "What about you?"

Amélie shakes her head. "I'm fine," she insists.

Then why does she feel that way? How can she possibly make amends with it—

She glances to the stage and back again. "Can you teach me?"

Spontaneity. Amélie measures it, as she does everything, not finding anything wanting.

"Are you admitting there's something you can't do, Elizabeth?"

Figures.

Her laugh's dry. "Shut up," Ashe says, scrunching up her nose, and now Amélie laughs, genuinely amused. But it doesn't knock Ashe's confidence, or sincerity. "I ain't a quitter, Blue. And it's hardly going to be pretty like you're used to, but—"

She runs her fingers over hers. Smooth, for the most part: hands that were never meant to kill but do.

"I think you've danced alone long enough."

All Amélie has to do is say yes.

She opens her mouth to say something, anything – likely expecting another flirt, or another something else she hasn't actually been thinking about… but she can't, because it really kind of is.

She won't be good at ballet. She hates the idea of letting her down. But that's not the point, is it?

She just has to hope that it's enough.

Amélie shrugs, and her hands are her own again as she holds them out towards her.

It's the weakest thing she's ever seen her do.

And Ashe takes them, like always.

Right now it's between them.

They don't say it outright. But it's there.

And they both know that they're thinking it.

Purple is when it's late. When the demands of them are made and they can just be who they are with the person that defines it, no judgement or plan save that they'll have this night and the next and many more.

Forever is… nice. Forever is endless, with Ashe spilled across their bed and her hair wild; where she's looking up at her with almost dimples and an enchanted look in her eye, the steady rise of her chest as she breathes and barely laughs into her mouth.

Where she kisses her, last remaining distance crossed as she rests her wrist on her neck to softly caress her cheek with sunworn fingers and never let her go – to frame her differently in this angled light as Amélie departs.

The other is behind her own neck on the bed, teasing split ends. Looking up at her amazed.

She's so vulnerable like this.

And hers.

"Hey," Ashe endears, after they've had their fill of looking: said with wonder, a soft inhale, the way she's done so many times. She'll follow it up with something sentimental… or she won't, enough on its own. But the spider tilts her head further into her palm and wordlessly seeks indulgence, and she continues. "I'm so glad you stayed."

She blinks in lieu of a smile. Even if her heart takes a little longer to beat.

If she hadn't?

No. It isn't worth thinking about. It didn't happen. Ashe happened; they did. And Ashe can tell, as she always can – that she's put it aside, because she thinks the same.

No one is going to take her away. Nothing ever will.

"Do you think it's luck or fate?"

Sophistry. Ashe is feeling nostalgic with her sentiment, it seems. "Luck," Amélie identifies, immediate. "I don't believe in fate."

She unmakes – and makes – at her own behest. Every day something ends: if fate exists, it has only ever worked its favour against her. She'd rather believe in something more… tangible. Such as another kiss, and Ashe almost lets it go.

"Not even used to?"

Pressing. Her hand cups her face, searching for her.

Well. As she insists. "I fell out with it."

"Ah," Ashe says, far as she'll ever admit to understanding it herself, and she clicks her tongue pensively against her teeth, pointed elsewhere. "Maybe it's just both."

She can't say if Ashe believes it: the old Ashe certainly wouldn't. Luck or fate. What would she like it to be, if she had the choice?

Amélie smiles, less warily than she used to. "I'd say that it is."

"Contrary as ever," Ashe snickers, calling her out for it because she's allowed, even as Amélie shakes her head and rolls her eyes back at her because no, she isn't. "Well, whatever it is? You're perfect."

Heart wide open and aligned, and the spider chuckles, rising higher.

"No," she says, pressing her forehead against hers. "You are."

Impasse. Not a terrible place to be as Ashe laughs a sigh and holds them there, fingers intertwined with hers, and Amélie finds herself at ease.

Each day is a gift, and it's such a surprise.

It's a contradiction… but the best things always are. Sometimes Ashe laughs until she cries and she's harsh but also softer, and the dance might not be perfect and the place might not be everything she wishes it were, but it's theirs, and they've certainly made a mess of things, of each other.

What was her one simple rule? Don't fall in love?

Don't interact, don't feel?

It's a good thing, then, that rules were made to be broken. That she failed in her mission… and found someplace better.

To believe in. Here, together.

Rebels as well as lovers.