Chapter Text
“Better the devil you know,” Sombra repeated with a lift of one of her brows as Ashe shrugged and took a seat next to her in the shifting pink and green glow of the various programs she was running. The monitors were the only source of light in the room. Thankfully, there were plenty of them. “Never heard that before. Is that some country people speak?”
“Somethin’ like that. Guidance counselor said that to me once in school. Thought he was being real clever, I imagine. And I suppose he was right. I had absent parents, sure, but I can't deny I grew up rich. Guess I could've grown up in poverty and had absent parents on top of it.”
Ashe wouldn't normally have opened up so easily. She never did, really. There was no point keeping secrets from Sombra. She already knew all of them. She knew about Ashe’s rich, shitty parents. She knew about her arrest records. She knew about the Arbalest robberies.
Ashe figured Sombra must've dug pretty deep to approve of her robbing her own family. There was something strangely comforting about all that. About the omnipotent being that was Olivia Colomar.
A name. That's what Ashe had gotten in return. And she rarely used it if ever, just like Sombra never referred to her as anything other than Ashe unless she'd done something particularly heinous. They seemed to understand each other on this level, too. The need for anonymity coupled with a complicated past made abandoning one's family name a fairly simple task.
Sombra sighed and leaned away from the line of code she'd been examining so she could finally look over at Ashe. Ashe, ever impassive and unreadable. Well, for the most part. But she was a good friend. A powerful friend. And Sombra loved powerful friends and all that entailed.
“Anyway, what do you have for me?” Sombra asked. “Information or are you still making the requests?”
Ashe chuckled, and Sombra refrained from smiling at the sound as much as she'd come to enjoy it.
“Can't pay a visit to an old friend?” Ashe asked innocently, as though she'd ever had an innocent bone in her body. “Here.”
Ashe reached into her bag and placed a single round of ammunition onto Sombra’s desk in front of her. Sombra picked it up instantly and examined it rather carefully.
“Small SMG. Found it in that Arbalest shipment you helped me with last month. Must be a new pet project.”
“It's explosive,” Sombra observed after turning it over to look at the pin and the etchings that surrounded it. “On impact?”
“Post-impact. Doesn't blow until it's done moving.”
“Así me gusta. That's fucking brutal,” the hacker said as she placed the round back on her desk and lifted her gaze back to Ashe’s. “Can't help but feel like the donkey with the carrot being dangled in front of him.”
“It's not a carrot,” Ashe said with a lift of her brows and a noncommittal gesture of her hand. “I have two cases for you in the saddlebags.”
“You give me my cut in advance when we work an Arbalest interception,” Sombra said, her eyes narrowed slightly despite the slight smile that always seemed to be playing at her lips. “What's with the bonus?”
“An olive branch, maybe,” Ashe said, and Sombra frowned as she reached out for the bullet to look it over again. “I didn't call after. Well.”
“After what? After you fucked me like an animal last time you were here? Favor con favor se paga.”
Ashe’s brow furrowed at the quickly murmured Spanish.
“You scratch my back, I scratch yours. Basically.”
“That's not the literal translation,” Ashe pointed out.
“The literal translation doesn't make sense because English is-”
“Terrible. I know.”
Sombra nothing short of barked out a laugh, and Ashe smiled a lopsided smile down at her own hands as she released a breath and shook her head.
“What were we talking about?” Sombra asked, but Ashe could hear the mischief in her tone. “Ah, casual sex and the meaning of ‘casual’.”
“I don't think we'd gotten to that part, actually,” Ashe said as she leaned back in the computer chair she could only assume served as Sombra’s only armchair.
“And if I'd waited for you to wade through all your weird Catholic guilt before you made your point, we'd both be dead.”
“I'm not even Catholic,” Ashe mumbled under her breath.
“I am,” Sombra countered with a raised brow. “Sort-of.”
“And yet you are utterly devoid of guilt.”
“Different kind of Catholic.”
Ashe’s eyes shut slowly and her lips twitched as she tried not to smile despite her exasperation. Had her eyes not closed, she'd have seen just how pleased Sombra was with herself before she spoke again.
“Anyway, it was only a matter of time, right? You're a lonely outlaw spaghetti western lesbian and I like hot people and cliches.”
“I just can’t stand you,” Ashe drawled with a sigh. “I hope you know.”
“Why are you still here, then?” Sombra asked, spinning her chair just slightly to face Ashe with her legs folded in a way that made Ashe’s hips hurt just thinking about it.
Ashe shrugged nonchalantly, but she looked at Sombra’s monitors and at her glowing keyboard instead of at her.
“Ay, pobrecita,” Sombra cooed with a little half-smile as she slipped from her chair and moved over to Ashe. Ashe sat still in her borrowed chair as Sombra crawled into her lap and straddled it - resting her arms over Ashe’s shoulders once she’d removed her overly large hat and put it on her own head. “You can tell me you’re lonely, you know.”
“I’m not lonely,” Ashe murmured despite the fact that her hands were already moving along Sombra’s thighs. “I just like your tequila.”
“I don’t drink,” Sombra said with a quirk of her brow as Ashe looked up at her.
“Then why do you always have a bottle of tequila around every time I come here?”
“Better to catch flies with honey,” Sombra said in a tone so sultry it was almost ridiculous. Almost.
Before Ashe could even recover, Sombra had slipped from her lap and walked across the room. It was so dark, Ashe couldn’t see her once she passed the doorway into the little adjacent kitchen holding the very bottle Ashe had had in mind along with two shot glasses.
“Thought you didn’t drink,” Ashe pointed out as Sombra filled both of them. A double shot each, easy.
“I bought it,” Sombra said as she passed Ashe a glass and leaned against the corner of her desk. “And you aren’t exactly a charity case.”
“Fair,” Ashe said and held out her glass. Sombra clinked her own against Ashe’s and downed it with a shake of her head.
“Too strong for you?” Ashe asked, already holding her empty glass out for another.
“No,” Sombra scoffed as she gave them both a refill. “I don’t have any limes.”
Ashe snorted and tossed back another shot. They both hit her at around the same time, but the effects were just a little too much warmth. Enough warmth that she unzipped her vest and hung it on the back of the chair she was still sitting in and loosened her tie while Sombra watched her with unmasked interest in her eyes.
“What are you looking at?” Ashe asked, though she had a decent enough idea. Maybe she just wanted to hear her say it.
“You know what I’m looking at,” Sombra said with a roll of her eyes as she took Ashe’s empty shot glass from her and filled it again, leaving her own empty. Ashe was already holding out her hand for it when Sombra pushed herself away from her desk and made her way over to Ashe.
Ashe watched silently, again, as Sombra lifted the glass to her lips.
“Open, Papi.”
Ashe parted her lips and Sombra poured the shot past them carefully before she reached behind herself to place the empty glass on her desk.
“I don’t have a daddy kink, you know,” Ashe murmured once the comforting burn of liquor made its way past her throat.
“Funny,” Sombra said as she crossed her arms over her chest. “You like it when I say it.”
“You say it different, that’s-”
“You especially don’t mind when I say it while you’re fucking-”
“Sombra,” Ashe swallowed thickly after she’d hissed the other woman’s name and Sombra sighed as she looked down at her - slowly uncrossing her arms. She frowned and uncrossed her arms to reach out and brush some of Ashe’s hair behind her ear.
“You’re blushing,” Sombra observed, her expression unusually open and unguarded. “Am I teasing you too much?”
“No, I just…,” Ashe sighed and slowly turned her face towards Sombra’s hand as the warmth of her palm cradled her cheek. “I don’t know.”
Sombra watched quietly as Ashe pressed a kiss to the heel of her palm. She almost smiled as she passed the pad of her thumb over Ashe’s full lower lip and pulled at it gently only to find Ashe parting her lips.
“What’s on your mind, Papi?”
Ashe would’ve told you you were crazy if you said people couldn’t purr. But damned if Sombra didn’t purr that word when it suited her.
Ashe let out a little puff of air against Sombra’s thumb and then pressed a kiss against it before she closed her teeth around it just so.
“Use your words,” Sombra murmured. “The ones you learned at those fancy schools.”
“You know I didn’t pay any attention in school,” Ashe said. “You’ve probably looked at my permanent record by now.”
“They just went digital with those ten years ago,” Sombra countered with a shrug. “Kind of behind the times.”
Ashe sighed and shook her head then reached for her hat on Sombra’s head only to find her wrist caught securely in Sombra’s hand.
“I like it,” Sombra said with a smirk, slowly letting go of Ashe’s hand as she settled down more comfortably in her lap so she could reach behind herself and unclasp the prongs holding her sports bra closed. Soon enough, it was hanging from the back of Ashe’s chair and Sombra was running her fingers along the brim of her hat. “How do I look?”
“Better than you ought to,” Ashe murmured, finding the hollows of Sombra’s hips with her thumbs and stroking along them slowly. “You look like you’re ready to ride something.”
“Is that finally an offer?” Sombra asked without missing a beat.
“Yeah,” Ashe drawled with a tilt of her head. “Yeah, it is.”
Sombra made a soft noise of amusement and reached out to press her finger lightly against the tip of Ashe’s nose. “You’re cute.”
Before Ashe could say anything, Sombra was slipping from her lap and dropping her joggers to the floor slowly so that the subtle cuts of muscle at her hips were on display long enough for Ashe to appreciate the sight. And of course, she did.
Before she could even process just how much she’d appreciated the sight, though, Sombra was back on her lap guiding her hands to her breasts and stroking over them once they were there.
“There you go,” Sombra sighed with an easy smile when Ashe’s thumbs circled her nipples. “Relax. You deserve a night off.”
“You’re one to talk,” Ashe countered. “I’ve never seen you away from your computer screens.”
“I’m away from them right now,” Sombra whispered, and Ashe gave one of her nipples a teasing pinch that elicited a soft hiss from her.
“Think I can keep you that way all night?” Ashe asked as she dropped one of her hands.
“Depends. Can you ride me hard and put me away wet?” Sombra asked dryly despite the fact that the backs of Ashe’s knuckles were brushing against the wetness already glistening between her legs.
Ashe barked out a laugh and gave Sombra’s breast a squeeze before she dropped that hand to her thigh. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Last time I was in your neck of the woods,” Sombra explained. “I liked it.”
“Alright,” Ashe murmured, leaning forward to press a kiss against the center of Sombra’s chest. “But you’re the one doing the riding right now if you’ll recall.”
“Give me something to ride and maybe I-”
Sombra’s voice failed her when Ashe slipped a finger into her and found her clit with her thumb all at once and her nails dug hard into the other woman’s shoulders. She leaned forward and parted her lips against Ashe’s ear when she lifted and lowered her hips the first time. “That’s it, Daddy. More.”
Ashe shuddered and immediately pressed a second finger into Sombra. She could feel the smirk curling against her ear.
“I thought you liked it because I said it different,” Sombra whispered, already a little breathless but no less willing to tease the woman who was doing a rather good job trying to distract her from it.
“You do,” Ashe huffed against Sombra’s neck as she curled her fingers into her hard and moved her thumb a little quicker.
“Whatever you say,” Sombra relented but only because she was reaching down to hold Ashe’s hand still to give herself more room to rock her hips the way she wanted to. “Just make me come.”
“Alright.”
There was something about the confidence in Ashe’s tone coupled with the way she worked her so effortlessly. So flawlessly. It had Sombra on edge faster than she could’ve possibly anticipated. Had her shuddering over Ashe as she lowered her hips to get the other woman as deep as possible and keep her there when she came.
Ashe was more breathless, even, than Sombra as she kept thrusting her fingers just as she had been even as Sombra tensed and tightened around her and gasped against her temple with each breath.
“We should go to your bedroom,” Ashe suggested rather urgently. “If you remember where that is.”
“I use my bedroom,” Sombra panted as she stroked her hands up the front of Ashe’s body and undid the buttons along the way until her shirt was really only still partially functional because of the half-done tie still hanging around her neck. “I can’t believe you’d be mean to me in such a vulnerable moment.”
“How long has it been since you’ve had a vulnerable moment?” Ashe asked, slipping her hand free and holding Sombra close as she stood with her in her arms. Sombra wrapped her legs around Ashe and held onto the back of her neck despite the egging. “A genuine one.”
“I don’t remember,” Sombra said, leaning in while she was being carried just to tease at the idea of kissing Ashe. “Think I’ll have one tonight?”
“That’s the idea,” Ashe said, tilting her head up for the very kiss Sombra was refusing to give her. Before they reached the hallway outside of Sombra’s bedroom, Ashe stopped - still holding Sombra as tight as she had been.
“What?” Sombra asked, and Ashe looked up at her for a moment before shifting the weight of her into one arm and reaching to slide the hat from her head. Ashe was still looking into her eyes as the hat fell onto the floor.
“Kiss me,” Ashe finally said, her gaze flicking from Sombra’s lips back to her violet eyes. “Kiss me and I’ll take you to bed.”
“Sounds like a bargain,” Sombra teased with a little smile before she leaned in and pressed their lips together. It was a soft, shallow kiss until Ashe felt the gentle sting of Sombra’s teeth sinking into her lower lip. After that, soft and gentle were the last things on either of their minds as they left a trail of Ashe’s clothing on the floor en route to the bed.