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[almightythirst]

Hey there, stranger. Don't think I gotta explain the situation: you called, I didn't pick up. Leave me a message and maybe I'll get back to you.

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[cashe]

Despite the acknowledgement about the wrong, she stills feels a little defensive when he agrees, but it's just a knee jerk reaction with her own challenges surrounding admitting wrong. It's a sign to her growth that the defensive eases as quickly as it bubbled up and she gives a nod, then, her face softens and she offers her own smile.

"You were worried, I get that. I'd be upset if you came in covered in blood and hadn't involved me...so I'll do things differently next time." She could guess that he knew as well as she did that a next time was probable. Deerington wasn't going to suddenly turn into a place of unity any time soon far as she could assess. Offensive attacks might be necessary in the future as well, and the idea that she could go to him filled her with a sense of relief she couldn't put into words.

"And I am okay, at least this time. The cats would have come by now, so I think I'm in the clear." It felt good sitting here with him and talking, she wasn't used to it, but it felt good. But she knew there was more to say and she wanted to offer him the chance to say it, even if it meant working on listening.

"I...I'm ready to listen to whatever you have to say." Like apologizing, listening wasn't her strongest skill, but to avoid losing this again, she would do her best. She tightens the grip on his hand slightly, needing the reassurance as well as offering it.

[almightythirst]

“Thanks for that.” And he means it, the sentiment clear in his voice. It’s a little gruff and a little short, far as accepting apologies goes, but he’s also not too practiced with this. But he’s touched that she’s trying, and he’ll do his best too.

“We’re partners now, and not just in the business sense. If you’re throwin’ yourself into a somethin’ like that, I want to know. I need to know.” But she knows that already. He shifts where he sits, turning a little bit towards her.

“But there are other things I should’ve said before now. You thinkin’ I’d think less of you for this… that’s on me. I reckon I know the kind of woman you are by now, and if I wasn’t alright with the whole of you then I wouldn’t be here. And I’m no saint myself, so it ain’t about me feelin’ the way I do about you despite who you are. Because I’m no better, and you’re no worse.”

Does that make sense? He hopes it makes sense. His gaze is almost pleading and almost worried as he watches her, wishing he were better at really saying the things that matter.

“And if you didn’t know what before now, then I’m doing somethin’ wrong here.”

[cashe]

Partners. The word hits deep. Ashe was well aware at this point that they were seeing each other and romantically involved, but partners was the way that she'd often described him when they were young. "He's my partner". Best friend was used as well, but wasn't quite the same. Whether it was romantically or through her newest business venture, the core of it was that they were partners.

"We are. So from now on I bring you in, same as it was back then." The edge of her mouth turns up in a smile as she considers that it's far better than it was back then actually.

She listens intently as he continues. It all makes perfect sense to her. When he puts it that way, it feels so obvious that she's been the one seeing him wrong and maybe less the other way around. "I've spent all these years treatin' you like you've gone to the law while simultaneously remindin' you that you're still a criminal. I told you you were no better than me, but I guess I didn't believe it." She lets out a sigh and starts playing with a string that is suddenly very interesting.

"I saw that picture of you gettin' some award with Overwatch and then you were tellin' me you didn't want to come back. I figured it was 'cause you couldn't do bad anymore." It's not a completely new conversation, but one that keeps getting brought up as they navigate all the details of their separation and how they came back together here.

"I don't know if it's you or me. I just know I've been holdin' back like I could somehow show you I was doin' somethin' right. We were proud of what we did once." Even if it wasn't all good, it hadn't been all bad either.

[almightythirst]

It’s a complicated topic, just like any other that strays too close to his time with Overwatch. Jesse has always felt defensive of this around Ashe, and not only because of her own anger and resentment. He’d had to deal with his own change of heart, and his own shifting worldview, and what it all meant for him as he’d grown as both a man and a fighter. Part of him had perhaps never stopped feeling like he really had betrayed Deadlock at the end of the day.

“You don’t have a thing to prove to me.” That, at least, he can say confidently.

“It’s hard to explain. I was proud of Deadlock, but… at the same time, you know where it all came from. We were angry. And maybe you figured out a way to use that, make it work for you. I don’t know if I ever would’ve.” He’d never had her temper, but he’d been meaner back then for sure. Sharper around the edges. The world had hurt him, and he wanted to hurt it back.

Would he have ever learned to stop? That’s a question he’s not sure he knows the answer to.

“It wasn’t that I couldn’t do bad anymore, but I figured ‘good’ wasn’t ever going to apply to me. So I might as well do bad for a cause, I guess. Make it add up to somethin’ at the end of the day, somethin’ better than anything I could do on my own. That was the whole point of Blackwatch. But when you get down to the heart of it, I’ve always been the same kind of outlaw. Same as you. But once I started down on a path away from Deadlock, I knew it wasn't a road I could take back."

A hard truth, but he owes her nothing less.

[cashe]

Ashe had never been very understanding of the fact that his worldview had shifted from her own. The fact was that people changed, and she was seeing the shift in her own adjustments here in Deerington. While her work here wasn't that much different than her work back home, it could be said that there was a cause to it. It wasn't just black market work that filled her piggy bank and cushioned the life she was used to living. People needed her and the truth was, she'd never known what being needed was like.

All of this allowed for a widening peep hole into what Jesse meant in regards to leaving Deadlock and needing more. If she remembered all of this when they finally got home, she wasn't sure how she would respond to the damage she caused that held no purpose. She wasn't at a point of changing her ways, obviously, but she wasn't the same woman who'd shown up nearly a year and a half ago.

"I think, I can try and understand that. I'm still...angry Jesse..." She trails off, because...was she? It had been awhile since her rage had gotten the best of her. The fact that she had just murdered several townsfolk in cold blood suggested otherwise, but it was done in protection of a loved one; meant as a gang message that her people were not to be fucked with. In her world, that was how to stayed alive, and it wasn't anger so much as survival.

Despite that her anger seemed to be shelved, it was kept at close range. This joy that she had carved out with Jesse and Chloe and the few individuals who truly filled her life with warmth felt so fragile and anger was her defense so she still felt the need to keep it at arm's reach.

"You're right, we built Deadlock on fury and vengeance and we rode it the top because we had more of it than the rest of them." She glanced up at him. "But we also built it on our blood and well...I should have always known you can't really remove blood. And if it's a cause you're lookin' for, well...without even meanin' too I guess I've been workin' for one. Tonight, that was a cause too, and brutal as it was, you know as well as I do messages sometimes gotta be sent."

She let out a sigh. "Ever since you got back on my radar I've been tryin' to prove somethin' to you. This feud has been goin' on so long, I forgot what I was even tryin' to prove. And here you are sayin' I got nothin' to prove to you."

A smile curved at the corner of her lips, and her eyes showed exhaustion, but there was a hint of mirth mixed into her gaze. "Damn Jesse, you just keep confusin' me. But I get it, kind of. 'Least I'm tryin' to see from someone else's perspective."

[almightythirst]

When Ashe says she’s still angry, Jesse just nods, unsurprised. He’s always known it, ever since they’d crossed paths for the first time after he’d joined Blackwatch. He’d felt angry too, at first—but it had mostly shifted into something sad at the end of it all. They’d both lost so much, and he’d known for a long time it wasn’t ever coming back. He’d had all that time to grieve for the past. Ashe hadn’t.

“Yeah, I do know,” he says, replying to the bit about sending a message. “Especially here, in places like this.” Violent places. Antagonistic places full of teeth and claws, real and metaphorical.

The admission that he’s never stopped confounding her does get a chuckle out of him, and he relaxes a little, leaning back against the headboard. “I don’t do it on purpose,” he admits with a smile. “And I want to see things from your perspective too, much as I can. Doesn’t mean we’ll always agree, but that really ain’t the point of the exercise. Just want you to know you’re not the only one trying.” He gives her hand another squeeze. “And you don’t have to tell me everything. But if you’re not going to say somethin’, I don’t want it to be because you think I’ll think less of you for it. My hands are bloody too, you know.”

[cashe]

She almost wanted to add that she wished she could let go of her anger. Lately it felt so cumbersome, but at least it wasn't directed at him now. Everything they had been through had softened her to him and the overwhelming rage she felt for him had been pushed out by the love she'd been so desperate to give him all those years ago.

They weren't even a year into their relationship so it would naturally take her time to work through years of anger. There were things she might never be able to work through fully, such as the anger at her parents, but there were hints that the world might hold some kind of peace for her.

"At least, the fight I got in me has kept me alive and moving forward. This place can't win against me."

There is a laugh in return as she squeezes his hand back. "I think sometimes you do it on purpose, you loooove pressin' my buttons." And he's always been so successful at it.

When he tells her he won't think less of her, it's a salve to a wound she didn't even realize she had. Truth was, that was exactly how she'd felt for so long and they haven't fully touched on all those details. They came out in little pieces like now, to be worked through, but it would take time. Feeling like he was looking down on Deadlock had been a worse offense than a physical attack.

"Maybe we only gotta agree on the big stuff, and bein' an outlaw ain't so bad. I know first hand the crimes of people who live their lives bein' worshipped. It's like I always used to say, the laws are written by those with power, and those in power ain't usually the good the guys. No one ever showed me good, but they sure knew how to toss the blame on my shoulders soon as my sins didn't line up with theirs."

[almightythirst]

“Said I didn’t mean to confuse you,” he says with a quick smirk. “Pushin’ your buttons is different.”

That he does on purpose, and often.

“And I can live with only agreeing on the big stuff. Got to start somewhere.” It’s worked out well for them so far, hasn’t it? Even if they hadn’t gone into this with much intention or direction for the future, or for the direction of their relationship, they’ve been fine. Better than, actually. They’ve flourished together. It’s something he still looks back on in amazement sometimes: where they started, and where they’ve ended up.

Speaking of where they started, he remembers clearly coming to realize that this rich girl—someone he never would have thought could suffer all that much, not with all that money—carried such a heavy weight on her shoulders. Some people might have been crushed by it, but not her.

He does wonder though how things might’ve gone if someone had shown her the good she’d deserved. Like Reyes had done for him. But he knows better than to even suggest that line of thinking to her. Nothing good to gain from what-ifs.

“You could’ve ended up just like them, but you didn’t. You stood your ground. Built somethin’ of your own.” He isn’t presumptuous enough to take any ownership of Deadlock anymore. That’s all Ashe. The other founders had helped, but without her, he knows Deadlock wouldn’t exist today.

“You always did amaze me, and I’m not sure I ever did tell you that.”

[cashe]

She raises an eyebrow and gives him a half smile before she swats takes one of her hands back to swat his arm. It's done in much the same way it would have been when they were just teenagers playing.

"You're gonna push the wrong button one of these days McCree." And just like when they were teenagers, it's an empty and playful threat. After all, she's proven how useless she is at even following through on her less than playful threats.

The moment turns more serious again as he speaks to her of how amazed he was by her. The compliments he gives her are so unexpected she isn't even sure entirely how to process them. Deadlock was her baby, her extended and adopted family, and she had done all she could to not only keep it alive but thriving all these years. Like her mother, she carried high expectations of it, however unlike her mother she'd loved it and cared for it enough to raise it to achieve those high expectations.

Her cheeks turn a little bit pink. Ashe had always taken criticism in stride, and as a criminal there was plenty to fill her life with. As desired as praise was to her, it's a foreign thing, so she feels a small rush of embarrassment at it. "Well, I was just too stubborn to let them get me down. I believe my psychologist referred to it as 'Oppositional Defiant Disorder'. I preferred to refer to it as not takin' shit from other folks."

She can't help but joke again, before realizing she really should just take his compliment. "That is...I mean..." Tentatively she leans forward, puts her hand on his neck and pulls him closer. "...Thank you."

[almightythirst]

“You think? Guess I’ll just keep taking my chances.”

The threat doesn’t bother him at all. If there were a wrong button, he would’ve pushed it a long time ago. This is all part of the song and dance, this familiar teasing. The push and pull of them. But as they learn and grow together as a couple, there are still plenty of surprises. Like this: Ashe catching herself and thanking him, letting that vulnerability show. It melts his heart, because how could it not?

“You’re welcome. It’s just the truth.”

He leans in and rests his forehead gently against hers for just a moment, letting the moment stretch out for seconds that feel like minutes before he kisses her softly.

wrapping this one up?

[cashe]

The truth was that she didn't want him to stop pushing her buttons. If he stopped pushing her buttons then that would have meant that he'd given up on her...on them. She could yell and whine about his presence back home, but so long as he was smirking at her as he rode off on her bike, it meant they were still connected.

When he kisses her, whatever stress was left in her muscles leaves her and she sighs against his lips. It was late, or maybe early, but she wasn't ready to sleep.

"Much as I love our deep conversations these days, I think I'm done talking for now." Ashe breaks the kiss long enough to whisper against his lips, her hand coming up to rest on the back of his neck. She pulled back enough to look into his eyes suggestively, hoping he'd know just what it was she was looking for. Fact was, she wanted to show him in other ways how she was feeling because she really couldn't find the words. "And I think we still got a couple of hours left before the sun comes up." And sleep was the farthest thing from her mind.