This time I'm not coming with a doodle, but with an aesthetic! It's about the fanfiction "The A-Mei-Zing Outback Adventure" by @funkyfluff-fiction which is actually my favorite reading! (Can't wait to see the next chapter) If you look at every picture you'll recognize some of the ingredients/scenes of this great Meihem story 💙

More Meihem! Trade with @funkyfluff-fiction. This is another part of their amazing story!

http://archiveofourown.org/works/8457571/chapters/19376416

Hey hi hello! I hope you're having a great day!! I came to ask what some of your favourite meihem fics are! C:

Ah jeez, MY favorite? That’s so difficult! XD

Well I’m a huge fan of The A-Mei-zing Outback Adventure by @funkyfluff-fiction (or FunkyFluff on Archive Of Our Own). She has this fantastic way of writing action that I don’t typically see in fanfiction, and she portrayed Mei, Junkrat, etc. almost exactly as they are in the game.

Handle With Care (especially the epilogue) by Rinshi is wonderful, fluffy goodness (which I am currently rereading right now).

Also all of TheDeathEcchi’s works (my favorites being Used To and Used Two) are also awesome. In Used To he uses this repetitive grammar, and although most would think that would be a little annoying I think he pulls it off very well!

In general I’d say just look at whatever you can on Archive of Our Own. I’d say most of the work is pretty good, and I’ve seen a great variation of plots and writing styles! I’ve even got my own work on there (under MikiSneaki). I hope this helps, and I hope you have a great day too! ❤

You have a fav, like, book marked meihem smut fic to share?

Unfortunately there is not a lot of smut with those two when it comes to fic. I'm trying to help it along but sometimes I like to read it instead of write it myself. Handle with Care epilogue by @rinshi-chan is great, as well as The A-Mei-Zing Outback Adventure by @funkyfluff-fiction, which has some great smut now. And my favorite @saiyanshewolf wrote some fantastical smut here in an ask because she's the best. There's also a fic on ao3 called Soot Covered Snow which is good. I don't know if the author is on Tumblr, but you should check it out. ☺

Fanfic in progress

@funkyfluff-fiction inspired me to give writing a shot. I'm writing a Mercyhog fanfic. I'm working on the rough draft, so it'll be a bit before I actually do some typing.

Mei-rry Christmas (Meihem Fanfic)

She checked the clock again, stirring at her cup of hot chocolate with one hand as she padded away from the kitchen, yeti slippers shuffling lightly against the cold tile floor. Her hotel room was fancier than she was used to; with actual separate rooms, a jacuzzi, two huge beds, and supposedly, even room service (though she had been too timid and worried about the cost to actually try it yet). Despite her protests, Winston had upgraded her booking behind her back as a sort of ‘holiday gift’ as he put it, and though he sent his regrets that they wouldn’t be together during the holidays, he sent his well wishes and what must have been a very expensive hotel package instead.

She had just gotten back to it a few hours ago, after hours spent driving to and from several local weather stations to check their readings. A developing anomaly was starting to spin somewhere out to the east, but there was nothing she could do except sit and wait for developments, go over her notes and monitor the latest eco-point updates, and work.

It was an awfully dreary way to spend the Christmas season, but there was nothing for it.

She hadn’t really grown up with much Christmas in her life, back in Xi’an. But her time in school had introduced her to the holidays and she had embraced them with enthusiasm. She loved everything about the idea of Christmas. Perhaps not the religious bits, though she was always respectful, but the rest of it? Who wouldn’t love Christmas; with the festive trees decorated with baubles and dripping with colored lights, non-stop parties with enough food and eggnog to make her head spin, piles of presents to and from friends, comfy sweaters and scarves and hats to keep her warm during walks in the snow, and snuggling together with a lover under blankets in front of a roaring fire, and-

Well, she actually did know of someone who would probably pull a face and utter over-dramatic ‘bleeeech!’ noises at most of that. Junkrat had never been shy about voicing his displeasure at anything to do with snow and cold. The Australian idea of Christmas, during the middle of the southern hemisphere summer, was quite different than her ideal visions of the holiday. His Christmas involved beaches, sun, heat, burgers on the barbie (no prawns, the heads creeped him out), and cold beers in place of warm eggnog.

That was probably what he was doing now, though hopefully Roadhog was keeping an eye on how many beers he drank. With his scrawny physique, the man was an embarrassingly lightweight drinker and Mei consistently drank him under the table when they shared a bottle or two of huángjiǔ. A little smile flittered at the edges of her lips at the thought. The last time they had spent Christmas together at Gibraltar, he’d soundly lost their little drinking contest, eaten almost half a turkey by himself as consolation, had challenged Zarya to an arm-wrestling match and lost, then challenged Roadhog to an arm-wrestling match and won (Roadhog let him), and then they’d snuck back to her room, exchanged gifts, and had meant to have an extremely passionate night. Neither of them had gotten through the undressing phase before passing out with her half on top of him, and they had instead spent the next morning nursing their hangovers together. It was funnier now than it had been at the time.

One of her eco-monitors chimed and she paused to record the numbers.

“It’s holding steady for now,” she said aloud, looking to where her drone companion was sitting in its charger. “What do you think?”

Snowball beeped a confirmation, then offered her its happy eyes and played ‘Jingle Bells’ in a series of high-pitched tones.

“Happy holidays to you too, Snowball.”

She checked the clock again as a little pang of loneliness reared its ugly head. Her work here was important, no doubt, and she had this entire fancy suite all to herself…but the ‘all to herself’ part was a hollow comfort. Her drone could only provide so much company, after all. She wondered what the others were doing right now, on this Christmas eve…

Maybe she really should try that room service after all? A big dinner and a big bottle of wine might take the edge off.

Another glance at the clock belied that it was finally their agreed-upon time, and almost immediately her computer chimed again, this time with an incoming call. She lit up and dove for the device, dragging it onto her bed with her as Junkrat’s portrait grinned at her from the monitor. She hit the button.

“Hello? Oi, Mei darl, you got good reception there?” His voice blared as the video window snapped open. There was Junkrat, looking…absolutely ridiculous. He was at the beach just like she’d guessed. He was dressed in a goofy-looking visor and tacky plastic sunglasses, sunscreen smeared along his nose, and a pair of water wings around his arms. The waves crashed steadily behind him and she could hear the far-off shrieking of gulls. His prosthetic finger filled the screen as he tapped at the camera several times. “Can ya see me?”

“I see you! It’s…it’s really good to see you, actually. How are things down in the southern hemisphere?” She rolled onto her belly, resting her chin in her hands and swaying her feet behind her, a little giddy at the sudden company, virtual or not.

“We’re celebrating proper Christmas down here, is what we’re doin’! Roadie’s off somewhere…He’d better be getting us ice cream, wherever he is. Wish you were here! I woulda gotten you some grass from the side of the road or something for you to eat while us proper carnivores get it on. I got lots of meat in the esky, even some of those big boar sausages from that ol’ German guy. Heh. Hehe, hey Mei, wanna see my giant weinerschnitzel on camera?”

It was good to hear him being gross again, though she wagged a finger at his offer. “Don’t you dare. And tell Mr. Roadhog hello, sending my love from up here. Winston gifted me a really nice room here. It has a jacuzzi and everything…I wish you were here to use it with me, though. Honestly, I wish anyone was here.”

“Aw, y’do?”

“But…it’s okay! I’ve got work to do so, I guess I’ll try to focus on getting that done, right? How are things at the beach?”

“Oh, ya know!” He looked around him, paused to sneeze loudly, then wiped his nose and grinned back at her. “Hotter than balls, sunny, sandy, and Christmasy! A little breezy, maybe, but what are ya gonna do, eh? So tell me about this jacuzzi of yours, eh? The monkey really set you up?”

“Mm-hm! It has a jacuzzi, the biggest beds I’ve ever seen, fancy TVs, and you can even order food and drinks. I wouldn’t want to bother anyone on Christmas eve though, maybe I should just have noodles?”

He shuddered suddenly, as one of the aforementioned breezes must have chilled him. “Brrr…Sorry, darl, did you say you were gonna have instant noodles? Like hell I’d allow that! You know how many Christmases I had with just scraps to eat? Nuh-uh. This time of year, if you got food, you eat all of it you can. You pick up that phone and you tell whatever damn omnic is in charge to bring you a feast!” He wrapped both arms around himself. “Ugh, damnit!”

“Jamie? You okay? Is it really that windy there?”

“Oh, yeah! It’s a real bluster out here! Heh! Don’t you worry about me, though.” His eyes darted, barely visible behind his goofy sunglasses. “And you, order yourself a tofurkey or a pile of carrot clippings, ya know, be real nice to yourself.”

“Oh, -haha-,” she said, “I guess maybe I can order in and spend a quiet evening here. But I miss you.”

He sneezed again. The screen must have been going a little wonky, because Mei could have sworn he was starting to turn a bit blue, despite the brightness of the sunny beach behind him. “Y-y-yeah! I miss you too, darl! H-hey! So! Tell me about your, uh, your weather-r-r-r stuff!”

She squinted at him strangely. Were his teeth chattering? At the beach? “Jamison, I know you love the beach but if it’s that windy, maybe you should go inside?”

“W-working on it, babe!” He wrapped both arms around himself. “H-hey! Tell me again how much you m-m-miss me?”

“What on earth? I mean, of course I do, but, Jamison, I mean it! Go inside!”

“Y-you miss me though?”

“I miss you! Now, really-” She was just about to start arguing with him again about getting off the windy beach, when a knock rattled her hotel room door. Blinking, her head darted towards the sound, then back to the shivering junker on screen. “Oh! Give me a moment, someone’s here.”

“B-better answer that, love.”

“Okay! Hold on! Hold on, I’m coming!” Pulling her robe on over her pajamas, she scrambled towards the door. Clicking it open with the security latch still tight, she looked up…and up…and up…

Roadhog’s masked face peeked from up above the doorframe, bending over to see in as he offered a gruff, “Hey.”

She shrieked aloud, quickly covered her mouth with one hand, and then slammed the door before realizing how rude it seemed. She fumbled with the locks quickly before swinging open the door again, and launched out the door with her arms outspread. She wrapped both arms around him; or well, not even a quarter of the way around him, he was so huge, but she hugged herself onto his massive belly as much as she could. The thick parka he wore rustled noisily as he brought a mitten-clad hand, peppered with snowflakes, to awkwardly pat her head a few times.

“Mr. Roadhog! Wh-! H-! Oh my gosh, what are you doing here?” She backed up to look up at him, as if to make sure it was really him. But at 7 feet high, nearly as wide, and wearing that pig mask, it couldn’t have been anyone else. “How are you here? Wait, how did you find my room?”

“…Asked Ana where you were. For the holiday. So we came here,” he rumbled, shaking snow off his boot.

“We? Wait, where’s Jamison?”

Roadhog shrugged. “Outside.”

Her mind snapped back to Junkrat dressed in little more than his swim trunks and silly hat. “No he’s not…Jamie’s at the beach…”

“He’s outside.” He jerked a mittened thumb over his shoulder.

She stared at him for a long moment. “No. He’s at the beach. And it’s well below freezing outside. He can’t be-” Her eyes widened behind her glasses before she shoved past the huge junker and tore down the hallway. Her yeti slippers were nearly flung off both feet, stumbling several times and slamming her way through the fire escapes before flinging open the door to the outside alley.

Junkrat turned and looked at her, still dressed in his goofy beachwear under the overhang of the hotel roof. A laptop was sitting open on a crate nearby, and a little hologram projector lay on the cold pavement, projecting the cheerful backdrop of the sunny tropical beach behind him. The junker had wrapped a thin coat around himself but was turning an unhealthy pallor of gray-blue as he shivered in the biting cold, his teeth chattering violently as he looked up and grinned. “H-h-h-hey d-d-d-darl! Trick-ck-cked ya!”

She stood aghast at the sight before throwing herself at him, unwrapping her bathrobe and throwing It around his shoulders. “Nǐ zhège báichī! What were you thinking?! Shǎguā! Bèndàn! You dummy! You get inside right this instant!” Throwing herself under his arm, his skin like ice, she leaned down to gather up his things before half pushing and half pulling him back towards the open backdoor of her hotel.

He was still shaking uncontrollably, but sighed in relief as they entered the heated indoors. “Hehehe! R-r-really surprised you, didn’t I?”

Without warning, she shoved him hard up against the wall of the fire escape. The startled junker even shrieked a little, though it was muffled a moment later when she grabbed the collar of the bathrobe around his shoulders and dragged him down to meet her. She kissed him, shook him with stern rage, then kissed him again. “Báichī! Báichī báichī báichī! You big-” Another kiss. “Dumb!” Another kiss. “Idiot!”

After several more kisses and rather harmless insults, he finally managed to get in a word, still shivering as he wrapped his arms around her. The rubber of his water wing toys squeaked loudly with the movement. “So…you’re surprised, then!”

She grabbed onto his face, his cheeks still icy to the touch and his nose smeared with sunscreen. She added one more kiss for enraged posterity. “That is incredibly sweet but incredibly stupid! I am so mad, I could just- GRRHHRM!” She clenched her fists and hugged him again, then shoved him away, then grabbed his hand and started dragging him down the hall after her. “Come on, let’s get you warmed up.”

She led him back to her hotel room where Roadhog had already removed his winter gear and had hauled in their bags. The shivering Junkrat was led inside as she began removing his beach toys and throwing them aside, piling blankets around him and shoving her mug of hot chocolate into his hands. Crawling into the blanket pile with him and hugging herself against him to add her body heat, she shook her head with clear frustration as she began inspecting him for any signs of frostbite. Satisfied, she adjusted the blankets around him once she was assured he was out of danger. “How long were you out there? Oh gosh, you’re still cold as ice. Here, drink up the rest of that. Mr. Roadhog, could you heat up the water for some tea?”

Snowball seemed startled to see them, drifting up out of its charging station to circle around Roadhog curiously, then gave Junkrat an angry face. Mei waved a finger at it quickly. “Snowball, be nice to him. Apparently, we have visitors.”

“See, Roadie, I told you this was a great plan! She didn’t suspect a thing! Wish I coulda seen her face when you showed up. Ya get it, Mei? I wasn’t at the beach, that was merely…a distraction! Surprise!” Junkrat flung out both arms, only to have them yanked back towards his side as she pulled the blankets back over him.

Roadhog shrugged. “Told you not to.”

“Well who’s in bloody charge of our whole operation? Me, that’s who! And it worked! She never knew we were here, until we were here!”

Mei sighed and shook her head. “That brings me to my next point, what on earth are you two doing here? I saw you both take off on that ship for Australia? Weren’t you both going to be gone f- EEEEEEEE!” She was cut off as Junkrat, desperate to warm himself, buried his pointed nose into her neck. It felt like someone was pressing ice cubes against her, smeared with sunscreen. “Jamie!”

“There, that’s better. And yeah, we were off to Oz like usual. But then you said you canceled your plans to monitor this weather doohickey up here? You think I’d let my favorite lady spend Christmas alone? We got on the next plane off the connection and headed on up here. And then I ran out of airline peanuts and got bored and made up that plan to surprise you. I had plans for Roadie to come in in the background, maybe doing a hula-”

“No,” Roadhog said.

“But he hates anything fun. See what I gotta deal with? Anyway, we’re here for the holiday because you sure as shit ain’t spending it by yourself.” He sniffled noisily, then blinked when Mei threw herself more firmly onto his lap, swim trunks or not, and hugged him ferociously around the shoulders. “Aw, there she is.”

She kissed his nose, forgot there was sunscreen on it, then coughed and nearly spat, wiping it away from her lips while he giggled wildly at her misfortune. Struggling out of his lap, she padded across the kitchen to where Roadhog was standing at the stove, before opening her arms and looking up at him imploringly. “Just one? Really quickly, I promise. This is just….other than him nearly freezing to death, this was one of the nicest things you two have ever done for me.”

The pig-masked man tilted his head down at her, then finally grumbled and opened one thick arm by his side. “Mm…Just one.”

“Xiè xie.” She hugged him quickly as he again placed that enormous bone-crushing hand gently over her head, patting her bun.

Releasing him just as quickly, the huge junker offered her a kettle of boiling water as she rummaged about her bags for her teas. Junkrat was out of danger as far as being frozen, but nothing warmed a body better than hot tea. So that was what she brought him, though he pulled a face and grumbled about it not being coffee despite drinking it down anyway. And upon finishing it, he clapped his hands together and reached across a table to the room service menu. “Arright! What’s for Christmas dinner, then? If the monkey set you up with bots bringing you nonstop food, we should sure as hell make ‘em work for that money, eh? I want the turkey. And the ham. And the turducken. Oh, I think we do still have those German sausages, we can fry those up. And this. And this. Gotta have that. And some of whatever that is…”

Mei fretted a bit as the list of food grew, but feeding two ravenous junkers and herself for Christmas eve dinner would take a lot more than a cup of instant noodles. And really, it had been sort of sad that she’d even considered the noodles option. It was the season for feasting, after all. She found herself nodding along after a bit, and even grabbed the menu out of Junkrat’s hands to look at the vegetarian options. “You know what, I think you’re right. Let’s order everything so they can get started. And then afterward, the molten chocolate cake. And the ice cream. And the eggnog.”

“Oh, we won’t be needing the nog, mates,” Junkrat grinned, before throwing off his blankets and scrambling for his bag. He rifled through it, throwing aside clothes and more summer gear, before holding up a familiar bottle and presenting it to her label-out.

She gasped aloud. “A bottle of huángjiǔ! Oh, this is a good one, too. Where did you get this?”

“Well we got so fucked up last year on this stuff, I decided to prepare for round 2,” he said, grinning widely. “Been keeping it under my bed for months, was going to take it to the beach but since we decided to come here instead…works out, don’t it? What’s say we share a few and see who’s the winner this year. You’re going down, Mei…Heh, hehehe, in more ways than one, after we-”

With practiced ease, she placed a finger to his lips to silence him. “We’ll talk about jacuzzi time after we order the food.”

***

The sheer amount of food had proved to be too much for little hotel table. There was still trays brimming with extra food spread out across the countertops, the desk, and even the bedside dresser. Roadhog lay collapsed in a catatonic stupor with a half-eaten bucket of ice cream curled in one arm, his mask pulled up above his mouth, and snoring steadily to the soft tunes of White Christmas playing on the TV. Mei draped a blanket over him as much as she could.

Junkrat was still demolishing another plate of dessert, though not an ounce of it ever seemed to truly stick his bony ribs. He only looked up when he saw that Mei was giving him ‘that look’ from across the room. He froze, his cheeks still bulging with pudding, before swallowing thickly and shoving everything to the side, following her towards the bedroom with a bit of haste in his step.

He was a little less eager a moment later, when he saw she was putting on sweaters and coats instead of taking them off. And especially when she offered a coat and a blanket to him as well. Balking slightly, he lifted a brow.

“What gives, love?”

“It’s snowing outside. I just want to go out, just on the balcony. Huángjiǔ is best served warm, anyway. Come with me?” She shook the bottle temptingly. “Just for a minute, and you’ll be wearing actual clothes this time.”

Junkrat looked conflicted, but grumbled and began pulling on the coat, throwing the blanket around himself like a poncho. He flinched dramatically when she opened the door, cold air seeping in as the snow continued to fall, glistening against the outside lights. But he still followed her, watching as she brushed snow off the balcony bench and took a seat. Plonking down next to her, he shivered a bit as she snuggled up against his side and rested her head on his shoulder. Sighing in defeat, he rested his head atop hers as they both looked out over the snow-covered rooftops of the other buildings.

“I was really surprised, you know,” she remarked.

“Eh?”

“You and Mr. Roadhog showing up literally on my doorstep. I mean, you almost froze yourself in the process, but… Thank you. It means a lot that you came to visit for Christmas. Even though you hate the cold and had plans in Australia, you gave that up for me.”

He sputtered, looping an arm around her. “Pah! It’s nothin’, darl. You think I’d let my Mei eat instant noodles alone on her favorite holiday? What kind of rat would I be?!”

She smirked up at him. “I think you’re a really nice rat, although I promise not to tell anyone.” Leaning up, she pressed her lips to his. Unlike before, when he had been frozen in the alley, they were still warm to the touch, like they should have been. Kissing him again as the snow continued falling on them both, she felt him shudder. “Oh…here? Will this help?”

She leaned behind her and placed the box device from before on the ground behind them, flicking the switch. It buzzed to life, and then projected that flat hologram image behind them; showing the sandy white beaches and the crashing waves against the clear blue sky of summer, a recording of shrieking gulls playing in the background. Junkrat laughed aloud, poking his finger at the scene almost longingly, as his prodding digit went right through the waves of light. “Almost makes me feel warm again. Almost.”

“Well, this should help with that.” Mei pulled the still warm gourd-like bottle of huángjiǔ out and strained a bit as she popped the cork. She took the first drink, pouring the warm, bitter liquid down her throat. With a little cough, she passed the bottle to his greedy hands next. “Oh! Oh my, you really did get the good kind.”

Junkrat gave her a lecherous grin as he took a much longer drink, wincing at the flavor but taking another sip for good measure as he passed it back. “Like I said, you’re in for it, this year. Round 2 of your weird Chinese liquor.”

He watched as she drank, sharing the bottle back and forth as the white flakes drifted around them, cold and pristine and nothing like the hot sandy beaches projected behind them. Wrapping his arm around her once more, he placed a wet kiss to her forehead, the warmth of the alcohol already flowing through his veins and pleasantly clouding his senses from the bitter cold. “Merry Christmas?”

“Merry Christmas,” she answered, nestling into his side once more to watch the snow fall.

They stayed like that for a while, until the  huángjiǔ was almost gone and Mei could feel the haze starting to overtake her senses. Jamison’s cheeks and ears were already rosy, though from the chill or the booze, she couldn’t tell. It was time to head back inside. Still, she lingered a bit more, sighing happily and enjoying the hush of the moment.

At least until Jamison, swaying slightly, stood up. “…I’m proper rotten, love. Let’s finish the bottle, and then I dunno if I can make it to the jacuzzi. Might hit the bed and accidentally rip all your jammies off and fuck you silly in the ensuing chaos, dunno, let’s play that one by ear.”

Narrowing her eyes at his lewd comment, she grabbed his hand to help steady him as she led him back to the warmth of their hotel room, the alcohol singing in her blood providing more than a little boldness on her part. “Not if- Not if I get you first. We’re wearing too many clothes. Take…” She hiccuped. “Take off your pants, Jamie. S’Christmas… S’time for Christmas…”

His drunken grin wobbled a little wider, lopsided but pleased and barely managed a crowing “Oh-ho-ho! Merry Christmas to me!” before she descended upon him.

Outside, the hologram of the beach continued to play as the snow continued to fall.

Well, at least he’s started brushing his teeth more.

these three

Retreating to Point B

Hot Headed, Cold Hearted- Chapter 2 (A Meihem Fanfiction)

She’d been so excited that she had shown up at the launch bay four hours before the ship was supposed to leave the next morning. Everything looked to be ready, she had checked and re-checked all their gear several times over, and probably checked on their food rations every time she had passed by their box, just to be ultra sure. To her relief, they were not the kind that they had sent her off with before, the kind that tasted like they had been at the bottom of some bargain bin for a few centuries too long. Winston’s new stipend had bought them all good food and good supplies, and she made a note to thank him later. He had even provided a book about northern wilderness survival, though she had a feeling that was for the junkers. He also hadn’t even seemed surprised by her wish to include them in her mission, and had made an effort to be polite about the matter when she presented him the paperwork to bring them along…True, he had that little hitch in his voice the entire time he subtly tried to suggest bringing Pharah or McCree or literally anyone else instead of them, but she had been firm. She was going to make this mission work, and improve junker/omnic relations at the same time. Or at the very least, she hoped they’d want to kill each other a little less… She sat on the edge of the launch pad wall, eating a piece of toast and jam and enjoying the morning as Snowball sat beside her, its screen showing a series of dots as it ran a few last-minute diagnostics. The sun rose slowly, dawning cool and clear and bathing the Gibraltar sky with pink and yellow, dotted with fluffy orange clouds. She had even managed to wake up before the local seagulls and there was blissful silence save for the faint crashing of far-off waves against the rocky cliffs, and the crunch of toasted bread between her teeth. Best to enjoy the silence and calm while it lasted, she knew. Even an entire flock of gulls couldn’t compare to the shrill screeching laughter of Junkrat when he got started, and he brought chaos with him wherever he went. The junkers would have to be monitored carefully, all the while trying to also monitor Bastion and its strange behavior, and she had to be prepared to break up any fights and try to smooth things over to begin the healing process... This morning would likely be the only reprieve she would have for the next several days and she needed to enjoy it while she could. The last bite of toast and gooseberry jam left a few crumbs that she brushed from her lap, and there was a soft tweeting trill and a flash of Ganymede’s familiar yellow feathers as the Eichenwalde cardinal fluttered about her in a little circle, landing by her feet and pecking at a few specks of bread before tilting its head up at her. With a few hops, it launched up onto her foot, then her knee, and then onto the wall beside her, tapping its beak curiously at Snowball’s animated screen. The little cryo-drone startled itself awake, emoticon eyes blinking before offering the bird a ^ ^.

Mei smiled, clasping both hands over her chest at the sight. “Aww! Good morning, Ganymede. I guess if you’re here, Bastion isn’t too far behind. Are you both ready to go?” Ganymede offered no reply besides another tilt of its head, ruffling its feathers before fluttering off once more. Sure enough, the loud clanking of the Bastion unit was audible now and steadily moving closer. Rounding the corner, it tucked its gun behind its back and made a rather shy little wave with its hand as its avian companion hopped in circles atop its head. “Doo-da-da.” “Ni hao, Bastion! Good morning to you too. Are you excited for our first trip?” She asked, pulling herself off the stoop to approach the bot. “Wee!” It beeped in the affirmative, then looked past Mei and offered Snowball another wave, mechanical fingers clicking as it wiggled them. Snowball uttered a little warbling noise as it hovered up to join them both, floating just over Mei’s shoulder before it gave the Bastion unit a happy face and a scrolling screen of marquee hearts. Bastion looked a little taken aback, scratching at its chin as its eye turned half red in the middle. Was it…blushing? “Deeeeee-doo-doo-deeeeee.” Mei was just about ready to set off the emergency alarms and summon the entire base over to see this display of nonstop adorableness, but she made herself take a breath, smoothing her hands over the front of her coat before taking Snowball in both arms. “Now Bastion, I did ask you to come a little early because I wanted to just go over a few things with you, is that okay?” She received a nod and continued, “Okay, good. I know you received my message about the junkers joining us and I just wanted to be certain how you felt about things before we leave.” Bastion looked down to the ground, uttering a grinding noise that went down at the end. It didn’t sound very sure at all. “I know that they’re a handful and how they’ve acted towards you and the others. But they’ve been making a lot of progress in other areas, and I think that with a little more work, we might be able to help them see that you and Zenyatta and the rest don’t have anything to do with what happened in Australia and that they can start to let go of those prejudices, right?” With a hopeful nod, she placed a gloved hand on one of the gears of its boxy shoulder. “And you’re the friendliest, cutest bot I’ve ever met. I think in no time at all they’re going to like you too! I’ve made them promise not to do anything mean to you or Ganymede, so we just have to be…um, diplomatic. And I want you to know that if they give you any trouble at all, you should come to me at once. But I know we can do this together, and get our mission done successfully. Speaking of…” She opened her tablet, the holographic display flickering to life over it. Sure enough, Bastion’s interest peaked immediately, stepping forward and searching the map for a moment before bringing its pointer finger towards the little block of northwest Canada. It uttered a questioning chirp, turning towards Mei once more and tapping it twice. “Dee-Bwoo-woo?” “Maybe you can tell me why you’re so interested in this place? You’re my friend, Bastion, and I want you to know that you can tell me anything. What’s in this forest? Why are we going there?” Her brows knitted in concern, biting slightly at her lower lip. The bot paused, then uttered a series of tones that went up and down, staring at the spot on the map and tapping it again before looking at her expectantly. No new information to be had there, but she offered it a little wary smile and adjusted her glasses. “Okay, well…I’m sure we’ll find out once we get there, and then maybe you can tell me? I mean, tell us?” There was a sudden commotion approaching them from the other side of the base, and they all knew at once who it was. “Nan, I’m telling ya! I already got everything, we both do!” Junkrat’s familiar high-pitched whine sounded from the corner. “I’ve got at least fifty pounds of gear for this gig, I don’t need any more. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as ‘long underwear’, did you Roadie? The hell is that all about? Not enough to just constrain this magnificent Australian donger with regular underwear, now I gotta wrap my entire self in it?” Mei sighed, shaking her head. The two junkers entered the docking area, flanked the much smaller figure of Ana, who was fussing over the young man relentlessly, holding a backpack and a sack lunch as she struggled to to reach his head and place a knit snowflake-patterned toboggan atop it. She didn’t seem put off by his crude manners at all, hurrying to keep stride with his limping gait. “And you may be putting up a ruckus now, but you’re going to be glad for all this once you actually get there. My ex-husband is from Canada and I know exactly what the two of you are up against-” Junkrat screeched to a halt, whirling upon her. “Ex-husband?! What’d he do to you, Nan? You want me and Roadie to deal with him while we’re there?” Roadhog rumbled and punched one gigantic spiked fist into his palm menacingly. Ana rolled her remaining eye, shoving the backpack and lunch into Junkrat’s arms. “Jamison, that is Fareeha’s father you are speaking about, you would not be doing anything even if you were anywhere near him. I don’t know why they’re sending you all into a little town like Tentpeg, but it’s going to be cold. Colder than you know. So I packed you a few extra things.” She began rummaging about in yet another bag she pulled from out of her coat. “Extra mittens for if you lose the other two pairs, a scarf or three, some warm socks so you don’t lose that other foot, vitamins, hot cocoa packets, a sweater…Sorry for the tacky sweater, it was the only one I had that might fit you.” Junkrat wrinkled his nose as she pulled out the sweater, giving it an unimpressed look. “The hell is that thing, a cow? Eh, least it looks less bulky than that coat y’got me.” “That’s a moose. And the sweater goes under the coat.” “The fuck it does!?” He blurted out, before his bushy brows lifted suddenly and he clamped both hands over his mouth as Ana began rapidly admonishing him for his language. Mei coughed a little, turning away to stifle her laugh. She had also been wondering how her Australian cohorts were going to handle a Canadian winter. Roadhog, at least, seemed to be handling the concept a bit better. He was already wearing a powder pink knit hat with a pig face and ears, atop his already pig-themed mask. The now double-headed Hog accepted his own winter bag with little more than a low grumble, even when Ana began wrapping at least a mile’s worth of striped scarf around his thick neck. Mei swiftly came to their rescue, bustling over to try and shoo the concerned sniper off them. “Miss Amari, I’m sure they’ll be all right. I have everything checked over, even extra thermal blankets and toothbrushes just in case,” Mei said, before leaning up to the woman’s ear. “And I’ll send you pictures of them all dressed up in the snow, if you want. I plan to take a lot!” Ana offered her a wrinkled grin, her eye creasing with amusement at the thought. “I thought you’d never offer, habibati. Honestly, I’d offer to go with you if I wasn’t busy here. To keep a watch on those two, mainly. But, I suppose they’re even better off with the best cold weather expert we have. But you’re going to have your hands full with two junkers and an omnic, you know.” “I know,” Mei sighed, deflating slightly before straightening up with a little huff. They both turned to eye the men, watching as Junkrat tried to convince his partner to trade hats and was swiftly rebuffed. “But if I can deal with those two out in the desert, I’m sure I can deal with them out in the snow. If they get too hot under the collar, I can send them to chill out! This time they’re going to be on my turf, right?” “That’s the spirit, my tough girl.” Ana clapped her gently on her shoulder and turned to go, before halting abruptly. “Ya lahwy! I almost forgot!” She dug around in the mysterious depths of her coat yet again before withdrawing one more knitted hat, a pale yellow with a pom-pom on top and a buttoned strap, before going to latch it onto Bastion’s boxy head. “I wouldn’t want you to feel left out, hm?” ` The bot touched it reverently, beeping its thanks. “All right, I’ll get out of your hair so you can get on your way. Good luck in Tentpeg, be safe out there! Be good! And warm! Stay warm!” With a last wave, the old sniper rounded the bend and vanished. Junkrat, still wearing his new toboggan despite having no shirt on, lurched up beside Mei and stretched upright, placing his hands on his hips to watch her go. “Best nan I never had, ain’t she? Top ratings. If only she didn’t make the cookies with raisins in ‘em…” Roadhog hefted a crate of their supplies in one arm, lumbering up the ramp to the ship with a low rumble. “Well I know you like the raisin kind, mate, don’t got to rip my head off about it,” Junkrat snapped. “But yeah, you’re right, let’s get moving. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get the hell out. Don’t much fancy the thought of all that snow. You’re real lucky I’m the gallant gent that I am, lovey, braving the ice and gales like I am, all in the name of love! That right there, that’s romance, that is.” “You’re the one who insisted on coming,” she reminded him with a little sly look. “But this is a lot more snow than the places you’ve been sent so far. Romance or not, I don’t want any of you to hesitate to ask for help if you’re having trouble.” “Eh, she’ll be right! Not to worry!” “I mean it, Jamie. I know you’re better at handling the heat than I am, but I lived in Antarctica. It takes a while to get used to the ice and snow. And the cold…Sometimes, the cold can…” Her voice trailed off, expression going slack as her gaze went far away. Mist on her breath…Ice crystals on her eyelashes…the last green dots of a dying battery…a collection of mugs standing like gravestones…nobody even knew they were th- “Oi!” A gravely voice sounded in her ear and then came the familiar nip of sharp teeth against her ear, jolting her from her reverie. “Come on, Mei, come on back.” “Sorry! Sorry, sorry about that, was just thinking again,” she said, shaking her head to clear away the negative thoughts, the little things that always seemed to get caught in the cobwebs in the recesses of her brain. When Junkrat merely squinted at her in some concern, she quickly leaned up to nuzzle her nose against the side of his jaw. “I’m fine, don’t worry. And I’ll be there if you need help with the cold…” She looked around quickly to make sure nobody was in earshot, leaning up again and pretending to adjust his silly toboggan. “I know lots of ways to help keep you warm, I mean?” Steam practically shot out of the man’s ears and she could have sworn his grin widened enough that the edges of his mouth were meeting on the back of his head, barking out a sharp “YEAH!” before lowering his voice back to…well, his usual customary loudness. “Yeah, show me lots of that! Survival techniques! Sexy, sexy survival techniques! Come on, come on, we better get a move on!” He grabbed her hand and started dragging her up the ramp to the ship, eager to get the trip started, ice and snow be damned. ***

Junkrat seemed a little less sure of things a few hours later, with his face pressed to their ship’s window, staring down at the vast landscape of green and white forests below them. He’d begrudgingly put on his moose sweater, though it hung silly and loose on his bony frame, and Mei had even caught him giving a few doubtful glances towards the bulky winter coat sticking out of his pack as the temperature outside continued to drop the further north they went. “Turn the heat up already, will ya? I can feel it in my toes, you want me to lose my foot? You wanna answer to Nan’s wrath when she learns you didn’t keep poor ol’ Junkrat from freezing to death like you promised?” “No, it’s better to get a little acclimated to the cold slowly. And it’s barely even a chill, you’ll be all right.” Mei smacked his hand gently away from the temperature controls, her eyes still on the ship’s onboard map as they neared the tiny dot on the map that represented the town of Tentpeg. The trip had been mercifully quiet and without trouble thus far. Bastion had gone idle almost immediately, and though the junkers had watched it distrustfully at first, eventually they had grown bored and left it to its own devices. For now, Roadhog was snoring softly in his seat in the back, already snug in his winter coat and pig hat, while Bastion sat in a resting posture with its legs drawn up and its boxy body lowered to the ground, only its flickering eyelight hinting that it was alive at all. Mei barely seemed to notice the cold at all, checking the autopilot as she glanced over their schedules again. “We should be arriving in Tentpeg in just a few minutes, everyone. Landing at 5:25 PM. -6 Celsius, so not too bad so far. We can check into our hotel and then erm…have a quick look around the next morning, before we need to head out.” Junkrat’s eyes bulged slightly when she mentioned the temperature, finally relenting and scrambling to grab his parka, awkwardly shoving both arms into it before fumbling with his mittens. “-6 she says, and ‘that’s not bad’? I’ll be a Junksicle in seconds.” He paused, then turned to Mei with an all-too-familiar edge to his grin. “Oi Mei, if I was a Junksicle, would you lick m-” “Ānjìng! Shh!” She tossed a scarf into his face, interrupting him and leaving him to unwind it as she focused on the manual controls. The ship was starting to approach a crude landing area- Really more of a clearing outside of town than an actual landing area- as the snow fell steadily outside, blowing gently against the windshield. The town below was barely that. She had read that Tentpeg had been established for logging, ages ago, and had always been a tiny and rather destitute place. There had been attempts to rebrand it into a tourist destination, but it was further north than tourists really wanted to go. Now the only things left here were a few scattered service buildings and houses, and the hotel they would be staying at while she looked into things. The ship wavered slightly as she set it down, turning around in her seat. “Okay, everyone! We’re here!” The others began stirring. Coats were put on, seatbelts clicked, and bags were gathered, before they all stood at the cargo doors. Mei clicked the button, and with a whir, they slowly opened. The cold creeped in as soon as the seal breached, little flakes of white and blue swirling around their feet. The little climatologist stood at the front, bearing the brunt of it as Snowball hovered beside her. Her companions did not face it quite as bravely. Ganymede fluffed up and retreated underneath Bastion’s hat, squirming under the rim for relative shelter, and even the stalwart Roadhog, larger than ever with his layers of coats and gear, took a half step backward. Junkrat squealed and hid behind his bodyguard as though he would shield him from this like he had shielded him from everything else. But the cold had already swept in, and any warmth left in the ship was smothered and gone within seconds. Mei, already rose-cheeked and smiling comfortingly, gestured them forward. “I know it’s a little chilly at first, but you’ll acclimate. Why don’t we all get to the hotel and get warm and settle in, and we’ll all have dinner and celebrate your first cold weather mission. Go science division…and friends! Hooray, us!” Junkrat, already huddling miserably into his coat and scarf with barely his eyes peeking out in a little strip just above, scrambled forward. “Are you trying to bloody kill us, woman?! Standing around in the cold? This ain’t natural! Which way’s that hotel? Can’t believe I ever agreed to- WAAAUUGH!” He rushed past her, sights set on the buildings up ahead, and stepped off the ramp. His weight hit the top of the smooth white and he immediately sank in up past his knees, toppling forward as he tried to brace himself before falling. He vanished from sight into the snowbank, leaving behind a distinctly Junkrat-shaped impression like some warped version of a snow angel. The rest of them stood watching, Bastion tilting its head as Roadhog snorted a low, “Idiot.” From the safety of the ramp there was a flash, as Mei grinned and took a picture.

Hot Headed, Cold Hearted (Chapter 1)

(This is my new sequel to the now-completed A-Mei-Zing Outback Adventures, found here

http://archiveofourown.org/works/8457571/chapters/19376416

Thanks for reading! Hope you’re ready for more MEIHEM!)

“Agent 20151107, Mei-Ling Zhou, please report to the briefing room.”

Athena’s soothing voice chimed from her communicator, just as Mei had stuffed an overly large mouthful of egg tart into her jaws. Of course. She coughed and sputtered as she tried to swallow, patting her chest roughly to try and force it all down. “Hhfk!”

Athena’s icon blinked before speaking again, “Miss Zhou, you appear to be choking. Mercy is nearby, if you require-”

“No!” She rasped, clearing her throat before speaking more clearly. “No, I’m fine. Sorry about that. Is it an emergency?”

“It was not specified as such and Winston has indicated that you will be very pleased with the news, as it is regarding your science division. Please report to briefing when you are able, but I believe you have time to finish your egg tart in a less vigorous manner.”

Mei was already pushing her tray away from her, said egg tart still mostly uneaten along with the rest of the meal she had barely just started. “Thank you, Athena, but this can wait! Oh, could you message Jamison and let him know I can’t meet him for lunch because of my meeting, he’s probably already on his way here? Tell him I’m sorry, too!”

“I will contact Agent Junkrat now and let Winston know you are on your way. Good day, Miss Zhou.”

The icon went dark, and Mei dumped her meal into the bin on her way out the door, her snowflake pin swaying cheerfully as she bustled out of the cafeteria and started to make her way through the main base. If it was any sort of news regarding the science team, she wanted to hear it right away. True, her science team only consisted of herself, Winston, Bastion, and a rotating handful of lower-ranking agents, but she was still willing to do whatever it took to get things started off the right way. After her disastrous mission into the Outback, Winston was finally starting to grant her the time and resources to get their division off the ground, but Overwatch business had kept getting in the way. But if he finally had good news for her…maybe today would be the day!

“Miss Zhou, there is a reply message from Agent Junkrat.” Athena’s icon lit up again. “He…wishes to relay his understanding of the delayed lunch date, as well as good tidings and good luck to you, but his phrasing is littered with curses and very colorful language. Would you like me to relay the exact message to you?”

“Oh. No thanks, the nice thought is enough.” She pushed open the door to the briefing room, where Winston was already waiting for her. He sat in the main command chair, the only one that had been tailored for a genetically-altered gorilla, and his features were lit up by the only source of light in the room, the enormous main monitor where a soft pulsing ray of light in the center meant Athena was listening. With a little polite bow of her head, she hurried over towards the seat next to him, unable to keep the smile off her face. “Ni hao, Winston! I came as soon as I could.”

He nodded to her, glasses glinting vivid white-blue in the light of the monitor. “Good afternoon, Mei. I know you’d hate to be kept waiting, so we’ll just jump into things. Although to start…it’s happened again.”

“Is it Bastion?” she sighed.

“Indeed. Athena’s been keeping track of things ever since I first noticed it, but it hasn’t stopped. For several months now, every time it’s presented with a map, it keeps marking that one location over and over again.” He nodded up to the main screen, which flashed up a world map before zooming in to North America, then to Canada, then to a northern quadrant of Canada, and then zoomed in a final time to show a satellite picture of the mountain forests. “I sent it a map of Numbani, it sent me back the coordinates in Canada. I ask it to review its last maneuvers from the battle in Annecy, it sent me the reviews, but also that same location. Over and over. The first few times I thought it was an error, but it’s far too consistent. Athena’s even been able to isolate it to almost a direct latitude and longitude.”

She nodded, writing this down in her tablet. “Whenever I pulled up a topical map, it was always trying to point to Canada as well. But I’ll admit I didn’t think much of it until you pointed it out. So, what does it mean? Is that why you called me in?”

“So far it doesn’t seem to be directing us to…anything? Just a patch of Canadian wilderness. The closest civilization is a town called Tentpeg, but that’s hundreds of miles away. It’s still possible all this is some sort of mistake or error but…I’ve got a feeling we need to check things out, just to be sure.”

“That makes sense,” she agreed.

“I don’t want this information spread amongst the team, I can’t stress that enough. Torbjorn, Zarya, Junkrat, and a number of other agents already do not have the most positive view of our omnic relations inclusion act. And I don’t want to deal with any fallout if they suspect one of our robotic allies might be…er, questionable. But I haven’t made any headway at all into E-54 unit’s motives. All translation programs I’ve run have been inconclusive or denied.” He drummed at another collection of buttons on the control board, and both scientists adjusted their glasses at the same time as lines upon lines of indecipherable numbers and letters scrolled across the monitors. “Nothing makes sense here. Either it doesn’t know its own reasoning, or it’s not telling us something.”

Mei frowned, brows furrowing. “That can’t be right? Is Bastion even capable of subterfuge? I don’t like that idea at all, it seems so friendly…”

“I’m not certain subterfuge would be the right word. According to Torbjorn, our particular E-54 is already something of an anomaly. He designed its original blueprints and even he can’t figure out why this one seems so keen on this target location, any more than he can figure out why it restarted itself after being shut down, its reluctance towards aggression, or why it befriends birds and random wildlife. Physical diagnostics are all fine despite its age, but in short, we have no idea why it is the way it is.”

“Have you tried just asking it what it wants there?”

“On multiple occasions. Usually I’ll get a tilted head or a series of tones that don’t seem to mean anything. I’ve asked Zenyatta and our other omnic colleagues for their opinions on the matter, but none of them have anything in their program archives about this location, or any idea as to why such an old mobile defense unit would want to go there. And their questioning their fellow omnic yielded no new results.” Winston leaned back in his chair, folding both his hands and feet and drumming their digits thoughtfully. “I’ll admit I’m baffled.”

She rummaged about in her bag, pulling out her tablet and setting it on the table between them. With a few quick motions of her fingertips, she pulled up a view of the area once more. Just like before, it was a featureless sea of white, gray, and green, no different from any tract of the northern forests that stretched for miles upon miles across the Canadian wilderness. She couldn’t see anything suspicious at all no matter how she looked at it, not even a lewdly shaped boulder for Junkrat to pick out and giggle at later. There was nothing but trees, rocks, and snow. “I don’t suppose you have any different satellites that might have picked up anything?”

“I was actually hoping you might notice something I didn’t,” he admitted. “I would wait for the weather to clear up and send in a few search drones but after looking into the matter a little more…this is something of a developing emergency.” The screen flashed, and pictures began opening one after the other, staying on screen for only a few moments before another replaced it. For several long moments it continued, and he watched as the climatologist’s expression became more and more grim. “Those are all missing persons reports from the last thirty-odd years, from the various towns nearest the location, hundreds of miles away. I’m sure you notice the connection.”

She continued watching the pictures scroll past; serial numbers and figures with metal features, some with ocular lights, some without, mostly humanoid shaped, others not resembling humans at all, but all with the ‘MISSING’ text stamped across them. With a strange little noise that wasn’t quite a sigh, she breathed out, steepling her fingers in front of her as the number of victims grew. “…They’re all omnics.”

The gorilla nodded his shaggy head slowly. “All omnics, for over thirty years. I looked into the ongoing investigations but their only guesses were an anti-omnic terrorist still at large, or some form of virus, though that seems unlikely. Local law enforcement seems to know even less than we do…And with our Bastion unit seeming to have a connection to this, and its location being in the frozen north, it seemed almost eerily well-tailored for our new science team’s first official mission. I’m sending you both there on a scouting assignment to find whatever is at this location and report back when and if you find anything. I’ve already put in the orders for your supplies and cleared your schedules. You’ll move out tomorrow.”

To his surprise, Mei only smiled at his abrupt orders, cheeks dimpling happily. “Oh, this is going to be so exciting!” She blinked, then coughed a little. “I mean…Not the missing omnics, that’s horrible. But our first science team mission together! I’m certain we can be of help. Are you going to be coming along?”

“Er…I would like to, honestly I would. But Comman- ahem, Soldier 76 is insistent that Talon is planning something with how quiet it’s been lately, and Ana agrees with him. I need to remain here and continue overseeing our teams from the command central, including yours and Bastion’s new mission. In fact, I’d better get back to that. I’ll send the rest of the details to you by the end of the day. Once you reach the target location, I want you to contact us immediately with whatever you find, and then we’ll field more agents if needed. So…” He grinned, revealing a jaw full of large pointed teeth, “Get moving, Agent Zhou. Go get ready to uh, what is it you say? Science the heck out of things?”

She nodded quickly, even offering a comical little salute to her ape friend, before darting in to give him a very brief little hug on one arm. “I’m sorry you can’t come with us, but I’ll look around and see if we can find anything. Maybe Bastion will have more to offer once we’re on-site, too? I still wonder what it wants there?”

A hand that was easily the size of her entire torso very gently patted her back before nudging her gently towards the door. “Time for your science team to find out. Go check over your equipment and I’ll send you time of departure for tomorrow.”

And with that, he turned back to his screen and Mei hurried from the control room to let him return to his duties. When the door was closed, she pumped both gloved fists and hissed a low “Yes!” before breaking into a run towards her dorms, pulling out her tablet and already pulling up her charts and maps. She felt strangely elated, and then also a little guilty about being so elated. She shouldn’t feel happy at all with the ongoing tragedy of so many missing omnics, which may or may not have had ties to this mysterious wilderness locale, or that the once-trusted Bastion unit might be holding secrets from them…but she was going out! She was going out on an actual science mission, specifically for the science team, and one that seemed to have true importance. Winston was giving the science division actual work. No more babysitting the backlines or watching weather reports, this sounded like her team could really do some good if they could make any headway into this mystery, something important, something that might-

She turned a corner, still running, and slammed face-first into a solid wall of massive muscle and fat. With a squeaking noise of startled pain, she bounced back and landed hard on her rear on the floor. Roadhog seemed equally as startled, masked head tilting down at her before slowly offering out one enormous gloved hand.

“Mei! What the hell, Roadie, you’ve caused a bingle again! What’d I tell you about blind corners, mate?” Junkrat appeared behind his larger partner, lifting up one of his arms to get past him before hobbling behind the stunned Mei, lifting her up to her feet and going to wipe at a droplet of blood just below her nose. His attempts ended up scrubbing soot above her lip and giving her a black mustache-looking mark, so he licked his filthy thumb with a slurping noise of his long tongue and went to try and clean it away yet again. “Aw, love, lemme get that for ya!”

She managed to come to her senses just before his thumb touched her, pushing the sticky saliva-covered appendage away just in time, wiping the black mark away on her own. She rubbed at her nose, seeming satisfied that at least it wasn’t broken. It would hardly do to start off a mission with a broken nose, especially in such a silly way. “Sorry! Sorry about that. Are you okay, Roadhog?”

Roadhog hesitated, then looked down at himself as if to inspect for any damage where the much tinier woman had bounced right off him. After a long moment he rumbled a low, “…Mm.”

With an almost suspicious tilt of his head, the tips of his singed hair still burning from an apparent practice session on the fields, Junkrat squinted down at her, leaning down to her level to inspect her once more. “We were just looking for you. What’s the trouble, babe? Not much like you, runnin’ through the halls like your arse is on fire. I mean, usually it’s my arse what’s on fire, but what’s got you dashing?”

“I’m so sorry about that, I should have been more careful. I was just in such a hurry because I have to get ready! Winston’s sending us out on a mission tomorrow and I’ve got a lot to do. Oh, this is so exciting! I’d better get back to it, so-” She gave a quick, polite little bow of her head and then went to edge past Roadhog’s wide form, as the huge junker turned sideways to allow her past him. Squeezing through them both, she slowed her pace to less of a run and more of a jog. But when she heard footsteps behind her, she glanced back. The junkers were following her down the hall.

“Oh, the big monkey finally got you a mission of your own? I know you’d been wanting one. That’s ace, good on ya. Who’s going? Where you headed?” Junkrat loped after her, peg leg clacking noisily as his huge bodyguard’s boots thudded just behind him.

The question made her pause, giving time for the lanky young man to catch up with her and snake his long arms around her from behind, pulling her against his bare chest with a grin. Winston had told her to keep quiet about Bastion’s involvement or whatever this mission might have been. Trying to keep her voice casual and as non-suspicious as possible, she pretended to dig around for her tablet. “Oh! It’s…just a mission for the science team. It might not even be anything. Another agent and I are going to be flying out tomorrow to looking into a few strange things happening in Canada. It could be very boring, actually. That’s all. I mean, nothing really.” She gave a little nod, trying to make herself stop before it qualified as rambling. That should be a satisfactory answer, nothing was technically a lie.

There was a little answering giggle from his throat just above her, and his grip subtly tightened around her frame. When he spoke, Junkrat’s voice was just a little too soft, indicating he was already onto her. Damn. “Oh! Well, that’s a real shame, ain’t it? I mean, the monkey calling you in for an emergency meeting about a mission for your science team there, and it’s nothing at all? That’s downright rotten of him. Sooo, Canada, huh…Remind me who ya said you were heading out with?”

She winced inwardly. “It’s…just Bastion and me.”

Her words had just about the exact effect she’d been dreading, and he pulled his arms abruptly from around her as she turned to face him. His yellow eyes were wide and dangerously ablaze, and his nostrils flared when he hissed an angry reply. “What! No, no no, what the hell is that about! That hairy fucker better not be even thinking of sending you out alone with just that bot! Oh we are gonna have a chat, we are-”

“Don’t you say that about Winston!” she protested sharply, cutting him off and making him cringe back a bit. “And Bastion is a valued member of the science team and has been a model research assistant out in the field. Winston was going to come along, but he’s not able to so…It’s going to be all right with just the two of us. Like I said, we’re just looking into a few things, then we’ll be back. I know how you feel about…certain topics, but there’s no reason to get worked up.”

“Worked up! This ain’t even half worked up. You think I’m going to let my best girl go waltzing out into who-knows-what, alone with some weird malfunctioning bot and its freaky bird? That’s not even sending you out with a team, that’s just…” He sputtered, waving both arms. “Well that’s just crazy, and I know crazy when I see it!”

Mei sighed, giving an imploring look to Roadhog for some help. To her consternation, he was nodding along with his partner, and shrugged a little at her disappointed look. He shook his masked head, scratching at one side of his giant gut and pulling up his sagging pants with a grunt. “Don’t trust bots,” he said simply.

“Can’t trust ‘em at all, Roadie,” Junkrat agreed, before dropping to one knee and spreading out both long arms in a ta-da sort of display, posing in front of her. “Which is why…you need your favorite bodyguards! Yeah! We’ll protect you! Especially me, I’ll protect that body with my life, you know it. Sign us up, Snowflake. We’re going with you!” He jabbed Roadhog irritably in the side several times with the nearly blade-edge sharp angle of his elbow, before the much larger man grumbled and posed with him, one hand on his hip and the other giving her a thumbs up.

She rolled her eyes briefly, shaking her head at the ridiculous duo. “I appreciate the concern, I really do, but that’s totally unnecessary. This isn’t even a combat mission, it’s scientific recon. We might not find anything there at all, and there’s probably nothing to even protect me from. There’s really no reason for you to feel like you need to come along, I don’t need any bodyguards this time.”

“Well then it sounds like you won’t mind us coming along, if it’s just a pleasure tour and you won’t even need these guns!” Junkrat answered slyly, changing his pose so that he was flexing both skinny arms at her. “If you won’t take us as bodyguards, then we’ll just go along as…uh…scientific observers. Or just take us as your mates, with sparkling, scintillating conversation all for you. Who else are you going to talk to, the omnic only speaks in beep-boops? Come on, we handled everything the Outback had to throw at us, what’s wrong with bringing us with you just in case?”

Mei just gave him an exasperated look. “It’s just a scouting expedition! And you’d hate it in Canada!”

This was not something she’d expected to happen, and it had lessened her prior emotional high about getting her team’s first official orders. She should have simply given Junkrat a kiss goodbye before being on her way, without him ever knowing she was out on a mission with a bot. But then again…she’d been meaning to subtly try shifting the junkers’ stance on their omnic teammates. Not that she expected them to ever forgive or forget after everything she’d witnessed in the Outback, but if she could improve relations between her friends to at least a stiff formality instead of rabid hatred, it would be a step up. Plus, as much as she loathed to think of it, Bastion’s mysterious behaviors might warrant someone else coming along to keep an eye on things, or if anything related to the missing omnics popped up, or if something unlucky happened…and with her, something unlucky always happened. As insane as it sounded, it was starting to sound like an opportunity for both a better chance of understanding, and a pair of strong allies was always nice to have, just in case.

Well that and…having Junkrat around to keep her warm on a cold night wasn’t something to be entirely ignored, in a very unprofessional way…

“Well we can come along in an unofficial capacity, eh? Oh, I get it, this is about it being an expense thing? Money’s no object when it comes to you, lovey. How about we do this as a favor to you, pro bono? Hehehe, and then you and me, we can uh, we can pro-bone-o? Eeeeeeh?” His grin widened before he parted his teeth just enough to wiggle his tongue lewdly at her. This time both Mei and Roadhog sighed together, looking in opposite directions from the crude younger junker, who simply looked baffled that his smooth-talking hadn’t worked. “What? You get it?”

“I got it. Unfortunately. Listen…if you end up coming along with us- and that’s a big if, I haven’t decided on anything! If you end up coming with us, you’re going to have to accept that Bastion is an official member of my science division and we are going to be working together on this project. That means you’re going to have to be nice to it. No ifs, ands, or buts. If you can’t agree to being civil to your omnic teammates, I’ll have to decline you both. Can you be nice to it?”

Roadhog hummed unsurely through his mask’s filters, and Junkrat scowled as his expression twisted up to one side in a derisive sneer. “Define ‘nice’ when it comes to a bot? It’s not like it’s got feelings.”

Well, he was being extremely rude about it, but the fact that he was even asking meant he might be considering it. She held up a finger to his lips abruptly. “Bastion does have feelings, and I have rules about those feelings. It means being nice, and I know you know how to be nice. No blowing it up, no cursing at it, no insulting it, no trying to eat its bird, no doing anything mean. If you have to ask about it, it’s probably not nice. Before anything, I need a yes or a no. And if you say yes, I’m going to hold you to it in both a professional and personal way.” She placed both hands on her hips sternly. “That goes for both of you. So think it over before you say anything. I am not budging on this one.”

“Well damn, darl, tell us how you really feel,” Junkrat grumbled, scratching at his singed hair. He seemed to be mulling it over, exchanging several glances with Roadhog in their strange, often silent or one-sided communication that she still couldn’t always understand. “Arright, arright, we both promise we won’t hurt the bot.”

“Orrr?” she prompted.

“Or the bird. But if that thing goes berserk-”

“It won’t. It’s our friend,” she said, perhaps a little more firmly than she should have.

He lifted a bushy brow. “…Yeah, whatever you say, love. Look, promise you in a real official capacity that we won’t do any misbehaving unless we really need to. I’ll sign a contract if I gotta, even. But we’re with ya!”

Roadhog nodded above them with a low, “Mm.”

“I’m going to hold you to that, Jamison. You promised me. And you too, Roadhog. No joking. I’ll check things over with Winston and get everything ready. So, you two should go see to everything you want to bring with you. Now, sorry to run, but we’ve got a lot to do before tomorrow morning! Yídòng gèng kuài! Hurry hurry!” She left the junkers in the hallway and broke into another hurried gait, her head down and already tapping at her tablet and forgetting that she had already run into someone once today, doing that exact same thing.

From behind her, she heard a bewildered Junkrat wonder aloud, “Wait a minute, mate…Ain’t Canada really cold?”

The A-Mei-Zing Outback Adventure (Chapter 23-FINAL CHAPTER)

(This is the final chapter of my first Meihem story! And I thank you all so much for reading and following along. This may be the conclusion to their Outback adventures...but it’s not the end of the MEIHEM!

If you want, head on over to my new sequel to this story:

Hot Headed, Cold Hearted

http://archiveofourown.org/works/11796141

Thank you again!)

Their recovery had not been easy. Her insides had turned red and black and rebelled against her own body, the remainder of her hair had fallen from her scalp, her first attempts to eat real food had resulted in immediate and violent expulsion, and there had been nights of pain where there was no relief until she begged Angela to put her under, better to lose herself in sleep yet again than suffer any more. Junkrat and Roadhog never made any such requests, and endured the treatments with the same angry muttering and resigned stoicism with which they had faced other equally unpleasant things. Dr. Ziegler oversaw their medical recuperation with a keen eye, guiding them through their healing with the help of Ana and Lucio (Zenyatta’s offers of meditation and renewal arts had been swiftly and viciously denied) while Mei filled out pile after pile of paperwork explaining every minute detail of what had happened during their disastrous expedition into the wastes of Australia; often with Junkrat chiming in to not to forget to include some of the more ‘juicy bits’…though Mei wisely decided to leave most of his more scandalous suggestions out.

Winston and Bastion came with yet more paperwork (although this was a great deal more fun to fill out) about possible scientific excursions in the future, and her gorilla friend seemed both sincere and eager to possibly get out of the lab for a while himself, although he hoped it would go a little more smoothly than the mission to the Outback. Bastion had marked several dot locations on the world map, but merely tilted its head when asked what they were and simply pointed to them again, while Junkrat whispered suspicion and threats in the background at its strange behavior. And after that, they had a steady stream of visitors simply coming to see them; from Ana and Roadhog’s knitting club, Lucio and D.Va stopping by to play video games with Junkrat, and when Zarya had returned from a mission abroad, she had nearly crushed Mei in one of her all-encompassing bear hugs and had visited every day after that; with books, stories, and a Russian stew that she swore would make Mei feel better in no time.

Even Torbjorn had dropped by, though it was merely to drop off the newly repaired Snowball. He had painstakingly worked his way through and around Junkrat’s makeshift ‘repairs’, though even he seemed baffled by how it was functioning at all. The little drone’s AI had been transferred into a sparkling new blue hull, and its pixel eyes no longer sputtered or went randomly dead, and it no longer sounded like a flatulent oldworld modem when it beeped hello to her. Mei had been overjoyed to see it back to its old self, and it hovered over to nudge and hug into her arms…before promptly turning around and starting to flash more Mandarin curse words across its screen, aimed at Junkrat. She had been giggling too hard to really scold it as the two started fighting across the room again, and decided to leave her companions as their imperfect selves.

And they had been interviewed numerous times as they lay in their beds. Even Roadhog had been pressed for as much information as possible, though the old junker rarely offered more than his usual grunt or a shake of the head. When the dreaded questions came about Junkrat’s and Mei’s ‘relationship’, as they professionally called it, to Mei’s relief it amounted to little more than a few awkward inquiries as to their mutual consent. Winston never mentioned any more accusations of Stockholm Syndrome, and instead spent most of that interview cringing and trying to avoid any more of Junkrat’s winking and bragging about his self-proclaimed ‘irresistible animal attraction, sheer virility and amazing sexual prowess, an absolute vision in the nuddy, and hey are you writing all this down?’ while she hid her face in both hands and wished that the radiation had killed her to spare her the embarrassment.

But that had been months ago. Things were starting to get back to normal.

Her hair was starting to grow back in now, and Symmetra had kindly trimmed it into a feminine bob for her so she no longer looked like a shaggy mess. The color had returned to her face, her lungs no longer hurt when she breathed, and she had regained some of the weight she’d lost during her months of ice and fire in the desert. She was beginning to look and feel like herself again, and now she could smile when she brought up the eco-monitor program, watching the red blobs of the radioactive storms roll across the wastes. And though Overwatch couldn’t publicly take credit for her work and she had to remain a mysterious benefactor, Winston had let her know that the early warning systems she’d programmed were now a mainstay in the lives of the Outback’s inhabitants and was already saving lives.

She had helped. Despite everything, she had helped. She still couldn’t say if it had all been worth it. There was still something small and poisonous and black lurking somewhere in her, something even Mercy’s medicine couldn’t fix, something that made her angry and hurt every time she started really thinking of things…What a cost she’d paid…

But it was over, and she had helped.

***

The sweet breeze of the ocean air of Gibraltar felt cool against her face and ruffled the ends of her hair against her cheeks, bringing some small relief from the hot sun. She sat on one of the far rooftops by one of the communications tower, listening to the crash of the waves and the shrieking gulls as she scribbled in one of her personal notebooks.

“Tried to read your diary there one time, ya know. Your lil’ journal thing?” Junkrat was laying stretched out on a towel a small distance away, his mechanical limbs discarded nearby and a comically large set of sunglasses on his nose as he lay basking in the sun. Like Mei, he had recovered and was looking his old self again. His own hair had grown out at a record pace, even over most of his bald spots, and his eyebrows were as mysteriously bushy and healthy as ever, as if they had grown back overnight.

“Oh?” She looked up from her writing, glancing over.

“Real smart of you to encrypt it all in Chinese, love, real smart.”

She smirked and went back to scribbling. “Do you want me to write some in English for the next time you decide to spy on me?”

“Sounds great. Be a doll?” That familiar toothy grin spread across his face, tucking the stump of his arm under his head. “Mostly I just wanted to see if you ever wrote about me. You know, silent yearning from afar, who’s that mysterious man, maybe a kinda sexy intrigue? That sorta thing.”

“Well, I can assure you that that was really not what I was writing about you back then…It was probably best you couldn’t read it,” she admitted.

“Owch, darl.”

“Sorry! I mean, it wasn’t anything terrible, just…not the nicest, either,” said quickly. “But I’ve written more about you since then!”

He leaned up slightly, adjusting his sunglasses with suddenly renewed interest. “Is it real good?”

She smiled demurely, looking away. “It might be good. It’s a shame you can’t read any Chinese...”

“Owch again! That’s ice cold! C’mere, you.” He waved his good arm as she scooted a little closer, pulling her in. “I know that look. Somethin’ bothering you? Is it the pills? Is it your hair? I like it short, looks real nice on you.”

She shook her head, laying down beside him with a little nudge to make room. “Nothing. It’s just hot out.”

“Pft, this ain’t hot. Still, you wanna go in?”

Another shake of her head, closing her eyes against the sun. “It just reminds me of being back in that little house again, back in the desert. For a while there I kept thinking I would wake up and be back in that shack. It’s just like when I would wake up and think I was back in…back when it was cold instead of hot. Jamison, are you…Are you glad we came back?”

“Of course I am! They saved ya!”

“But…are you glad? That we’re back here? I’m sorry, I don’t even know why I’m asking…”

His gaze turned a little wary behind the lenses of his goofy glasses, his bushy brows furrowing slightly. He was silent for a long moment, shifting restlessly atop the towel, before replying with a low “Well, that’s a bonzer of a question, ain’t it? Arright look, I know you ain’t actually asking me, you’re asking you. But! For what it’s worth, my answer is…’I don’t know’. You got no idea how much this place pisses me off, most of the time. But, it ain’t all bad. Got my own place, food whenever I want it, getting paid by a monkey to blow things up, and they got the doctorin’ facilities that saved my most favorite lady in the world…and then I got fucking bullied into the doctoring stuff too, might I add.”

“Oh, that wasn’t bullying!” She protested half-heartedly. “And I’m glad I did. I’m glad you’re better.”

“See! Then there’s something to be glad about! Yours truly! And I don’t mind saying that’s a lot to be glad of, you snagging the most handsomest and humblest bloke this side of Oz. Look, you don’t gotta figure out the answers all the time. And you don’t gotta be happy, neither. Sometimes things are shit, but it’s better than being attacked by bees, ya know? Dunno if I’m glad to be back. Just glad you’re here, wherever. And if you go trying to find whatever you’re trying to find, I’ll go with ya.”

There he was again, cutting through to the heart of the matter she could only ever dance around, blunt as always. He could blast a path of destruction wherever he went, and this was no different. No matter how many walls she put up, he was one of the only ones who could tear them down just as quickly. Sometimes it irked her, and sometimes it was exactly what she needed most, even if she couldn’t come out and say it. It hadn’t been the desert that had broken through her ice. Not really. It had been him. She’d been cold before, for so long, and it still felt like his body heat was burning even warmer than the sun above them. She could feel it against her cheek as she pulled in closer to his side, running her fingers up his side and feeling the sharp angles of his jutting ribs. “You’re awfully philosophical, you know. And maybe romantic. In an extremely odd way. I never would have guessed it before.”

His grin returned, leaning to press his nose to hers smugly. “Heh! S’truth!”

She had felt trapped here before, would probably feel trapped here again if she stayed too long…but it was nice, in its own way. It was a place at least worth returning to. How could she be too sad when the sun was shining, the birds were calling, and the sea was lapping gently so close by, and with her strangely charming companion smiling at her like that? Maybe it wasn’t ever going to be her idea of home, but maybe she’d been too hard on it.

Maybe she’d been too hard on a lot of things.

She was distracted by a pair of lips on her jaw and neck, starting to creep downward, and she squirmed as he started to roll on top of her, pressing both hands to his bare chest to keep him at bay. “Jamie?”

“Too much thinkin’! Live in the now! Give your brain a rest, lovey. Lemme help get your mind off your troubles, eh? We got a good thing going here, and I’m gonna enjoy every second of it. And I plan to make you enjoy it too, multiple times, kinda like last night…How bout I wind you up until you’re ready to explode? Lemme show you one of my newest and most favorite specialties…”

“Lewd!” she gasped, even as she leaned her head back to give his lips more access to her throat.

His hand was just starting to slide down her side when both their communicators went off at the same time. Her shoulders slumped a little in disappointment and Junkrat cursed loudly, but moved off her so she could roll upright, struggling to get her hair in order. She still wasn’t used to it being so short, but at least he said he’d liked it this way? Clearing her throat, she activated her comm, seeing the icons of other agents lighting up one after the other. “Zhou Mei-Ling and Jamison Fawkes present.”

Winston’s gruff voice piped up on the other end. “We’ve just had call go out that Talon has made another advance into Oasis. I want following agents; Pharah, McCree, Genji, Mercy, Mei, Junkrat and Roadhog, Symmetra, and Zenyatta to mobilize immediately. You have an hour before the Orca is fueled and stocked, get ready to move. Over.”

Mei groaned audibly as she clicked her affirmative response. “Another desert? I was hoping for something a little more…snowy? I’m going to get another awful sunburn on top of my other sunburns, I just know it.”

Junkrat snorted, strapping his prosthetic into place on the stump of his thigh. “Well, don’t be too hasty about the snow thing, lovey. But ugh, sending us into the middle of posh bot central? S’the only place worse than Numbani. Makes me sick.”

She thought for a moment, then pressed herself to his back and wrapped both arms around his narrow shoulders as he started to pull on his arm. “I guess it beats sitting around here wasting away in bed, or getting attacked by bees?”

He pulled off his sunglasses, his scowl soon replaced by his usual toothy smile as he rested his head against hers. “Now you’re getting the hang of things! Guess I might even be more careful this time, can’t stand the thought of another minute in that fuckin’ hospital ward again. “

“Good,” she leaned to press a kiss to his cheek before pulling herself upright. “I want you to take care of yourself out there. Although it’ll be nice to get back in the field again. I’ve had lots of time to make adjustments to my endothermic blaster, now my icicles are sharper than ever. Time to show those Talon agents what we’re really made of!”

“Oh yeah, those blokes are in for it. You chill ‘em, I’ll kill ‘em, heh, get it? Oh, I’m liking this side of you…After we’re done with all that, might have to get you in one of them fancy-arse Oasis hotel rooms and wind you up, just like I said before.” His lanky body also heaved upward to stand, his height looming over her as he spotted a familiar, similarly giant figure slowly making its way across the field towards them. “Oi, there’s Roadie! Guess I’d better go start double-checking the frags and getting everything ready to move out…” He hesitated, seeing her pause again and look out over the ocean, although he couldn’t see what was in her eyes this time. But when he took her hand, she readily looked back to him. “If you need me out there, I’ll be right beside ya.”

She nodded slowly, and her smile returned. “I know.”

“And if you get pinned down in the field, just give me or Roadie a shout and we’ll be right there. From now on, I’m the only one allowed to pin you down!”

“Ugh, really?” She elbowed him lightly in the arm, and he elbowed her right back. “…You ready?”

Pulling her forward, he let her take the lead into their next mission. “Let’s go!”

Meihem Movie Night (They Watch Mad Max)

“Movie night! Movie night! Oi, Roadie! Where the hell are the clean sheets! I know you said we had some!” Junkrat called, his voice muffled from where he was buried halfway inside a half-broken wardrobe. Both arms moved rapidly in an almost digging motion, throwing out bomb casings, spare traps, scrap metal bits, and other garbage into a growing pile on the floor behind him. A few moments later, and he emerged holding an armful of white cloth that was streaked with black and gray. “You said you were gonna clean them! These ain’t clean!”

The gargantuan junker didn’t look up from his book on the other side of the room, sitting on his special-made bench that was still starting to sag in the middle from the sheer weight of him. He had discarded his usual armor, and wore nothing but a pair of Pachimari! Say Hello! print pajama pants and some slippers that might have been white at some point in distant history. “They don’t stay clean if you put dirty things on top of them.”

“She can’t sleep on these!” Junkrat snapped, unfurling them and inspecting the grease and soot as though it suddenly bothered him, even as his own fingers left dirty prints on what remained of the white cloth. “I’ll go get some clean ones, love. They think I can’t get into that supply closet down the hall, but I know h-”

Mei held up both hands quickly. “It’s fine, honestly. I brought a clean blanket just in case, I can sleep on top of it.” She held up one of her many cozy flannel comforters, this one a dark blue print that she knew would be the easiest one to clean after withstanding a night in bed with Junkrat. Even after showering, the man just attracted grime to the point where she honestly thought of studying him as a scientific anomaly. Her own sheets had testified to that many times over now. “This will be just fine.”

“Sleepin’ on top of it? What if you get cold?” Junkrat looked unsure, scratching at the back of his singed scalp.

“Well…You’ll keep me warm, won’t you?”

A pleased flush warmed his cheeks, his grin widening. “Yeah! Yeah I will!”

“It’s not the first time I’ve slept over here, Jamie, you don’t need to make a fuss every single time. We can always go back to my room again, and I’d hate to put you out or anything, Mr. Roadhog.” She glanced over to the larger junker, who merely turned another page in his book.

“Mm. It’s fine.”

“Naw, you ain’t putting him out. Or me. Just thought I’d really remember the damn sheets this time…Well, if it don’t bother you, just sleep on your blanket and I promise I will keep every little bit of you nice and toasty.” He licked his chops rather lecherously, and she half lidded her eyes at him as he continued. “From your cute lil’ button nose, all the way down to your adorable little toes, and then maybe back up to your-”

“Jamison!” She elbowed him hard in the side before he could finish the thought. “Tài dà shēng le! I’m going to get changed. Jamie, you get the movie queued up. Mr. Roadhog, would you keep him away from the food until we’re all ready?”

Junkrat was already starting to creep towards the table, where two large bags of Chinese take-out (with the closest things she could find to her native cuisine) were steaming merrily away into the air. Roadhog nodded, and then launched out one enormous hand, two fingers that were as thick as Mei’s wrist suddenly pinching onto the top of Junkrat’s ear and pulling him away as the younger junker complained loudly, single foot scraping for hold. “Owowow! I was just going to get a whiff, mates, swear it!”

“Well last time we had to order more because all Roadhog and I had to eat was soy sauce, after you ‘whiffed’ it all with your mouth!” Mei called back, shutting the bathroom door behind her.

She was fairly certain she heard him call something crude about the other ways he was going to use his mouth, but she merely rolled her eyes, navigating the disaster zone that was the junkers’ shared bathroom. It looked like someone, probably Roadhog or one of the cleaning bots, had at least made an effort to do some repairs and tidying up, but there was still a fine layer of soot on every surface, cracked tiles on the floor and walls, Junkrat’s signature smiley face drawn in soap on the mirror, and a hastily patched ceiling where he had been caught making an escape tunnel above the toilet ‘just in case’. Still, even all this was an upgrade compared to the first time she had ventured in here…She shuddered a bit, trying not to think of it as she changed into her pajamas and plucked out her snowflake pin, hair tumbling down around her shoulders. She heard the sounds of a scuffle outside, but after hearing a thump and a few indignant squawks, she was fairly certain who had won.

By the time she padded back out to the main room, the movie was paused on the title screen, and Roadhog was sitting on the ground with his book, his enormous weight pinning the scrawny flailing form of his employer under him. It was amazing that Junkrat hadn’t been completely crushed, but he was still putting up a rather vicious fight, swinging both fists uselessly against Hog’s legs. “Oi! Get off, you giant pig of a drongo! Mei! Mei, darl, gimme a hand here! Do you see what I got to deal with every day?”

Mei shuffled past him, polar bear slippers passing inches away from his seeking arms as she went to the table, counting over dishes and setting up drinks. Satisfied, she nodded to Roadhog a moment later. “All right, it’s still all here. Come and get it. I ordered your favorite, Mr. Roadhog! Baozi dumplings!” She held up one of the bags, bulging from the amount of food meant all for him.

Roadhog huffed inside his mask, groaning as he shifted his immense weight up off the floor, abandoning the rather flattened young man under him still half pressed into the linoleum. He settled down onto a half-broken armchair a moment later, which creaked ominously under him. “Mmm. Thanks.”

Mei nodded, busily setting up the other bag of food and popping the tops off of several bottles of Chinese beers, taking a seat on the sagging couch and leaving Junkrat to peel himself off the floor and stagger towards her. “Jamie, there you are!” she called cheerfully. “I ordered you some char siu barbecue and chow mein…and for me, vegetarian luóhàn zhāi and zongzi!” she said, ignoring the face he was making at the pile of vegetables and greenery that made up her own dish.

“Still not too late to share a proper tucker with me, love,” he said, wrinkling his nose before turning more eagerly on the piles of pork and noodles in his own take-out box. “Come on, come on! There’s a reason they always try to make tofu taste like somethin’ else, ya know. Crispy pork belly, now, that’s a meal. Can’t believe I was missin’ out on all these China dishes before, you lot can make even the arse-ends of the animal taste good! Uh..uh, xièxiè. Hǎochī? Means uh, tasty, right?”

“Hǎochī! That was very good! And also, no thank you, I’ll leave the meat to you two,” she beamed, even though his accent mangled the syllables. She sat watching as Roadhog set out stack upon stack of trays of bao buns, holding two tiny-looking chopsticks between his giant fingertips and lifting the edge of his mask, delicately starting to nibble with his scarred lips, above the mangled flesh of his stubbled chin. She looked away quickly after. It would be rude to stare, and even after all this time, Roadhog was still not keen on anyone seeing his true face.

Maybe one day…

“Oi, Mei. Got a treat for us tonight! It’s a Mad Max!” Junkrat joined her on the couch and covetously pulled his food into his lap, hunching over it like a vulture as he sipped his beer. Roadhog grumbled slightly around a mouthful of dumpling, and Junkrat shot him a glare before continuing. “We haven’t watched it that many times, Roadie. And it’s a real good one.”

“Is it a new one?”

“Nah, one of the ones in the middle. It’s called Fury Road!” His eyes went dreamy. “One of the best ones. It’s got everything a man could want. Or, uh, a lady. It’s got everything anyone could want, I mean. Explosions, cars, fire, red storms, sexy ladies, more explosions, a guitar what shoots fire, cars, explosions, war boys, heroics, a guy who’s not all there in the head just like me but he’s still mostly good kinda, explosions…”

Mei looked confused, chewing on a mouthful of sauce and broccoli and speaking around it. She could afford to be at least a little more rude around the junkers without them minding…or usually even noticing. “Mmf? Izzat shequel to Thunder Dome?”

“Nah, nah, it’s like, I dunno, it’s all Mad Max but it’s not the same guy and it’s the same place but things are different.”

“What?”

“You’ll see! You’re gonna love it!” He crowed, and slammed the play button with one calloused thumb.

Roadhog started in on his fourth tray of dumplings, and Mei leaned up against Junkrat’s side as they ate, the screen going dark as a guttural voice began to narrate an all-too-familiar tale to their rapt junker audience.

“My name is Max. My world is fire…And blood…”

***

The credits rolled.

Roadhog was sitting in his comfy chair with his hands folded over his enormous belly, snoring softly inside his mask from where he had fallen asleep halfway through, abandoned empty trays scattered around his feet. Mei wondered to herself how he slept through a movie that was basically one action-packed and explosion-filled car chase, but she figured that he and Junkrat must have watched it a hundred times over, and he had probably lived and slept through worse.

Mei lay wrapped in her blanket, head resting on Junkrat’s thigh, atop the striped boxers she’d insisted he start wearing at night. His flesh hand toyed idly with her hair, combing his fingers through the length of it as he asked aloud, “Well? What did ya think? Great movie, ain’t it!”

“I liked it. And I can definitely see why you like it. You know, it’s pretty impressive considering how old it is.”

“Right? It’s sort of like if the whole world ended, not just Oz. So, whaddaya think, I’m just like Max, ain’t I?” He fumbled with a lock of her hair, idly trying to figure out how to braid it. “Just like him.”

She kept her head still, though her eyes rolled up behind her glasses to try and see him, the edges of his features blurred without her lenses. “You’re not Max.”

“Oi!”

“You know who’s Max? 76. The brooding soldier sort with the haunted past, and he mostly speaks in stern grunts?”

“…You know what, Snowflake, I’ll give you that one.”

“You’re more like Nux,” she said, sitting up. “…It was Nux, right? The nice war boy?”

“Yeah! Arright, Nux is a good sort. Still think I’m like Max, though. Ya know, I used to joke around and call Roadie, Imporkan Joe. But he said he found it ‘distasteful’, whatever that means. What about you, you wanna be my ferocious truck-revvin’ Furiosa?”

Mei smiled a little, starting to clear away the bottles and plates of bones and food scraps. “Oh, I’m not really the Furiosa sort.”

“You can be a wife, then.”

“So I’m one of the wives? Doesn’t that mean I belong to Imporkan Joe? Did the wives have names? I can’t remember.”

“Of course they did! And you don’t belong to him, you can belong with me, that’s like the whole point.” He wrapped both arms around her waist, abruptly pulling her back into his lap and bringing his sharp teeth to nibble at her neck. “You can be Toast, she’s the smart one. Or Capable, she’s the brave one, and she’s in love with me. I mean, Nux.”

“They have very strange names. Although I guess the junkers do too. How did you even choose Junkrat?”

“Didn’t choose it per se, just sort of happens. You’d get a name too, eventually. Like…Mei the Mag, Mistress She-Panda, Frigi-vicious, or IceTits…”

“Those are horrible!”

“Don’t put me on the damn spot then, darl! I’m just sayin’, names happen. Take it from your favorite rat.” He soothed her with several kisses to the top of her head, even as she squirmed in protest. “Aw come on, we don’t have to decide on a name now, you can still be my sexy battle wife on the Fury Road…Kinda liking this idea more and more, actually. Say it with me, Mei. Sexy battle wife.”

“Y-you spout the most outlandish things, I swear,” she murmured, looking away to hide the redness of her cheeks. “Although…”

He brightened, smushing his cheek against hers. “Although?”

“This might be the beer talking but I have a really silly idea and…Just go to your bedroom and I’ll see you in a minute?”

Junkrat’s eyes widened, and he was so eager he almost threw her right off his lap in his excitement, half tumbling off the couch as his peg creaked in protest. “Bedroom! Right, yeah! Do I uh, do I need to get anything ready, or…?”

“No, no, just…go in there and close your eyes, and I’ll be in before this idea has the chance to sound even sillier than it is,” she said, waving him off.

The junker scrambled into his cramped sleeping quarters, a tiny side room from their main living area, with little more than his bed and an overflowing dresser full of his personal hoard. Hopping up onto the squeaking mattress, he waited. He heard the bathroom door open and shut again, over the sound of Hog’s snoring, and clamped both hands over his face when he heard a soft knock at his door. “All right, love! I’m not even peekin’, not even a little! Come on in!”

He heard it creak open and shut behind her, before her voice piped up sheepishly, “Okay. Honestly, I just thought it might be fun, but now it seems a little…Well, you can look now.”

He pried apart two fingers, one eye peeking through. Mei stood looking a bit embarrassed, wearing nothing more than the dirty off-white sheets from before, wrapped around her in a poor attempt to emulate the wispy gowns and cloth strips from the wives of the movie. It had ended up as more of a crude toga of sorts, and she had to keep one arm wrapped around her chest where the cloth kept falling away, and she laughed as she hiked the skirt back up around her hips.

“I was just playing around,” she said, “Honestly, I don’t see how anyone could fight while wearing stuff li-”

Junkrat’s arms were suddenly around her, and she found herself being dragged down onto the bed, dirty sheets and all. His dilated pupils stared up at her, rimmed with vivid yellow as he started to wrestle her down onto the mattress as she fought to keep her wraps in place, his toothy jaws already starting to kiss and bite hungrily at her exposed skin. “Nope!” he said, throwing one leg up to pin her hips into place, her ragged sheet-toga pulled up along with it. “Nope, you come in here dressed like one of my favorite things, you’re committed! Movie gets my blood pumpin’ already, and now you’re my sexy battle wife!”

She tried to stifle a laugh, and it came out as a rather nasal little squeal as his fingertips tickles her bare ribs. “Jamison, āi yā! It was just a joke!”

“No jokin’ now, love. This is serious as the grave,” he said, even as his maniac grin spread across his face. “Brace your tits for impact. Now I’m gonna take you for a real ride on the Fury Road!”

***

Roadhog awoke, yet again, to the muffled sound of squeaking springs and moaning behind the door. Grumbling at the inconvenience, he shuffled a slippered foot amongst the discarded boxes to see if perhaps he’d left a dumpling behind.

He hadn’t.

Rubbing at his masked face wearily as he heard Junkrat crowing again about what a lovely day it was, in the middle of the damn night, he groped blindly for the remote. With a few clicks, the movie skipped back to the menu and restarted itself, as the narration started about fire and blood once more. He turned the volume up as the soothing sounds of explosions and bloodshed returned, drowning out the noises he knew were still happening in the next room.

Folding his hands back across his belly, he bowed his masked head and fell back asleep.

It took him a while to get used to the rain

Like Canned Peaches- (NSFW Meihem)

“Brrrr! I get cold just lookin’ at ya!”

He’d waited hopefully for a response to his attempt at casual conversation, brows lifted as he stared intently at the irritated woman in the fluffy parka who was clearly doing her best not to pay any attention to him. He’d even offered his most winning smile, the kind with slightly less teeth, before she fully turned towards him and sternly pushed her glasses up with one gloved finger. Her adorable little lips had pursed as she lifted her nose in the air and finally, finally spoke directly to him.

“Then you should look somewhere else!”

That had been their first real interaction. Mei turned him down flat.

But then again, that had hardly been the first time Junkrat had been turned down flat by the object of his attentions. In fact, he was turned down flat most of the time, and knew the only solution was to keep trying. He’d made several attempts after that one, each just as unsuccessful as the last, and took increasingly desperate measures to make her look his way, maybe give him another irked scowl, or fling more of her mild insults at him. The accusations of being a horrible, no-good bully didn’t really bother him. He’d been called much worse than that over the years, with much more colorful junker vernacular. But he couldn’t help but notice that he was the only one in the entire group to earn that particular brand of ire. So, he figured that in his own strange way, he must have been special to her. And he liked that idea very much, being special to her.

She was everything unknown to him; she was quiet where he was loud, she was soft and curvy where he was gaunt skin and bones, she used ice just as he used fire, and she was softspoken and polite where he was raucous and blunt. She had little apple-cheeks that dimpled when she smiled, even if it was never at him, and her little giggles sounded like tinkling bells that could grab his attention even through the constant ringing in both his ears. She even smelled nice, from what he’d been able to whiff of her before her giant Russian brick shithouse of a friend had grabbed his head and thrown him in the opposite direction, like vanilla extract that came in those little bottles that smelled wonderful but didn’t taste so wonderful, or flowers he didn’t know the name of.

He’d never really seen a woman like her in person before. The women in the Outback were much like the men of the Outback; their brains just as baked as their half-starved bodies, with vicious demeanors, loud voices, leathery tits, and cunts that felt like being in the inside of a baseball glove. The sheilas on the covers of the magazines (at least the human ones, any pictures of omnic women were promptly destroyed with prejudice) were always almost as scrawny as the women in the Outback, always had their eyes closed or looked vacantly confused, and usually were half covered with text about the ten most beneficial yogurts or other things that women seemed to worry about in the outside world. Occasionally he’d get his grimy claws on the good kind of magazine, the ones where they arched their backs and got their tits out and bit their fingers and looked at him real seductive-like, but he usually spent more time trying peel the sticky pages apart without ripping the good bits, and trying not to imagine the previous owner as he did so.

And then there was Mei, who was different from everyone in the best possible way he could think of, and he wished she didn’t hate him so much.

***

It was a little after lunchtime, and most of Overwatch’s agents had eaten and left by now, leaving only a handful of stragglers and latecomers. Junkrat was normally the type to inhale his food within seconds and then spend the rest of his time trying to irritate the more leisurely Roadhog, but for once he left his bodyguard to eat his pasta in relative peace. Instead he was trying to subtly peek around his partner’s wide belly, staring at where Mei and Tracer were lingering at their table, chatting and laughing and not taking any notice of him. He rocked back and forth in his seat as the metal tip of his pegleg tapped against the floor, nervous energy left without an outlet except restless squirming. The back of Tracer’s spiky-haired head was blocking his view of Mei, and he wished he’d brought along a few of his concussion mines, maybe just to toss one under their table and blow Tracer up and off to the side without hurting her too bad, they probably wouldn’t get too mad if she wasn’t hurt much.

“Shut up,” Roadhog said suddenly, and Junkrat became aware that he was making a distressed whining noise in his throat.

“Didn’t say anything!” he snapped in reply, leaning over to try and peek at the ladies’ table again. “Can’t see anything, either. Ya think I should go over there, maybe? Introduce myself?”

“They know who you are,” Roadhog said, lifting the bottom of his mask to take a mouthful of salad.

“To just give ‘em a charming how do ya do, then! Nothing wrong with a friendly hello, yeah? Just say hi, maybe see what she’s wearing. Ugh, still can’t see, what do you think she’s wearing?”

Roadhog shrugged. “Probably the same thing she’s always wearing.”

“Yeah! Yeah she probably is! Probably those real tight stretchy leggin’s, and that blue tank with the- Oi, mate, what’s the top part of the tits again?”

“Cleavage.”

“Yeah, with the cleavage! Real ace cleavage, too. Some real High Distinction cleavage, top scores, best in the biz…Bet she already knows, though. She’s real smart, Roadie. Got degrees in weather or some shit, proper schoolin’ and everything, bet she duxed everything she’s ever done. You know what that means?”

“What.”

“It means we got a lot to talk about! She’s smart, I’m smart…maybe not book-schoolin’ smart, arroight, but I can teach her a thing or two about a thing or two! Wait! Wait, shuttup, Hog, they’re doin’ something!”

Tracer collected her empty plate, laughed at something hilarious that Mei must have said before giving the other woman a one-armed hug, and then blinked off into the kitchens in a flash of blue. That left a full view of Mei, who was indeed wearing Junkrat’s favorite type of blue top with the cleavage, hurrying to finish the remainder of her meal alone.

“Now’s my chance! How do I look?” He smoothed back the charred remnants of his hair, crunching slightly under his fingertips, before cupping his palm and breathing into it several times. “How do I smell?”

“Hmm. Not good.”

“Fuck you, Roadie! Er, actually…You got a minty?” He patted his own pockets, as though breath mints might have mysteriously appeared when he wasn’t looking.

“No.”

“What do I pay you for!? She’s not going to want kisses from yours truly if I still got rat mouth! Fuck, I think she just looked at me!…Okay…Okay, no, she was looking at the drink machine. That’s a good sign, right? This is my chance, fortune favors the bold. I’m gonna go say a real nice hello.”

Hog didn’t bother looking up. “Okay.”

Junkrat puffed out his scrawny chest resolutely, throwing both gangly leg and peg out the side of the booth before standing, sauntering as suavely as possible towards the end table where the little climatologist was already eying him warily above her glasses. He plastered on his usual smile, lofting his brows in what he hoped looked friendly instead of his usual deranged menace, and came to a stop beside her. “So! G’day, Mei! Couldn’t help but notice you was…uh…eatin’.”

Mei’s stony expression remained unchanged, though she managed a gruff “Yes.”

Junkrat swallowed, eyes darting. “Yeah, me too! Me, I love eatin’. It’s uh, near the top of my list of favorite things t’do, eatin’. Had some kinda porkchop thingy, and some beans. You, uh…you like...beans? Heh! Yeah, dumb question, right? Who don’t like beans? Anyways, if you ain’t had dessert yet, I could get you one of them lil’ cakes to share if you want, the chocolate ones ar-” He went to place one arm on her table and lean towards her, but his weight threw off the balance from its center stand, and the whole table suddenly tilted dangerously to one side, causing Junkrat to stumble as he hurried to steady it. Mei’s drink toppled to one side with a clank and splashed all over her front, causing her to shriek and jolt back in her seat.

“Oh fuck! Fuck, sorry! Sorry! Fuck me, I’m sorry!” He grabbed a fistful of napkins from the dispenser and frantically began to try and pat down her soaked chest and face, but she brusquely slapped his hands away, lifting from her chair. Junkrat panicked. “It was an accident, swear it. Mei, wait!”

She smacked his hand away as he reached towards her again, her jaw set and her lower lip out in a sort of puffy anger. “That’s Miss Zhou to you, and get your hands off of me! You’ve caused enough trouble! You are always causing trouble!”

“W-well I don’t think that’s entirely fair, love!” he sputtered. “I mean, Miss Zhou. S’just a bit of water. Hey, water right under the bridge, eh?”

She scowled all the harder at him, and even her scowl was adorable. “You probably did it on purpose!”

Junkrat guffawed, placing an affronted hand to his chest. “I never! I’d never mean to spill water on your…uh, ya know.” He couldn’t help it. His eyes darted downward, down to where the wet blue fabric was clinging all the harder to her bosom, slick and wet and outlining the fabric of her bra and each breast beneath.

“Zhè hái liǎo dé!” She snapped, covering herself with one arm and grabbing the wet wad of napkins from the table, flinging them in his face before storming off towards the kitchens.

Junkrat stood stunned for a moment, the soaking wet paper sliding sickeningly down his eyes and nose before dripping with an audible plop onto the floor. Wiping the moisture from his face, he turned to glare with all the ferocity he could muster at the handful of other Overwatch agents, who had watched the whole thing transpire. They looked away and conversation slowly returned, as the defeated junker skulked back towards his seat, slumping down into it.

“How did it go?” Roadhog asked mildly, as though he hadn’t witnessed it happening a few feet away just moments ago.

“…Still workin’ on it, mate. Gotta think of a better opening line. Maybe she doesn’t like beans as much as I thought.”

His partner merely sighed in that long-suffering huffing way inside his mask, the kind where Junkrat could tell he was secondhand frustrated but not truly interested enough to get involved. Roadhog had been hired as his standover man, after all, not his caretaker. Unless his employer was surrounded by people who wanted to kill him, which happened quite a lot, Hog preferred to stay out of his business and especially his nonexistent love life. Occasionally Hog would offer a rag or a pat on the back all those times that Junkrat had drinks thrown into his face, but he seemed to be mooning especially hard over the little Chinese woman for some reason, and Hog could tell that this one was going to lead to trouble. The younger junker already had that far-away look in his eyes, boot tapping away nervously under the table.

“What are you going to do?”

“I dunno. Probably gonna go have a wank,” Junkrat responded casually.

Roadhog shrugged and shoved another forkful of tortellini into his jaws, clearly uncaring of his employer’s ‘exploits’ and more intent on his meal.

The same could not be said of the silky-haired archer, who just happened to be passing by at that exact moment. Never one to pass up an opportunity to insult one of those he deemed beneath him, which was nearly everybody, he paused in mid-stride and curled his lip up on one side as he regarded Junkrat with disdain.

“Disgusting,” he said, voice dripping with revulsion.

Junkrat bristled at that, rising up to his full towering height as he exited the booth, staring the archer down. “Oi! Hamzo! Yeah, whatever your name is! Say it to my face!”

“I did,” Hanzo replied curtly, and began to walk away.

Junkrat was slightly dumbfounded, but yelled after him anyway. “Yeah!? Well! Ain’t nothing wrong with it, it’s all natural! Maybe you should look into it, might help you with that shit attitude! Yeah, probably jealous of me! Jealous, cause I get to have both my tits out at once! Right here!” He pounded both fists to his scrawny chest before peeking behind him to see if Mei had been there to be impressed by his verbal thrashing of the archer, but she was nowhere in sight.

Shoving both hands into his pockets and bending back down into his usual slouch, the scorned junker turned and skulked back down the halls. He had business to attend to, after all.

***

His trailer was a ‘safe’ distance away from the other areas of the Overwatch base, after he had blown up several laboratories and Winston had nearly had a mutiny on his hands when Symmetra and Torbjorn’s labs were blown up with them. Eventually they’d brought in the trailer for him, and simply left it out in the far yards away from everyone else. And that suited Junkrat just fine. The dorms were too square and sterile and comfortable and they had that creepy computer lady always watching them, and he’d never liked having neighbors. Neighbors usually stole your shit or tried to off you, eventually. Nobody ever visited him out here except Hog, who lived in the converted storage garage next door. Everyone on base had quickly learned to avoid the whole junker territory. Within a week the trailer was in a state that should have left it condemned; there were scorch marks everywhere, visible and invisible traps along the perimeter, a hoard of trash and junk parts piled high inside the barbed wire fences, and ‘KEEP OUT I MEAN IT MATE’ signs that Junkrat had lovingly painted himself.

The weather was blisteringly hot, and Junkrat liked it. He threw open the screen door hanging askew in his entrance, deftly stepped over the trap under the welcome rug, and pushed his way past the piles of papers, bombs, garbage, and strange little projects he’d forgotten along the way. He pulled himself onto his little shelf of a sleeping area, though his body was too tall to ever stretch out on it fully, squirming onto his side and struggling briefly to remove his leg and arm. Had to get comfortable for something like this, after all. The mechanical parts clunked loudly onto the floors beside him as he sprawled onto his back, his single foot hanging off the edge of the hard mattress.

He deftly undid his belt one-handed, unzipping and impatiently shuffling his shorts down from his bony hips. He’d expected himself to be half-hard already, as he usually was in any interaction with Mei whatsoever, but his donger had apparently been a little more embarrassed by the situation than his brains, and he was quite flaccid. Well, time to change that up.

Reaching under the wad of coats and old clothes he used as a pillow, he retrieved a nearly empty tube, setting the cap between his teeth as he twisted it open with his single hand before using his tongue to spin it around, biting the end to force out an amount of the gel into his palm before spitting it aside to deal with later. He’d gotten good at using his mouth after losing his arm, although trying to explain this to the ladies didn’t always work in the way he hoped. Well, maybe one day if they were both lucky, Mei would get to know all the talented things his mouth was good at.

He felt his cock twitch a little promisingly at that thought as he reached down, pulling the base into his hand and starting to smear the lube over himself before starting to coax himself to real hardness, pressing the broad flat of his thumb into the top, running his long fingers along the sensitive underside from base to tip. He felt warm and sticky and slowly relaxed as his length grew and stiffened under his touch, spreading his legs a little more in the cramped space as he shoved the stump of his arm beneath his head, staring blankly at the dirty ceiling a few inches away as he gently worked himself.

He’d never bring Mei to a place like this, but maybe one day after they’d kissed and made up proper, she’d invite him into her room, he decided. She’d be wearing that blue tank top of hers and…oh yeah, just thinking of that peek of cleavage made him harder, grunting a little as he quickened his touch…yeah, those tight leggings of hers too. But he saw her in those a lot and wanted more. So she’d strip them off quickly, because she’d want him just as badly as he wanted her. She wore a sensible bra, he’d found that out by accident, and probably had panties to match. Yeah, little cotton numbers, no lace…maybe a little bow or two? Something subtle and cute, hugging those beautiful broad hips of hers, little strips of color on her curves. And she’d look at him but smile and blush a little…she’d want him.

His hand stroked lazily up and down, adding a little twist on the head of his cock and he was starting to pant and groan above the wet shuffling noises of the lube inside his fist. “Yeah…yeah, that’s good…”

He’d kiss her first. Not just jump on her like a starving dingo, like he normally did. Mei was too good for that, worth more than that to him. No, he’d kiss her proper, maybe after practicing on the back of his hand first just to make sure it’d be real good for her. Not too much tongue (he always used too much tongue), or at least not at first. Would it be awkward, maybe? She barely stood up to the height of his ribs, but that would be fine. He’d lean over her, maybe help pick her up on her little tippy-toes. He’d kiss her a lot, until she didn’t have any breath left, and she’d make sweet little noises for him as he’d hold her chin up towards him and kiss her again.

But then, he wanted to get his arms around that soft little body, wrap them around her and hold her first, like real romance sorts of things. Okay, maybe he’d grope her ass a bit too, get two nice handfuls of that, but at that point she’d be wanting him to just as bad. She’d pull down the straps of her bra, undo those fucking awful hard-to-not-break clasps on the back, and it’d drop away and reveal those magnificent, glorious tits of hers. Fuck, they’d probably even bounce a little once freed…big, creamy white, milky, round, amazing tits…

He grunted, speeding his wrist up a little as his hand worked more frantically around his cock, tightening and squeezing.

He wanted his hands on them, even the mechanical one that couldn’t feel anything beyond basic pressure. His flesh hand, though, against her flesh, he wanted that most of all. They’d be full and soft, so soft and plush and pliable beneath his fingers, kneading them steadily. They’d have weight to them, each one charmingly crowned by peaked, large puffy pink nipples, the kind he wanted to suck on. The blurry pictures in his mind solidified a little more as he imagined her, her face flush and her arms around his shoulders as he’d urge her back towards her bed, half kneeling over her as he latched his lips onto one of the little velvety nubs. He’d suckle at her almost hungrily, rolling his face to one and then the other, maybe bury his face between them and be enveloped by softness. Maybe…Maybe she’d let him nibble at them just a little? Would it make her moan? Yeah, she’d like it, if he was careful with his teeth. Just a little threat of a pinch with his pointed canines before he’d soothe her by sucking them again. And he’d probably be content to drown himself in her bosom forever, but she’d want more, and he’d give it to her.

His back arched and his head moved back against his makeshift pillow, eyes closed and chin pointed towards the ceiling as he continued jerking himself to the very thought. It was so hot inside his trailer, and his perspiration felt cloying and sticky against every inch of exposed skin, attracting little molecules of gasoline and aerosol and other poisonous things that slid and oozed down his temples and arms in every drop of sweat. The air was thick with it, almost radioactive. It felt absolutely perfect.

She’d whisper things to him. Not mean things like she usually did, either, but nice things. Maybe in Chinese (He should learn some Chinese, that would impress her) about how much she wanted him right now. It was easier to imagine them in Chinese gibberish. She’d never said a kind word to him otherwise. But that was fine for now, those Chinese sweet nothings were all he needed.

He’d lay her down, make sure she was all comfortable and whatnot on her blankets before spreading her legs for her, make sure she had lots of those fluffy pillows under her…she seemed like the type who would have lots of pillows, a real lady sort. He liked that idea more than he thought he would, really…the sight of her propped up amongst all that lace and silk and proper lady shit, with her legs spread just for him in the most un-proper lady way. She’d look real soft and pink and open for him, and he wouldn’t hesitate even a moment before he’d dive his head down between those milky white thighs. He’d wrap his arms around each thigh, but even his strength wouldn’t be able to stop her from squeezing him between them, until he couldn’t hear anything but the muffled sounds of her gasps and the blood rushing in his ears. He knew how to use his mouth and tongue, he’d show her everything he knew.

And he’d eat her up…

The thought made his body jolt off the mattress in a way that almost surprised even him, as though he was trying to drive himself into his fist all the harder. He was moaning loudly, hips moving in time with his hand as he writhed. His tongue lolled from his mouth almost as if he could taste her already, slavering as a rivulet of warm saliva oozed from one corner of his mouth and down his pointed chin.

He already knew in his mind’s eye exactly what she’d taste like, too. He thought at first that maybe she’d taste like ice cream, like the treats he and Roadie would steal at the beach. He’d sure lick her like a creamsicle, he would. Then he thought maybe she’d taste like peppermints, spicy and cool on the inside just as much as her outside. And then, for maybe just a second or two, he thought she’d taste like pancakes? He wasn’t sure where that one had come from, maybe he was just still hungry. But no. After a moment he knew…She’d taste like canned peaches, like the best damn thing he’d ever eaten in his entire life.

He had been a younger rat then, though he couldn’t recall how old. He remembered that he had been smaller and scrawnier then, but mostly he just remembered the hunger. There had been a shortage of food everywhere, and even his favorite old scrounging grounds and garbage dumps had yielded almost nothing. He had grown skinnier and weaker, and when he had finally been chased out of town for trying to steal from the wrong person, he wandered in circles for days out in the desert, alone save for the vultures that followed his every move. His stomach had shrunk, then swelled with the bloat of starvation, then shrunk again. He didn’t have enough water to waste crying and his mouth tasted like ash and dust, staggering about on bone-skinny legs as he sought quietly for a sheltered place to die.

He had found a burnt-out abandoned ute somewhere amongst the rocks and sand, and hit paydirt when he searched and found that someone else had been using it as a supply drop. There, tucked in a satchel under one of the seats, was a collection of food fit for a king. He had wrestled one of the cans open with nothing but his bare hand and a nearby rock, his stomach growling and snarling in excitement the whole time. When he finally managed to dent the lid enough to twist it open, there they were…canned peaches. He had tilted his head back and drank deeply, his senses flooded with an overwhelming, almost cloyingly sugary sweetness as the syrup poured thickly into his open mouth. The bits of bright yellow-orange fruit were slippery and wet and luscious against his tongue, a better treasure than anything he’d found in that ruined old omnium. He hadn’t bothered chewing or savoring, just let them slide down his throat and into the cavern of his belly, where their sweetness pooled at the empty bottom. It had been an almost otherworldly experience, eating those canned peaches. It had been, and remained, far and away the best thing he’d ever eaten.

That’s what she would taste like, he decided. Like eating those canned peaches all over again.

He’d eat her until he was full. Until his lips and chin were wet and shining from peachy juice, and she’d have come for him at least twice. But Jamie, she’d whisper, I’m not full yet, I’m not done. And then she’d go back to Chinese again because Junkrat still couldn’t imagine her voice being nice otherwise, but he’d know what she meant. She’d want him to fuck her proper.

His eyes rolled back into his head, singed lashes fluttering helplessly. He tightened his fist, thrust his hips up into it until the friction almost burned. He was a vocal bloke, he knew, and usually by this stage the entire Outback knew what he was doing. But the roos and lizards never gave a fuck and neither did he, moaning and grunting and hissing through his bared teeth, and sometimes whispering little encouragements to himself, because what was wrong with a little encouragement during any kind of job, especially a handjob?

In his mind, anyway, he was speaking to Mei. “Nnnh! Gghh…good girl, you’re my good girl…Y-yeah, nnhh, there we go…”

Her cunt would already be soaking wet and ready for him, easing her back into the mattress to kiss her again before mounting her. He’d slide into her, smooth as silk, and she’d be soft and hot on the inside like nothing he’d felt before. Better than any fist or cunt or arse he’d been in, for sure, because it was hers. He tried to imagine her cute little face, the expressions she’d wear as he fucked her, looking up at him with those big dark eyes, with her bangs in her face and her bun coming undone against her pillows. Noises, too, she’d squeak and gasp and make sweet sounds all for him. And call his name a bit too, he liked that. She’d welcome him on every thrust forward, so he could bury himself deep again and again until he was lost. He wanted all that.

But mostly he wanted whatever it was within her, which wasn’t heat but was somehow hotter than any flame and more all-encompassing than any napalm he’d ever made, that thing that burned inside all that ice of hers, something he didn’t have a word for. But he fucking wanted it as much as he wanted any treasure, maybe more. And he wanted her to want him back, combine his fire and her ice, his destruction and her preservation, until they burned together in whatever beautiful and hellish storm such a combination would create. Something like an explosion, but nothing he could do without her.

He needed it, he needed more heat, more friction. His own hand didn’t feel like it would be enough as he writhed atop the filthy trailer mattress. Sparks tingled under his skin and he knew he was reaching his edge. He panted and grunted helplessly, speeding his strokes over his aching cock. He wanted Mei under him, needed something under him. He twisted in the confined little space and threw himself onto his belly, balling up his pillows and mounds of clothes into a pitiful lump and pulling himself atop it, humping desperately forward with quick jabbing motions of his hips into his slick fist. Sweat rolled down his body, breath a painful-sounding rasp and his eyes open but unseeing.

She’d tighten around him, squeezing and pulsing, crying his name. Their bodies would burn together and she’d open her eyes and kiss him, her lips tasting like those canned peaches, and she’d say that she lov-

He almost screamed when he came, coming utterly undone as he pushed forward a final time. He felt it spurting hot and wet into his hand, dribbling through his fingers as he groaned and fell onto his back once more. He shivered, cum still leaking up onto his belly, pooling in all the ridges of his gaunt abdomen. The images of Mei’s smile were already fading even as he tried to keep hold of them, drifting away like little embers on the wind, replaced with a calming emptiness as he rested and tried to catch his breath.

“Blech. Well, that’s a clean-up.” Eventually he was himself again, making a face at his mess-covered hand and carelessly smearing it onto some article of clothing (An apron? Why did he even have an apron?) on his bed nearby, grabbing a dirty pillowcase and wiping his stomach free of stickiness as well. He felt a lot better now, self-satisfied and lazing about in the stifling atmosphere of his trailer.

***

He must have been so relaxed that he’d fallen asleep, because he found himself waking up when there was a sudden rapid knocking at his door. The sun had almost gone down and he grumbled as the buzzing in his head returned, groping with one lanky arm until it found the string dangling from the ceiling, activating the one sputtering light bulb above his workbench. Rolling off his bed and hopping towards the entry, he appeared one-legged, one-armed, and totally naked as he swung open the screen.

“Yeah?”

There was a high-pitched shriek as Mei staggered back, face burning red and covering her eyes. “MR. FAWKES!”

Junkrat shrieked as well, trying to cover himself with one working hand and one nonexistent one, weight thrown off as his leg went out from under him, the screen door crashing shut as there was a heavy fall and a clatter of garbage within. A moment later the door swung open again, the junker frantically buttoning his shorts and his peg leg attached backwards. “Mei! I mean, Miss Zhou! I uh, I just didn’t expect anybody comin’ my way this evening. Er, what can I do for ya?”

She peeled a finger away from her glasses, making sure it was safe before straightening politely and giving a little cough. “I’m here to invite you to a little party we’re having next week, and just trying to plan how many we’ll have.”

Junkrat stared at her for a moment. “Pull the other one!” He frowned, gaze turning suspicious and wiggling his jaw to one side. “What’s that about?”

She looked away, glancing over the piles of scrap and burnt-out oil barrels around her unhappily. “Well, it wasn’t my idea! Zarya wanted to invite Mr. Roadhog, but he said he wouldn’t go without you…I think. I think that’s what he meant. He doesn’t say very much.”

“Well…uh.” He awkwardly leaned to adjust his leg, turning it on backwards and clamping it back into place. “I’m invited? Yeah! Sure! Sure, you’re going? Yeah, might as well make an appearance, right? And look, real sorry for the water thing earlier, honestly didn’t mean to-”

Now it was her turn to look sheepish, though at least she finally looked at him with something other than disdain. “Oh! No, no, it’s fine. I actually wanted to apologize for that. It was an accident and I lost my temper, I’m sorry I yelled. And threw wet napkins at your face. And you can still call me Mei.”

Something like hope bloomed in his ribcage, expression brightening as he leaned on the doorway. “It’s fine! It’s all fine, darl. Like I said, water under the bridge. Or sand, if ya got that, wasn’t a lot of water back in Oz. Point is, it’s all fine, it’s all great.”

She smiled like she wasn’t really sure about his joke, but she still smiled. “Oh, okay. Well, I’ll go tell Roadhog and Zarya that you’ll be joining us. I’ll, um…I’ll see you around, Mr. Fawkes? I’d better go. Oh, I almost forgot to ask, was there anything you wanted us to buy for drinks?”

He looked her up and down, licking his suddenly dry lips. “Yeah, Mei, love…You got anything that tastes like peaches?”

Just a little idea for my fanfic, The A-Mei-Zing Outback Adventure.

http://archiveofourown.org/works/8457571/chapters/19376416