Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I want you to cry, cry for me

Just like how I cried, cry for me

Ajay Che furiously swiped tears from the apples of her cheeks. They welled up with heat and weight, tumbling from her tear ducts in an irregular sputter. She pressed her palms against her eyes to stop the incessant streams, but that only caused a wicked stinging sensation from the sweat and grime of a long match.

“Idiot,” she snapped, although it wasn’t clear whether she was insulting herself or the source of her embarrassing outburst:

Octavio Silva.

The bastard had been on her team that morning. First to jump from the dropship, he landed their squad in the center of a battle with no loot in sight. First to fall, his respawn banner expired when Lifeline was only a couple meters away.

Ajay had sprinted through an entire city under fire, just trying to get to him in time. All for nothing.

If it weren’t for the cold barrel of a gun nudging her temple, she might’ve burst into tears right then and there. She’d have to thank Wraith for that quick death later.

But that wasn't really the problem. The disastrous match wasn’t Ajay’s worst loss and it definitely wasn’t the most reckless match she’d seen Octane run through. No, the tears that fell now had been building up for a long time. Probably from the moment her childhood friend was announced to be the Apex Games’ new contender.

Ajay had a plan back then: Act professional, ignore their past. Treat Octane like any other legend. No mercy as an enemy, no favoritism as an ally.
It was easy at first. They had grown into such different people and hadn’t spoken in years. Even after many seasons and a few wins together, their paths would cross only briefly.

Then the Apex Games moved to Olympus.

It was just too much now. The natural tension of any match, the frustration of a rocky start, the sound of your squad begging for healing as they bleed out, the helplessness of being stuck with a teammate who doesn’t have your back. Not to mention the sting when that teammate has never had your back, whether you were kids being chased by security guards or coworkers in a blood sport.

And there lies the cherry on top, the thing that broke her that day: Lifeline’s bitter sweet memories of Olympus butting heads with Octane’s loud recollections of his own. Of the childhood they shared and the events they grew to interpret so differently.

Ajay splashed some cold water in her face, slapped her cheeks, and blew out a big gust of air. Tears didn’t make her weak, she knew that. Her compassion was her most reliable strength. But when it came to Octane, her feelings felt like soiled rations. Waste of energy, waste of sympathy.

“Rough match,” Ajay nearly jumped at the low voice which came from the stalls behind her. She had assumed they were empty when she barged in.

“What makes ya say that?” she turned towards Wraith, “with how quick ya wiped me out, I was sure yuh’d take the win.”

“Nah, Octane finished the rest of my squad before you showed up. A win with those odds only comes once in a season,” The smaller woman said, a rueful smirk on her face.

Lifeline made room for her at the sinks, unsure of how to respond now that Octane was brought back to the forefront of her mind.

“He gave you hell today,” Wraith said then, her serious tone accompanied by a questioning lilt that Ajay recognized as an invitation to vent. The inter-dimensional skirmisher was far more supportive and intuitive than anybody would’ve guessed back in season 1.

“He makes me- He’s just such a- a-” Ajay couldn’t find the right word so she settled for a high pitched groan, her hands miming the action of wringing his neck. She repeated the events of the match to Wraith, letting her friend guide her back into the bar where they ordered a round of tequila shots.

“It’s been like this for so long, Renee. I know he’ll never change. I know how to adjust my strategy if we gotta team up. But he still catches me off guard and I still end up feelin’ like shit,” Ajay huffed, “The tears are the worst part. So damn humiliatin’ !”

Wraith rolled her eyes, “I’m sure it doesn’t help that he never cries. He’s only got two emotions: ego and boredom,”

Ajay shook her head, grimacing as a shot went down less smooth than she would like. “Four! Ya forgot desire and gratification,”

“Doesn’t count if he feels it for less than a minute at a time.”

“Hah! Ya got me there.”

Renee threw back another shot, glancing towards the front door as it opened. She was always on alert, no matter what beverage or toxic gas was clouding her system. “Speak of the devil,” she sighed.

“Yo Che! How’d you get outta the respawn chamber before me?”

Octavio Silva waved from the doorway and made a beeline for their booth, nestled far into the back of the bar’s upper floor. His speed and attitude showed no sign that he'd been blasted to shreds just a few hours ago.

Octane slid into the booth right beside Lifeline, one arm slung over her shoulder and the other reaching for a shot before his bum hit the leather seat. “Woo, I love tequila! Che, remember when you snatched a bottle from your padre and we-”

“Ya know damn well not to mix stim and alcohol,” Lifeline snapped at him, checking the faint green pulse under his skin as she lifted his bare arm and  ducked out from beneath it. 

“I knew you’d say that,” he laughed, downing not one but two shots and hopping back onto his feet. “So I got my hands on a new batch, fresh from the lab! Compatible with alcohol, painkillers, anything!”

“No kiddin’,” Lifeline snickered with a frown, watching Silva hop from one leg to the next. He wore the same outfit he had in the arena and only the cap and mask were gone. With nothing but his fluffy electric green hair and his sharp edged smile to go off of, Ajay didn’t believe a word.

“Dead serious!” He insisted, whipping out an adrenaline stick and shaking it in her face. Even if she weren’t tipsy, she wouldn’t have been able to read the warning labels on the back. 

“Lemme see dat,” Lifeline swiped at the thing but Octane held it over his head.

“Too slow, hermana!” He said and in one fluid motion he was halfway across the VIP room with the tray of shots in his hands.“Muchas gracias!” He called over his shoulder, bolting down the stairs and hopping onto a barstool near to the crowd of legends he usually hung around.

“What the hell was that? I was waiting for you to tell him off!” Renee punched Ajay’s shoulder, “I mean really tell him off. Maybe then he’ll shed a few tears,”

“No no no,” Ajay could still feel the echo of Octane’s warmth against her side, his skin across her bare shoulder blades, his fingers idly tapping at her upper arm.

Ajay dizzied herself by shaking her head too hard. “He wouldn’t. Too risky anyway! Last time I poked a sore spot, that asshole ran off and nearly got himself killed on a mission for Loba, rememba?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Renee’s milky blue eyes snapped towards the door once again. This time Bangalore had arrived, fists clenched and eyes ablaze as she scanned the entire bar.

“YOU,” Her authoritative voice boomed, a stiff finger pointed right at Octane.

“Aaand that’s my queue! Race you later, compadre,” the small man nodded towards Mirage before sliding over the bar and disappearing in the back. The sergeant didn’t bother pursuing him. Ajay knew he’d gotten all the way down the block by the time Bangalore stomped her way across the space and slammed a hand down on their table.

“Motherfucker cost us the whole match for a couple of trick shots,” Anita growled as she threw herself into the booth. One of Mirage’s decoys was quick to supply her with a beer. “Somebody needs to teach that little shit a lesson.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Wraith agreed with a pointed look in Lifeline’s direction.

The women soon exchanged that exhausting topic for a lighter one. The night reached a peak of energy as the bar reached maximum capacity. But Ajay felt that in the blink of an eye, everything was winding down. Legends and civilians alike were filtering out.

Bangalore stopped mid sentence to watch Loba strut past their booth and out the front door. She followed not even a minute later. Wraith volunteered to walk Wattson back to her apartment after a few victory rounds left her a stumbling mess.

Lifeline was left to cover the tab and Octane didn’t show his face again. It was an uncomfortably familiar way for her night to end. And as Ajay made her way back to her own apartment, she had nothing but her companions’ ideas on her mind.

She considered many options, but she didn’t care for simple cruelty or an embarrassing lesson. She just wanted to switch roles, to be the one leaving Octavio in the dust for once. To make him cry for her .

Since they were kids, Octane always failed to consider Lifeline’s persistence. Her last plan didn’t work? Fine. She was already hatching a new one.

Chapter Text

I will stay by your side

But in the end, break your heart

“Che, Che, Che! Open up!!”

Lifeline’s tiny vanity shook from the rapid pounding at her door. It only took her 5 steps to get across her room in the drop ship, but the man at her door continued to knock and shout as if she’d left him waiting for hours.

Octane was on the other side, out of breath and hanging onto the top of the thick metal door frame. 

“Finally , I was about to bolt,” he immediately started rambling, “I thought somebody was pulling my pierna when I got your text and when you didn’t re-block me after I responded I was like ‘No way this message is from my Che!’ So I-”

“Silva.”

“Yeah?”

“Did ya get me the screwdriver or no?”

“When have I ever let you down?” Octane grinned and held out his palm, presenting a multi tool, “Cute pigtails by the way.”

Ajay snatched the thing from his grip, ignoring both the question and the comment. She’d just barely started to do her hair and was still in her pajamas, a black tank top and track shorts.

This was the part where she’d normally shut the door before Octane could ask her what she needed the tool for. But if Lifeline were acting normal, she would have asked a different legend for help in the first place. So Ajay stepped back, opening her door wider as an invitation for the man to come inside.

Octane didn’t need any more permission. He swung through the doorway and landed on Lifeline’s bed, chuckling a little as the spring mattress bounced beneath him. “About time you let me check out your suite!” 

The lithe man lifted his goggles to get a good look at everything, not that there was much to see. Ajay had brought in her own full sized bed but didn’t care to decorate. She liked to say D.O.C. and a good pair of headphones were all she needed for any overnight stay.

Octane rolled across the bed to press himself against the large window on the other side. “Nice view!” he exclaimed. Olympus lay silent and ominous in the distance, the sun coming up right behind it. Lifeline knew the impressive structure was dreading the bloodbath it would witness in just a few hours. Just like how she dreaded to see the floating city first thing in the morning and last thing before bed.

“I still don’t get why we had to switch drop ships,” the daredevil continued, already bored with the sight and moving towards Ajay’s little wardrobe. 

This was the part where Lifeline would call him a nosy bastard and tell him to sit still or get out, to which Octane would definitely choose the latter. But she didn’t, as kindness was a requirement of the first step in her plan. 

Ajay listed reasons as she rustled through her drawers, “Not nearly enough room, some of us aren’t safe down on Psamanthe, and new blood would throw a fit wit’out their own toilets.” Octane scoffed in response.

“What? Ya really wanna hang around dat old ship every night?” Lifeline raised a brow even though Octane couldn’t see it, “ No privacy with Loba and Revenant runnin’ ‘round?”

The medic’s hand closed around a box of screws, located right next to a perfectly good screwdriver. She shut the drawer and looked up to find Silva right behind her in the mirror’s reflection. 

“Hells yeah, can't be worse than this dump! All these sound proof hallways and locked doors are so boring,” he said, his breath hitting the nape of Ajay’s neck as he tried to get a look at what was in her hand. Lifeline slid away just as a shiver raked down her spine. 

“Ya not wrong about that,” She couldn’t help but laugh in agreement, although it was mostly the product of nerves. She was lucky she’d shut the drawer before he could spot the screwdriver, or else he would’ve pointed it out and ruined everything.

But she did miss the old common area, where she would play a beat on D.O.C.’s back while Gibraltar strummed along on his ukulele. She especially missed when legends would board the drop ship at the crack of dawn and return home before midnight. Even with the upgraded bed, she hadn’t been sleeping so well on this vessel.

“Listen, I got a late start dis morning,” she let the lie flow from her lips the second it came to her, smoothly redirecting the conversation, “Could ya patch up D.O.C. for me while I finish gettin’ ready? Or ya itchin’ to run laps through those sound proof hallways?”

Octane hummed in consideration, but only for dramatic effect, “I guess I could squeeze the little guy into my schedule!”

Lifeline nearly let out a relieved breath. “Don’ be shy,” she quipped as she deployed her health drone.

Octane squat down beside D.O.C. and brushed a curled forefinger over its round little head. “Hey niño,” he muttered. The floating machine chirped lightly in response.

Ajay silently handed Octavio the multi-tool and a few fresh screws, her mind going blank at the sight of her old friend’s warmth towards her little drone. 

Besides his robotic legs and running shorts, Octane was dressed casually. His mask, cap, and dialysis machine were out of sight and his midriff was covered by a white muscle tee. That is, until he got to work on D.O.C.’s back panel and the hastily cut sleeve holes revealed his bare sides.

Lifeline blinked twice before getting a grip, “Ya nee-”

“Need to run diagnostics and replace the screws,” Octane interrupted as he plugged D.O.C.’s inner cable to his phone. “I remember,” He said, looking up at Lifeline with a lopsided smile. Sunlight streamed through the window, glinting off the black metal of his snakebites.

Was she imagining it, or was his tone more reassuring than cocky? Ajay hoped it was the former as she nodded and turned back to her mirror. Because it was more convenient for her plan if he was in a nice, relaxed mood. Not because the thought brought warmth to her cheeks.

She got out her own phone, pressing shuffle on a playlist she’d prepared earlier that morning. It was specially designed for this moment, a collection of songs she and Octavio used to love in their youth. 

Then, she tried to get ready as usual, turning her loose pink pigtails into twin buns tight enough to hold shape in the arena. “Aww, love this one!” Octavio exclaimed, singing along obnoxiously when one of his personal favorites started playing. 

Her plan was going perfectly, but Ajay struggled to adjust to Octavio’s presence. He wore his signature cologne, grassy and spicy and the exact same brand he’d been wearing for years. 

His mother had gifted him a ton of bottles one Christmas, her way of forcing him to give up Axe Body Spray before he got to high school. Lifeline had forgotten about that scent until now. The potency was already modest so it was impossible to get a whiff when the man never stayed in one place for very long. But now, notes of chamomile and coriander filled her tiny room.

She kept finding herself focusing on him rather than her own reflection. He was whizzing through D.O.C.’s checklist of preparations, as if the last time he'd done this was yesterday rather than half a decade ago.

Octane shifted around the turtle shaped drone instead of simply spinning it. He was gentle when using the tool and didn't even rush to get each task over with.

He seemed so focused, like when he'd play video games to pass the time on the the old drop ship, twisting around on his gaming chair but completely engaged in the vibrant colors and simulated explosions.

Although, Ajay had no idea what about her little health drone was so engaging as to make him slow down this much. Lifeline remembered that short list of emotions she and Wraith had come up with a few days ago. Which one was Octane feeling now?

Suddenly, Ajay realized her playlist had run out of songs and Silva was reattaching D.O.C.’s back panel. He clumsily spun the screwdriver with the ends of his fingers, the tip of his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth in concentration. Ajay cleared her throat and rushed to wrap a bandana around her hairline, completing the hair style.

“Che?” she spun to face her childhood friend, who had snuck up behind her once again. His voice sounded almost foreign to her when he wasn’t out of breath. One side of his mouth was tilted up in amusement and his eyes were trained on Ajay’s hair.

She braced for the typical complaint. Why don’t you ever leave it down? Don’t you get bored of the same hairdo? Feel the wind through your hair, chica! Ajay heard variations of it often throughout their childhood.

She prepared herself not to snap at him no matter what he said. It would ruin the mood she’d worked so hard to create.

“You missed a piece,” was what Silva said instead, catching the medic completely off guard. “Let me,” he started to reach for her left bun.

“I got it!” Ajay sputtered, spinning around. So much for not snapping, she thought before throwing a hasty thank you over her shoulder and leaning over her vanity.

It took her a moment to spot the culprit but she made quick work of it with the help of more bobby pins. Just a small tuft of hair sticking out at the base of her bun. It was a wonder that Octane noticed it, let alone felt like pointing it out rather than writing it off as insignificant. 

When she looked at her full reflection, she was met with yet another surprise. Octane had returned to her bed, leaning back on his palms. And his green eyes were clearly fixated on her ass.

Lifeline wasn’t sure how to proceed here. 

Her first thought was to grab her drumstick and smack the boy upside the head, plan be damned! But something made her hesitate. 

Contrary to how an outsider might view her actions that day, seduction was not Ajay’s current goal. However, as she watched Octane worry the plump center of his bottom lip between his teeth, she was convinced it wasn’t a bad result. Not what she'd planned, but not bad at all.

“O,” Lifeline said, her tone harsh and jarring. 

“Yeah?” Octane jumped at his nickname, standing and locking eyes with her reflection. He knew he’d been caught, his back comically straight and his hands fidgeting at his sides. Ajay forced herself to conceal her smirk.

“Mind handin’ me my cargo pants?” she asked innocently, pointing at her wardrobe. He bolted over to the glorified metal locker and tossed the bundle of fabric her way.

“Well, I should get going,” he said as Ajay started undressing. In a flash, he was shouting from the hall, “Later, Che!” and slamming her door shut. All before her shorts had even dropped around her ankles.  

Ajay pursed her lips as she shimmied into her pants and strapped on her gear. She hadn’t revealed anything Silva hadn’t seen before. They had spent their preteens hanging out at pools and their late teens skinny dipping at parties.

Not to mention the other, more private instances.

Whaaat? I can’t help it! That’s what Octane would say when she’d catch him staring back in the day. Then he’d run from her fists, laughing and cracking jokes whether she was genuinely upset or blushing and smitten.

Why hadn’t he acted that way this morning? Or at least hung around to insist on one more thank you?

“APPROACHING DROP ZONE,” an automated voice rumbled through the intercoms, red lights flashing.

Ajay cursed, grabbing D.O.C. and rushing towards the center of the drop ship.

Octane’s strange behavior didn’t matter. Step 1 of her plan was complete: his defenses were down. Step 2 would commence in the arena.

Chapter Text

You don’t know me

L O V E or HATRED

Lifeline finally had Octane right where she wanted him. 

On his knees, glassy eyed, and whimpering.

Well, not really whimpering. More like hissing in pain and chanting “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” like a mantra that might somehow slow his bleeding. 

After so many matches without a single sight of the adrenaline junkie and so many mornings spent repeating the first step in her plan, Lifeline had to resist skipping towards Octane in pure joy. Instead, she strode forward with a level headed demeanor, using her palm to slam a fully loaded extended mag into her sub-machine gun. Ajay stopped within a yard of her downed enemy, but neither of the legends spoke a word to each other. 

Lifeline upheld her own code of ethics on any battlefield. Unlike some other contenders, she didn’t care to kick or insult her enemies when they were already down. It only took one bullet to get the job done. More respectful and less time consuming that way. Even if a prick like Caustic or Revenant had pissed her off or put up a difficult fight, the most fun she’d allow herself was a slap with her shock sticks and a quip spat at their deathbox. The rest of her playfulness was reserved for her squad mates. Octane recognized this, having long given up on the jokes when he found himself at her mercy. He’d learned that silence would earn him a quick out through the barrel of her gun, while any out of pocket remarks would earn him a (still quick but more painful) out through a syringe to the jugular.

So now, with no team in sight and the ring closing in, Octane didn’t even bother looking up at Lifeline. He didn’t hold up any knock down shield either. Instead, he leaned back on his heels and stabbed something into his chest. It was the perk of a golden knockdown shield: A last resort which could be game changing! Or useless, if you got caught.

Now, Lifeline couldn’t help but giggle. This set up was so perfect she hadn’t dared dream of it, let alone plan for it. It wasn’t hard to adjust to the circumstances, though. She lifted her gun, a simple alternator with a close range scope, and let it rest against the center of Octane’s forehead.The man beneath her didn’t bother continuing to revive himself. He let go of the syringe with a sigh, his knuckles crashing against the dirt floor as defeat immobilized his arms. Octane simply waited for the bullet.

Except, the bullet didn’t come. 

“Go on, Silva,” Lifeline urged, using her gun to nudge his head before making a show of turning on the safety and holstering it. Octane hesitated for only a second. There was no point in being skeptical in a situation like this, no matter how confusing. He got a second wind, making quick work of his own revival as if Ajay might change her mind and stop allowing it. He heaved with the force it took for him to empty the syringe in his chest, endure the pain of the fast-working chemical, and struggle to stand. 

The daredevil was a mess: Explosive residue coated his arms and toned torso, blood was caked across his neck and soaked into his green vest, and his goggles had been shattered on the left side. “Woo, and I’m back in the game,” he breathed nonetheless, shaking out his fingers and bouncing on the balls of his robotic feet.

“‘Back in the game.’ with one pistol and no ammo,” Lifeline teased with imitated pity, pinching her brows and sticking out her bottom lip. Laughter bubbled up from within Octane’s chest. He didn’t even bother bringing out the pistol in question, since Lifeline was completely right. She had chased him across the gardens of Olympus for a few minutes, downing him not long after he stopped shooting back at her.

“Aren’t you breaking some kind of rule?” Octane scratched his head through his cap, looking behind him as if an employee might appear to confirm his suspicions and disqualify Lifeline from the match. “Something in the fine print that says you can’t, I don’t know, stand around while the bad guys heal themselves?” He wondered aloud, the smile in his voice reflecting how little he cared for the fine print .

“It’s a respected strategy called: playin’ wit'cha food,” Lifeline corrected, “And I heard them suits upstairs love it jus’ as much as the fans,”

“Whoa-ho, chica,” Octane shook his head in jest, “ I thought you’re in it for charity, not fame!” 

“I am,” Lifeline nodded sincerely, “That’s why I’m givin’ yuh a 10 second head start.”

Silva was still chuckling to himself, unfazed by the serious shift in Ajay’s tone. 

You see, in the days leading up to this match, Ajay had set a loose routine in motion. She had invited Octavio into her room on many mornings, playing their playlist while he helped her with mundane tasks.To her surprise, he rarely made up excuses to bolt. And on days when she didn’t invite him over (so as not to raise suspicion) Ajay made a habit of texting him.

The result was a decrease in tension between the legends. While Lifeline swallowed half her concerns and pretended the man hadn’t screwed her over in the past, the two could easily talk for hours. It took her awhile to admit it, but Lifeline enjoyed their longer conversations. They’d shit talk the drop ship’s food and poke fun at Mirage’s absurd stories and share excitement for riding the tridents on Olympus.

Lifeline’s sweet act was so convincing she even caught herself playing the part unintentionally. She’d started calling Octane on particularly restless nights in the drop ship. Usually, she used music to endure those hours of dead silence, but she’d begun to prefer the sound of Octane explaining outlandish stunts he wanted to pull. It helped that Silva’s voice was so different in the a.m. : husky and thick from the exhaustion of his busy days and long nights. Probably from overusing stim, too.

But she told herself this was fine. Those slip ups didn’t hurt anybody, didn’t change what she wanted. Those phone calls really only served to aid her master plan. Octane was so relaxed around her now. That left him vulnerable.

“Ten,” Lifeline said, interrupting Octane’s explanation for how he’d ended up with no other weapon so late in the game.

“Wow, you weren’t kidding?” he said, excitement pulsing through his entire body as he hopped in place. But he gave Lifeline pause when he made no move to actually run.

“Nine.” She barked, never one to not be taken seriously. She got her gun back out and cocked it.

Octane dared to stick around even longer. “You sure you want to do this, chica? I’ll be long gone before you can line up a shot with that thing,” his visible eye narrowed to match his devilish reply.

“Eight,” Lifeline aimed down the sights, her mouth twisted into a sneer.

“Your loss, hermana!” Octane was bolting before he finished his taunt. He darted across the grass in an irregular zig zag, the shape of him blurry but illuminated by the green pulse of his stim.

“Seven!” Lifeline shouted. With Octane’s back turned, she could let the smile slip back onto her face. She made no effort to catch up, opting to bring out her 0.50- cal sniper instead. With the kraber, it wasn’t hard to get a shot on Octane. He was hundreds of meters away but the idiot had started recharging his shield with no cover, probably assuming Lifeline had lost him at that distance.

“Six,” Lifeline whispered to herself, pulling the trigger early just for an extra sting. It was a headshot, of course, and she got a perfect view of Octane’s body crumbling, his death box the only thing left where he once stood.

“You cheated!” Octane growled back on the drop ship later on, “that wasn’t even 5 seconds!”

“I dunno what'cha on about,” Lifeline frowned in response, holding out a drink as an underhanded truce. 

Silva took it. "You're so confusing sometimes, you know that?" He grumbled into his cup. But within the hour, his spirits were back up, his energy exceeding that of the actual champions that day. 

Which was fine, Ajay told herself the next morning. Another wakeful night had left her exhausted, up too early, and ready long before the match was set to begin. She hadn't formed any lie to get the daredevil to come over, she had just asked if he wanted to hang out. Now, they sat against her bed's headboard with their playlist on shuffle. Octane ran a simulation on his handheld console and Ajay watched from beside him, until her eyelids grew heavy and slipped shut.

"Che," Octane whispered. Ajay woke to find her head resting on his shoulder, unsure of how much time had passed. 

"Do you want me to go?" Octane asked as she stirred, something like nervousness or confusion in his low tone, "You seem tired. Can't have you passing out down in-"

"No," Lifeline mumbled on instinct, weaving her arm around Octane's, nuzzling into his side, and closing her eyes again.

She prepared for him to insist on leaving, but he was just silent for a long moment. And before she had the sense to ask if he minded or if he had something else to do, Ajay heard Octane huff a laugh and boot his game back up.

And this was fine, she told herself. Her plan was still in motion. It wasn't necessary for Ajay to recognize how happy this made her feel. She didn't even think about which part made her happy. His warmth or his scent? His hushed curses and cheers as he played his game? Or the feeling of finally getting some sleep?

No, all she focused on was the fact that he stayed beside her at all. Not as a source of childish butterflies in her stomach, but as a small note to consider for her plan. 

This step in Lifeline's scheme would have to go on longer in order to get a real rise out of Octavio, let alone any tears. And that was perfectly fine with her.

Chapter Text

Why do you keep smiling at me?

Just one tear is all it takes

Lifeline made the mistake of having too much fun.

She saw the exact moment she made this misstep clear as day. Not as it happened, and not really in retrospect, but because the spectacle was caught from three different angles and broadcast to every streaming device in the Outlands. That included the giant display in the drop ship’s food court, where most of the legends had settled to rewatch that day’s match. 

“Hey niño,” Octane wheezed on screen, his strangled voice barely audible even through the speakers. He attempted to lift his head from the floor as he greeted Ajay’s drone, but it was either too painful or too much energy.

The poor bastard had been caught by the outer edges of Gibraltar’s defensive bombardment. He had a few broken ribs and one of his prosthetic legs was reduced to a knot of mangled metal. With each labored breath, he choked a little on his own blood.  

Lifeline’s figure moved into the cameras’ view, mirroring D.O.C. when she kneeled down, tilting her head as she examined the damage. And there. Right there on her face was the fatal error. Ajay bit down on her lip to stop from cursing her past self out loud. She had been having a great time, and she had made it very clear.

“It’ll be over soon,” Lifeline said to Octane in the arena. It was what she used to tell herself when she saw him in similarly crumpled and ripped up states, when she used to feel irrational worry eat away at her. It was a reminder that an hour in the respawn chamber would fix every little scrape and bruise she’d noticed on his body. 

It had been comforting for her, and maybe in one of Wraith’s alternate timelines it could be comforting to Octane too. But in this dimension, in the match which was playing back on the screen now, Lifeline’s tone was sour and her smile was vicious.

Octane gasped when Lifeline pulled a tube from D.O.C. and attached it to his chest. For a second, health automatically flowed into the adrenaline junkie. But one nod from Ajay and the drone’s sterile blue lights turned flaming red. A shock of 70 volts ravaged Octavio’s body, leaving behind nothing but his death box. Ajay could still smell the echoes of charred flesh.

“I can’t believe you did that!” Octane exclaimed from his current perch. He had been the one to round everybody up, shouting that they all had to see how the record short match had gone down.

But as soon as the show started, Lifeline knew something was off. It formed a nagging sensation at the nape of her neck, which only grew to swallow the high of her squad’s victory. 

If any legend had blown off their own legs to beat a gauntlet record, wouldn’t they be pissed about an enemy squad getting a record short championship? Apparently not this legend , Ajay grumbled internally. 

Octane didn’t seem peeved at all. Not at D.O.C. , whose back he was sitting on. Not at Gibraltar, who he congratulated on the kill. And not at Lifeline, who he kept sneaking glances at from across the room.

“Nice one, hermana!” he pumped his fist in the air after watching her take out an entire squad. Gibraltar and Horizon joined in with appreciation, the screen displaying how she proceeded to revive them both at once. Ajay laughed along with her team, but her smile went tight as she caught Octane looking at her again out of the corner of her eye.

She’d done everything according to plan: nice to him outside the arena and uncharacteristically brutal in the arena. It should’ve been enough for him to confront her by now, to demand an explanation for the whiplash or attempt to avoid her altogether.

That was when she could move on to step 3: the innocent act. Her complete denial of everything would be the final step. It would bring Octavio Silva to his breaking point.

But her delight had been clear as day and caught on camera. She’d finished him a little too enthusiastically considering it wasn’t her kill and he was already seconds away from dying to his wounds. Octane could have called her out already, back when the whole room watched her all but moonwalk away from his death box!

 Yet he didn’t. He continued to act eerily happy, his eyes fixed on the screen and his cheers reserved for Lifeline alone. It was the most confusing reaction possible. 

The next time she felt someone’s gaze on the side of her face, Lifeline turned to meet Octane’s eyes, annoyance evident on her face. Octane didn’t even pretend he hadn’t been staring, he just held her gaze as a smirk spread across his sharp features. Then, he winked at her and turned his attention back to the match. 

A tingle spiraled up Lifeline’s spine. She huffed in disbelief, pressing her lips together to stifle her own smile. Ajay Che, you idiot, she thought, finally realizing what would happen now. She was screwed in more ways than one.

The match throwing came first, but was the least surprising of all.

“Say cheese for all my followers,” Octane used his selfie stick to catch the scene: him kneeling in triumph, Lifeline slumped against a wall at Hydroponics, holding her intestines inside her body with one arm and holding up her knockdown shield with the other.

Lifeline stuck a defiant tongue out but looked right into his phone’s camera lens nonetheless. Octane began to snap a succession of images while still filming a video, cackling in delight as Ajay made funny faces behind him. Then, stopping with a swift “Shit,” as heavy black boots walked into frame. 

Caustic emptied half a clip into Octane’s back, only stopping because he ran out of ammo, before lifting his limp body with an iron grip on his vest. “Where’s the rest of your team?” he asked. 

“The docks, last I hear-” Octane’s cocky answer was cut short as Caustic sprayed a canister of gas directly into his mouth. Lifeline watched Octane spasm and claw at his face, forcing his goggles and mask away, before the gas fogged up her own vision. 

Even in her current state, she had enough sense to wonder what he was doing on the complete opposite side of the map as his team.

“Pity, I would’ve preferred more test subjects,” Caustic threw Octane to the floor like a rag doll, “And you could’ve used some back up,” he added. The insufferable scientist didn’t even begin to revive Lifeline, instead rummaging for a new weapon in a deathbox nearby.

Lifeline swung her head to the side, facing Octane where he still choked against the pavement. “I would say ya team let'cha down, but I think ya did yuhself in this time,” she couldn’t resist commenting. 

Silva attempted to get up but fell with his cheek against the floor. He struggled to suck in a gulp of air, his glazed over eyes trailing from Lifeline’s demolished torso up to her bloodless face. A satisfied smile tugged at the corners of the bastard’s lips. “Worth it,” he said through one last exhale, before succumbing to the noxious gas.

The touches came second, sprinkled throughout the drop ship and boldest, for some reason, in the Apex Games.

“I’m the new kill leader!?” Octane jumped a full meter into the air when his stats scrolled across the arena’s giant banners. “Che, check it out,” he said, as if she somehow hadn’t heard the announcement when she was standing right beside him. 

He held his r-99 with one hand, the other moving to rest at Ajay’s lower back. His gloved palm was rough against her skin and his fingers brushed beneath the hem of her top. “I’m good at this,” he whispered after leaning close.  She could practically see his eyebrows wiggling behind his goggles.

Lifeline set aside any qualms about remaining professional or staying mature, opting instead to elbow Octane in his exposed side. “Nuh romp wid mi, Silva,” she growled at him before moving towards the ring. 

Octane’s grunt of pain twisted into a low chuckle. He caught up and zipped past her not long after. Lifeline jogged to follow him, for once feeling just as eager for a fight as he was. Hopefully a battle would get her mind off of his breath on the shell of her ear.

The last development didn’t come until season 7 had ended. By then, Lifeline was walking on eggshells, unable to fathom her luck getting any worse. 

She moved like a sloth in the arena, peeking around walls and thoroughly searching buildings before looting. The sound of Octane’s metal legs pumping against the floor at inhuman speed kept playing on repeat in her head, drowning out the music which naturally kept her focused in game. Octane didn’t have the sneaky abilities of Revenant or the tracking abilities of Crypto, but he still found a way to catch her at the worst moments. 

She speed walked through the dropship, eyes alert and uneasy. She was awkward in the food court and in her own room, mirroring Octane’s erratic movement so they were always on opposite sides of the space. Speaking of her room, she stopped inviting Octane over, but he showed up anyway. And she found it harder and harder to turn him away because whether he was in front of her or not, he would be on her mind. 

Now, she found her nerves frazzled, her instincts jumping to take all these precautions at once. Lifeline had one last night to survive: The apex legend get-together, secretly held in the arena at the end of every season.

“There you are, beautiful,” Loba said, sauntering towards the medic, “I was wondering when you’d get here.” She made an approving noise as she checked out Lifeline’s outfit: a black halter tank top which ended at her ribs as well as matching leggings which hugged her apple hips and rose to just below her navel. She’d added a thin blue windbreaker for a pop of color, but tied it around her waist to let the cool breeze hit her shoulders and back. Ajay didn’t think the get up was very special, but Loba liked to compliment her anytime she wore something that revealed her figure.

“Got here an hour ago,” Lifeline said, turning away from the open window in favor of a friendly face. The view was pretty, but it held memories just like every other area in Olympus. It was too easy to get lost in thought.

“Really,” Loba said, unbelieving, “What, have you been lounging in this spot the whole time?”

Lifeline actually had been in this spot; hiding rather than lounging. But she laughed along with Loba anyways, because the woman was right to poke fun. It was odd for the medic to not make her presence known at a party. Especially this one.

“Well, I hope you haven’t forgotten how this goes: I host,” Loba motioned towards herself elegantly. She was the one to start this tradition. She threw the first party back on Kings Canyon, as a way of thanking each legend for aiding her quest and apologizing for how rocky that ordeal had been.

“Mirage caters,” she directed Lifeline’s attention to the man bustling in the center of the room. Elliot was mixing a drink for Gibraltar while a decoy behind him flipped pork chops on a grill. He was the one who always found the best spot to hold the party too. This time, they met on the conjoined rooftops of Bonsai Plaza. It was gorgeous, the golden architecture sparkling under the moonlight and the smell of cherry blossoms clinging to the air. 

“And you cover the music,” Loba finished. Her coffin shaped fingernail tapped twice on Lifeline’s sternum, her tone more than a little annoyed.

It was only then that the medic realized what was pumping through Bonsai Plaza’s speakers: some mix between metal and electropop, layered by a voice screeching incomprehensible lyrics. It wasn’t hard to guess that Octane had commandeered the surround sound system. The issue was that Lifeline couldn’t even spot him amongst the crowd.

Ajay’s feet were glued to the floor. Her mind speed ran a slideshow of possibilities for if she pushed through the dense group of legends to get to the other side of the room. If Octane was there, he’d refuse to give up the aux cord. Lifeline had an empty glass of long island iced tea in her hand, so she wasn’t sure what might slip out of her mouth if an argument started. Even if he wasn’t there, Lifeline might have to look for him to unlock his phone. And who knew what mess he’d be getting into this late into the night?

“Weren’t you the one who said the whole point of this event was to smooth things over?“ Loba muttered, startling Lifeline with a sincere tone, “To end the season on a good note?” 

Lifeline furrowed her brows in momentary confusion, but Loba offered nothing but a sly little smile in explanation before she moved on to entertain legends on one of the rooftops.

Loba was right, though. The first party had been very hard to pull together and horribly awkward once everybody got in one room.  Loba hadn’t even wanted to throw another one, but Lifeline used this reasoning to insist that she did. 

She had never been the type to let bad blood ruin a perfectly beautiful night. And there were few issues which couldn’t be solved with alcohol, music, and food. At least, temporarily solved.

Lifeline wasn’t going to abandon her own principles over this nonsense with Octane.

She grabbed another drink from the bar before checking the speakers. It was actually Crypto who had changed the tunes and he gave up the aux cord easy enough. Lifeline set up D.O.C. at the speakers to make sure nobody else could change the music, and started to mingle with her friends. Horizon turned out to be just as funny as she was smart, and Lifeline was happy to see that even the solitary legends like Bloodhound had come around. The party was going smoother than Lifeline had imagined.

That is, until Wraith stopped mid sentence to squint up through the large glass walls of the room. Conversations paused as the rest of the legends turned to do the same. Lifeline’s eyes moved last as she dreaded what was catching everyone’s attention. Or rather, who.

Octane finally made an appearance, unable to go one night without risking his own safety to put on a show. 

The man was seated on one of the red bikes which were scattered around the floating city, except he wasn’t really on the roof. He was above it, balancing on the white metal banisters which ran across the outside of the building. The legends all rushed to get to the rooftop he sat above, some laughing at his audacity while others told him to get the fuck down before he ruined the party by dying. Lifeline felt her own throat go dry, her mouth sealed shut.

Octane wasn’t listening to anybody, instead posing for Mirage and Pathfinder’s cameras. He had on a spandex shirt: long sleeves bunched up around his elbows and high collar wrapping around the base of his neck. He wore grey joggers too, but of course he had cut them at the knees. He was more covered up than usual and Lifeline figured he’d done so in preparation for this stunt, but the man still shivered as wind blew across his face and rustled his bright green hair.

“Che!” He called, the elevated breeze threatening to carry his voice away before it met the crowd, “Che, check this out! Just like old times!” Lifeline’s cheeks flushed. She didn’t bother trying to convince Octane to get down, and instead buried her face in her glass. Her reasoning hadn’t worked when they were teenagers, so it definitely wouldn’t work now.

Octane never made an audience wait very long. He pulled his goggles off his head and let them snap into place around his eyes. "Olé!" he cried with pure excitement before he rode the metal banister all the way down the top of the tunnel. The cylindrical structure connected the rooftop to the center of the upper floor. Silva's legs pumped the pedals faster than the bicycle was probably meant to go, gaining speed so he could cruise up the opposite tunnel and over the wall. 

Lifeline looked away, but not because she couldn’t stand the anxiety of whether or not Octane would make it. She already knew how this stunt ended, and was just as certain as Octane was that he would get over that wall and land on the other rooftop. 

Ajay raced through the inner walkway of the tunnels to get to the other roof, the rest of the legends hot on her tail. She got to the other side just in time to watch Octane fly off the edge of the wall, rearing off the bike to do a backflip before falling directly into a pool of water at the base of a cherry blossom tree. 

The legends weren’t always impressed by Octane’s stunts, but when he jumped to his feet with a victory pose, they all lost their shit. They rushed to surround the man with a barrage of back pats and high fives.

“You’re a bloody maniac!” Rampart sputtered.

“I thought you were a goner!” Horizon doubled over as she laughed.

“I’m surprised you didn’t faint,” Wraith nudged Lifeline with a raised brow, but the medic didn’t even look away from Silva, her arms crossed and a strange smile on her face.

“How did you even get up there, brudda?” Gibraltar exclaimed, shaking Octane by the shoulders.

“I set up a zipline!!” Pathfinder raised his hand with a prideful response.

“Dude, I caught the whole thing!” Mirage presented his phone to Octane, but the daredevil didn't watch his video. His attention was elsewhere, and he lifted his goggles to meet Lifeline’s eyes with a wink.

Something daring and unspoken passed between them, quick and sharp as lightning, before they simultaneously turned back to their own circles and the night settled back into place. 

Ajay decided her earlier analogy was wrong. Her emotions weren’t wasted on Octane, they were refracted. She had played a stupid game to try and get a reaction from him, to make him feel her frustration. But like Loba’s pompous disco ball jacket, Octane took all her confusing feelings, split them apart, and shined them directly into her eyes.

Octane decided he wanted a piece of the action in whatever game he thought she was playing. The flirting, the flanking; it was all just an amplified version of what he recognized her dishing out. And honestly, Lifeline could only blame herself for not expecting this. She had brought up the past by playing old songs, so Octane brought up the past by reenacting the stunt which got them banned from the Bonsai Plaza in their youth. 

Alcohol and light conversation brought clarity to Ajay’s issues, revealing them to be less dramatic than she had once thought. Silva was making her feel on edge and flustered and relaxed all in separate instances, which caused the real source of her original confusion and anger to be a little too obvious.

Lifeline needed to get laid.

Yeah... That was the problem.

Octavio could only make her face flush so easily because it had been a while since anybody gave her so much attention or became so physically close to her, Ajay decided. This season had been a long one and it had been a while since Lifeline last swam in the dating pool, or whatever the saying is. She spent so much energy on this scheme, an amount that could only be compared to how she would normally pursue a romantic interest.

As the moon rose higher in the sky, Lifeline packed up D.O.C. She was ready to call it a night and make her way down to the Plaza’s lower floors, where everyone had laid claim to various hotel rooms earlier. Each legend was drunk on booze and relaxation and victory spoils, some joining Ajay in the elevator while others hung back to talk in hushed voices. 

Lifeline leaned her head against the wall as the elevator filled up. She was relieved to spend the night somewhere besides the drop ship. In the morning, she’d pack up her room, tie up loose ends with the Syndicate, and return to her apartment until the next season of Apex.

As the doors closed, Ajay started downloading a dating app Elliot had mentioned a while back. Some time back in her own space, hanging out at bars other than the Paradise Lounge, and meeting up with her friends outside the games would make everything go back to normal.

“Hold up!” Silva shouted from down the hall. Lifeline snickered as somebody at the front of the elevator tried to push the ‘close doors’ button. But, of course, Octane was faster. He slipped through the sheets of metal, mumbling insincere apologies as he pushed towards the back of the cramped space and slumped against the wall beside Ajay.

Lifeline realized the danger in how drunk she was. She could barely stop herself from watching Octane’s chest rise and fall with deep breaths, his foot tapping impatiently against the floor, his tongue running across the sharp edges of his teeth.

Lifeline and Octane muttered goodnight to legends as they left the elevator, but Octane made no move to give her more space when they ended up alone. Heat crawled up Lifeline’s neck as she tried to keep her eyes on her fidgeting hands, forcing her mind away from a memory she’d sealed off years ago.

“Which floor are ya on?” Lifeline asked as she pressed the button for her own, unable to handle the silence any longer.

“Uh, the purple one,” Octane said.

“What?” Lifeline looked over her shoulder and blinked at him, partly because his voice was unnaturally gruff and partly because purple wasn’t a number. And had he been looking at her ass again?

Octane pushed himself off the wall, coming inches away from her and reaching around to the button panel. He hummed in consideration, his adam’s apple bobbing right in front of Lifeline’s face, “You know, the one with purple walls and lamps,” he muttered, “Gotta be one of these,” he started to click random buttons.

“The fuck are ya- Quit it!” Lifeline’s eyes widened as he continued. Two floors lit up, then five, then she swat at Octane’s hand and pushed at his forearm to get him to stop. Silva just cackled in amusement, dodging her slaps to press one more button before hopping to the other side of the elevator.

“You’re ludicrous, “Ajay spat as the elevator jolted to a stop on the ninth floor, the doors opening to a hallway of pink walls and blue lamps. 

“You love me for it,” Octane teased with a cheeky smile while she mashed her knuckle against the ‘close doors’ button.

“I do not,” Lifeline declared without looking at Silva. She hoped he didn’t notice the hesitation before her words or the weakness in her voice.

“Despite it, then,” Octane persisted, stepping closer. Ajay just glared at him, her lips pursed but her mind unable to come up with a response. Her eyes wandered away from his piercing gaze, unable to resist thinking of the last time he looked at her like that. They had been in an elevator then, too. Possibly this exact same elevator.

Please don’t mention it. Lifeline pleaded internally as she noticed the fabric of Silva’s shirt stretching taught around his pecs and shoulders and wiry biceps. She tried to come up with a topic to occupy the tense silence, but her mind only supplied images of that day years ago. Octane and Lifeline had been young and stupid, out of breath from running and laughing. They were trying to get out of the Plaza after the first time Octane pulled that stunt with his bike.

Silva’s 'plus ultra' tattoo peeked out from beneath his rolled up sleeve, dark against the soft skin of his inner arm but just as black as his hair had been when he was a teenager. Che remembered the sight of his arm shooting out to hit the emergency button in the elevator, which was a while before he had this tattoo.

Do. Not. Mention it. Lifeline looked back up at Octane, his green eyes flickering from her lips to her own eyes. She could smell his cologne as distinctly now as she could back then. It was just as intoxicating, if not more. 

But that meant nothing, she told herself. She was just human. The Apex Games were filled with athletic, confident people. If she was stuck in an elevator with anybody else, she would be feeling just as much heat in her cheeks and sweat on her palms.

Lifeline nearly flinched when Octane’s fingers brushed over her shoulder. He traced the line of her large tattoo, focused and slow just like he’d done back in the day.

Young Ajay had shoved his hand away with a giggle back then, telling him to pay attention. The emergency button wouldn’t stall forever and they needed a plan to get past the security guards and off the property. Young Octavio had pouted, returning with an even lighter touch to her sensitive skin. She had just got the tattoo that summer and he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off of it since it healed. 

He’s gonna mention it. Lifeline admitted to herself as Octane’s fingers trailed from her wrist to her elbow to her shoulder, then back down. She didn’t push him away this time, instead focusing on steadying her breathing.

'No.'  She repeated to herself. He’ll mention it and I’ll say ‘No, I don’ rememba that.” and then we’ll talk about something else. It should’ve been easy to lie, to say she didn’t remember when he had closed the distance between their faces. She didn’t remember his hands gripping the back of her thighs as he lifted her against the elevator wall. She didn’t remember his lips on her neck, his teeth grazing her tattoo, his hands on her waist, then undoing the button on her jeans.

And even if she did remember, it didn’t matter, Ajay reasoned to herself. Although, she was hypnotized by the sight of Octane licking his lips in the present. It meant nothing. They had just been horny teenagers, high on adrenaline. And whatever was happening now? It didn’t matter either. Because they were both just horny adults, high on a few drinks and a few hits from Gibraltar's bong. Or Ajay was, at least. 

Lifeline braced for Octane’s words when he met her eyes and opened his mouth to speak. She rehearsed her answer. She reminded herself about the dating app and the warm bed in her hotel room. She told herself what she wanted now: Not for Octane to cry for her or kiss her. Not for him to yell at her or fuck her. But for their relationship to go back to normal.

“Hey,” Octane whispered, and his voice was all gravel and affection, “Remember when we-”

Lifeline surged forward, finally meeting Octane’s lips with her own and cutting off his sentence.

Chapter Text

Little by little I fall for you

Your loving makes my mind give way

Octane pressed Lifeline against the door to her hotel room. She jumped at the contrast, her front embraced by the warmth of his chest while her back arched against the ice cold metal.

His hands swept up the curve of her hips, around her exposed waist, and met at the small of her back to hold her against him. He peppered kisses along her collarbone and up her neck. Desire swirled in Lifeline’s stomach, Octane’s heat rivaling her own and his hands matching her hunger. 

“Silva,” she sighed. The man eased up, only to immediately lock his lips with hers. 

“Hm?” Octane responded without breaking the kiss, his tone sincere yet clearly distracted. 

Lifeline was the one to break away as she let out a breathless laugh. The press of Octane’s lips and the scrape of his snakebites against her skin had been enough to make her forget what she’d wanted to say in the first place.

Now, she just took in the sight of him. His lips flushed pink from use and twisting into a spoiled pout, his green eyes alert beneath heavy lids. She tried to meet those eyes, but they were roaming all over her face and chest like the wandering scanner on Crypto’s drone. 

Octavio’s eyes settled on one spot for approximately .3 seconds before he seized the opportunity to attack it. He licked a stripe from Ajay’s pulse up to her jawline, before biting the sensitive skin just south of her ear. She gasped, her hands gripping his sides to try and pull him closer, to make him hold her tighter, to keep her grounded as rough pleasure threatened to carry her away.

Silva followed her lead, slotting their bodies together as he began to suck on the abused flesh of her neck. His thigh fit between Che’s legs, bumping up against her center when she rolled her body against his.

“Fuck,” Ajay shuddered into his shoulder, her eyes fluttering closed. She moved more frantically against him, seeking friction. Octavio growled against her skin as she brought them closer, the bulge in his pants meeting her lower stomach. Then, he used his hips to pin hers against the door so he could grind his thigh against her. 

He watched as the motion dragged a shiver up Lifeline’s whole body, her hands bunching in the slippery fabric of Octane’s shirt. She stilled after that, burying her moans in Octane’s neck and tilting her hips up to welcome the immobilizing sensation. He ground into her once more. Twice more.

Lifeline pushed Octane away with two hands on his chest and a growl of her own. She spun around towards her door, then had to take a deep breath and blink rapidly to get her bearings. Behind her, she heard Octane laugh under his breath. 

I’ll give ya somethin' to laugh about, Ajay thought as he rested his palms high on the door’s frame, leaning over her and caging her in. She struggled to shove a hand in one pocket of her windbreaker, as it had slipped down to her elbows in the heat of the moment. Then, she checked the other, before checking the inner pockets and even patting her sports bra.

“Bumborass!” Lifeline’s forehead hit her door with a thunk, the sound softened by the bandana around her hairline. 

“Something wrong?” Octane’s nose nudged against the fine hairs at the nape of her neck, his question blowing warm air between her shoulder blades before he kissed her there.

“I don’ have my key card,” Lifeline muttered in disbelief, her brows forming a hard line. It had taken forever for the pair to escape the elevator. They’d stumbled down Lifeline’s hallway, then back up because they’d been so distracted that they passed her room. She was practically vibrating with want yet this misplaced plastic rectangle presented an unavoidable challenge.

“That’s okay,” Octane cooed in Lifeline’s ear, his arms wrapping around her waist. When Ajay groaned and threw her head back against his shoulder, his hand traveled up to her jaw. Ajay let him gently guide her face to the side, let him plant a kiss on her lips. “We just gotta find my floor, then we can finish what we started,” he whispered playfully, “or pass out on my king sized bed, if you change your mind.” 

Octavio’s words were as sweet as his lips but it was the hint of insecurity in his voice which threatened to melt Ajay from the inside out. There was no chance she would change her mind. She shook her head minutely before catching his lips again, hoping to convey that message through the weight in her kiss. Their tongues slid against each other desperately. Octane squeezed her close and Lifeline took the opportunity to press her hips back against his.

A groan came from deep in Octavio’s chest as his bulge fit between the globes of Ajay’s ass. His hips jumped forward, motivating her to undulate against his length. Octane gripped Lifeline’s hips with bruising strength, matching her rhythm to unashamedly thrust against her. “Don’t tell me you can’t wait a little longer,” he taunted breathlessly. 

Lifeline’s cheeks went numb with heated embarrassment, but she didn’t relent. His joggers and her leggings made flimsy barriers between their bodies. Lifeline arched her back farther so he could feel how hot she was between her thighs, right on his hardening cock. He let out a shaky curse in response. “Ya don’ seem so patient yuhself,” she teased.

“You’re right, “ Octane moved his head to bite Lifeline in the junction between her neck and shoulder, right over the black ink of her tattoo. “I’d fuck you right here, if you’d let me.”

“Too bad I wouldn’t let ya,” Lifeline responded despite the hitch in her breath. She had grown out of a lot of things from her youth, and semi public sex was one of them. She decided to allow herself one more minute of ecstasy before she’d disengage and drag Octane back to the elevator. The purple floor couldn’t take too long to find.

“Ah,” Octane sighed half heartedly, halting his thrusts to slip a deft hand in the snug back pocket of Lifeline’s leggings. “In that case, look what I found!” his voice was thick with mischief as he presented the key card in front of Ajay’s face.

What followed was a rare instance in which Lifeline moved faster than Octane.

The door was unlocked and opened before it was done beeping in confirmation. Lifeline dragged Octane into the room with a grip on the waistband of his pants, shoved him against the door with a harsh kiss, and reached to fasten the lock without opening her eyes. 

Ajay’s hands roamed hungrily up Octane’s shirt and over the bare skin of his back. The tight spandex impeded her exploration, so she tugged it over his head and threw it to the floor. She wanted to drink in the sight of him, but she knew it’d be fruitless in the dark room. She let her hands look instead, which proved to be the better option as Octavio’s surprised laughter turned to hums of satisfaction.

His hands squeezed at the sides of Ajay’s waist. When she yipped in the back of her throat, he only smiled against her lips. But when Octavio’s fingers reached her tank top, she leaned away. “Hands off,” she snapped. She wouldn’t forget that he’d waited to reveal the keycard just a moment ago, and by the playful whine which came from Octavio, he knew he had made his own bed.

Before he could try to weasel out of his punishment, one of Lifeline’s hands roamed south, down his abs and past his navel until her fingers slipped beneath his waistband. She didn’t hesitate to cup his length over his boxer briefs, causing Octane’s whole body to shudder.

Octane’s hands hovered at Lifeline’s waist, his mouth slightly ajar as he stilled in anticipation. Blood pumped loudly in her ears, moisture pooling between her thighs. She focused on what she could feel: Octane’s chest heaving under her palm at his chest, his cock throbbing against her palm in his pants. Lifeline couldn’t help the smirk which slipped across her face, happy to take the lead. 

She pulled Silva’s bottom lip into her mouth and he returned the kiss, unsuccessfully trying to speed up her pace before giving in to the slow slide of her tongue against his. She tilted the hand which lay on Octavio’s pectoral until she brushed over his nipple. Octavio’s breath hitched when she lightly pinched the nub between her fingers. Only then did Che finally move her other hand. Silva grunted into her mouth once she pulled lightly from the base of his cock up to the head, the heel of her palm meeting the spot where precum was dampening his boxer briefs.

Lifeline leaned away from Octane, their upper bodies still pressed together but their lips popping as they separated. She was slow to blink her eyes open, but did so just in time to watch him do the same. His pupils were so wide that they looked black, his brows furrowed with need. It was shocking to see such singular focus in him, to spot no trace of fun or boredom in his gaze. 

Lifeline felt emboldened by this sight, any hesitation seared from her mind. Her knees were weak and her center was just as hot and throbbing as Octane’s length. She wanted him so badly, but first:

 “We need a,”

“Oh, yeah.”

Octane slipped past Lifeline, immediately back to his typical speed. He bound across the hotel room to check the nightstand’s drawers before zipping back and forth between the bathroom, the closet, and the cupboards beside the coffee machine. 

“I don’ got any,” Lifeline said, giggling when Octane doubled back in his stride to peek inside the mini fridge. She jumped onto the bed to get out of his way,  scooting until her back met the headboard. 

“There might be one left over,” Octane said optimistically after finding one of those free hotel bibles, “from when this place was still in business,” he opened the curtains to aid his search, revealing the room’s back wall to be one giant window. The moon was so close to Olympus’s high perch in the sky. Its light streamed through the glass and pooled across every surface it touched.

The sight of Octane’s moonlit form hit Lifeline with a new wave of heat. His chest and back were toned with lean muscle, his sweatpants hanging low around his narrow hips and the outline of his erection visible through the thin fabric. 

“Even if there was,” Lifeline’s voice came out weak, “it’d be expired,” she pointed out with half the sass she normally would, distracted by her own hand slithering between her thighs.

Octane sighed in defeat, “Okay okay , I’ll go g-,” he froze when he turned back towards Lifeline, his mouth forming a small ‘o’ as the bible slipped out of his hand. Lifeline continued to touch herself, slow and light, a minx’s smile spreading across her face at the irony as well as his expression. 

She waited for Octane’s eyes to stop watching her hand, relishing the show as it proved to be a tough feat for him. When he finally looked at her face, he just blinked. Lifeline blinked back, then said, “Mek haste,” and although she could barely hear herself over her heartbeat pounding in her ears, Octane got the message.

He nodded once, the motion transitioning smoothly into a dive for the door. He was gone at full speed, the sound of his metal legs disappearing down the hall in seconds. Che typically discouraged the use of stim for non-emergencies, but she really hoped he was using it right now.

Why did there have to be so many obstacles stopping them from fucking? As seconds passed by, Ajay’s nerves supplied an undesirable answer: Maybe the universe was giving her chances to stop. 

Lifeline shut her eyes and pressed against herself, beginning to rub little circles over her clit. She didn’t want to stop. Pleasure completely flooded her lower stomach, pushing her to consider the past rather than freezing in the present or worrying about the future.

The thing about hooking up with someone as a teenager is that the memory never really leaves you, for better or for worse. Without the honey glaze of first love or a naive relationship, that person’s shortcomings in bed are impossible to ignore, even if they are only the fault of adolescent inexperience.

There was a time when Lifeline would’ve loved to hold such embarrassing knowledge: a memory of the great Octane being a shit lay. But that just wasn’t true ( a fact which annoyed her back then but excited her now). The only flaw in their chemistry had been a difference in pace.

She considered this as she spread her legs, leaning back on one hand and slipping the other beneath her thong to play with herself in earnest. Octavio didn’t take much time to rev up, moving fast and hot until the moment he slipped inside. Ajay was the opposite. She liked a slow start, just like how the two had been in the elevator and the hallway: lots of kissing and touching and teasing and-

Lifeline gulped, forcing a moan back down her throat. Now that she thought about it, maybe all the setbacks had been a blessing in disguise. She was so worked up now, her hips jumping up towards her hand, so it should've been an easy fix. She just needed to get a little further and she’d be perfectly in tune with Octane when he came back into the room.

Except, he busted through the door at that exact moment. 

Octavio’s erection had flagged during his short trip, but he’d returned with a string of condoms in one hand and a bundle of adrenaline sticks in the other. He smirked around a heavy exhale, no doubt satisfied by his own speed and efficiency. He took in the sight of Ajay for just as long as it took him to breathe in. Then, he pounced.

Ajay’s reflexes were quick as a whip,  aided by the fact that she’d predicted this. As soon as Octavio propelled himself over the edge of the bed, she raised the leg opposite of the hand she leaned back on. The dip of her foot met the curve of his shoulder, and that was all it took for the man to halt. 

“I said hands off,” she hissed, her own movements unceasing.

“Still?” Octavio whined.

“Still,” she pushed his shoulder lightly before returning her foot to the bed, but he flung himself backwards, rolling off the mattress and landing on his feet.

“How much longer?” he asked, running both his hands through his hair in frustration, his eyes fixated on what Ajay was doing beneath her leggings.

“However long it takes,” Ajay’s voice was foggy from building pleasure, “for me to be ready.”

“But you’re so slow , chica.”

Ajay finally removed her hand from herself, only to grab a long pillow and throw it at Octavio. He ducked away, then popped back up. “I’m kidding!” he laughed before catching the second pillow she threw. “Oye, it’s a joke,” he kneeled on the floor, resting his elbows on the end of the bed. “I’m not really upset,” he grinned devilishly at Lifeline as she resumed, “since I get to watch.”

That made her pause, her mouth forming a small frown. Of course he found a way to spin the situation in his favor. Even in the bedroom, she wasn’t able to give Octavio a taste of his own medicine. Second thoughts threatened to break past Ajay’s haze of lust, but the rhythm she’d fallen into didn’t allow it. I’m done with that stupid game , she reminded herself. 

Ajay was no stranger to performing. She felt no embarrassment as she touched herself, letting her mouth fall open and allowing whimpers to trail from her lips. She knew what she liked and she knew she looked good doing it. The desire in Octavio’s eyes emboldened her enough to reach farther down and brush a finger over the inner lips of her pussy. Octavio’s eyes widened as he realized what she’d done. He gripped the bedsheets like they’d save him from drowning.

She teased herself with the thought of him gripping her like that as he entered her. Then, she moaned aloud, thinking of him fucking her into the mattress, fucking her until there was no confusion or frustration or bitterness left in her mind. She couldn’t imagine a better way to ‘end the season on a good note’.

Ajay fell back against the remaining pillows at the headboard, using her free hand to reach under her top and grope her own breast. Octavio groaned as if he could feel her pleasure. Ajay hummed, lifting her top so he could watch her twist a nipple between her thumb and index finger. 

“Fuck,” he breathed, “Wait, when did you get that ?” Octane climbed onto the bed, crawling towards her but never disobeying her simple order.

Lifeline had to look down at herself to understand his question. “These?” she lifted the other side of her top to reveal a matching tattoo on the other side. The dark brown pigment surrounding her nipples was outlined with little twin hearts. “Years ago,” she answered, amused by the fact that she so often forgot about them.

Octane’s hand shot out an inch before curling into a ball. Ajay knew he was itching to trace the thin lines of black ink. “Can I touch you, now?” he asked, his voice thick. She shook her head. 

“Por favor?” he begged, prompting Ajay to shake her head harder.

“Can I kiss you?”

“No.”

“Undress you?” something shifted when he said that. His tone was lower, more urgent than playful. His gaze set Ajay on fire, green eyes dark and a desperate frown beginning to pull at his mouth. Only then did she notice the involuntary twitch in his hips. He was grinding down into the mattress. She felt herself nod, then pressed her palms against the bed to lift her hips.

Octane shot forward, suddenly between her knees and reaching out. She shivered when his knuckles brushed the bare skin of her hips before he pulled down both her underwear and leggings in one swipe. He threw the bundle of cloth over his shoulder before lowering onto his elbows, his face between Ajay’s parted knees. 

His eyes fell on her slick pussy. “Eres tan bonita,” he exhaled. 

You’re so pretty.

Ajay nearly whimpered from his words alone. He finally met her eyes again, his gaze unbelievably sincere. Now, Ajay could see the toll her little punishment was taking on him. His hands were shaking with the effort to hold back.

“Can I,” Octavio cut himself off to swallow thickly. Ajay prepared herself to refuse him again. Almost, but not yet . 

“Can I taste you?” he asked.

She hadn’t expected that.

A smirk tugged at Octavio’s lips as she gaped down at him. He had found the magic word. She gasped when he came closer, his breath coming down hot over her leaking slit. She didn’t realize she’d nodded until he drawled “Really?”

“Yes,” she snapped eagerly. 

Silva’s mouth was on her in an instant, moaning at the taste of her and sending chills up Ajay’s spine. He separated her pussy lips with one long lick. He flicked his tongue at the end, right over her clit.

Any punishment or hesitation flew out the window.

Che’s hips bucked wildly as Silva worked on her. Suddenly her hands were his hair and his were gripping the thick meat of her thighs. He pushed them up and apart, spreading her legs open and absentmindedly kneading the thick flesh. 

He’d always been a fast learner. He employed that trait well now, repeating the movements which made Ajay squirm the most. But he didn’t give her any breaks. He was quick to try different things, to kiss her in other spots or curl his tongue another way in order to get new reactions from her. 

He gave extra attention to her leaking center, kissing her there over and over until the second that it didn’t elicit a whimper from Che. That’s when he pushed the tip of his tongue against her.

“O,” Ajay moaned as his tongue slipped past her inner folds, curling just centimeters deep. She wasn’t sure if she was calling his name or just making the noise, but from then on she couldn’t keep her mouth shut at all. 

She invited him in as he pushed deeper. Her whole body quivered as pulled away. Then, her back stuttered into a rigid arch as he buried his tongue as deep as he could inside of her. 

This time, he didn’t move his mouth away. He only retracted his tongue before kissing her pussy. It was sloppy and animalistic and he ended it by suctioning his mouth right over her clit. Ajay’s voice ripped from her chest. She spasmed in his grasp but he moved his head to follow her erratic hips, his tongue swirling around the skin over her clit as he sucked at it mercilessly. 

The only coherent thought Ajay could come up with was Why didn’t we do this sooner?

It was shortly followed by a more jumbled sentence: Less of a thought and more of an instinct, less coherent and more surprised.

“I’m,” Che gasped, unable to come up with the rest of the words.

“Mm,” Silva’s hum sent delicious vibrations over her clit, the sensation seeming to travel up her whole body and kick start her vocal cords.

“ Silva , I’ll,” her hips jumped as he brushed a finger over her sensitive opening. She rushed to say “If ya don’ stop I’ll-”

Octane released her immediately, “Got it” he sighed proudly. 

Lifeline’s palms slammed down on the mattress, her hips quivering at the sudden loss of contact. By the time she got over the shock, Octane was kneeling between her legs, casually ripping a condom from the comically long string of them.

She got back up on her elbows, giving Octane the nastiest glare possible while he fiddled with the wrapper. He ignored her as if he were the only person in the room. 

“Why ya like dis,” she grumbled.

“Como qué?” he blinked at her, far too full of himself for a man whose chin was covered with slick and whose erection was straining against his boxer briefs. 

Ajay sat up to pull her top and bra off her chest and toss it over the edge of the bed, then tugged at her loose buns to take her hair down. Octavio hadn’t even opened the condom yet. He paused to wipe his chin with the back of his palm. Then, he met Ajay’s gaze as he brought that hand back up to his mouth, sucking her juices from his own skin. 

“Like a tease,” Che averted her eyes and reached for his hips, prompting Silva to raise up on his knees and shuffle closer to her. She planted open mouthed kisses over the contours of his torso, working her way down to the V of his hips.

“Teased or teasing; patient or impatient," he tutted similar to how he'd sing eeny meeny miny moe before choosing random landing zones. “Are we still playing a game?” he wondered aloud.

The hairs on the back of Che’s neck stood on end, but she was too hot to do do anything other than play dumb. “You’re tha only one playing ,” she whispered, before shoving his boxer briefs down in one swipe. His cock sprung up against his lower stomach, the tip swollen red. She looked up at Silva as she pressed the flat of her tongue against the base of his cock, eliciting a deep moan. She licked up his whole length, swiping at the bead of precum on the head before pulling away. Silva hadn’t noticed that she had opened the condom wrapper in the meantime, and his moan turned into a surprised hiss when she unceremoniously rolled it down his length.

“I’m not,” Octane growled. His hands were at her cheeks, pulling her up and into a kiss with bruising strength and a relentless urgency. Lifeline’s lips fell open for him, letting him ravish every inch of her mouth and humming at the taste of herself. “I just didn’t want you to come on my tongue,” he explained against her lips, his voice gruff, “when you could come on my cock.”

Lifeline was sure if his slender fingers weren’t framing her face, his thumbs lightly running over the freckles on her cheeks, her head would pop off and float away. She had half the mind to push him back right then, to straddle his hips and sink down on his length, but of course Octane was faster.

There was a blur of movement. In no particular order, the pair fell back into a kiss; then back against the bed; then shifted farther until Che lay with her peach hair sprawled across the pillows and Silva hovered above her. 

She wasn’t sure if she had wrapped her legs around Silva’s waist or if he had guided them there; wasn’t sure if her fingers clutched the short hairs at the back of his head before or after she gasped at the slide of his length against her dripping pussy; wasn’t sure if Silva was moaning because she pulled his hair or because she was biting down on his neck or because she was so tight he couldn’t just slip inside.

Silva reached down to grip the base of his cock, lining himself up and pushing lightly at Che’s entrance. She held her breath as he did so, forcing her hips to tilt up towards him rather than jumping desperately. 

“Ah, mierda ,” he groaned long and low after his head finally entered her. Che’s mouth formed an ‘o’ shape, but no sound came out. The walls of her heat clenched tight around the intrusion, her thighs mirroring that grip around his waist. Silva supported himself on his forearms as he pressed deeper, his breath hot and damp where he buried his face in Che’s neck. 

Ajay wanted to relax, to make it easier for him, but she just couldn’t get control of herself. Her vocal cords strained in her throat. So good, so big, it’s perfect, she wanted to praise him but was unable to vocalize any thought. They slipped from her mind with each inch that penetrated her. It wasn’t until Silva bottomed out and she could make a noise: all but mewling as her hips writhed beneath his.

Silva pulled out just barely, before rolling his hips forward. He fell into a delicious rhythm, rutting into her as deep as possible, forcing Che to grit her teeth at the sensation. They clung to each other for a moment, eyes closed and lightheaded from sheer pleasure. But it wasn’t long before Silva switched gears. He started pulling farther out, thrusting back into her with more force, his hips building speed. He had been licking sweat from the dip in her collarbone, but he moved on to suck bruises into the soft meat of her chest.

“Silva,” Che whined when he reached up to grip the headboard, using that as leverage to fuck her in earnest. Her legs fell open and her nails scratched harsh lines down his back before she gripped his narrow waist. Her palms pushed at his hip bones, It’s too much . Her fingers dug into his skin and pulled him closer on each thrust, It’s not enough . 

Octane changed positions as if he could read her mind. He reared back on his heels, gripping the back of Lifeline's knees and pressing forward. She folded in half easily, the life of an apex legend lending to some flexibility. “ Yeah ,” Che’s eyes rolled back as Silva’s cock dipped deeper inside of her. A stream of curses tumbled from his lips at the same time, his head thrown back in bliss. He rammed into her again and again, spurred by the new sounds she made with each thrust.

When Octavio’s hips slowed, Ajay opened her eyes. “What?” she asked when found him looking down on her, his expression somewhat clouded. His mouth twisted into a frown for a split second before his face broke into a leer.

He moved her legs back down around his hips before leaning over her. "You're just," He moved a curl from where it was stuck to her forehead before kissing her round nose. “so cute,” he mumbled before kissing her. For some reason, this attention brought more heat to Ajay’s cheeks than anything else that had happened that night.

Before she could disagree or wonder what had come over him, Octavio’s expression melted back into perverse hunger. “And sexy ,” he growled, groping both of her breasts in his hands and moving to suck a nipple into his mouth. 

Ajay’s body contradicted itself: she shuddered away from his grip, arched up into his mouth, and shook her head in quick succession. “Octavio!” her voice broke around his name, her fingers digging into his shoulders. At that, his eyes widened and he nibbled lightly on her nipple before releasing her.

Octavio sat back on his heels and lifted her thighs up onto his own. He pressed halfway inside her, grabbed her by the hips and pulled her onto his cock the rest of the way. “ Ajay ,” he heaved as he began to fuck her just like that.

She twisted her hands in the bed sheets, ignoring the twinge of pain in her lower back as she arched off the bed. She watched a bead of blood bubble up from where Octane bit his own lip, watched a drop of sweat slide from his pecs down to his abs. It was so lewd and electrifying: the words which fell from their mouths, the slap of skin echoing through the room, the veins popping in Octane’s forearms while Ajay’s tits bounced from his thrusts.

“O,” Ajay exclaimed when his cock brushed past a weak spot, her voice so high that his nickname sounded like a question.

“Sí?,” he breathed with a lopsided grin, “Right there?” he knew what he was doing, thrusting once more at that exact angle.

A hard gasp ripped through Ajay’s throat, black spots flashing in the corners of her vision. She heard the pop of a cap, saw a flash of green come down against Octane’s thigh and that was all the warning she got before her hips were lifted off the bed and slammed into a brutal thrust. Octane's veins flashed green from the stim, the color pulsing up his chest and arms and fizzling out at his neck. He held Ajay's hips still, driving his cock into that spot with vicious accuracy and inhuman speed.

Ajay was wailing from the pleasure, but not loud enough to drown out the sound of fabric tearing beneath Octavio’s metal legs. Her entire body went rigid, her chest lifting off the mattress and her toes curling. Her clit throbbed at the slim contact it got from each of Octavio’s thrusts. “Oh god, Oh fuck, O please,” she cried as pressure built up throughout every limb. She saw white, one last moan erupting from her chest as the tension in her spine reached a peak and spilled over the edge.

Octavio’s breathy laugh was cut off by a hoarse grunt as her heat clenched around his cock. Ajay’s abs seized tight from the force of her orgasm, her shoulders and knees pinching inward and her head swinging forward so that her chin tucked against her chest.

She registered that Silva’s length had left her, whether it was forced out by her tight release or slipped out as she wiggled away. But just as soon as felt that absence, Silva was pulling her towards him by her wrists and pressing his cock back inside her pussy.

The sound that left Ajay’s chest was guttural, her legs kicking out frantically as her inner walls gripped his girth. Octane raised onto his prosthetic knees, following her hips until he was fully sheathed again. 

“Octavio,” she pleaded around a deep groan. Her whole lower body shook violently and her face twisted into a pucker. The overstimulation was debilitating. She couldn’t tell where pleasure ended and pain started, but she was glad Octavio's grip around her wrists kept her from vibrating off of his cock.

“Can you do it, baby?” Silva whispered as he rammed into her, his thrusts short and irregular. Che nodded. He was still achingly hard and she wanted him to come too. She needed it. 

“Can you come for me again?” he asked.

Ajay’s eyes flew open. Her mouth formed around a harsh ‘WHAT?’  but only a whimper left her lips. He wasn’t chasing his own orgasm, he was holding it off while he chased hers.

“C’mon, mamí, give me one more, ” he cooed, his tongue shooting out to lick sweat from the corner of his mouth. His hips stuttered, causing Ajay to tremble as she gasped in air.  “Just one more.” he breathed and she couldn’t tell if his words were meant to be reassuring or challenging. 

“Mm,” Che pressed her lips together and nearly sobbed. She wanted to, but she didn't know when the stimulation would topple over into discomfort. She had never done this before, or rather had never had somebody do this to her. She didn’t know if she could come again, but Silva seemed confident. In the end, he had good reason to be. All he had to do was brush the pad of his thumb lightly over her clit, up then down, and Che was done for.

Ajay’s second orgasm was silent and breathless. White hot and immeasurable. Her fingers spasmed out to painful stretches before clenching down into fists, and that was the only movement of her own body she could register. Outside of herself, she felt Octavio pound into her a few more times before riding out his own release with a shout. 

She needed air, but she couldn’t seem to get any. She saw pitch black, but her eyes were open. Weren’t they? Octane was rambling in Spanish, but his voice sounded like it was underwater and she had no brain power to translate any of it. Slowly, her senses came back to her. She exhaled deeply before realizing she had even inhaled. Like the opposite of fainting.

It was a feat to swing her head to the side, but when she did she found Octane laying beside her, tying a knot onto the end of the used condom. “Shit, I haven’t had such a good lay in a while,” he laughed before flinging the thing across the room, then pumped his fist when it landed in the trash can. 

Lifeline wrinkled her nose at his cheeriness and lack of exhaustion. “A while, huh?” she muttered, then jumped when he turned onto his side to face her. She’d honestly expected her voice to be too weak for him to hear that.

“Yeah, like six years,” Octane snickered, reached out to grab her by the waist and pull her into his chest. 

“Sure,” Lifeline rolled her eyes at his comment, the attempt at flattery falling flat against her disbelief. There was no way 18 year old Ajay was his last good lay. Still, she slid her body against his.

“I’m way better now, aye?” Octane said against the crown of her head, refusing to leave that topic alone. He continued before Ajay could respond, “I mean, I broke two records in one go!”

Che pulled back, propped herself up on her elbow, and raised a brow at Silva’s triumphant grin. “Two what ?”

“Records, duh,” he replied, “I made you come in under an hour and I gave you 2 orgasms within 5 minutes.”

“Why the hell would ya think you’re the first to do that?” Ajay sneered, her voice higher than she would like.

“Am I not?” Octane asked, his voice mocking innocence but his eyes narrowed with mischief. 

Ajay clicked her tongue, pushed his face away with her palm, and got up to go to the bathroom. She tiptoed back into the room when she was done, the wood floor cold beneath the soles of her feet, the air chilly against her bare skin. Octane was already asleep when Lifeline slipped back into bed, his prosthetics propped by the nightstand. Ajay couldn't help but feel lucky, to be one of the few people who had proof that Octane slept at all. 

She joined him beneath the comforter, leaching off of his warmth and allowing herself a small smile at the sight of his sleeping face: mouth ajar and eyebrows uncharacteristically relaxed. Since they were kids, he pulled all nighters throughout most of the week. So whenever he finally got some rest, he'd pass out in the blink of an eye. She snuggled closer and reaching for his face, trailing over his scars and tapping the spiked metal of his snakebites. Octane breathed deeply through his mouth, and when her finger brushed over his bottom lip, his tongue darted out to lick it. 

Octavio’s eyes squinted open and Ajay beamed as he immediately shut them again. It was as if his internal battery plummeted from 100 % to 1% with nothing in between. “C’mere hermosa,” he grumbled, his voice as husky as she was used to hearing over the phone. He pulled her naked body against his and hummed as he kissed her neck one last time. They fit together like spoons, with Ajay facing the large window and Octavio unashamedly gripping one of her breasts. She wondered how the two of them could fall back into bed so easily after so many years, both in terms of sex and simply sleeping in each other's arms, but the temptation of rest stopped her from elaborating on that thought.

Ajay slept without waking or tossing or turning. But in the morning, she would find herself just as unsatisfied and frustrated as she had been before she started the game. And she would cry, because she would finally realize the real source of her confusing emotions. 

But for now? She slept better than she had in weeks. Maybe even better than she had in six years.

Chapter Text

Love is so cruel

It makes my hatred melt away

Lifeline had a habit of waking with the sun. But that morning, she stretched and yawned beneath the thick covers of her hotel bed, relishing a few more minutes of sleep as the sting of sunlight had yet to penetrate the thin skin of her eyelids. Even once she was fully awake, she stayed in the dark warmth, letting the events of the previous day flow through her mind.

She endured a full body shiver, recalling the way Octavio had made her feel. His hands holding her, his lips kissing her, his length buried deep inside her. His breathless laughter and moans of pleasure mingling in the air with her own. It was enough to spark fresh heat in the base of her stomach. She kicked out her legs, letting them writhe against the sheets. She reached to poke at spots on her neck and chest and hips, felt the delicious ache of the marks Octane had left on her.

But the things that really got to Lifeline were the smaller, less explicit moments. Her mind was stuck on the way Octane had looked at her, the way he smiled against her skin, the pet names and praise he’d whispered into her hair and the warmth he’d wrapped her in as he held her through the night.

Ajay curled into herself, as if the past were a tangible thing, as if she needed to cradle it or else it might escape her grasp. She bit down on her lower lip, squeezed her eyes shut, then shoved her head beneath a feather pillow. She pressed her fingers into her cheeks, massaging the muscles there by way of stifling her grin. 

Nothing stopped the memories from dancing circles around her crown, vivid and strong despite the substances she’d indulged in. The joints of her hands, stiff from sleep, were warmed by the flush which erupted across her cheeks and neck. The slight throb of a hangover at her temples was overpowered by her elated emotions.

The first thing Ajay thought, once she forced herself to take deep breaths and calm down, was that she loved Otavio. 

She had felt it before, an unendurable mutation of a crush that had threatened to ruin their friendship in high school.  She had even felt it more recently, too, a flippant admittance that she cared deeply for him like anybody would care for family. 

Yet, what she felt that morning was completely new. Maybe a different sensation than the previous ones. Or maybe, just an evolved version of her past love.

Ajay loved Octavio. Not with reluctance, not due to obligation, and not through a naive or idealized lens. She loved him completely. She loved him actively. She had loved him this way for a while now.

Which is why Ajay didn’t take long to come to her next realization. She rolled away from her side of the bed and stretched out one arm, let her fingers crawl across the cold linen sheets until they dropped off the edge. It was a self indulgent action. It did nothing but confirm what she already knew. Ajay loved Octavio, and he had left long before she woke. 

Lifeline’s first instinct was to be angry. Not actual anger, just the thought of it. She thought that she should feel offended and upset, but she didn’t. Because she loved Octane in the way one can only love a person they truly know. And when you know someone that well, you don’t expect the impossible from them. 

Ajay rubbed her eyes and couldn’t help but feel a little relieved. It was nice to react to something with such certainty. She sat up against the headboard, held her knees to her chest, let the cold greet her bare skin as her mind settled on what she had to do next. 

She didn’t move until she was ready. Minutes flew by, but she needed to be completely certain and understanding of her decision. When she finally opened her eyes, tears fell as if a dam had broken. They were the steady, calm kind. The type of tears which fell in thin streams down her cheeks, her breath barely hiccuping. When Ajay blinked past the moisture and looked around, she found that Octavio had done a few things before he left. 

He had shut all the drawers and cupboards which he’d previously left open in his search for condoms. He had found her phone and D.O.C. and plugged them into their chargers. He had picked her clothes up off the floor and set them down on the hotel loveseat. And he’d pulled the sun shade down over the window , successfully tricking Ajay into sleeping longer instead of waking at the crack of dawn. 

Lifeline couldn’t escape the joy she felt as she got out of bed and discovered these things. It met with the ache in her chest like water meeting oil, forcing the heavier sensation to shift around and accommodate it.

Last but not least, Octane had left a holospray on her nightstand. Not the disposable, fancy kind the legends used in the games, but the reusable kind that only displayed some text. “We should do that again some time!” it’s message flickered bright green with a little winking face at the end.

Lifeline kept glancing at the holospray as she got ready and packed up all her things. She stared at it for a long while before she left, her heart plummeting anew each time she reread the sentence. It was worse than if he had left nothing behind and left her room a mess as if he didn’t know her. It was worse because what he had done was the most Lifeline could ever ask of him. 

Last night hadn’t changed who he was. He lived fast, chased whims, disregarded safety in all situations. He navigated the world with an air of nonchalance even when it was inappropriate to do so. He slept with people and didn’t stick around for breakfast in the morning. 

Typically, being faced with these facts could cause a frustrated groan to rise in the back of her throat. But despite the vulnerable position Ajay was in now, her emotions didn’t tumble into a bout of anger. There was no way to develop anger when someone you love acts exactly as they always have. It didn’t matter how much Ajay wanted to eat breakfast with Octavio.

Lifeline realized there wasn’t much of a difference between love and guilt. At least, not the way she experienced it. Admitting to the feeling was the toughest part, but once it was done it couldn’t be reversed. Ajay moved slowly through Bonsai Plaza, her eyes skimming lazily over the architecture, her feet disrupting the designs etched into the sand. As guilt transformed her feelings about Olympus, so did love transform her feelings about her night with Octane.

“I’m sorry, friends! I got so drunk last night that I forgot to fuel the ships!” A frowning emoticon with a worried bead of sweat appeared on Pathfinder’s chest screen, so bright that Ajay could see it from many yards away.

Elliot groaned loudly, “How does a tin can get drunk ?” 

“I imagine it’s a similar process to filling a flask,” Natalie mused as she knelt beside the MRVN and began to unscrew a fuel valve.

Conversation halted for a moment, the sound of metal clinking as Pathfinder, Wattson, and Rampart worked on the small ships the legends had used to get to Olympus.

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Elliot whispered without much confidence, still standing off to the side and scratching the hair at his jaw.

“Witt, would ya get over here and help a mate?” Ramya barked, “Unless you used all your brain power to figure that out.”

“Can I help?” Ajay called. Until then, the quartet hadn’t noticed her approaching. She hadn’t wanted them to, as she thumbed the holospray in her pocket and composed herself.

They all greeted Ajay, but Elliot’s relieved smile fell flat as Ramya said “Nah, you good! Four’s more than enough. We’ll be set to fly back to Solace in an hour tops.”

Lifeline nodded, grinning so wide that her eyes squinted shut a bit, hiding the slight puffiness and redness there. She had actually hoped a little elbow grease would do her some good.

“So,” she sighed, “what’s everybody else up to?” 

“Hanging out at my boxing ring! Last one there is a lucky duo,” Pathfinder exclaimed with pride.

“As in, the last two to wake up got lucky ,” Mirage snickered. “Bloodhound said somebody on their floor threw a private afterparty, if you know what I mean,” he sent an exaggerated wink towards Lifeline. 

Ajay’s false smile twitched. A cloud of fear and embarrassment opened up in her lungs. Mirage didn’t see it, though, as Rampart slapped him in the back of the head for trying to attach a fuel pipe to the wrong hole.

“Pay attention! And we’re all adults here, you can just say bone,” Ramya rolled her eyes.

Elliot pouted, “Whatever, two legends are boning and Hound won’t name names.”

“My money’s on Andrade and Williams,” Ramya smacked her gum, smirking as Natalie giggled. 

“ Well , I’m goin’ over there,” Ajay blurted with far too much enthusiasm, earning a few curious glances. “Maybe I can get Bloth to say which floor they were on,” she added.

Natalie clapped, “Good idea!” 

“Yeah, if Octane hasn’t annoyed the answer out of them already,” Elliot scoffed. Ajay’s heart jumped into her throat. 

Part of her had already been confident that she’d find Silva in the ring. That part was ready to find him and get it over with. But another part was hoping she could waste a few minutes riding around Olympus in search of him. She could definitely use more time finalizing what exactly she would say.

“That reminds me!” Pathfinder turned to Lifeline, an exclamation mark on his chest, “Octane said-” his sentence was cut short when he stepped on a fuel pipe, his heavy metal foot crushing the tube and causing a glob of fluid to gush out the end and directly into Mirage’s face. 

Lifeline snuck away during the ensuing commotion, thanking whatever higher powers had stopped Pathfinder’s sentence from spreading to the least secretive legends in the Apex Games. Whatever it was, Lifeline didn’t want to hear it either. 

She hopped onto a trident, allowing the sound of laughter and yelling and apologizing to fade into the distance. Wind battered her ears as she sped away on the topless vehicle. Normally, tears would build up and fly from the corners of her eyes, but she had spent them all in her hotel room.

Octane didn’t love Lifeline. He was attracted to her, of course. And he was definitely fond of her. But Ajay was certain that he didn’t love her. At least, not the same way she loved him. 

There was a moment where she believed herself capable of loving him despite this. Obviously, confessing would be disastrous, but she thought maybe she could work around it. They could hook up again and she could still invite him to her room in the dropship and she could still call him on restless nights. She could indulge her affection for him without crossing the line.

Now, Ajay laughed at herself, her huff of air propelled back into her face by the speed of the trident. To continue as if nothing had happened would only make her desires grow until they were too intense to conceal. That would end in an even bigger mess. 

Lifeline was old enough to know that loving someone is an action, a path you take. It is to place a mason jar of strawberry jam in the cellar. It takes a while to set, but once it does it’ll be delicious for up to a year. It doesn’t return to the dirt like a fruit when it rots. You have to throw it in the trash, wash the dishes, place the jar back in your cupboard.

Ajay’s love had lasted for so long that it could no longer be compared to jam. It was more like strawberry wine. It would sit in the dark, year after year, getting ripe rather than rotten. It was already so beautifully aged and tempting. 

But the love Ajay felt for Octavio wasn’t made for a few casual hook ups, wasn’t meant to be a one sided experience, wasn’t meant to wait in the dark. Ajay saw two options: Either she’d die with that wine sitting in the cellar or she’d pop the cork now and dump that shit down the drain.

At the entrance to Pathfinder’s town takeover, Ajay climbed out of the trident. She waved to Bloodhound and Horizon in the stadium’s inner halls. Her nerves tingled as the tracker’s mask and modest demeanor hid any sign that they had heard Ajay and Octavio last night. She really hoped they had heard some other legends.

As Ajay moved down the steps and towards the boxing ring in the center, those nerves scattered up her throat and buzzed in her ears. She wished she could say it was better to be in the boxing ring, a brand new building which held none of the weight the rest of Olympus did, but that wasn’t true. Instead, the new ground made her stomach jump. She was hyper aware of the thousands of feet of open air beneath the metal structure this stadium sat atop.

Octane lay in the dead center of the ring, his limbs all sprawled out and his chest heaving, a hastily taped skateboard sitting beside him. The sight of him being so still only worsened Ajay’s condition, having a similarly eerie effect as when she’d see him downed in early seasons of Apex. 

It brought back memories of a hospital bed, of Octavio so hopped up on painkillers that he couldn’t speak, of a doctor telling Ajay the details of his double amputation because she was the only one who had shown up.

With that came the memory of turning an entire hospital wing upside down, of Ajay not knowing whether she should be searching for Octavio or his body. And the memory of finally getting answers, a few texts which confirmed he had simply bolted the second he got those legs she’d pulled in so many favors to get. 

There was a time when Ajay still held a grudge over Octane’s lie and his ungratefulness. She attempted to hold onto that anger as she watched Octavio propel himself off the floor and jump back onto the skateboard. He rode around the ring, cursing as he gained no air due to the shallowness of each hill and valley in the square. But the ghost of Ajay’s grudge morphed under the light of the love she had admitted to. It didn’t change what Octavio had done, but it changed her own motivations. 

She remembered her disgust when she realized Octane had forged a job offer from his father. But she knew now that some of that disappointment was directed at herself. Why hadn’t she read the entire letter before rushing to help him?

Maybe she had been eager for some justification, so she wouldn’t feel irresponsible in aiding his return to such a dangerous lifestyle. Maybe it killed her to see him lay so still in that hospital bed every day, to watch him overexert himself during physical therapy, to hear him ask the doctor when he’d be able to run again and to watch his face crumble at the response.

The truth is, Ajay would’ve done anything to stop him from losing his passion. Even if she hadn’t seen that fake job offer, she would’ve found him the most efficient and mobile prosthetic legs on the market.

Lifeline hoisted herself over the edge of the ring. Her skin tingled as she crossed the electrical force field around the space. In the games, no bullets or ability effects could penetrate the boxing ring. Now, she hoped this barrier muffled sound as well.

It took a moment for Octane to notice her fidgeting at the edge of the ring. He continued to skate for a moment, landing one last kick flip before he jogged over to her corner. 

“Everyone’s ready to go?” he asked. He was either dressed for a casual workout or a long ride home: basketball shorts and a bright green hoodie pulled over his head, his face obscured by a small black mask and sunglasses. 

Lifeline shook her head, “Some still sleepin’. Plus, they gotta fuel the ships.”

Octavio threw his head back as he groaned, the line of his neck ridiculously enticing. Ajay forced her eyes away from him. Before she lost her nerve, she pulled out his closed holo spray and held it in front of her. 

“Ah, thanks,” he wrapped a hand around hers, his cold fingers closing around her warm ones and slowly slipping away with the metal disk, “Sooo, do you want to?”

“Want to what,” Ajay responded blankly. Despite all her planning and preparation, her brain stalled just from Octavio stepping closer to her.

“Do it again,” he asked in a low voice, “Like, right now? To pass the time?” Ajay thought she could hear the cocky smirk in his voice, but when he pulled his mask down beneath his chin she saw a hopeful smile in its place.

“No,” Ajay’s mouth caught up to her brain. She staggered a step away, her back meeting the thick ropes around the boxing ring.

“Okay,” Octavio shrugged. He stepped away as well, reaching back to grip his prosthetic foot and pull it into a stretch, his head titling around to survey the decks which overlooked the ring. They were empty. 

I need to say it, now. Lifeline told herself. This was her opening, the perfect opportunity. It would be easy, like ripping off a bandaid. She just needed to get the words out before Octane got antsy and bolted.

“Not even a quickie?” Ajay nearly didn’t catch the question as Octane spoke so fast. His bottom lip was poked out, both eyebrows raised over the top of his sunglasses.

“What? No,” she placed her hands on her hips, taking a deep breath before she continued.

“What about a make out, uh,” Octane beat her to it again, “session?” he finished, the questioning lilt in his voice aimed at the strange adolescent term he’d chosen rather than at her. Lifeline couldn’t help the open mouthed smile which crept across her face, her brows slightly pinched in surprise. His eagerness was typical, but why was he so nervous?

“Let me try that again,” Octavio said in one embarrassed rush, nudging his hoodie back to scratch at his scalp. His frown melted into a lopsided smile as Ajay giggled at him. He looked too cute standing there beneath the bright blue, cloudless sky. His jacket was just a few shades off from the green of his hair, his near black roots growing in. Ajay wanted to say yes so badly, but she couldn’t.

“O, I don’,” she leveled her voice, carefully considering her words. I don’ want to would be a blatant lie. She wasn’t trying to lie. “I don’ think we should do anything like that, again.” 

Her words hung in the air too long. Ajay realized she was avoiding Octavio’s gaze too late. When she forced herself to look up at him, he was nodding. His mouth formed a straight line. His head bobbed at a modest speed, which was far too slow for him.

“‘Cause of the games, right? Don’t wanna mix work and pleasure?” he asked, his light tone at odds with his strangely tense posture.

“Right,” the word almost dragged from Lifeline’s throat. That wasn’t a lie. The proximity involved in their work would make it impossible for her to hide or stifle her feelings for Octane.

“And if we didn’t work together?” he asked out of nowhere. Ajay stared at him but was unable to glean anything past the thick tint of his sunglasses.

“Silva, there’s too much history between us for that,” she shook her head, struggling to get the words out in the right way, “We know too much.”

To know somebody as well as they knew each other, to have instances of intimacy and vulnerability spanning across over a decade, it was an overwhelming weight. When Ajay looked at Octavio, she saw more of him than she could bear. 

In his flawless smile, she could see echoes of a gap from when he’d knocked a front tooth out. 

He had been doing backflips off the jungle gym. When he’d shown all the kids at recess, Ajay had told him he was lucky he hadn’t lost an adult tooth. He had asked her what an adult tooth was, then argued that baby teeth just got bigger as kids grew taller. This led to Ajay showing the whole class a picture of a child’s skull, to prove that kids had adult teeth embedded in their jaws. Octavio was the only one who didn’t run away screaming. He’d said it was badass, then taught her what that word meant.

On his nose bridge, she saw both a raised scar as well as the fresh slash across his skin, so deep that his bone had been visible.

He had biked all the way to Ajay’s house to ask her for a band aid and she hadn’t told him he needed stitches because she didn’t want to seem squeamish. She’d cleaned the wound and applied a butterfly closure, then snuck him a shot of tequila in a porcelain teacup to ‘numb the pain’. Ajay had told him it’d leave a scar, but it would look hot. Octavio had said he’d keep collecting scars until she got a crush on him.

At the edges of his eyes, she could see where crows feet would one day appear on his smooth skin. 

His father had them, the wrinkles so prominent that they appeared whenever he simply narrowed his eyes. The man had only ever smiled at Ajay once, when they ran into each other on the Silva household’s driveway. He had placed a stiff hand on her shoulder, thanked her for keeping his son in line lately, and told her to invite her parents for dinner. The comment made her stomach twist in knots, made her feel guilty for forcing Octavio to wear helmets and letting him copy her homework. She’d avoided hanging out with Octavio for a week afterwards.

Lifeline could never mention any of that to Octane, as it would only upset him. Maybe even make him insecure about a trait he hadn’t even inherited yet. And that was the root of the whole problem, the reality that had finalized Ajay’s decision that morning. Their history made any relationship between them impossible. 

For a while, it was their vastly different priorities which had squandered any chance of a relationship. Ajay wanted to escape her parents, join a workforce where she could make a difference and right some of their wrongs. Octavio hadn't gotten sick of luxury yet, he obeyed his father as much as he needed to in order to secure access to his trust fund and continue doing whatever he felt like. So different, yet somehow they'd both ended up in the Apex Games. And ever since Ajay let him in this season, they'd been getting along better than ever before.

Now, Lifeline only wished for Octane to be happy. She no longer wanted him to chill out or slow down, because she knew that wouldn't be the real him. And she loved who he was, both in the past and in the present. She hoped that someday, when he got old enough, somebody would trace their fingers over his crow’s feet and tell him how handsome they made him look. It couldn’t be Ajay, though, or else he wouldn’t believe it. It’d have to be somebody who never even met his dad. Somebody who could never make any connections between the man he was now and the man who had raised him. The same was true regarding the details Octane knew about Lifeline and her own parents. 

Octane didn’t love Lifeline. But even if he did, a relationship between them would only end in ruin. The best option would be for them to rebuild the friendship they’d had as kids. To do that, Lifeline needed time away from him. She needed to rebuild her walls, set up those boundaries she’d had when he first joined the Apex Games.

A smile flashed across Octane’s face as he huffed, “Yeah, I get that.” He scratched the back of his neck. Now, it was his turn to avoid Ajay’s gaze. She couldn’t contain the concern in her eyes as she tried to read him. She hadn’t expected this conversation to take so long or to be so serious. At least, not on his end.

“It’d get boring, anyway,” Octane scoffed then, as if to prove her thoughts wrong, “Being held down by one person.” 

Ajay’s mouth shot open to ask him what he meant by that, but Octavio had already turned away and hopped back on his skateboard. Lifeline felt both accomplished and confused. She’d ended up saying everything she’d planned to tell him. Yet she felt like she had missed out on part of the conversation. 

She returned to the little ships just as the quartet finished fueling them. They were still waiting on Bangalore to wake up, as she would join Pathfinder and Horizon to fly everybody home. The group was beyond happy about her absence, though. Even as the sun began to set, they only felt more sure that she was the one who got lucky after the party. Lifeline sat atop D.O.C.’s back, listening in silence even as Wraith and Gibraltar joined in, placing their own bets.

Octane’s last words were playing on a loop in Lifeline’s head. Even when she settled into a seat on a ship and put on her headphones, she couldn’t stop wondering why he’d said that. As day turned to night, Lifeline only felt more sure that she’d detected a hint of defensiveness in his tone. Did he not believe her reasoning? Should she have reassured him that she’d enjoyed the sex? She hadn’t thought she’d needed to. Maybe he was just annoyed to have been rejected.

After the ship landed, Ajay popped her head into the cockpit to find Pathfinder. “Thanks for drivin’ Path- I mean, flyin’,” she rubbed her dry eyes. She hadn’t been able to get a wink of sleep the whole ride, even with her noise canceling headphones. She still needed to pack up her room in the drop ship, but it was so late that she’d have to wrap things up with the Syndicate in the morning.

“No problem, my good friend!” Pathfinder chirped as Ajay placed a hand on his metal shoulder. “Oh, did I tell you Octane’s secret yet?” he called after her when she turned to leave.

She sighed as she shook her head. She had a feeling she was about to hear a naive interpretation of a crude joke about their one night stand. 

“Actually, I recorded it! Let me show you,” Pathfinder began to poke at his chest, probably attempting to access his memory files. 

“No, Path,” she waved him away as he began to search for whatever tool enabled him to display his recording on his chest screen. She really didn’t need to know what Silva had said. What she needed was to start packing so she could get back to her apartment and her life outside Apex and forget about Silva for a while. “Ya not supposed to share secrets so don’ show me anythin’,” she reasoned.

“Oh, you’re right!” Pathfinder buzzed in agreement.

Together, they boarded the drop ship, which was parked for maintenance in a lot outside the Apex Games’ headquarters. They parted ways in the food court.

Ajay dragged her feet down the hall towards her room. She knew it was unrealistic to hope for a night without Octavio running circles in her mind. But, at the very least, she hoped she could get some sleep with the view of Solace outside her window.

Chapter Text

Bad boy, bad boy 

Yeah, you really make me a

Sad girl, sad girl

Ajay Che sat in the drop ship's foot court, her foot propped up on the table and falling asleep, her eyes aching and threatening to slip shut. 

It had been a few days since the legends partied on Olympus, but she had yet to leave the drop ship, let alone the grounds of the Apex headquarters. She couldn’t leave. She had things to do.

“I understand the rules, now, but I’m still not sure how to go about winning,” Wattson sighed. Her cheek rested in her palm and her accent elongated her vowels.

“I know how!” Pathfinder’s mechanics whirred as he raised a hand, “Should I explain it this time, Lifeline?”

Ajay blinked away her drowsiness. She had to go back to her room. She had to pack up and sign paperwork to close out Season 7. Then, she had to sign up for Season 8 and set up meetings with her sponsors. It should all only take 5 hours to complete.

She smiled at the legends from across the table, “Nah, I got time to teach yuh a few strategies.” The three leaned closer, Wattson listening intently as Lifeline showed her how to win the board game they’d been playing for most of the day. 

Lifeline didn’t actually have time for this. She’d previously stayed locked in her room, trying to force herself to pack, but that hadn’t worked. The littlest things kept distracting her. So, she’d given up. She figured if she was going to procrastinate, she might as well do so in a more social way.

“I’m done! I don’t know what else to say,” Gibraltar’s words echoed throughout the space. He entered from one of the many halls attached to the food court. The area was open and comfortable, structured much like a cafe and occupying the center of the drop ship’s top floor.

“We must be missing something,” Wraith stepped out from Gibraltar’s shadow, her face scrunched in concentration,“Hey, Path, can you show us the tape again?”she called as she approached their table.

Ajay and Natalie exchanged confused glances as Pathfinder nodded and got to work on his chest panel. Makoa shook his head, throwing himself down on one of the leather chairs. “No use,” he said as he reclined in his seat, “That boy’s mind is made up.”

“Really? That’s a shame,” Natalie wrung her hands in her lap, jumping into the conversation and leaving Ajay to feel truly left out.

Wraith came to stand beside Lifeline’s seat, “What are you doing here? We thought you left days ago.” 

Ajay struggled to come up with a response. She should have left days ago. Renee’s mouth was tugged into a serious frown, which only deepened as she surveyed Ajay’s blank expression.

“Did you tell her?” Wraith’s light eyes flashed impatiently between Pathfinder and Wattson.

“Tell me what?” Lifeline hated being left out of the loop. Her friends were dripping with anxiety and sorrow and she didn’t even know what they were talking about.

“Why not?” Wraith pressed, specifically towards Pathfinder. The lens of his mechanical eye widened with something akin to fear.

“Lifeline said she didn’t want to watch! Secrets aren’t supposed to be shared,” the MRVN explained.

Ajay’s brows furrowed as she realized what they were talking about. “Well, ya shared it with everyone else, so go on,” she sighed. She hated how eager she was to see what he’d recorded Octane saying, but now it seemed serious. The robot’s metal finger hovered over his buttons a moment longer, but he eventually pressed play. 

The group gathered around Lifeline to get a good view as Pathfinder’s screen lit up with static, his speakers clicking audibly. The black and white fuzz cleared to reveal a shot of Octane skateboarding near the golden walls surrounding Bonsai Plaza. The camera started rolling just in time to catch the tail end of whatever stunt he’d pulled.

“Oh, you have to do it again! I wasn’t filming yet,” Pathfinder’s voice sounded far away, as his camera must have struggled to pick up audio from his own speakers.

Octane shook his head as Path approached, “Nah, I can’t catch air in this place. It’s like those suckers built it to be skate-proof. ” He kicked the structure beside him, his metal foot clanking loudly at the contact. 

He sounded really pissed, like he had been failing to do a trick for a while. But the sky in the video was a deep blue, a sign that the sun was barely rising. Considering the late night they’d had and how much he’d done before leaving the hotel room, Octane couldn’t have been skating for long at the time of the recording.

Octavio swiped his sunglasses from his face, pressing his thumb and index finger into the inner corners of his eyes as if in pain. “Don’t be upset! I can set up a zipline and you can do tricks on the roof again!” Pathfinder chirped optimistically.

“I’m not upset ,” Octavio spat, finally looking up at the MRVN beside him and directly into the camera. Lifeline’s eyes widened at his tone and his face. There was real anger there that she had rarely seen in the last few years. But Octavio’s sneer fell flat just as fast as it had appeared. He turned away from the camera and put his sunglasses back on, then pulled out his mask and put it on too. 

His bright green eyes had only been visible for a second, but Lifeline thought she might’ve detected a hint of redness around them. She shook her head as she watched Octane’s demeanor snap back into normalcy. He was telling Pathfinder how there used to be a skatepark on Olympus. No, she must’ve imagined it. Or maybe it was a trick of the screen.

Octavio tapped his foot impatiently as the two considered good stunt locations in the arena. He jumped in excitement once Path suggested the boxing ring and quickly decided to head over there. Pathfinder declined, explaining that he had to prepare the ships for take off.

“You sure are eager to practice, friend!” Pathfinder noted, “Will you bring your skateboard into the games next season?”

“Pfft,” Octane threw his head back before swinging it towards Path. The motion was no doubt an extension of a dramatic eye roll. “No way! I’m moving onto bigger and better things, amigo.” 

“What?” Pathfinder asked on the tape.

“Yeah, blood sports are so old school! Too many rules, I’m bored of it,” Octane gripped his trapezius as he lazily rolled his shoulder, “X Games are hot right now! And I know you’re all sick of me leavin’ my jump pads all over the map,'' he said as if it was an inside joke.

“Nobody is sick of your jump pads,” Pathfinder spoke sincerely, his voice as confused as Lifeline felt. She was reminded of a comment she’d made a few times in the arena: Wonder who left this lyin’ around. Octane had never even made any indication that he’d heard her when she said that.

Silva’s arm shot out to lightly punch Pathfinder, “Chin up, hermano! You can still catch my streams.” He laughed, but the sound was half hearted. When Path didn’t join in, he just cleared his throat and hopped back onto his skateboard.

“Okay, see you later,” Pathfinder muttered, but Octane was already disappearing around the corner of a tall hedge.

Ajay gaped at Pathfinder’s chest long after he pressed pause and closed the recording. “What?” she asked, unable to come up with any other words. 

Pathfinder’s screen buzzed as it displayed a blue sad face, “The Octrain is leaving the station,” he responded.

“He’s leavin’ the games, Che.” Gibraltar corrected, “We tried talkin’ him out of it, but he says extreme sports are the new frontier.”

“Which makes no sense,” Wattson’s mouth puckered in deep thought, “Statistics show that they get a quarter of the views we get! And the prize money doesn’t even come close .” Lifeline’s nose wrinkled at that.

Wraith continued, “His win rates have been going up every season. So, that’s not the issue, either. There must be another reason.” 

The group sat in tense silence for a second, each one thinking hard about this issue. They were called ‘legends’ for a reason. They kept coming back to the games because they kept winning. Most of them needed the money or wanted the Syndicate’s protection or craved this insane lifestyle. Octane was no exception. He was nothing like the people who left: sore losers and scaredy cats who popped in for one season and never returned.

Octane’s reasoning was definitely a lie, as well. Lifeline knew for a fact that he’d already dipped his toe in the most dangerous forms of every sport under the sun. He was in it for the rush and the spectacle. What about skateboarding or dirt bike racing could be more treacherous than the Apex Games?

 Renee glanced over her shoulder as if someone had whispered in her ear. Then, her eyes slid to the other side, locking on Ajay’s face, “You should go talk to him. He won’t listen to any of us and he’s almost done clearing out his room.”

Ajay scoffed at her words, which were more of a command than a suggestion, “What makes yuh think he’d listen to me ?” Her heart hammered in her chest, her brain cycling through a thousand possible reasons for Octane to leave the Apex Games. None of them seemed any more plausible than the flimsy reasoning the daredevil had supplied.

“Mirage hung back to talk to him alone, but that’s probably pointless. None of us know why Octane’s really leaving,” Renee continued as if Ajay hadn’t spoken at all.

After the awkward way their last conversation had ended, Ajay worried that she’d make things worse if she talked to Octavio now. “And I do?” she asked, incredulous. 

“Yeah,” Wraith’s blue eyes pierced Ajay’s brown ones, ice cold and dead serious, “I think you do.”

Ajay’s face felt hot with the sudden weight of responsibility. She was in the dark just like everyone else! She looked around herself for support, only to find that the other legends had snuck away. They’d moved to the other side of the food court, convening at the vending machines as if they didn’t want to intrude on a private conversation.

Renee moved closer to Ajay and muttered in a less severe tone, “I know I encouraged you to teach him a lesson, but-”

“I don',” Ajay interrupted. She gulped, lowered her voice, “I dunno what cha on about.” 

Renee only raised a brow, “Come on, everybody could tell you were up to something these last few weeks. Whatever it was,” the shorter woman looked away before muttering, “You might’ve gone too far.”

Ajay felt anger and embarrassment churn like lava at the base of her lungs. She wanted to defend herself, to explain that she was up to something but she didn’t go through with her whole plan. And even if she had it wouldn’t have caused this! The words bubbled up her throat, but of course, none of them could be spoken.

Her nails dug deep into the meat of her palms, hot breath huffing out through her nose as Renee left her to make sense of this alone. She tried to recall everything Octavio did before expressing his decision to Pathfinder, but the memories of that night on Olympus were so tender that they but heads with her current emotions, threatening to give Ajay a headache from the intense contrast. 

She moved on to the morning after. Octane told Path he was leaving before she’d turned down his offer for casual sex. So, that wasn’t the problem. Lifeline bit the inside of her cheek as she replayed that difficult conversation in her head. She’d refused to let herself think about it in the last few days, but now she remembered every single word they’d exchanged. 

‘And if we didn’t work together?’ 

Lifeline slammed her fist down on the table, recalling the strange question Octane had asked. That was the only hint he’d given about leaving the games, yet it gave absolutely no answers. She spun on her heel, forcing herself to walk out of the food court rather than run. She got through the hall she had seen Wraith and Gibraltar exit, but then she stalled. She didn’t actually know where Octane’s room was.

Is that it? She wondered as she checked the name plates on each door she passed. Octane had spent so many hours in her room this season, but she had never gone to his. Was that why he was upset? No , Ajay thought. She hadn’t come over because he never invited her over. What was she supposed to do? Invite herself? 

“Ugh,” Ajay pressed her palms against her eyes in frustration. She was thinking about this as if the two had been dating or something. Octane didn’t give a shit about little things like that, anyway. But Wraith was right. Lifeline’s plan had been the only thing to change this season, meaning something she did led to his decision to leave. 

Octane loved the Apex Games. He never failed to express how much fun he had or how many new followers he gained after each match. Lifeline knew his joy first hand. Despite her modest motivations, she loved the games too. 

She loved supporting her team and celebrating wins. She loved the friends and family she gained each season. She loved seeing Octane have a good time out in the arena. If she didn’t want to work with him in the Apex Games, then she wouldn’t be going through so much trouble to avoid completely losing him. She wouldn’t be holding back the love she felt for him in the hopes that they could rebuild their friendship in the near future. 

Ajay would never forgive herself if he left just because she’d acted so strange and contradictory. She needed to find him and fix this.

“Well, look who it is!” Mirage sang just as Lifeline turned a corner into a new corridor, “You hear about Stim-Head? It’s a shame he’s leaving after so many championships but, whatever. Less competition for us.”

“Is that Silva’s room? Did yuh convince him to stay?” Ajay asked, bolting to meet Elliot in the center of the narrow hallway.

“Nooo, I confronted him with a few theories and he kicked me out,” Mirage scratched at his clean cut beard, “I’m right though, aren’t I? He’s leaving ‘cause you guys had a falling out? What was it, a lover’s quarrel?”

“Somethin’ like that,” Lifeline huffed. It was more like she had quarreled about love all by herself and Octane got hit by some debris at the edge of her storm. She tried to slip past Mirage, but he held his hands up to hover at her shoulders. 

“Wait, really ? No kidding?” he hunched to the side to meet Ajay’s eyes.  All the arrogance in his face and voice had been replaced with surprise.

Che glared up at Witt. How could he consistently stumble into his smartest thoughts? And why did he always ruin his own glory right after?

“So the little twink isn’t gay?” he continued to ramble, ”No wonder he stopped responding to my-”

“Small up yuhself!” Lifeline barked, shoving her pointer finger into the man’s chest. On any other day, she would let him know that Octane is bisexual. But today? Witt could figure it out himself.

“Hey, don’t worry. Nothing happened between us! He’s all yours!” Elliot seemed sincere in his own, obnoxious way. That is until he began to sing in an exaggerated gravelly voice, “Oh, baby, give me one more chance,” he then raised his pitch to a ridiculous decibel, “To show you that I love you!”

Ajay tried to force him aside with her shoulder, but he spun around her, ending up back in her face and still in her way. “Oh, darling! I was bliiiind to let you go,” he continued, “Let you go, baby!”

“Ya skipped a line,” Ajay hissed. Elliot ignored her.

“Now, that I-”

“Now since .”

“-see you! In his arms,” Elliot got so into the centuries old song that he closed his eyes and grabbed his chest, “I want you back!” he belted.

Ajay’s hand flew forward, pinching the exposed meat of Elliot’s upper arm without mercy. She wasn’t in the mood to be taunted and his off-key singing only inflamed her panicked state of mind. 

She didn’t want Octavio back like that. They were never together. And they never would be together, even if part of her did desire it. That part of her didn’t matter, though. She just needed to get him back into the Apex Games.

“Okay, alright,” Mirage flinched away after prying his skin from Lifeline’s grip. “I hope you get your toy boy, boy bo-, yo-,” he finally allowed her to move past him as he paused to reconstruct his sentence.

Lifeline began to knock harshly at Octane’s door, turning her head to send Mirage a look which she hoped was more menacing than humiliated. He laughed at her expression, moonwalking down the hall and wiggling his fingers at her.

Lifeline pounded at the metal with more strength and speed. Her knuckles felt as tender and heated as her cheeks. “I hope you get your boyfriend back!” Mirage called with a shit eating grin, hell bent on getting that message across.

“He ain’t my boyfriend!” Ajay spat in response, refusing to let him have the last word.

Octavio swung his door wide open at that second, “ I said it’s unlock-” 

His head flung backwards as soon as it popped through the door frame, his annoyed sentence cut off by Ajay’s fist meeting his mouth.

Elliot erupted into a fit of laughter, lost his balance, and fell on his ass.

Chapter Text

I want you to cry, cry for me

Even if it’s just pretend, cry for me

A high gasp burst from Ajay’s lips.

A low noise of shock fell from Octavio’s at the same time.

 His hands came up to his face as he stumbled two steps back into his room.

“Silva! I’m sorry,” Ajay hurried in after him, the door swinging shut behind her. 

She reached to pull his hands away and see where she’d hit him, but hesitation slowed her movements at the last moment. Her fingers wrapped around the edges of his palms, delicate and unsure, yet he moved his hands down as if she’d tugged on them.

“Woo,” Octavio blinked rapidly, shook his head back and forth, “No te disculpes, I needed that,” he joked, but allowed Ajay to grip his chin and tilt his head whichever way. “I was bored a minute ago,” his brows raised as he waited for her to assess the damage. 

She frowned, ignoring his jest as she checked his nose for blood. He flinched when she poked at the red skin around one of his snakebites, which seemed to be swelling up, but didn’t resist when she pulled his lower lip down. Instead, he stretched his mouth painfully wide like a dental patient. 

Ajay hissed at the sight. One of his piercings had dug into his lower gums at the impact, “Silva-”

“Is it bad?” his tone was more excited than fearful. He ran his tongue over his top row of teeth, checking for a chipped tooth.

Ajay flipped his bottom lip and found that the piercing itself was bleeding as well. “It’ll heal, but ya gotta take this out,” she positioned her fingers on both sides of the labret stud.

“Oye, I can do it,” Octane grumbled around her fingers, his mouth still ajar, his posture still hunched towards Lifeline.

“Ya don’ got steady hands,” she reminded him. His upper lip twitched, but he didn’t argue further.

The pair hushed as she tried to get a grip on the small pieces of metal. And although Lifeline had shown up with one goal in mind, the task at hand overshadowed everything she’d previously contemplated. 

Lifeline took a deep breath, in through her nose and out through her mouth. Octane mimicked it, like second nature. 

Like when they were kids playing doctor: Lifeline would stretch her jaw and Octane would do the same, as he was always the patient. She’d place a popsicle stick on his tongue before checking his tonsils, the wood dyed red from the sugary treat it came with.

Like when they were teens mending each other’s wounds: Lifeline would push through her pain to patch up Octane first so he’d know what to do in return. She was embarrassed by that habit they’d shared. Other kids avoided hospitals due to the high bills, but they only avoided hospitals to keep from getting in trouble.

Octavio hissed once Ajay began to unscrew the jewelry, his hands jumping to grip her upper arms.

His pain tolerance was awfully low. Far lower than people would expect from the daredevil. Ajay had spent a decade watching him shy away from the sting and irritation of little cuts and bruises, but of course he never cried from life threatening injuries. 

He was addicted to adrenaline and, Ajay had concluded years ago, part of its appeal was the way it prevented him from feeling pain.

She moved with him when he flinched, as she’d expected him to, but that was as far as her composure extended. She tried to twist her fingers again but they stalled, slipped, snagged the piercing and elicited another pained noise from Octavio.

Ajay’s eyes fluttered up as he unconsciously pulled her closer, only to find his already trained on her face. His brows were furrowed in confusion while hers were pinched in concern. Will it always be like this? she wondered. 

Will mere proximity always disrupt her presence of mind? 

Will the smallest movements always make a mess of her nerves? 

Will the simplest gestures always dredge up a host of memories, distracting her from whatever she’s focused on?

Ajay’s gaze skittered away and landed on her fingers. Her senses were on high alert, as if she were in danger. She heard Octavio’s foot tapping against the carpet. She felt his fingers soft on her bare skin. She heard herself gulp nervously. She felt his breath on her hands as he exhaled. 

Ajay had years of medical training and combat experience. Her fine motor skills stayed precise and stable despite any situation. She could patch up a goddamn gunshot wound while she herself was bleeding from a gunshot wound.

It was all rendered useless by that one tuft of breath. 

As soon as the warmth coated her hands, the memories struck like sharks smelling blood. Her skin erupted in remembering. She felt echoes of his hot breath on her collar, the nape of her neck, her inner thighs. Days had passed since they-

Ajay couldn’t even bring herself to think the word. She had thought of it just moments ago, out in the hallway. She had thought of it every single day for the past week. She’d run through the event as she lay awake at night, reimagining every single second of it.

Yet she couldn’t think of it now. Not when Octane was inches away from her.

As soon as she could, she pulled away with both pieces of the jewelry, taking a full step away from Octane. “Espere, what if it closes?” he rushed. His foot lifted as if to step towards her, but he swung it back to its original position.

Ajay closed her fist around the warm metal, then covered it with her other hand as if it might hop out from between her fingers. If she knew anything about Octavio, she knew that he didn’t have any backups. 

“I’ll re-pierce it,”  she said, more to assuage his worries than anything else. There was no chance of her actually doing something that would bring her so close to him again.

Or maybe she should do it? If it would force her to get used to his presence, it might actually be a good idea.

Octavio played with his mouth, poking at his wound and making odd shapes with his lips. “Really? Like back in the day?” he asked with genuine surprise. Ajay grit her teeth against more recollections as she looked around for a place to store the jewelry.

“I remember when you- ah,” he cut himself off. Ajay turned her attention back to him as he took the piercing from her. But he came across the same dilemma she had been in: every surface in the room was clear and clean.

Lifeline placed a hand on her hip, not bothering to hide the annoyed expression which pulled across her face. 

He was doing it again, that weird thing he’d started on Olympus: Abruptly ending his own sentences and awkwardly moving on in the middle of conversations. “Rememba what? When I was gonna be a body piercer?” she finished for him.

“Hah, yeah,” Octane responded as if she’d reminded him of something he’d forgotten, his face lighting up with a grin. Blood mingled with his saliva, smearing across his teeth in wispy swirls and collecting at the edges of his gums.

Ajay was definitely not prepared for the sight. There was no good reason for him to look so attractive at that moment. He just wore a simple black tee and the grey shorts he used in game, his goggles resting at his hairline, but his smile was carnivorous. Also, he was lying.

“Well, why didn't cha finish yuh sentence?” she narrowed her eyes at him.

“‘Cause,” Octane shrugged with one shoulder, moving into his bathroom. He leaned over to flip the sink on.

“‘Cause what?” Ajay charged in after him. Pathfinder and the other legends may have taken a while to realize something weird was going on, but Lifeline knew better. He was playing dumb and she wasn’t about to humor him.

“‘Cause you don’t like it when I bring up the past,” Octane’s gaze sliced towards her, his demeanor expressing the duh he’d left out of his sentence. 

“I neva said that,” Lifeline forced the words from her mouth, forced herself to act like she wasn’t a little taken aback by his assessment. “So how would ya know?” And why start carin’ about it today? She wanted to ask as well, but she knew that would be too accusatory.

He sucked at his teeth, the harsh noise echoing in the tiny bathroom,“What is this, an interrogation?” 

Lifeline leveled her gaze at him, unmoving from the doorway. She needed to hold her ground, but if she went too far she’d end up kicked out like Mirage.

Octane hunched over to bring his lips to the stream of water, took in a mouthful and swished it around. He almost looked fragile, the space around him seeming bigger for its lack of products and appliances. His skin was washed out by the sterile lights and his hair was fading to a dirty olive color.

Lifeline couldn’t help but notice the dark circles beneath his eyes. She wasn’t sure if they were really a deeper purple than usual, or if it was a trick of the shadows.

He spat out red tinted water. Then, he took too long to drop his piercing in a plastic cup, considering it was the only thing on the counter. “I know because,” he finally straightened his back, milking all two inches of height difference to look down at Lifeline, “I know you, chica.” That second of silence had been enough for his confidence and evasion to return.

His voice was low, certain, and something else underneath it all, “We know each other, right? We know too much?” he repeated Lifeline’s words. The corner of his mouth twitched so quick that she couldn’t tell if it had betrayed a smirk or a grimace.

“Nah, I don’ think we do,” Lifeline mirrored his stance, sticking her nose up and meeting his eyes, “Since I got no clue why yuh’d wanna leave the Apex Games.” 

Now, she was lying.

She did have a clue. A clue which had grown into a massive tumor of worry in the time it took her to get from the food court to his hallway. She had planned to bust through his door and open up about everything. She’d apologize for playing games and beg him to stay and even confess her true feelings if she had to.

But that was before he ate her fist and laughed it off,  before he spoke to her so naturally. He was acting strange, but Ajay didn’t feel like the target or the source of any anger or discomfort. Doubt seeped into her mind and poked holes in the theory Wraith and Mirage shared.

Selfishly, foolishly, Lifeline clung to the hope that Octane’s decision to leave Apex had nothing to do with her.

Octane huffed a joyless laugh. His eyes slid away from Lifeline’s and into an eye roll. His tough exterior deflated as he placed his hands on the rim of the sink. “I already told the other guys-”

“I don’ wanna hear what ya told the other guys,'' Ajay interrupted, “I saw Path’s tape. I know ya gave them bullshit excuses, so talk and taste yuh tongue,” she stepped forward, ignoring the tingle which ran up her spine as she breached Octavio’s personal bubble. “I wanna hear the truth .”

He could make her shiver, make her knees turn to jelly, and even make her bite her tongue sometimes. But in a one on one stand off? Octane should’ve known better than to challenge Lifeline. She was a better liar. And she never shrunk when faced with her own words.

Octane closed his eyes as he sighed, then turned his head back towards Lifeline. His face went blank, his attitude somber. He knew there was no avoiding this. She wouldn’t let him.

When he opened his eyes, they caught on Ajay’s lips. She felt heat crawl up her neck, but her frown didn’t waver. Octavio pulled his gaze up to meet hers, opened his mouth to speak. 

This close, it was impossible to miss the moment his face broke, impossible to misinterpret the emotions laid bare: pain in his pinched brows, exhaustion in his heavy eyelids, sorrow in the downward tilt of his lips. All real expressions. And they only made Ajay more desperate for the truth.

“I can’t tell you,” he said. Slow and firm, as if he needed to convince himself just as much as he needed to convince her. 

She knew the right thing to do, then. 

Something was seriously upsetting him. It was like when he found out about his father back on Psamanthe, early on in the season. Ajay had heard his confession that D.O.C. recorded, of course, but she chose not to mention it. Instead, she acted normal and gave Octane his space. 

He’d said the little drone was the only one he could trust. But a few days later, he’d opened up to Lifeline all on his own. 

And Ajay hadn’t been a good friend the entirety of season 7. She had played games with him, she had played dumb, she hadn’t just told him he was pissing her off in the first place. Shit, she was concealing a truth at that second . So she had no right to force answers from the man before her. 

The right thing to do was to react similarly. To fall back into the routine of a good friend. To make up for the odd behavior she’d adopted in the midst of her ridiculous scheme. To start rebuilding their relationship. 

Whatever had happened, Octane didn’t trust her enough to tell her yet. She just needed to give him space and wordlessly reassure him that she was willing to help whenever he was ready.

Ajay broke away from Octavio’s gaze, turned and left the bathroom. She passed his door, striding deeper into the eerily pristine space. 

There were no empty soda cans or stim sticks littering the floor, no clothing in the wardrobe he’d left open, not even one of the wrenches he used to adjust his prosthetics was lying around. There were just the luggages and crates he’d packed everything in, stacked on the side of his bed.

Ajay turned to his desk, painted black and occupying the space where her own room had a large vanity. His gaming setup was unplugged and arranged in the center, ready to be packed last. 

Octavio stuck his head out of the bathroom just in time to watch Ajay hop up onto his desk. She shifted so her body blocked the equipment.

She just couldn’t bring herself to do the right thing. 

Not when she felt just as pained and exhausted and sorrowful as Octavio seemed to be. Not when she felt cold sweat collecting in the small of her back at the thought that she might be the cause of his pain. It all mixed with her lack of sleep to bring her to this point: where she saw no other option but to make him stay by any means. 

I’m a bad friend. She thought, as she crossed her arms and stared dully ahead of her. But it didn’t bother her very much, because she’d thought about it often in the last few days.

“I’m not leavin’ until ya tell me the truth or ya unpack yuh bags,” she declared. 

She would never be a good friend, anyways. 

Good friends don’t fall in love with the person who knows them better than anybody else in the world. And if they happened to, they definitely wouldn’t decide to hide it. 

“Seriously, Che?” Octane came to stand in front of her. And damn, when was the last time he was so unimpressed by her actions? There was caution and confusion in his frown. He probably hadn’t expected her to simply veto his departure from the Apex Games.

Lifeline raised a challenging brow at him, despite herself. It felt odd to be the immature one. She watched frustration build in Octane’s shoulders while she sat with her feet dangling above the floor like a child.

Funny, Ajay thought, I ended up switchin’ roles with him after all.

“It’s not like I’m leaving Solace City,” the daredevil reasoned with her, making a flippant gesture with his hand, “You’ll still see me around.”

Ajay stared at him.

“What? You gonna miss me, or something?” Octane snickered, trying the teasing approach. It was a tactic that worked when they were younger.

But now, Lifeline was immune to those childish taunts. It was one of the few perks of admitting that she was in love with him. “Yes,” she responded with a straight face.

Octavio’s eyes widened a fraction before his shoulders slumped forward. He swung his body as if he were about to collapse face first onto his bed. But, instead, he spun back around towards Ajay. “C’mon, can we just,” Octavio pleaded, “go grab a bite at the cafeteria? Talk about it later?”

“No,” Ajay dismissed him without hesitation. She wanted to grab a bite with him every day and talk about whatever with him every season. She wouldn’t settle for one last meal and a delayed conversation.

Octane clenched his jaw, staring at her as if she were a puzzle he needed to solve. Lifeline resisted the urge to squirm under his scrutiny. Puzzles were one of his least favorite things in the universe.

“Ku deh. Why don’cha tell me, we fix the problem, and then we grab a bite?” Ajay supplied, her tone balancing between reassurance and persistence.

Octane scoffed, a rueful smirk tugging at his mouth, “There’s no fixing this.”

“Breathe easy,” Ajay said, “I’ll find a way.”

Octavio groaned from deep within his chest. His hands flew up to grip his hair, before striking down to settle on his hips. His fingers were shaking.

“Che, trust me. You don’t wanna know,” his voice was sharpened by ire similar to how it was on Pathfinder’s tape, “Just forget I said anything.”

“Silva, quit ya whinging and spit it out,” Ajay sneered. She knew her attitude would only make him angrier, but she was beginning to think she really was the problem. 

It was odd for him to not just tell her if she’d upset him. He definitely hadn’t hesitated to tell her in that letter he’d left before disappearing in the shadow realm. If, for some reason, he now wanted to avoid hurting her feelings, then she’d just have to piss him off until he stopped beating around the bush.

“It would fuck everything up if I told you!” Octavio took the bait, his voice rising with genuine anger.

There was a voice in the back of Ajay’s head, an intrusive whisper which had come up with a guess for Octavio’s secret. It was the worst possible scenario. Worse than anything Wraith or Mirage could’ve imagined.

“We’ll see about that,” Ajay shrugged, matching Octavio’s stubbornness.

I’m a bad friend , she thought again as she watched him take a deep breath, tuck his chin, stare at the floor. He was trying and failing to calm himself down.

Lifeline had let her own fears influence her actions instead of focusing on how Octane felt. She no longer simply wanted the truth so she could find a way to make him stay. Now, she needed to know the truth in order to silence her horrible thoughts. 

And if her worries came true? 

Then everything was fucked up before the legends even left Olympus.

“You really haven’t figured it out yet?” Octavio muttered. His voice was small and defeated. The hair on Ajay’s arms stood on end, spurred both by anticipation and guilt. “Or do you just wanna hear me say it out loud?” he met her gaze. 

He looked like he truly believed Ajay to be capable of lying like that. Like she might find it fun to pretend not to know what was upsetting him. Like she might piss him off just to take pleasure in his embarrassment.

Ajay felt certain, in that moment, that she had fucked up everything. 

She had hidden her feelings for him by chasing his tears in a petty revenge scheme. She had been so caught up in her own unrequited love that she hadn’t even considered he might be confused about their friendship. 

She wasn’t playing a game anymore. She didn’t want to see the tears she’d desired weeks ago. Yet she could do nothing but blink in disbelief as Octavio’s eyes shone glassy in front of her. 

He hadn’t been pushed to his limit by frustration or tension or helplessness. 

No, he was broken because something serious was going on and he felt he couldn’t tell anybody the truth and his closest friend had finally shown up but he couldn’t tell her either.

Ajay felt suffocated by regret, her stomach dropping in horror.

She was Octavio’s closest friend. And right now, he couldn’t even tell if she was playing with his feelings or not.

I wanted this, Ajay internally snapped at herself. I did this. So I gotta fix it. 

Ajay hopped off the desk, stood right in front of him, let him see the genuine concern on her face, “I’m not playin’, O! I’m tellin’ ya I dunno what’s going on.” She nearly cringed at the desperation in her voice, but she needed him to understand her when she said, “Spell it out for me, if ya have to.”

Octavio looked away from her, swallowed thickly, “Okay. Fine.” 

He stared up at the ceiling for a second, “Do you know why I joined the Apex Games?”

“It’s more dangerous than other sports,” Ajay said, ”Ya get the most views here, and they don’t restrict ya stim use.”

“Yeah-yeah, all that’s why I stayed but that’s not why I joined ,” his nose scrunched up like he was explaining something to a child.

Lifeline prickled defensively, but pushed past it, “Why’d ya join then?”

“Because you got me these new legs and told me to stop doing stupid shit,” Octavio spoke so fast that it took Ajay a second to understand him.

Her face relaxed. She had said that (multiple times) but he’d ignored her and ran off with his prosthetics. And they didn’t speak for months between that incident and his arrival to the Apex Games, as she’d blocked him for tricking her. 

She opened her mouth to counter his statement from multiple angles. First: when she said ‘stupid shit’ she really meant ‘dangerous activities that nearly get you killed’. So, joining a blood sport fit into that category.

“They got respawn beacons here,” Octavio explained, as if he could read her mind, and wait a minute . . . that’s a good point.

“And prize money that’ll pay for a million prosthetics, so I don’t gotta fuck up your life next time I do get hurt,” he continued, “And even if you treated me like a stranger, I-” He took a deep breath, putting a stop to his rambling.

“Yuh what," Ajay pushed despite her confusion. She wasn’t about to let him cut himself off anymore. She needed to hear everything.

“I got to see you every day,” Octavio breathed the sentence. His eyes widened as if he hadn’t expected himself to say that. 

Ajay blinked at him, disregarding the way her heart beat stuttered. 

She could blush about it all she wanted later. Right now, she still didn’t understand why Octane was leaving the games. Nothing he had said seemed to connect to her actions in the past few weeks.

“But ya still see me every day. And I promise I won’ treat ya like that ever again.” she let her voice go as soft as it was naturally inclined to.

Ajay reached out as he minutely shook his head. She forced her hand to come down on his shoulder, ignored the way it itched to meet the skin at the base of his neck, to pull him into her, to bring his lips to hers.

She didn’t care if there was pleading lilt to her words when she said, “Nothin’s changed, Silva. So stay.” 

Octavio turned his head, stared down at her hand. His mouth formed a straight line, but he huffed through his nose. 

He said under his breath, “You’re killing me, Ajay.”

Cold shot through Lifeline’s veins. 

She recoiled, retracting her hand as if Octane’s soft shirt had turned to dry ice. 

“I want things to change, me entiendes? I don’t know if you thought I wanted things to be like they were when we were kids, but I don’t.”

Ajay struggled to keep up with Octane’s words. They rolled off his tongue, vague but purposeful. He began to pace the length of the room, speaking like a dam had burst open in his chest.

“I know it’ll never be the same and- and I don’t want it to be the same,” he grimaced, “I just wanted it to get better and it was getting better until-”

Ajay was immobilized by the rapid thumping of her heart. She got it. She knew what he was about to say.

“Until you started acting so weird this season,” Octane paused to gesture towards her. Anger and confusion smeared across his face. Ajay must have looked dumbfounded, because he decided to explain.

“Fucking with me in the arena? Calling me in the middle of the night? Asking me to run all over the drop ship looking for power tools and cables and tampons when you got more than enough in your dresser drawers?” 

Ajay bit down on her bottom lip to keep it from quivering. She didn’t allow herself to break away from his gaze. She needed to own up to her actions. I did this. So I gotta fix it. 

“But I played along,” Octavio shrugged, his voice softening a bit, “I thought I knew what you were up to and I tried to have some fun too. But then you kissed me and . . .”

Octane’s sentence trailed off. Lifeline didn’t push him to finish it.

He couldn’t look at her. He just gripped the back of his neck as he breathed heavily through his nose.

That night on Olympus really was the thing making him leave. Ajay was a fool to hope it wasn’t. It was so obvious, now. He probably made the decision as soon as he woke up beside her the next morning.

He knows. Ajay’s hands formed tight fists at her sides. 

She couldn’t break away from the thought that he knew she loved him. 

He saw through her stupid actions and he saw the twisted love at the root of it. 

He wanted them to be best friends. He was cool with being friends with benefits. But she’d ruined it by falling in love. By falling in love and coming onto him. By sleeping with him before evaluating her own emotions, before considering how that would make him feel. 

I did this. 

It’s my fault.

It’s always my fault.

“So yuh leavin’ because,” Ajay’s voice wavered, but she needed to hear him say it, “because of me?” 

“I’m leaving because I can’t do this anymore,” he gestured between their chests, “I slow down for no one, Che! Nobody but-”

“I know,” she cut him off, stepping forward to grabbing him by the wrists. He was forced to stop pacing and face her. She needed him to see that she never intended for this, that she was willing to do anything to fix it.

“But,” he was still trying to talk. He wouldn’t look at her. He kept shaking his head, his mouth twisting and his brows furrowing, as if he didn’t know how to word something. His arms jerked out of her grasp, but went still when his hands ended up on top of hers, when her fingers wrapped desperately around his.

Why hadn’t she hid it better? 

How could she have let him think she’d ever ask him to change so drastically for her? Let him think she would ruin their friendship over feelings she knew he wouldn’t reciprocate? 

Ajay would never forgive herself. She held their hands against her sternum, gripping his fingers so tight, it must have hurt. She willed herself to speak despite her shuddering breath, willed herself not to cry. 

Octavio had stood his ground, keeping her at arm's length and still shaking his head. But then, he finally looked her in the eyes. He stepped closer, searching Ajay’s face.

She felt like if she didn’t speak now, she’d never be able to speak to him again, “O, I’d never expect ya to-”

“Nobody but you.”

Octavio’s words were sincere and quiet, but they overshadowed Ajay’s sentence. 

She went silent, her face struck by shock as if as if he’d shouted in her face. All the explanations and apologies that had been welling up at the back of her tongue simply evaporated. 

“What?”

“I only slow down for you,” Octavio pinned her in place with the honesty in his green eyes, “Don’t you get that? You’re the exception.”

Ajay’s grip on his hands went limp. She shied away from him on instinct, moving until her lower back met the cold edge of his desk. He followed her, filled every inch of space she’d tried to put between them.

“Che, I would move like a snail for the rest of my life if you asked me to.”

Ajay’s brows pinched together. Her mouth twitched with the urge to tell him to shut up. She couldn’t be hearing him right. There had to be something else going on here. 

“And I’ve been going slow for a while now, but I can’t go backwards. I can’t pretend like nothing happened between us a few days ago. I dunno how to forget that night.”

Her hands came up to- What? Cover his mouth? Push him away? Ajay didn’t get to find out because Octavio wrapped his hands around both of hers, mirroring the grip she’d placed on him moments before. 

“But,” she struggled to make sense of his words, ”Ya told Path ya were leavin’ before I-”

“Yeah,” Octavio said, a bit offended, “Che, I’m not leaving ‘cause you don’t want to sleep with me again. I’m leaving ‘cause I can’t keep going at your pace. I want more, okay? I don’t want sex or cuddles, I want the whole package.”

Ajay blinked at him. Was that his way of saying he wanted to-? No, that still didn’t make any sense. “Then why’d ya leave that holo-spray in my room?” she asked around the lump in her throat. 

“So you’d know I had a good time,” he answered easily, a slight smirk tugging at his lips. His eyes lit up from remembering that night.

“But when I got to the boxin’ ring ya asked for a quickie,” she countered, ignoring how tempted she was by the way his voice had dipped low and husky.

“I mean, one last fuck would’ve been nice,” he shrugged,  “but I would’ve ended things after that if you didn’t. I’m actually glad you did, or else I wouldn’t have known for sure how you felt.”

You, you, you. Octavio kept saying 'you'. He kept talking about Ajay’s pace and her feelings and what she wanted. But the only thing she was certain of in this conversation was that he had no clue how she truly felt or what she truly wanted.

“How do I feel, Silva,” Ajay narrowed her eyes at him, “Tell me, since yuh so sure.”

“Not,” Octavio muttered, he was losing confidence under her skeptical gaze, “the same way I do.”

“And how do ya feel?” she asked despite the heat in her cheeks, the rapid beating of her heart, the numbness in her hands. All that rambling and he still hadn’t said it clearly. 

Octavio’s eyes softened. He looked down at their conjoined hands, then lifted them up between the small space in front of their faces. 

He pressed a soft kiss to Ajay’s knuckles, maintaining eye contact with her when he whispered against her skin, “I feel like I’m in love with you.”

Ajay’s jaw went slack, her mouth nearly falling open. She felt like she was in a bittersweet dream. The kind that ropes you in by granting your most unattainable wishes, right before it’s mutilated into a nightmare. Her fight or flight reflexes were kicking in.

With lightning speed, Octavio’s hands moved to frame her face. His palms felt cold against her hot flesh. His thumbs shook as they swiped across the apples of her cheeks. Only then did Ajay realize her face was wet.

“No, please don’t cry,” Octavio breathed. Panic and guilt coated his voice. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I fucked this up when we were just getting close again.”

Ajay pressed her eyes closed, unintentionally forcing more tears to slip down her cheeks and into his palms. Her whole body jerked as a sob ripped from her throat. 

Why was he apologizing? Wasn’t she the one who should be apologizing? Wasn’t she the one who was guilty of that? 

“Mierda. This is why I wasn’t gonna tell you, Che. I was cool with being friends and I was just gonna leave it but. I can’t leave it anymore. So I gotta go,” his tone was so comforting, so at odds with what he was saying.

You’re wrong. You can’t go. Please, don’t go. I can’t leave it anymore, either. Her brain shuffled through a thousand sentences but her mouth couldn’t decide which to say first.

“I-” Ajay’s voice croaked around that single syllable.

But Octavio took advantage of her struggle to get any more words out. He rushed to speak over her. “And I’m gonna go no matter what you say, so don’t even say anything,” he chided.

“I know you’d just be saying it to be nice or to make me stay. I don’t want that. If you feel the same some day, I want you to realize it on your own time, y’know? If you don’t that’s cool, too! I’ll just,” his sentence grew more and more frantic until it trailed off again. 

Ajay opened her eyes to find his going blank, like he hadn’t planned that far ahead. “I’ll just figure my shit out. So we can be friends again,” he nodded to himself, forcing optimism into his voice. His lips pulled into a small smile, his brows raising as he waited for Ajay to respond.

Lifeline made a noise which fell somewhere between a laugh and a sob. Her throat ached from the force of it and Octane nearly jumped at the sound, his concern erasing the smile from his face.

Her whole body slumped forward, her shoulders shaking as that sound tumbled from her lips again and again. Octane’s arms wrapped cautiously around her back. She pressed her forehead against the collar of his shirt, pressed her balled fists against his chest.

Hadn’t she been thinking the exact same thing for almost a week straight? That she would just sort herself out? 

Hadn’t she just recently decided to stifle her own feelings? To prioritize their friendship over her love for him? 

Had they both really decided that they knew the other person so well? 

Had they both really been so wrong?

One of Octane’s hands came to cradle the nape of her neck while the other lifted her jaw. Ajay’s neck was limp, and moved easily at his gentle movements. He brushed away wisps of bubblegum pink hair to get a good look at her. 

His face flashed through at least a dozen emotions at the sight: Tears were still tumbling from Lifeline’s tear ducts, but she was giggling. She couldn’t help it!

She’d told herself that he moved too fast, that he wouldn’t want to settle down and enter a serious relationship with her. 

He’d told himself that she moved too slow, that she wouldn’t be ready to settle down and be in a relationship with him.

Two assessments of their compatibility which were partially the same and partially opposites. Mirror images which lead them to the same conclusion: that they could never tell the other person how they truly felt.

“What’s happening?” Octavio asked, “Are you having a stroke?”

Ajay had a bit of trouble gulping in air, her ribs beginning to hurt. “Silva,” was all she could get out through her fit of laughter. 

“Do I need to call-” his mouth formed a horrified ‘o’ shape, “Who do I call? You’re the medic!”

“Silva,” she tried again. Every time she came close to being done, she thought of another instance where this whole mess could’ve been avoided. If only one of them had just entertained the idea that the other might’ve reciprocated their feelings. Then, the giggles bubbled up again.

“You’re just laughing, aren’t you?” Octavio mumbled, moving his arms down around her waist once he was certain that she wouldn’t collapse onto the floor. He leaned his head back, “If this isn’t a nervous breakdown, my feelings are gonna be so hurt.”

“Octavio,” she said after one deep inhale. She pressed her lips together to force away her smile. The sound of his first name was enough to finally silence the daredevil. He stared into her eyes, gave her his full attention.

Ajay lifted onto the balls of her feet to press a chaste kiss to his lips, “I’m in love with ya, too.” she said. 

She remembered how relieving it was to admit that to herself days ago. But that release of tension was nothing compared to this. She knew she would never forget the sight of red tinting Octavio’s cheeks, his eyes frantically searching hers. She'd never forget the shiver which traveled up his whole body or the way of his arms tightened around her.

“¿Me amas?” he asked, unbelieving.

Lifeline was done talking.

She grabbed him by the front of his shirt, pulled him closer until there was only an inch between their faces.

There was the small inhale of breath, the brush of eyelashes against cheekbones as they closed their eyes, the instinctual tilt of their heads. Just a hair this way, just a hair that way, and they found it: the perfect angle. 

There was the contact, the meeting of lips. The short breath of relief at the connection, as if they’d both been waiting years for it. There was the emotion bursting in the warm darkness behind Ajay’s eyelids, a million nerve endings erupting with satisfaction at such a tender kiss.

Ajay knew the science behind it. She knew the medical analysis: Six muscles, contracting to pinch and press against Octavio’s. Three layers of skin, the third so thin and delicate that the smallest movements, like the desperate quiver in Octavio’s lower lip, was felt in full.

Ajay knew about the chemical reactions taking place in her brain: Dopamine and norepinephrine pumped through her veins just from being so close to him. Oxytocin and vasopressin released with every shock of pleasure Octavio’s fingers pressed into her skin. 

She knew all this, yet she didn’t resist the giddiness and the childlike affection engulfing her. She allowed herself to drown in it. And she was certain that she’d never be able to live without this feeling. 

Ajay was overwhelmed by how perfect it was. A small part of her was still convinced that she was dreaming. She couldn’t help the tears which began to build up and pulled away from the kiss before they began to fall. 

“Che?”

“I’m sorry,” Ajay covered her face with her hands as she cried again, “They’re happy tears, I swear.” She was embarrassed and elated all at once.

He rubbed a hand across her back, pressed quick kisses against her temple. It made her cry harder. Octane would probably be able to bring her to tears for the rest of her life, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care as long as he belonged to her. 

Octavio said something into Ajay’s hair, but she couldn’t hear it over her own ragged breath. She thought it might’ve been in Spanish, so she was in no state to translate it anyways.

Then, she heard him suck in a sharp breath. He whimpered as he exhaled. The strange sound twisted into a high pitched wail. His arms stayed on Lifeline, but they shook as his breathing hiccuped.

“Are?” Ajay squinted her eyes open, peered at Octane through the gap between her fingers. His face was contorted into an exaggerated frown. “Are ya mockin’ me?” she tried to muster a sneer, but her words were softened by the edge of genuine offense.

Octane’s face snapped back to normalcy, eyes wide with regret, “No, no, no! Never, Che, I just wanted you to stop,” he sputtered, “I heard when you mimic a baby, it stops crying!”

Ajay huffed a breath, so unamused that it came out even rather than shuddered. 

First of all, that trick wouldn’t make babies stop crying, it made them start crying. And second of all, “I’m not a damn baby,” she hissed.

She shot her fist forward to lightly hit Octane’s chest, but the action more so resembled a cat kneading. 

The corner of Octane’s mouth curled up, “Really?” he asked with inflated wonder, “ No, I coulda swore you’re my baby.”

“O,” she tried to compose a serious face, “don’ start.”

“You’re not my baby girl?” he cooed.

“No,” Ajay insisted, but she was smiling. Octavio pulled her by the waist, pressed her front against his chest. Her arms came up around his neck, like it was second nature.

Octavio lowered to catch her lips in a sweet kiss. Ajay hummed a whine as he pulled away too soon. She looked up at him with a halfhearted pout. He smirked down at her, obviously noting her dry eyes, “Then, why did it work?”

“Shut it,” Lifeline mumbled as she pulled Octane’s face down towards her own. She wanted to savor every millisecond, every minuscule movement of soft lips and calloused hands. But Ajay was dizzy with love, losing track of the little details as their mouths opened and their tongues slid against each other. 

There were fingers bunching in fabric, hot palms slipping beneath to grip and graze bare skin. There were moans exchanged into mouths, the sound waves vibrating against skin. 

Their feet were shuffling, their laughs were muffled, their eyes still closed. They moved head first, just chasing each other’s lips, just hoping to meet a solid surface they could pin the other against.

The backs of Ajay’s knees met the edge of Octavio’s mattress. They fell back into the comforter, huffed at the sudden change of orientation, and immediately slotted their bodies against each other again.

Ajay wanted to catalog each aspect of the kiss so she could dissect it from every angle later on: like watching a scene frame by frame, like spinning the view of a room with a 360 degree camera. But she gave up when Octane found his favorite spot on her neck. He didn’t hesitate to suck a bruise there, his intention spurred by Ajay’s nails grazing down his back.

He seemed amused by the way her breath stuttered. His mouth moved without pause, nibbling and lapping at every sensitive area he could reach. His body caged Ajay against the mattress and his love bites grew more merciless with every noise she failed to swallow down.

She threw her head back, unsatisfied with the disadvantage she’d been dealt. In this position, she couldn’t get a hold of him, couldn’t kiss him, couldn’t even wrap her legs around his waist. There were love marks blossoming on her skin, and not a single one on Octavio’s. 

Ajay lifted her hips, seeking friction and trying to tell Octavio what she wanted. No use. He just shifted his own hips away, raised himself onto his palms and metal knees. 

He slipped his goggles off his head and tossed them behind him before leering down at Ajay. She stopped shifting to blink at him when he clicked his tongue.

He was teasing her. After everything that had happened that day, he felt like teasing her.

Ajay considered this for a single second before making quick work of the issue. She hooked a leg around one of Octavio's, shoved him by the shoulders and knocked him onto his own back on the mattress. Then, she straddled his waist, her palms firm on his chest.

“And here I was worried about moving too fast for you,” Octavio beamed beneath her.

“Impossible,” she tutted, taking the opportunity to trace his features. Her finger trailed lightly over his scars and across the indents his goggles always left on his skin.

“Hey, when you say it like that, it sounds like a challenge,” he said, his hands moving beneath her tank top to grip the small of her waist, his hips lifting a bit. Ajay raised up on her knees, refusing to let him make any contact.

She lifted a brow, pleased by the way he grumbled from getting a taste of his own medicine, “How many years has it been? And ya think I can’t keep up?”

“Sixteen,” he responded quickly, “and I know you can.”

Ajay’s finger stopped at the top of his nose bridge, then she pulled it back. She looked at him fully, his bright green eyes and pink lips and sharp jaw. All thoughts of teasing left her mind, then.

She swooped down, pressing her body against Octavio’s as she kissed him with every ounce of love she felt in her heart. He returned her passion, melting her with his tongue and his muffled moans until she had to pull away for air.

Octavio wasn’t tired, of course. His feet came up to push against the mattress, forcing himself further back on the bed and tugging Ajay up with. She laughed as he settled with his back against the headboard. 

She was amazed by how easy it was to curl into a ball between his legs and nuzzle her nose into his neck. There was no hesitation, no second guessing. He wrapped his arms around her, squeezed her as if she could get any closer to him. 

“So that’s it, we’re doing this?” he asked, “You’ll be my girlfriend?” They both knew the answer, but he probably just wanted to hear her say it.

“Yes,” Ajay said, shifting to kiss the underside of his jaw.

“Mi cariño? Mi corazón? Mi amor?” he continued, as she found more spots to place her lips, “Mi angél, mi cielo?”

“Yes,” Ajay giggled against his skin.

“My wife?”

Lifeline halted. She pulled away, sat up, and looked Octane in the eye. 

He blinked back at her, his face uncharacteristically serious. Ajay’s pout transformed as she struggled to read him, but Octavio’s mouth pulled into a shit eating grin before she could reach a full grimace. 

Lifeline shook her head at him, shifting her whole body around to signal that she was done with the conversation.

“Aww, c’mon! My fiancée, at least?” Octane pulled her back until her shoulder blades met his chest, ran his hands up and down her arms until she relaxed and leaned against him.

“We got a whole lot to learn about each other, first,” Ajay said, only half joking. 

The events of the past few weeks proved that they didn’t know each other as well as they thought. But the idea of spending the rest of her life with him? Well, she’d be lying if she said it wasn’t tempting.

Octavio kissed the back of her neck, “Mi padre always said marriage is a learning experience,” he mumbled. Ajay’s blood ran cold as he burst into laughter. He knew damn well that she wouldn’t be convinced by the wise words of Silva Pharm’s CEO (a man who boasted over 5 divorces and counting).

Ajay lifted a hand over her shoulder to pat at Octavio’s face. “Wh-” he grumbled as her fingers tapped his jaw. He placed a sloppy kiss on her pinky when she moved past his lips, went silent as her tentative touch shifted up his nose and found his forehead. She positioned her hand and flicked him.

Now, it was Ajay’s turn to laugh as he yelped and rubbed the sore spot with his palm. His hand shot out to pinch her, but she was already rolling off the bed. “Enough limin’ around! Come help me unpack all this,” she said.

“Ugh, nooo,” he groaned, slouching down the bed until he was fully laying down. He began to spin his body in dramatic circles.

“Octavio.” Ajay warned, one hand coming down on his tall stack of luggage while the other came to rest on her hip.

“Babe.” he matched her tone. He was looking at her upside down, his head hanging off the end of the bed. She leaned over to pick up his goggles and throw them at him. 

“Okayokayokay,” he hopped to his feet and grabbed the nearest crate, then moved towards his door.

“What game are ya playin’ now?” Ajay sighed.

“I’m gonna take this to your room and unpack,” Octavio raised a brow at her, “Duh.”

Ajay stuck her tongue in her cheek, huffing around her smile and the heat which rose to her cheeks. Octavio winked at her before grabbing the door knob. Then, he moved to the side, holding it open with his foot.

“And once we’re done, you can tell me what you were tryna do by acting like a sour patch kid all season,” he said.

“I’ll tell ya everythin’,” Ajay nodded as she passed him and entered the hall. They had a long talk ahead of them. He deserved to know the whole truth and she still had a few questions of her own. Like, how long had he known how he felt?

Octavio brushed past her, adjusting his grip on the crate, “Sweet ! Move it or lose it, hermosa, I can’t wait much longer,” he jumped into the quickest sprint he could manage with the weight, bolting down the hall and disappearing around the corner.

Ajay took a few steps before hearing him holler, “Woohoo ! Che and Silva are back in action!” already spreading the word to god knows who.

She chuckled to herself, a spring in her step as she pulled luggages through the drop ship’s halls.

It wasn’t until late that night, as she snuggled into Octane’s side, that Lifeline realized something.

She squinted up at him, her eyes stiff from sleep. He was still wide awake. His phone screen illuminated his face and provided the only light in her room. Or rather, their room.

Octavio hummed a question at her, as he’d immediately noticed her small movement. 

She gripped his side tighter, slung her thigh over his beneath the covers. “Mi luv yuh,” she mumbled, hiding her smile in the fabric of his shirt. It was soft from use and carried his natural scent rather than his cologne. 

Octavio pulled his eyes away from his phone. His green irises twinkled down at Ajay as a grin slowly spread across his face, “Yo también te amo,” he responded. Low and jovial, as if it was a brilliant secret. Easy and genuine, as if he’d been saying it to her for years.

He cried for me, Ajay thought before she surrendered to a restful night of sleep. It would be a welcome change. It would also be the first of many in a row.

Sure, he had been pretending. And, no, he hadn’t shed any tears. But he’d cried. 

And he’d done it just to cheer her up. 

And he’d do it again in a heartbeat.

All she had to do was ask.