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Jesse watched the coffee drip with hollow eyes. Damp seeped through his clothes to his bones and turned him weary. His limbs were made of lead. They felt detached, moving of their own accord.
He swayed in place, his hands at his sides.
At least the rain had mostly washed away the blood on them.
He found himself standing at the sink, scraping at his skin with his nails under water that felt burning to his freezing hands. He rubbed off flecks, bringing his fingers close to his face to inspect them before plunging them back under the stream. The temperature difference was enough to make them feel numb.
His pants would probably be unsalvageable. He’d kneeled in a pool of blood to pick a handgun off a corpse when he’d run out of bullets, and it had soaked through his knees. Maybe he could get it out, though. Gabe would know.
The coffee machine beeped and his eyes flashed open. His hands were still spread flat in the sink, soaking up the heat.
He shut off the tap and the silence that followed made his ears ring.
Jesse’s eyes widened at the bitterness of his first sip, before he realized he must have forgotten the sugar. The spoon breaking through the grains as he fished some out of the jar made a wonderful sound, almost good enough he could taste sweetness. He dumped twice as much in as usual.
Jesse pulled his hat over his eyes and wrapped his hands around the mug as he sat at the table. Finally, his fingers began to defrost. It made them itch at the air.
He toed off his boots and let them flop on the linoleum floor. Water spilled out from the one that landed on its side. His eyes widened at the reddish tinge to it and he looked away. Probably just from blisters.
There was a sudden bang and he jolted. Jesse’s eyes flashed wide and his hand dropped from the mug to his hip in less than a moment. His heart skipped a beat as he realized Peacekeeper wasn’t there. The pressure on his chest felt as though he was ten meters underwater.
Genji stared at him from the doorway.
“What was that?” asked Jesse.
“What?”
“The thump.”
Genji’s brow furrow. Jesse was taken aback by the intense scowl. His socked foot slipped from the rod between the chair legs before he quickly caught it.
“I heard something,” said Jesse.
“Me knocking.”
Jesse froze as the words soaked through him. Oh.
“My bad,” he said, adjusting his soggy hat by the brim. He pulled it down lower to hide his eyes.
Genji moved silently through the kitchen. If Jesse hadn’t been watching his feet touch the ground, he could have believed he was floating.
Genji stopped when he noticed the shoes.
Jesse shuffled to get out of his seat and move them, but Genji beat him to it, righting the one that was tipped over and lining them up against the wall.
“Why are you here,” asked Genji.
Jesse balked. “Well, the op, uh, went okay. All done I guess. Might have to go back next week, though, if the decryption doesn’t pan—”
“No, why are you here, using this kitchen?” said Genji. He peeked into the fridge. “There’s not even food here, just filtered water.”
Jesse adjusted his hat again and found there wasn’t any lower to pull it. “Didn’t want to use ours. It seemed… loud.”
Genji looked up, his neck making a soft mechanical whirr. “Would you rather I go?”
“No, no, I—”
“Okay. Are you hungry?”
McCree shook his head. “Energy bars on the flight back.”
“Have you seen Reyes yet?”
“I will at the debrief in the morning.”
“He was asking around for you.”
“What? Why?”
“Jesse.”
Jesse puffed a strand of hair out of his face, then watched it settle back down exactly where it had been before. His hooked his hands behind his neck and frowned down at the table.
“Can we get you into dry clothes?”
“Okay,” said Jesse.
They stood in his room. Genji tossed warm looking sweatpants of the closet and onto the bed.
“Go shower,” said Genji.
It wasn’t until he was out, looking at a neat pile of PJs on his bathroom counter, that he realized he’d forgotten to wash his hair. Oh well.
A man stared back at him from inside the mirror. There were bags under his eyes and water on his temples. Jesse felt as though their bodies had been sewn together, so that the man could dress him from the other side. It still felt as though there was a lag in their movements, Jesse sluggishly behind.
His standard issue hoodie had never felt so divine. He wished it was bigger, though. Maybe he’d talk to Gabe about getting a third, just for when he was off-duty.
Genji was lying on his bed, poking at a tablet.
“You took forever,” he said.
“Yeah.”
He patted the bed beside him. Jesse collapsed, face down, hugging a pillow.
“Want me to go?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
Genji’s hand ran through his hair, soothing his scalp. Jesse felt weightless and untethered. He floated above himself, rocking back and forth as though he were bobbing in the sea. Exhaustion pulled him under.
When he awoke, the lights were off. He was warm beneath the covers. His alarm clock blasted the time in angry red; it would still be pitch black outside.
“Hey,” said a voice from the foot of his bed.
“Mm.” Jesse flopped back down from peering at the nightstand.
“Need anything?”
“You’re still here?”
“You asked me to stay.”
“Oh.”
The air was still, before the bed dipped. Jesse shuffled onto his back and lifted his arms over the covers to hold Genji against his chest. Genji brushed his hair back from his forehead repetitively.
“You sound better,” said Genji.
“Yeah,” said Jesse. Foggy memories of slipping away from the crowd on the tarmac to seek out solitude resurfaced. “Man, I was out of it earlier.”
Genji ran the backs of his fingers down Jesse’s face. Between that and the weight of him against Jesse’s chest, Jesse could have melted. “What happened?”
Jesse caught his breath. His eyes squinted in the dark as he came up with different ways to describe the carnage.
Bloody.
Chaotic.
Inescapable.
Deafening, relentless, unconscionable, violent—
Jesse snapped off the spiraling thoughts. “Can we talk about that in the morning?”
“Of course.”
“I’m sorry if I worried you.”
Genji pushed himself up, supporting himself on his prosthetic elbow. Jesse leaned into the soft kiss that followed. “I knew you’d come back.”
Jesse exhaled. “Sleep here?”
Genji’s response was to sit up and pull the covers back, before crawling back in beside Jesse.
“Nice,” said Jesse. Genji exhaled a laugh through his nose.
“In the morning.”
“In the morning.”