Work Text:
Mei sighs, leaning in the doorway of Jamie’s bunker. A hint of a smile plays upon her lips despite her exasperation.
It is past two AM but the overhead lights are bright. The ventilation fans are roaring, so the usually acrid smell of smoke and soldered metal is faint.
Jamie sits in front of his biggest work table, presiding over a vast array of parts and tools and tightly sealed packages of some new explosive material...with his shoulders slumped forward and his head pillowed on his arms.
Mei's smile widens.
He didn't even make it to the couch this time.
Usually when she pokes her head in at this hour Jamie is either wide awake and working, or sprawled over the ragged leather couch by the door with his peg leg touching the floor and his metal arm dangling, the living one thrown over his eyes as if he hasn't so much fallen asleep as fallen into a swoon. He never touches the throw blanket draped over the back of the couch, but occasionally he has enough presence of mind to use it as a pillow.
His non-existent sleep schedule is one of the main things that Mei finds herself fussing at him about. Initially she had begun checking in on him at this hour to complain about how much noise he was making; Jamie would always apologize, and Mei would point irritably toward the couch.
"The only time I can get any sleep is when you’re asleep,” she had said the first time around.
And it had been true. Then, anyway; she is beginning to get the sense that while it may still be true, it may no longer have much to do with his noisy explosions and inventions. Checking on him has become routine regardless of how much noise he makes, and she usually checks on him around two or three in the morning...which is, incidentally, around the time her nightmares tend to force her awake.
Most nights it is no more than Jamie, go to bed, and his answering sigh of All right, Miss Mei. Other nights she has to shout at him over the racket of whatever power tool he is using, hands over her ears, trying to convince him that his project isn't going to disappear while he sleeps. There are nights that she has found him injured, burned or bleeding badly enough to need actual first aid instead of his usual treatment of mystery grease and a hastily tied shop rag. Once, weeks ago, she had found him alone in the dark, watching something burn; the firelight cast strange and shifting shadows across his sharp features and when he had looked up at her his warm amber eyes had become the mad, molten gaze of a demon.
She had still told him to go bed, but her only answer was a laugh, far too much like his maniacal battlefield cackling for her to press the issue. She had closed the door and let him be.
Mei shakes her head, trying to clear that image of Jamie from her mind. It was weeks ago; lately she catches him already asleep more often than not.
For a moment she watches him sleep, studying the subtle rise and fall of his bare back. She calls herself checking for burns; it is a rather thin excuse, as most of his injuries end up on his arm or torso, but she pretends to believe it nonetheless, letting her eyes rove from the breadth of his freckled shoulders to the Venus dimples that disappear into the waistband of his ragged shorts.
So many scars.
She has always known that Jamie is more or less covered in scars, of course; he so rarely wears shirts that it is hard to miss them, but she has never taken the time to really look at any of them, either. He does not take well to scrutiny in the first place, but the rudeness of staring at him in such a way is unthinkable in itself.
Well. If he were awake, it would be unthinkable...and perhaps it should be more unthinkable now, but Mei finds herself moving further into the bunker regardless. There is an odd little thrill in her chest, as if she is breaking some rule and in danger of being caught.
Nonsense.
She peers down at his back and shoulders, at the scars overlaying the dips and curves of muscle.
There is a pale starburst of scar tissue near his right shoulder blade; Mei recalls a smaller, matching one on his chest, usually hidden by the straps of his harness.
[Ain't never liked bein' shot.]
She shudders. The one scar of his that she knows well is from a bullet wound. It had left a twisted scar on his flaming skull tattoo, almost dead center of the forehead.
That particular bullet had been meant for her, for her forehead, her skull, and Jamie had taken it without so much as flinching. At the time she had been awed, that he could stand such pain with such a straight face, but the longer she looks down at his back the more she understands.
Beneath the grease and dust, the freckles and tan lines, Mei can make out more and more scars. Most of them are closer to his sides and shoulders. Some are burns; the skin tight, raised, spidering out like veins. Others are less obvious; scattered little marks that vary from a few shades lighter to a few shades darker than his usual skin tone. A couple are strange, faded and old and barely visible, printed across the expanse of his back like jagged whiplashes. Only a few seem to have been very severe. The worst of these is a long slash of thick, raised skin that extends from his back to the middle of his ribs just beneath his left arm, bordered in irregular little divots that speak to shoddy stitches and slow healing.
Something pointed enough to pierce, too dull to cut but sharp enough to tear...
She had expected as much - Jamie had more or less lived in a lawless, apocalyptic hellscape for most of his life - but Mei finds herself shuddering nonetheless. What terrible things has he endured that he has lost an arm and a leg and gained so many scars?
Jamie mumbles in his sleep. His skin breaks out into gooseflesh and he shivers, burying his face deeper into the crook of his left arm.
Mei freezes.
Too close. I’ve been nosy long enough.
She backs away, but she cannot bring herself to leave him as he is, shivering on the cold metal of his work table.
She picks up the fleece throw blanket and shakes it out quietly, her lips quirking slightly as she notes the pattern: cutesy cartoon bombs making silly faces.
Must be a gift from Hana.
Mei drapes the blanket around Jamie’s trembling shoulders, but he does not stop shaking.
He must be very cold.
She frowns, then decides to risk waking him as she tucks the blanket in around his neck and arms. He seems to settle down. Mei turns away and heads for the door -
Jamie sucks in his breath so sharply that it sticks in his throat. He chokes as he exhales and his next breaths are erratic, almost panicked.
Mei whirls around, expecting to find him on his feet, but Jamie has not moved; if not for his ragged and irregular breathing she would not know he is awake at all.
“Jamie?” she says, hurrying back to his side. “Jamie, what’s the matter?!”
He does not seem to hear her. His eyes are wide and his body is so tense that the tips of his metal fingers disappear into the lean muscle of his living arm.
Warning bells begin to chime in the back of Mei’s mind as she tries to decide what she should do. She has never seen him like this before, frozen in terror like a prey animal hoping to avoid the predator, but she does not let herself trust his panicked eyes and panting breath.
Jamie is still Jamie - still Junkrat.
If he is as out of his head as he looks, he may be far more dangerous than he looks.
“Jamie,” she says, a little more firmly. “Jamie, can you hear me?”
He bites his lip and silently shifts his arms until they cover his head, pressing his forehead against the metal work table. His shoulders quake beneath the blanket.
Mei does not like that she can’t see his face. Tentatively, she reaches out to him.
“Jamie, it’s okay,” she says softly, yet as soon as her fingers brush the blanket over his shoulders Jamie flinches away from her with an awful, terrified whimper that goes straight to Mei’s heart.
No. Not dangerous. Terrified.
She does not want to frighten him again by touching him and he will not respond to his name, but she cannot just leave him like this, shivering in fear of something only he seems to understand.
“Okay,” she says softly. “Okay, Jamie.”
She pushes some of his tools away from the edge of the work table and hops up, perching there beside him. Her thigh is less than an inch away from his left arm but she does not touch him.
“I’m right here, Jamie,” she says, keeping her words as gentle as possible. “I’m right here.”
He does not move or speak or even acknowledge her, and Mei, at a loss for what else to do, begins to sing.
She wonders for a moment if singing in Chinese might be a bad idea; Jamie does not know a word of it. Of course he doesn’t appear to know his own name at the moment, so Mei keeps singing. Her voice is fair enough for the lullaby, the one that she most remembers hearing as a child and the first song that came to her mind.
Jamie relaxes by degrees. He stops trembling first; it takes him a little longer to loosen his fingers from his hair, and when Mei finishes what she knows she starts over again, patiently repeating the lines that had calmed the worst nightmares of her childhood in hopes that they might ease whatever horrors plague his adulthood.
He begins to breathe more evenly. He lifts his head a little, then actually sits up, dragging his living hand over his hair to cradle his forehead.
Though Jamie’s eyes are shadowed beneath his hand, Mei decides to try again. She reaches out to touch his shoulder, still singing, and this time Jamie only grows tense for the briefest of moments before relaxing into the touch. He trembles again but makes no move away from her, and so Mei reaches out with her other hand, intending to smooth his unruly hair as she moves into the last stanza.
A tear falls from the shadow over his eyes; it splashes to the surface of his work table, joining others like it scattered across the metal, and Mei stutters over the lyrics as her hands move to cup his face, tilting it up toward her own until she sees it clearly.
His tears are silent, spilling from stricken gold eyes and leaving clean streaks in the soot smudged over his cheeks. He is barely more aware than before, gazing up at in her in something like fear and wonder both.
It is the fear that Mei cannot take. She pulls him close, beginning the lullaby over again in a voice that is barely above a whisper, and after a beat or two Jamie seems to break. He wraps his arms around her waist and clutches the back of her shirt in his fists, shaking, hiding his face against her chest without a trace of lechery; a single sob escapes his throat and then he is silent again, clinging to her as if she is the only solid thing in the universe.
Mei rests her chin atop his head and sings, the fingertips of one hand rubbing little circles between his shoulder blades as she threads the others through the hair at the nape of his neck. She continues her song in that same near-whisper, as if it is a secret that she has decided to share with him and no one else.
By the time she finishes the last note Jamie is no longer shaking.
“It’s okay,” she murmurs. “You’re okay, Jamie.”
He nods and pulls away. His arms slide down into his lap and he stares at his hands without really seeing them.
He may be calm but he’s still a thousand miles away.
Mei slides off the work table and takes his hands; when she tugs on them he rises obediently and follows her as she leads him to the couch. Moving seems to help him some; he sinks down heavily into the soft leather and tilts his head back, covering his face with both his hands.
Mei waits. She has no idea what Jamie will do if he remembers this once he is coherent again. Just her seeing him struggle with his malfunctioning prosthetic had been enough for him to turn nasty (or at least attempt to; Mei is not easily cowed). There is no telling his reaction if he realizes what kind of vulnerability he has shown tonight.
"Oi, whatcha starin’ at, Miss Mei?” he asks suddenly, his voice thick and drowsy. “Thought I put out the fire in me hair ‘fore I fell asleep.”
He peers up at her from beneath his left arm, looking for all the world as if he has just woken up.
“You were dreaming, Jamie,” she says softly. “Go on back to sleep.”
“Blimey, what kinda dream was I havin’?” he asks, sliding down onto his back. “If ya heard me all the way on your side a’the floor?”
Mei’s voice sticks in her throat - the idea that he could have spells like this with no one around is too awful for words.
Don't. You can't think about it too much.
She swallows hard and finally manages to speak.
“A bad one, I guess.” She steps toward the door, then pauses, struggling with what she wants to say but knows she shouldn’t, because she does not need to open a bigger door for him than she already has…
“If it gets bad, Jamie, you come wake me up,” she says quickly, without turning to look at him. “I don’t want you to be alone if it’s bad.”
…but she opens it anyway, and leaves it open.
Jamie shifts his arm away from his eyes, looking at her curiously.
“I know I ain’t what ya call sane, Miss Mei, but I ain’t blown us up yet,” he answers, a hint of amusement in his voice.
“I mean it,” Mei replies, and though her voice is soft it is also brooks no argument. “I’m not worried about you blowing us up. I’m worried about you.”
There, she thinks, I can’t take that back.
She expects him to tease her again, to make another sarcastic comment, but Jamie does neither.
“All right, Miss Mei,” he says quietly. “I’ll come get ya if it’s bad.”
Mei’s heart is doing something strange and fluttery in her chest.
“Good,” she says, “Good night, Jamie.”
She walks out the door before he can respond.
Jamie closes his eyes and lets out a heavy, trembling sigh. He starts to shake again, hands curling into fists, body growing tense as if there is something dangerous hiding in the shadows.
He takes a couple deep breaths, then begins humming to himself, softly, to the tune of a song he had not understood except as a light out of darkness.