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The steady beeping of the vitals monitor is in stark contrast of the erratic beating of Genji’s heart.
He stands in the corner of the room that, once bustling with surgeons, nurses, and the like for the past two days, is now eerily silent save for the beeping, his heartbeat in his ears, and the occasional heavy sigh of Commander Reyes.
It’s been two days since the latest Blackwatch fiasco. Two days since a deadly run in with the ever emboldened Talon. Two days since Jesse McCree found himself caught in a devastating crossfire that severed the entirety of his arm from his torso. Genji had been the one to find him, gasping in shock and fighting to keep his eyes open, groaning as he coughed up blood, his arm laying limp five feet away.
Genji remembers little of the whirlwind that swept in afterwards—their rushed extraction from the site, Commander Reyes desperately calling for Moira to stabilize their fallen comrade—but he must have been screaming because his throat is still raw 48 hours later. He can still feel his tongue molded around the name of his colleague. McCree! McCree! Stay with me! Jesse!
They’d been swarmed by the on-call medical team from the moment they’d landed in Zurich—Moira dashing off at the head of the stretcher they’d brought out for McCree, detailing the injury and his vitals. Genji and Reyes had attempted to follow but were forbidden from coming within ten feet of the operating room—a rule implemented by Dr. Zeigler, rushing in to meet the operating team, and enforced by a stern Moira.
For two days, neither of them budged, and neither of them spoke a word to each other. Genji had occupied one end of the waiting room with his arms crossed, mind still a blur, panic and rage thrumming nonstop through his veins and, well, whatever other awful circuitry was attached. Every so often he’d glance over at his commander and drink in the sight of Reyes hunched over with his elbows on his knees. He’d snatched the beanie off his head and thrown it onto the ground in frustration before picking it back up and hiding his gaunt and tired face in it. Sometimes Genji wondered if he was crying. Sometimes Genji couldn’t care less. Sometimes Genji blamed him—how dare he ask McCree, armed only with a pistol and nothing more, to do what the rest of them did?
And sometimes, Genji blamed himself. Maybe if he'd stayed put, maybe if he hadn't gone chasing rogue Talon agents in a frenzy that seemed to so often consume him these days, McCree would be, without a doubt, alive. And he would be whole.
Why he’d been so fractured over seeing McCree’s mangled body as someone who knew the stakes of being a part of a black ops team, Genji couldn’t comprehend. But now that he's standing in the recovery room only a few feet from where McCree lays battered, bruised, and not yet conscious, wires and tubes strewn about him and his replacement of an arm, Genji's beginning to understand why.
Briefly, Genji wonders if that’s how he looked when he’d first arrived here.
Reyes is in the room with them as well. He stands like a monolith next to McCree’s bed, arms folded and shoulders tense. His face is gaunt—bags lining stern but tired eyes and cheeks hollowed from lack of sleep and a jaw clenched too tightly. The only times Genji has taken his eyes off McCree is to catch a quick glimpse of his commander, but Reyes hasn’t looked at anyone or anything else except McCree since they were both let into the room. It’s as if he hopes that his stare alone will wake the cowboy up.
A story comes to Genji’s mind. A myth about a Titan cursed to hold the weight of the sky.
Genji blames Reyes, and he can now see that Reyes blames himself as well. The all-consuming guilt is awash in the man’s expression and the way he stands two feet from the edge of McCree’s bed: close enough to be supportive, but distanced enough lest he shatter something that is already broken.
Good, Genji thinks.
He also thinks, I’m sorry.
A sound—one of a knuckle rapping on the open door of the recovery room—reverberates through the heavy silence, and Genji’s head snaps towards the entrance. There the Strike Commander stands in the doorway, exhaustion woven into now pallid features, as if he too hasn’t slept in a while. Morrison spares Genji a glance, nods at him in acknowledgement, then turns to face Reyes.
“Gabe,” he beckons, and it comes out like a tired sigh.
Reyes remains unmoving, the only indication that he’d heard Morrison being the further clenching of his jaw.
Agents from Overwatch had been trickling in and out in an attempt to summon Reyes to a mission debrief from the moment they’d stepped foot on base, and to no avail. Even Captain Amari had stopped by where the two of them had been waiting outside McCree’s operating room to coax Reyes back for a meeting, but he hadn’t budged. Now Morrison himself is here.
“Gabe,” he calls again. “Gabe, he’s alive and stable. You’ve got to come up for a debrief now.”
“I’m not leaving,” Reyes finally answers, voice hoarse and tense. They’re the first words Genji’s heard him speak in two days. He wonders if his voice will be just coarse. The last time he’d used it, he’d been screaming McCree’s name.
“You’re the Commander of Blackwatch for God’s sake Reyes,” Morrison replies, the last of hint of patience falling away and leaving behind only exasperation. “You’re a leader, so start acting like one.”
“A leader doesn’t leave his fallen soldiers behind,” Reyes says fiercely, gaze finally leaving McCree’s face to snap up menacingly and meet Morrison’s. “Or is that another thing you’ve forgotten, sitting behind that desk of yours?”
Morrison swallows, and Genji can tell it’s his pride the Strike Commander is attempting to keep at bay. The air is crackling with the frightening electricity of two Titans poised to wage war—a storm that Genji knows has been brewing for quite some time now. It’s only a matter of time before the hurricane hits, but Genji won’t let it happen in the room where his dear friend lies unconscious and tattered.
“Go,” he says, stepping out of the corner he’d been occupying. The steadiness of his voice surprises him.
The two Commanders turn their attentions to him, Morrison, weary, and Reyes, surprised.
“Genji, I can stay. I don’t have to go,” Reyes says, tone softening out of what Genji recognizes as respect and concern. Blackwatch has always been something like a family despite the nature of their work. Genji has come to see it that way, and he knows Reyes does too.
“But you should,” Genji maintains, inclining his head in Morrison’s direction as if to silently refer back to the Strike Commander’s words. “I’ll stay here with McCree.”
At this, the taut set of Reyes’s expression falters a bit, and what Genji thinks he catches through the cracks is desperation. He recognizes it as such because it’s the same feeling lurking behind that visor of his, beneath the metal and shreds of skin, holding his chest in a serpent’s grip.
It’s the desperate need to know that McCree, despite all these machines telling them that he’s alive, is actually okay.
He nods once more in an attempt to be reassuring. Reyes stays still for a few moments more, assessing his options and weighing his emotions against his duty.
Finally, he uncrosses his arms, and resolve tapes over the cracks in his façade. He returns a nod of affirmation to Genji, the deliverance of trust from a commanding officer to his subordinate, and then faces Morrison. Morrison, for all his display of impatience and authority, looks quite relieved. He tosses a look of gratitude Genji’s way before the two Commanders silently shuffle out of the room. Reyes pauses to take one last apologetic glance at McCree, then closes the door behind him.
And Genji is quite grateful for his doing so.
Now that he's here and alone, the beeping of the vitals monitor sounding in tandem with McCree's steady heartbeat filling his ears, the vice-like grip around his chest tightens. He takes a tentative step towards the bed. Then another. And another. And finally, he's at McCree's bedside, looking down upon the visage of the man he'd frantically cradled in his arms only 48 hours ago.
Genji wants to believe that it's true peace that blankets his friend's face instead of an unconsciousness induced by sedatives; but as his eyes flicker to the raw and damaged skin scarring over where McCree's elbow meets metal, a phantom pain re-surges in his body, and he knows that it isn't.
"Take care, McCree," he'd cautioned the other what seems like a lifetime ago, "I'd hate for you to end up with a body like mine."
"Thanks," McCree had said in response, "but I plan to keep everything how it is."
"You idiot," Genji whispers, tearing his eyes away from McCree's arm, absentmindedly rubbing his own neck where flesh meets machine.
Deep in his thoughts, Genji almost misses McCree's face contort in awareness, but his light groan pulls him back to the present.
"McCree?" he calls softly, instinctively taking the other's hand in his own. He registers the gesture a split second later and can't figure out what made him decide to do it. It's meant to be reassuring somehow, as if to give McCree something to ground himself with as he wakes up and realizes what's happened.
Maybe it's because when Genji came to, alone and torn apart, he didn't have such a thing. What he'd woken up to was emptiness, fear, and loathing. McCree doesn't deserve that.
As if reacting to Genji's voice, McCree's hand just barely squeezes his own, grip weak, and the cowboy drowsily opens his eyes.
Genji catches a tender smile crawling over his face and doesn't hide it.
McCree blinks slowly a few times, eyes readjusting to the dimly lit room. As he does so, his drug-glazed gaze lands on Genji, and Genji clutches his hand more tightly. Even in this state, McCree manages to have the softest and richest brown eyes Genji's ever seen. His own heartbeat thuds in his ears, drowning out the beeping of machines.
"Is he gone?" McCree finally rasps, throat immensely dry. Genji immediately looks around for any source of hydration and doesn't comprehend McCree's bizzare waking words until a few moments later after he's spotted a water bottle lying on the side table next to the bed. Reyes must have left it.
"What?" he asks absentmindedly, reaching for the bottle with his free hand, uncapping it, and bring it to McCree's lips.
McCree accepts it graciously, trying his hardest to drink the water as neatly as possible. He fails spectacularly, and water runs down in tiny rivulets into his beard. Genji smiles fondly and sets the water bottle down, freeing his other hand from McCree's to wipe his chin.
"Reyes," McCree reiterates, voice clearer now, though still laced with grogginess. "Is he gone?"
Genji frowns at that.
"How did you know Reyes was here?" he asks.
McCree moves what he can of his body in a way that could have been a shrug if he'd had better control of his limbs. Genji narrows his eyes.
"McCree, how long have you been awake?"
At least McCree has the gall to look guilty.
"About an hour or two," he replies, training his eyes onto the ceiling.
"But why?" Genji asks. His hand has found its way back into McCree's.
McCree closes his eyes and lets out a deep and laborious sigh. It's now when Genji sees familiar sentiments leak into McCree's features: shame, regret, panic, and loathing.
"Because I can't face his guilt just yet," he finally answers, still looking away from Genji.
Genji feels himself choke on a lump in his throat and he hangs his head. He's not sure whom he's holding the other's hand for now, McCree or himself.
"Then I'm sorry that you must face mine."
McCree finally tears his gaze from the ceiling and looks back at Genji.
"Darlin," he murmurs, "what could you possibly be feeling guilty about?"
As he speaks he angles his body in an attempt to lift his left arm— the one that’s scarred and laced with IVs and tubes and metal—and then stops abruptly, face clouding over in pain. His brow furrows together and he suddenly grips Genji’s hand with a fervor soaked in desperation and fear.
“Oh,” he chokes out. His body deflates into the bed in utter defeat. A single tear rolls down his cheek.
It occurs to Genji that McCree had been aware he was injured and in a hospital room, but had not known why. He’d simply assumed he’d fucked up somehow on the mission, and Reyes, having a special stake in McCree’s wellbeing, would naturally shoulder the blame.
That he’d lost a whole part of himself had never occurred to him. Until now.
Genji hangs his head and finds that he can no longer internalize everything that’s been eating him up for the past 48 hours.
“I should have protected you,” he mumbles through gritted teeth, desperately trying not to sob and failing miserably. When the tears stream down his face, he vaguely registers that he has not cried since he’d woken under an unfamiliar ceiling in an unfamiliar body many years ago.
Releasing McCree’s hand, Genji lifts his own to undo his visor and strip it from his face. He can’t remember when he’d stopped hiding himself and the scars that littered his skin from McCree, but he’s come to trust the cowboy with this face of his, more than he does himself. And, right now, McCree deserves to hear, not from someone half hidden behind a mask, but from someone he knows well. Someone he’s familiar with.
“I should have been by your side,” he continues, rubbing at his eyes furiously. “If I’d stood by my orders, if I hadn’t run off track down those agent, then maybe this wouldn’t have happened. You wouldn’t be here.”
“You don’t know that,” McCree murmurs, weakly lifting his uninjured arm to Genji’s face. His fingertips gently ghost over Genji’s cheekbone and down his jaw. “It still could have happened.”
“Maybe. But I wasn’t even there to try and help. Instead, I left you and—” Genji falters, grasping the hand just barely cupping his face, “—and now you’re like me.”
Genji feels McCree tense, and his fingers curl ever so slightly. But any additional shame that begins to claw its way up Genji’s throat is quelled by the small, yet tender smile that blooms across McCree’s face. It tugs—no, yanks—at his heartstrings.
“If by that you mean I’m now a sexy cyborg ninja, then that can’t be the worst fate in the world,” he jokes, and Genji is utterly amazed at how the cowboy manages to do so. Even when he’s the one who is hurt, he’s willing to heal everyone else. Genji hates him for it, and can’t stop loving him anyway.
But for all his lighthearted humor, McCree uses jokes to mask his fear, and Genji knows this all too well. The two of them have had the misfortune of finding themselves in life threatening situations on multiple occasions.
Silently, he lets go of McCree’s hand and leans forward, shifting to sit on the edge of the bed and drying any remaining tears with the back of his hand before resting his forehead on the other’s. He closes his eyes and sighs deeply, bringing his hands up to gently cup McCree’s face. Now is not the time to reflect on his own shame and pain. He must be there for McCree as no one had been for him.
Beneath him, McCree relaxes, if only slightly. Genji wishes he could will the rest of McCree’s pain and tension away, wishes things could be that simple. But they’re not, so he’ll do all that he can and hope that McCree is stronger than he’s ever been.
“You should sleep,” McCree mumbles under his breath. “You look awful.”
Genji snorts. “I thought you said I was sexy.”
“You always are, darlin’,” McCree retorts, “but that doesn’t mean you don’t like you’re gonna drop dead any minute now.”
Genji pulls his head back just enough so he’s able to clearly see McCree’s face.
“I’m not leaving you,” he says firmly.
McCree’s eyes flutter open and Genji can see that he’s fighting a wave of drowsiness. Yet, somehow, even while struggling against the urge to sleep, McCree makes a face at Genji’s stubbornness.
“Genji—”
“I’m not leaving you, Jesse.”
The finality in Genji’s tone quiets any remaining protests McCree may have had, and the cowboy sighs once again. Genji gives him a small and fond smile, his heartbeat still thudding fiercely, though a little less out of guilt and a little more out of love.
McCree ends up losing the battle against the fatigue as well, and he soon closes his eyes. Genji watches as McCree drifts off, and plants a tender kiss atop his forehead. Catching glimpse of the new cyberkinetic arm out of the corner of his eye, Genji fervently hopes that his friend will not dream of frightful things.
Moments later, Genji can feel himself give way the sleep that’s eluded him for two days. His eyes begin to droop against his will and his consciousness is ebbing away. Through the haziness of it all, he only barely catches the words McCree whispers.
“Genji, I think I’m gonna leave Blackwatch.”
Genji opens his eyes and searches the plains and ridges of McCree’s face, his eyes still closed. The words should have stirred a panic in his heart or jolted him awake. Instead, they sink in, and what Genji feels is a mixture of heartbreak and relief. It feels natural for some reason, that McCree should want to leave, and not just because of his injury. Genji recalls the angry typhoon brewing in the room between Morrison and Reyes.
There is no longer any room for broken things to heal. No amount of tape will save them from the oncoming storm.
Genji only nods, then realizes that McCree cannot see him. So he licks his lips and croaks,
“Okay.”
Sitting beside McCree, gripping one of his hands in both of his, Genji has no awareness of when he actually gives into the exhaustion. But at some point, he does. And as he does so, he enters his dreams torn between staying with McCree as he’d promised and wondering if, maybe this time, leaving is the right choice.
Fin.