Chapter Text
"Did you know that most of the stars we see in the sky've died a long, long time ago?"
"What? No. That doesn't make any sense," Genji responded, huffing in disbelief. "If they died a long time ago, how can we see them?"
Jesse smiled. "Take it with a grain of salt, I s'pose, but you know that thing they say about people and places you've lost, that they're always with you no matter what, until you decide you don't need them anymore? I s'pect it's a little like that."
"People and stars are two different things, Jesse McCree," Genji teased, nudging Jesse's thigh with the metallic ball of his knee. "I thought you of all people would know that. I guess that Star Wars doesn't teach you everything."
Jesse rolled, the grass rustling around his shoulders and tickling the skin just below his ear. He smiled at Genji, and Genji turned his head to face him; his lovely head, with its thick raven-feather hair and scarred smile and those beautiful eyes. Jesse loved Genji when he wore that half-mask, and he loved him when he didn't.
"I thought you would know that people and stars are sometimes like this." He pressed two calloused fingers together. "And that sometimes, stars live in people. Did you know that, Genji?"
Genji cocked a thick brow.
"I don't think that's how it works."
Jesse laughed. "You don't have to. But I do, 'cause whenever I see you I feel like I'm looking at the most beautiful sky that ever existed."
Pink spread over Genji's cheeks. "Agent McCree, you very well might be the greatest flatterer I've ever known."
"Aw, hell," Jesse breathed. He gripped his arm as if it would somehow stem the pain, and when he realized it wouldn't do a damn thing he pulled it away. Blood dripped from his fingertip onto his chest. He scowled.
"Can't catch a goddamned break, can I?"
He hadn't been able to catch a break since the Venice Incident. Before that, even - maybe he had never been able to. God knew his luck as a kid had been about as good as maggot-infested water.
God knew how flimsy his luck was now. Flimsy, and cracking.
"What do you want from me, dammit?" He demanded, the words catching deep in his throat and scratching on their way up. "Who the hell are you? Are you here for my bounty, is that it? Are you here to cut my head off? Huh?
"Take what the posters've told you with a grain of salt! I'm doing what's right!"
Jesse's chest heaved, losing the battle against his sinking stomach with every rocky breath.
"I s'pose that's what you think you're doing, too. Fine. Just... make it quick. And don't think I'll go without a fight."
The shrouded figure cocked its head like a curious kitten, and tucked their bloody dagger into a fine leather sheath. At a distance, Jesse made out faint, looping etchings. Expensive, he thought. They stood up straight, radiating an overconfident aura that reminded Jesse of someone, that prevented him from whipping his gun from his belt and pulling the trigger.
"McCree?" said the figure. Jesse narrowed his eyes.
"Thought you knew that," he said slowly, the words rolling haltingly off his tongue.
A man didn't attack another in the middle of nowhere without good reason. A bounty was a damn good reason, the only one Jesse could rightly imagine. He dug his fingers into the gash on his shoulder, metal skidding over bloodstained flesh. Maybe his serape would have buffered the hit. He had left it at the hotel, he'd only intended to have himself a drink.
"I should have," the figure continued, taking one step, then two, and soon trotting toward Jesse at an alarming speed, gait easier than the blood sprinkling them might have suggested.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa there." The figure halted.
"What the hell do you want from me? Who did you think I was?" Jesse prompted.
"Thought you were a man I saw mug someone back in town. Similar shirt, similar hat." The figure's voice was almost... soothing. It had a muffled, metallic tang to it. The scarf that encased their head shielded their face from sight, and most of their body was hidden beneath dark clothing.
"As for what I want from you..." The figure pulled their scarf, and it unwound easy as butter slid over a hot pan. The man's whole head was encased in a metal shell that glinted beneath the blazing sun. Even so, Jesse knew he was smiling.
"A kiss would be perfect, Jesse McCree," Genji said with a grin like a devil.
"What if it's not just flattery?" Jesse asked, mouth quirked into a mischievous smile. "Say I'm not just trying to make you feel good about yourself. Say I really, truly mean it. What would you do then?"
There was a stretch of silence, punctuated by the chirp of crickets under a star-spattered sky. They reflected in Genji's dark eyes. It was easy for Jesse to believe that he was looking through windows into another sky, one that mirrored his own without mimicking it so closely that Jesse ever wanted to look away.
"That isn't a light question," Genji murmured.
Jesse gripped a cybernetic hand, squeezing until he knew that Genji felt him.
"I know."
"I would... I would be... elated, if that does it justice. I would be... delighted. But Jesse..."
His smile broadened, then wavered. "Yes?"
"I can't do something like this right now. I would love to love you as more than an acquaintance or coworker or friend, but I worry that I am not whole enough. Not for you, and certainly not for me," Genji said, his voice softening with each word. They stang, each one a little jab with the whetted edge of a small blade.
"I understand," Jesse said after swallowing his disappointment. "Well, I'd love to be your friend just as much. Long as I get to see that star living here-" His thumb met the plastic over Genji's heart, modified but very, very real. "-I'm good as gold."
Genji hesitated only briefly before cupping Jesse's hand.
"Thank you, Jesse," Genji whispered.
Jesse's hand rolled, catching Genji's fingers between his own and squeezing gently.
"No," Jesse replied. The night sky in Genji's eyes twinkled. "Thank you. I always wondered what it'd be like to see the stars up close."
By time the sun set and the moon took its place, Jesse and Genji had settled back at Jesse's dingy hotel room, where Genji had wrapped the wound with the declaration that it looked worse than it was.
"Speak for yourself," Jesse grumbled, shifting on the end of the bed. "It hurts like hell."
"Ah, a lot of things do." Genji grinned. His mask sat on the nightstand, granting Jesse his first look at Genji in years.
He was still scarred, he would be for as long as he lived and beyond that, but he looked... content. The raging fire Jesse remembered from their time in Blackwatch had cooled. What Jesse saw now was a hearth- homely, happy.
There were greys in Genji's raven-feather hair now, silvery strands that poked from his temples and peppered his head like cat's whiskers. Jesse wondered if they would be more noticeable if Genji allowed his shadow of stubble to grow out, and self-consciously ran his metal fingers through his own greying beard.
"You look... different," Jesse said slowly. "I... I mean, I'm happy that you look happy, but you look so... It's so..."
Genji laughed. His synthetic fingers traced the curve of Jesse's cheekbone from ear to lip, where a rubbery thumb paused, holding Jesse's warmth against his mouth. Heat prickled the tips of his ears.
"I know. I'm happy now. Content, at the very least," Genji replied. "I have made peace with who I am and what I have been through. But you probably know that. Have you been reading my letters?"
Jesse wrapped his hand around Genji's fingers, pulling them from his mouth back to his cheek. Wary of spooking the man he remembered, he traced Genji's knuckles with a gossamer touch.
"If you've sent me anything these past few months, I haven't had the chance to get to 'em. But yes, I've read. Most of them I've read more than once. But I just... reading and holding are different things, ain't they?"
Genji stroked Jesse's cheek, a small smirk upon his face. "Yes, they are."
"Don't get smart with me," Jesse scolded, playfully shoving his metal hand into Genji's chest. Genji caught it before all five fingers could land. He tilted his head, turned the hand over and back, then looked up, brows elevated.
"Jesse?"
"Yes?" Jesse responded nervously.
"Would you like to go and look at the sky, for old time's sake? The moon is full tonight."
Jesse let out a breath of relief and smiled weakly. "Yeah, of course. You know I never cared much for the moon, though, yeah? I was a star man myself."
Genji's shoulders shook with silent laughter. "I know. But I would like to compare."
"Compare what?"
"And now Genji's expression turned smug, his eyes sparkled, and he said:
"You and the moon, Jesse, see which one of you shines brighter."
Jesse coughed into his hand, a flimsy attempt to cover his cheesy smile. "Ain't you the biggest flatterer I've ever met."
Genji patted Jesse's arm. "You don't know how hard I try."