Work Text:
Genji Shimada knows intimately what third degree burns feel like. But if you had to ask him what the sensation felt like; flames licking over skin and burning deep, down into the tissue and muscle and bone, he’d wouldn’t tell you: it burned.
It didn’t burn. Dragonfire doesn’t burn. It devours. Consumes. Eviscerates.
Genji’s youth was consumed in Hanamura, and he emerged from the flames somebody else. Still Genji—but different. Older. Changed. There was Genji Before, and there was Genji After.
You could repair missing limbs, bones and sinew. You could increase his speed and reflexes; enhance his vision, heighten his sense of hearing.
But you couldn’t unburn a charred man.
He stands now, in front of the man who left him to be consumed. Who raised his sword, even with tears in his eyes—Hanzo never used to cry, in Genji’s memory—and told him, in a bitter mockery of the tone he used to take when they were children: “This is for your own good, Genji.”
Your own good? Or the good of the family?
Genji had been quick. Genji had always been good with knives and long blades.
Hanzo had been even quicker.
Jesse McCree knows intimately what crushed and torn bone feels like. It’s not like in the movies. It’s not an immediate, sharp pain that knocks you off your feet, gasping for air. In fact, for the first few moments, you don’t even register the pain. Your body goes into shock, and it’s numb.
It’s when you see the damage that the brain registers the wound and the pain builds, cracks of lightning whipping around your spine and down your legs and over your neck. And that’s when the screaming starts—when the brain tries to move an appendage that’s no longer there. When the bone and muscle and fat won’t respond, crushed into pieces under the weight of concrete and metal.
That’s when Jesse opened his mouth and began screaming, great shuddering gasps of air; lungs heaving and tears running down his face. Acid and burning.
He no longer knew where he was. He no longer knew if anybody knew where he was.
Was he dying? He was probably dying. The dust, thick and choking like a sandstorm, was rising, overwhelming his senses and coating his lungs in a thick sooty ash.
Desert boy, desert bred. Seems only fitting rock and sand would destroy him now.
And that’s when the thick, muscled arms of Gabriel Reyes pushed through the debris, hauled him out and grasped him close.
The four of them stand on the rooftop, assessing each other. The gunslinger, the archer, the cyborg, and the death-bringer. The world is dark around them, heavy grey clouds of violent bruise-shade purple in a grim sky. The wind picks up, whipping around McCree's serape and the ribbon that streams like a dragon's tail from the back of Genji's helmet.
Genji gazes at his brother, wolf’s jaw framing the proud lines of his face. Jaw strong, mouth firm. The unyielding storm, with his face highlighted in stark red ink. There are no tears in Hanzo’s eyes this time. He is older. They are all older.
Genji’s hand twitches, aches for the weight of his blade. He has three shuriken in hand, but there is an arrow trained right at his skull, and he is frozen in place, Medusa’s victim. He cannot move just yet. He waits. Despite commonly held belief, Genji is not always an impulsive man. He was taught the value of patience, of fluidity and being adaptable.
He waits.
Jesse however—well, a fire burns within Jesse McCree. Always has, always will. He holds his revolver trained right at the garish, bone-white mask of the Reaper. The safety isn’t on. He is prepared to shoot. So is the Reaper, dual shotguns raised in his heavy, powerful arms. One is trained on McCree, the other on Genji.
They are at an impasse.
“So,” Jesse begins, always the first to say what’s on his mind. “What a bitch of a thing we got here.”
Genji would laugh, if the situation wasn’t so serious. Then he considers. This might be the last time he has to laugh. So he does. It comes out rather shrill and piercing, not what he had intended.
Hanzo’s eye flickers as he stares down his arrow at his brother. “Do you think I will let you go, this time?”
“No,” Genji replies simply. “And I suspect the Reaper will not do the same for McCree, either.”
“So what do we do?” Jesse continues, feet apart and weight balanced. Ready to fire any moment. This is when he is most comfortable. A man born with a gun in his left arm and sharp words in his mouth. “We can’t just stand here until kingdom come.”
In the end, it is the Reaper who chooses.
“Hanzo,” he snarls behind the mask, and Genji doesn’t miss the way Jesse flinches at the grating sound of his voice. “We are leaving.” As if that’s it, as if Overwatch will just let Talon go.
Hanzo snarls, but acquiesces.
“You’re not leaving,” Jesse interrupts. “What makes you think we’ll just do that? Up and let you go?”
“Because you don’t have a choice,” Reaper spits. “Or have you forgotten the value of a tactical retreat? I taught you better.”
And there—there is the spark. McCree’s face doesn’t falter, grim and stern.
“I know,” he says. “I know, Gabriel.”
They wait for a few more minutes. With every passing minute, the tension hangs in the air like a thick blanket of fog. None of them have any choice. None of them have ever had any choice.
They back away from each other slowly, Overwatch versus Talon’s mercenaries, but just before the Reaper and Hanzo can disappear back down the sides of the building, Jesse throws something at him. A tiny object. Genji can only barely pick it out due to his enhanced vision.
It’s a lighter. Not a cheap, plastic affair, but one of metal. Probably silver. It looks old. Old, and expensive.
Reaper stares down at it. “What is this.”
“You know damn well what that is.”
Genji looks at it again. There are two initials engraved on the side. G. R. Gabriel Reyes.
And then he remembers; a story Jesse had told him long ago between shots of whiskey and stolen kisses under the covers. Gabriel had given Jesse his lighter, when he had tried (unsuccessfully, Genji recalls), to quit his cigar habit and McCree had taken it up in his stead.
Now he is returning it.
Reaper stares silently at the object. “I don’t want it back.”
“Why?” Jesse spits bitterly. “I don’t want nothing from you.”
The Reaper laughs, a horrid, inhuman thing, before dissolving into dark mist. As he does so, Hanzo flips himself down the side of the building, vanishing from view. Of course he would have no parting words for Genji. He knows they will have their turn before long.
“I gave it to you,” the Reaper says simply. “It was a gift. I didn’t teach you to be ungrateful, either.”
The Talon agents disappear. McCree curses, lowers his gun. Then, before Genji can say anything, he turns and stalks away. Genji knows better than to follow him like this. McCree is fire, and Genji has been burned too many times. Jesse loves him with his heart and mind and soul, but the twisted rope between Gabriel and Jesse is longer. Genji understands. Hanzo Shimada and Gabriel Reyes are two sides of the same coin, after all.
Genji walks over to the forgotten lighter and picks it up in his palm. He stares down at it. It’s beautiful, twisted silver designs running around the edges like grapevines and the engraved initials done in sharp, bold lettering.
His hand curls around it. He will keep it, because later Jesse will regret his impulsive decision and want it back.
It is the last thing he has left of Gabriel. The last remnant of G. Reyes.
Genji closes his eyes, thinks of Hanzo’s cold stare. They will bump into each other again soon, he knows. This, this is inevitable. They have burned down the house with dragonfire and now it must be rebuilt. He knows it can be rebuilt.
Then the charred man turns and follows his partner.
A family reunion.