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Zurich is different at night.
When the base sleeps, it’s almost unlike the international pseudo-military headquarters it most definitely is, the size of a small hamlet and with just as many people. Inmates, the bitterness in him thinks, an army of civilian soldiers, scientists, engineers, doctors, the forefront of technology for the aftermath of a decades-old war.
It’s quiet at night. And although there are plenty like Genji who find sleep elusive - who work through the smallest hours, who like Angela have trained themselves into shifts - the lack of life is peaceful. For a prisoner, Genji thinks, disdainful again.
He sighs. Despite the time that’s passed, he still finds little comfort in his reluctant tenure here. At least at night, the chances of him being bothered are slimmer.
Perhaps he’ll visit Angela. She never speaks much at this time, too busy, too caffeinated, but she has several bags of green tea stashed in her desk, and Genji has started to prefer it over coffee.
He’s halfway down one of many sleek black dormitory corridors, floor made of marble, doors to private rooms on one side, and windows on the other, each reflecting a different artistic impression of the night beyond, changing regularly, shifting in colour and viewpoint. As if real windows wouldn’t have sufficed. Halfway between exit and retreat, he meets the first person he’s seen all night, stood in front of one of the doors.
Behind his visor his eyes flick up, walk hesitating as if minutely aware of some unseen danger, tension in his shoulders, ready to identify whoever it is and steadfastly ignore them.
The weak clank of heel-mounted metal alerts him to the person’s identity before his eyes do.
Jesse.
McCree doesn’t seem to notice Genji in his peripheral vision. Unnerving in itself. Jesse might dress himself in red rags and bells and go looking for bulls to fight, but Genji knows that’s calculated misdirection. Jesse is nothing if not a thief, a sneak, a liar. He’s seen him charm his way out of countless deathtraps, shoot seven men with one barrel, lift half a hotel room’s worth of toiletries just because he could.
McCree isn’t simple. It’s why Genji likes him so much. One of the reasons.
Still. There’s nothing in his posture that shows an ounce of awareness to Genji’s presence, or anything around them, even as Genji moves closer. He may be quiet, but it’s not as if he isn’t recognisable, even from the side. There’s not another soul in the world that looks quite like Genji does.
He hovers, watching, like he’s accidentally come across a wild animal and can’t remember whether the advice would be to flee or stand his ground. McCree finally manages to open the door, requiring a thumbprint, and pushes past into the room, beyond Genji’s view.
Odd.
Genji walks closer. The room, McCree’s room, is completely dark, the door left wide open. He looks back down the corridor, wondering if he’s somehow missed something obvious, or else is being led into some kind of elaborate trap.
It’s quiet. Peaceful, if it wasn’t for McCree’s strange behaviour. Concern tugs Genji back to the door. “McCree?”
There’s a noise from inside, like something falling to the floor. All the separate dorms have a bathroom. Genji’s own room does, and he’s familiar enough with McCree’s room to know that’s where the sound came from.
He hovers, unsure how to proceed. Jesse is never quiet, even when he really should be. Always talking, always vibrant, like life itself bubbles out of him. He can’t stand silence, Genji learnt fairly quickly after meeting him, and fills whatever quiet he can, laughing, humming, telling stories to himself if there’s no one else to listen. It was annoying at first, he remembers wryly. Now when Genji is alone, he can’t help but see just how empty things are without Jesse. Garish, beacon-bright cowboy.
Genji enters the room, and carefully shuts the door behind him, movements slow, as quiet as possible. Unlike Jesse, Genji’s built for stealth, specifically engineered to be silent, the grace of a dancer even in the dark. The walls reflect the lights built into his armour, his shoulders and chassis, the artificial framework of his spine, green, muted in the plain beige wall paint.
He says Jesse’s name again, and again there’s no answer.
Genji takes a breath, and there’s a new sound from the bathroom. The unmistakeable clank of Jesse’s spurs, as gratuitous and out of place as ever, his footsteps loud and irregular on the tiled floor, as if it’s taking Jesse an age to place one booted foot in front of the other.
And really that should have persuaded him to leave, but Genji hovers yet longer. The bathroom door is wide open, light pouring out into the bedroom. Jesse might not be the most modest person, but Genji has never known anyone to use the bathroom with the door to their room open, let alone the bathroom door as well.
It’s a very modern en suite, tiled in shades of sand and cream, reminiscent of a luxury beachfront hotel. The shower takes up one corner entirely, a large open cubicle of clear glass and marble tile, fittings finished in bronze. Jesse’s toothbrush is charging in the outlet above the sink unit, red and white towels hanging on a heated rack next to the shower.
Genji’s own bathroom is much the same, save for the colour of the towels.
“McCree?”
Again, nothing.
Genji finally stands in the en suite doorway, and watches as Jesse enters the shower cubicle, turns on the shower and stands beneath the water, fully-clothed, head still hanging, as if unsure how to move out of the spray, completely blind to the world around him.
“McCree!”
The water hisses, darkening an already black shirt, and still Jesse stands there, deaf and unmoving.
“McCree- Jesse, what are you doing?”
His name seems to stir some recognition, the creature dressed as McCree picking up its heavy head and finally facing Genji, water starting to drip down his face. He stares through the open glass door, and for a second so does Genji, frozen in the absurdity of the situation, as water starts to run across the floor, and still Genji can only gape in silence, the air fragile, as though it will break if he speaks again.
Jesse looks horrific. There’s a bleeding cut through the tail end of one eyebrow, oozing down onto his cheek. The rest of his face is almost black with grime in places, caked into the creases around his mouth and eyes, tan skin broken by a bright and angry bruise across the bridge of his nose, so stark it almost looks painted on. His beard is similarly crusted with blood, black and cracking where it’s dried.
The water starts to run red and brown.
His eyelashes flutter as Genji stares at him, lips curling, caught by his teeth. At first he assumes tiredness, but then Jesse’s eyes catch the light, and Genji’s breath hitches just as the tears start to fall, Jesse immediately ducking his head, turning his back.
“Jesse-”
He releases his visor, no hesitation, faceplate sliding easily away as he starts forward into the shower cubicle, feet sloshing through the water. Jesse’s shoulders are shaking, and he’s leaning his forehead against the tiled wall, hair starting to soak and hang around his head like a veil, keeping his face hidden.
“Jesse, come here,” Genji says, blinking through rapidly forming steam. He reaches past, movements slow and careful so as not to startle, and shuts off the shower, laying his now-wet flesh hand on Jesse’s shoulder.
The quiet is deafening without the water, and Genji can hear Jesse’s shaky breathing, feel it through his shoulder. “Come here,” he says again, pushing him to turn around, and wrapping his arms around his neck.
Genji hugs him, standing on his toes to reach. Jesse stoops into him, burying his face in Genji’s neck though his arms stay by his side, weight leant almost entirely into the hug, as though he doesn’t have the strength to stand on his own.
His hair is filthy, and Genji can smell days of sweat and dirt on him, but still presses into the hug, cradling his head with his flesh hand, damp from the water and lank with grease. How long has it been since he washed? What had he been doing ?
They’re still for some time, the only sound the draining of the water, and Jesse’s dry almost silent sobs, until Genji sets himself back on his heels, and pulls back enough to look at his face again, so close he can see the tears clinging to Jesse’s eyelashes, the flecks of amber in his brown eyes, the broken veins beneath his skin.
He hesitates, not knowing what he can possibly say, brushing Jesse’s cheekbones with his thumbs, as light as possible. “Sit down,” he settles on, and lets him go.
Jesse sits on the bench beneath the shower unit, dark and wooden, like something you might find in a sauna. He’s too big in all his gear, legs too long, shoulders too broad, out of place in the acute luxury of a glass and marble bathroom. The only thing missing is the hat.
His chest is armoured, black kevlar that’s spattered with blood, too coagulated to have been washed off, thick padding across his shoulders, and similarly down his legs, armoured knees and reinforced boots, all ballistic polymer and carbon fibre and bulletproof tech-fabric.
So much . Just like Jesse. Too big, too much. Larger than life, always, filling empty spaces without even trying.
He sniffles, as Genji starts unclipping the wet armour from his shoulders, pulling away the chestpiece. The outline is encrusted into the bodysuit underneath, as if it’s been in place for days, branded in sweat and dirt and blood. Someone else’s, by the looks of it.
Genji sets it down just outside the shower door, and starts on Jesse’s legs, prying off the pieces of armour, noting any damage. Jesse doesn’t look at him, stares unseeingly at some point on the tile floor between his knees, water dripping from his hair.
The boots are rank, Genji kneeling down between Jesse’s legs to pry them from his feet, wincing at the effort it takes, like they’ve been welded in place. They’re discarded outside with the growing pile of damp armour, along with two positively disgusting socks, sodden with sweat.
Jesse looks at his hands then, when Genji starts on the zip of his bottom layer, a stab-resistant bodysuit, peeling it down his shoulders and freeing his arms. His chest is clammy with days of sweat, radiating heat as the fabric is pulled away, past his hips when Jesse stands just enough to inch it down his thighs, and finally off, joining the rest by the door and leaving Jesse naked, hunched against the wall.
He’s seen Jesse naked before. It’s not new, but it’s somehow more intimate, and Genji almost wishes he hadn’t taken off his visor for he knows he’s going to blush, even if the situation doesn’t call for it at all.
Jesse doesn’t notice. Doesn’t even look at him.
“Good,” Genji says, just to keep himself talking, focused, and stands, ignoring the aching in his own knees. He switches on the water again, fiddling with the temperature until he’s satisfied, holding the bronze shower head in his hand. “Head back.”
Jesse obeys, glancing at Genji’s face, before again staring at some point in the middle distance, as if not seeing him at all.
He wets Jesse’s hair, gentle fingers pulling it back from his face, soaking it through. The water runs brown with dirt over his shoulders, flesh fingertips carefully easing through tangles, through hard clumps of dry blood and black tar-like grime.
Then, the shower head replaced above them and angled away, Genji squeezes a palmful of shampoo from the most appropriate-looking bottle standing in the caddy by the shower unit, and manoeuvers between Jesse’s spread knees, starting to massage the shampoo into his hair.
It’s thick and pale green, and smells of tea tree oil, foaming beneath Genji’s fingers as he works through Jesse’s hair, smoothing it back from his face. He presses his fingertips into his scalp, easing gentle circles, watching as Jesse’s shoulders start to lose some of their tension, as his eyes fall closed.
How long had it been since he’d slept?
Genji was used to feeling dislike at best towards his superiors in Blackwatch, but if this was Reyes’ sanction, if this was his doing, rank and civility and commanding officers be damned, someone was going to pay for it.
Hands washed of foam, Genji lets the shampoo sit in Jesse’s hair as he showers the grime from his skin, soaking his chest and back, arms and thighs. Another bottle from the caddy, and Genji lathers blue shower gel into sweet smelling bubbles in his hands, crowding close between Jesse’s thighs to cover every inch of him he can reach.
There’s a few new bruises, blunt force injuries, and two of his fingernails are black with blood beneath the skin, another split vertically from tip to cuticle. He’s as gentle as he can be, and Jesse gives no indication that he’s feeling anything at all, let alone discomfort. It’s as if he’s somewhere else, so deep inside his own head that even Genji isn’t registering completely.
Genji isn’t unnerved easily. But he doesn’t like it at all.
“You don’t gotta,” Jesse says suddenly, and it’s his voice, but so unlike his voice that Genji wouldn’t have recognised it if he hadn’t seen his lips move. He blinks, a coronet of white-green shampoo foam in his hairline, and seems to see Genji for the first time in a while, meeting his eyes.
Genji blinks back, and has the overwhelming desire to cry.
“Shh.” He strokes Jesse’s hair, spreading the foam back to his crown, away from the angry gash on his face. “I know I don’t.”
Jesse’s eyebrows draw together, and pain registers in his expression as the cut pulls. He doesn’t protest.
“Hand,” Genji says softly, and takes Jesse’s palm, squeezing more of the shower gel into Jesse’s hand. He tries to catch his eyes again. “Wash yourself, where I haven’t.”
It’s loaded with meaning, but Jesse doesn’t seem in the right mind for modesty or embarrassment, lathering the gel and washing his thighs and between them, movements slow and mechanical.
Meanwhile Genji brings the shower head down again and starts rinsing the shampoo from his hair, careful not to let any run over his face. Immediately it feels so much cleaner, softer, the water running over Jesse’s back and down his chest, rinsing the bubbles from his skin.
He then crouches slightly and washes under Jesse’s arms, through the hair on his chest, his stomach and lower, making sure no foam remains.
Jesse seems to relax as time goes on, stretching his legs out, sighing at Genji’s hands in his hair again, robotic fingers massaging the back of his neck, and shutting his eyes as Genji carefully lets water run over his face, washing away dried blood and dirt. A note is made of another cut beneath the hair on Jesse’s jawline, stitched already, clean and neat at least.
He looks almost human when Genji finishes, finally switching off the water, stroking his cheek as he lets go of him. Handsome as always, even in this state.
The towels are slightly stiff with starch, but Genji unfolds the largest he can find, and wraps it around Jesse’s shoulders, a white serape, comforting in its familiarity. A smaller towel gently gathers his hair, dries his forehead, Genji lightly squeezing the water from the ends. He dries himself too, having ended up almost as wet as Jesse.
Jesse tugs the corners of the biggest towel, folding his arms around him, wrapping himself in it. It’s soothing somehow, just to sit with something soft on his skin.
Eventually Genji encourages him up, accommodating the wobble in his knees, the sheer weight of fatigue making him clumsy. His flesh arm holds Jesse’s waist, insistent, letting him find his own balance before opening the shower door for him.
“Good,” Genji says, soft, voice clear without the modulation of his visor. His eyes are on him, worried, but never pitying. Genji is concerned, but he never coddles. “I’ll find some clothes.”
He pulls the bathroom door behind him, so as not to give Jesse a chill, and leaves to the dim bedroom beyond.
Jesse isn’t neat exactly, but his room is tidy enough. Cluttered, but not messy, decorated in a similarly modern style to the bathroom, muted and neutral with dark furniture and pale walls. Genji’s familiar enough to know which drawers are which, which side of the bed Jesse prefers, and that thought is of equal warmth and trepidation. When had he become so close to Jesse as to know where he keeps his underwear?
He turns the bedside lamp on, smooths the sheets on the bed, ignoring just how much the room smells of Jesse, of his aftershave, his shampoo, absently straightening the pillows, picking up a datapad from the floor.
It’s dark outside, the bedroom windows not the sort for 3D screensaver projections, just a view of the base and Zurich beyond, the Üetliberg towering slightly darker than the night sky far in the distance. He draws the blind. Jesse doesn’t need the outside world’s attention tonight.
A pair of Jesse’s boxers in hand, he returns to the bathroom, knocking on the ajar door. The toilet flushes, and Jesse makes a noncommittal noise, Genji peering in to hand him the underwear. “Wash your hands,” Genji says, and moves past him to the unit beneath the sink, looking through the drawer.
It’s a mess of various bathroom supplies too random to keep in any specific place; a single tube of antiseptic cream, an unopened first aid kit, a couple of blister packs of aspirin, some disposable razors that look unlikely to be used, several condom packets, and finally a comb, which Genji twirls through his fingers out of habit, taking it and the tube of cream back to the bedroom while Jesse washes his hands, trying to keep hold of his towel as he does so.
It takes another while for Jesse to emerge, padding into the bedroom, every movement heavy and stilted, as though just walking causes pain. He sits on the bed in his underwear beside Genji, piling his towel in his lap and absently rubbing at his thighs, drying the hair.
He looks at him.
Jesse’s expression is fragile, like it could crumble at any second, gaze shaky, lips taut and then trembling, then the former again. He looks tired, overwhelmingly tired, even though the surface grime is gone, skin slightly flushed from the heat of the shower.
It’s distinctly alien. And Genji can’t help but feel the desperate need to make it better, somehow. Make it right. Take away such a hideous thing that could cause this man to cry and bleed and look so lost.
“Hey…” Genji very gently pushes his shoulder into Jesse’s, a mimicry of a more forceful playful gesture, trying his best to sound soft, nonthreatening. “Didn’t know there was a man under all that beard.” He smiles, hopeful, and Jesse seems caught by it for a second, long enough to dispel the trembling in his lips at least.
“Ha…” He doesn’t smile, but huffs in something close enough to amusement, the corner of his lips twitching minutely. It’s a victory. “Checkin’ me out?”
“Maybe I am,” Genji says softly, squeezing a glob of antiseptic cream onto his finger and scooting closer, turning so he’s facing Jesse. “Turn round a bit-”
Jesse does, and Genji carefully covers the gash on his face with the cream, adding another blob to the stitched cut on his chin, and the bruise covering his nose. “Always kinda liked a man with scars.”
Quiet for a moment, Jesse shuts his eyes as Genji works, and doesn’t answer, Genji assuming he’s too tired for their usual game, their banter. They’ve always jabbed at each other, settling easily into back-and-forth teasing and jokes, even only having known each other a few years at best. It’s always been easy with Jesse.
“Hm...” Another sigh, as though the few words had tired him even more than he was already, Jesse’s eyes still closed as Genji finishes. “I got a few.”
Again, Genji is faced with the gut-wrenching need to do something . Say something. Fix it. Jesse is always the one with the words, the right thing to say or do, the best way to distract Genji when he’s having an especially bad day, the best way to cheer him up. Genji has never had to care before. For anyone.
He wants to. God, he wants to.
Shifting his weight, Genji moves so he can reach Jesse’s hair, gently taking the towel from his lap and drying the ends again before finally starting with the comb, brushing Jesse’s hair a section at a time.
“I’ve got plenty too,” he says, quiet, drying Jesse’s bare shoulders where his hair has dripped. Jesse hums but doesn’t answer, and Genji goes back to brushing.
He again presses his prosthetic fingers into the muscles of Jesse’s neck, encouraging him to relax, to let go of some of the tension in them. And Jesse does, only stiffening at a tangle Genji finds that he must have missed before, prying the hair gently with the teeth of the comb.
Moments pass in silence, more comfortable than in the bathroom, warm with the glow of the bedside lamp. Jesse’s hair starts to dry in the air, kinking at its customary odd angles, and he begins to slump, softening his posture. Genji is almost flush against his back by the time he finishes, rhythmically combing through his hair, slow and soothing.
He’ll have to leave soon. Go back to his own room and try to get some sleep after the unexpected turn his night has taken, and let Jesse do the same. Genji strokes over his head from behind, trying to find the natural part in his hair, almost close enough to breathe on the shell of Jesse’s ear.
He doesn’t want to leave.
“There.” Genji sets the comb and the antiseptic on the bedside table, and folds the towel. He shifts away, and Jesse picks his head up, almost startled, as if mourning the loss.
“I’ll take your gear to the armory,” he says, and stands, trying to sound detached. Professional. Just helping out a colleague. “There were some pieces that will probably need repairs, and of course cleaning. I will...make sure it is looked after. You should-”
He picks at the stitching at the corner of the towel in his arms, shifts his weight. Jesse stares at him for a second. “You would like to get some sleep, I’m sure,” Genji says stiffly, and takes a few steps back from the bed.
“Stay with me.” Genji blinks.
“What?”
“Stay,” Jesse says, looking down at his thighs. “With me.” He picks at his skin, bare toes curling on the floor. It’s the most he’s said in hours, voice low and dry from underuse. “If. If you’re comfortable with it, I mean, it’d- I’d really-”
“Okay.”
They look at each other. Genji smiles. The relief in Jesse’s expression makes his heart flutter. Stupid, sentimental thing. Far too human, for something so extensively repaired with cybernetics. More metal than muscle, like the rest of him, like the mess he’s been left with pretending to be a body.
Still beats the same, though.
He takes the towel back to the bathroom, making sure the pile of Jesse’s armour is dry and safe ready to be washed and repaired. In the morning. Afterwards.
His reflection catches his eye, in the mirror above the sink, and Genji hesitates for a moment before removing the rest of the armour that covers his head, deftly unlatching the metal, uncovering his jaw and scalp. He sets the headpiece down, and runs his hand through his hair, back to where it joins the synthetic material of his repaired scalp, just below his crown. It never lies flat at the back any more. But he’s seen Jesse vulnerable tonight. Something rare and invasive. And although Jesse has seen him without armour before, it seems only right to let him see Genji vulnerable now too.
Jesse’s lying in bed when he returns, one arm folded under his pillow. The covers are bunched around his hips, broad chest almost inviting Genji to lie against it, nuzzle into his collarbone. He blinks his eyes open and treats him to a tiny smile, nothing compared to his usual full-face grins, but just as precious.
Covers pushed down, Genji slips into the space beside him, settling his head on the second pillow.
Jesse looks at his hair, cropped short and jet black, and hesitantly brings his hand up, touching the front, brushing it back from Genji’s forehead. His fingers are trembling slightly, fingertips rough and warm.
“Will you tell me about it?” Genji asks, hushed. He stubbornly holds Jesse’s gaze. “Tomorrow. Tell me what happened. If you can.”
The hand leaves his hair, and Jesse looks away, shifting his weight. His lips press together, and Genji wants to grab for his hand and force it back into place, beg him not to stop, push into his palm just to feel him touching him.
Genji can’t remember the last time anyone touched his hair.
It takes what feels like an age, but eventually Jesse meets his eyes again. He nods. “Okay.”
Genji smiles, just enough to show his gratitude, his recognition of how difficult it was just to say that one word.
There’s silence again. Jesse relaxes more as each minute passes, enough to touch him again, laying his arm across Genji’s waist. His eyelids droop, heavy with fatigue, and Genji shifts closer into his chest, able to feel the warmth from his skin despite his armour and prosthetics.
Despite what he is, his thoughts supply.
He brings his own hand up, and brushes Jesse’s hair back from his face, letting it curl around his fingers, brown hair against black rubber fingertips, against the blue purple bruise on Jesse’s nose. Genji takes a second just to feel. The sensation in his prosthetic fingers is dull, slightly, compared to his other hand, the material textured in an imitation of fingerprints, though whether they match the prints he used to have, Genji doesn’t know. He doubts that.
Still, he can feel Jesse’s hair, curling the strands gently through his knuckles, fingertips brushing Jesse’s scalp.
“Genji?”
“Mm?”
Jesse’s eyes open, and he blinks at Genji in the low light, eyelashes casting shadows on his cheekbones. Genji is close enough to see his freckles. “Always...kinda liked a man with scars m’self.”
Genji’s huff of laughter is almost too quiet to hear, but Jesse smiles with him, and gathers him closer to his chest, arm folded around his back. Safe. His hand fits snugly between the plates of Genji’s shoulder blades, which shake as he laughs.
“Get some sleep,” Genji says, and twists in Jesse’s hold to turn off the bedside lamp, then tuck his head under Jesse’s chin, and settle against his chest. He feels him sigh into his hair, can smell the shower gel he’d used, his fingers between the articulated pieces of his spine.
“You’ll stay?”
Genji huffs again, and shuts his eyes. “Careful,” he says, breath hot on Jesse’s collarbone. “I might get used to this. I’ll have to start charging.” There’s a hum of amusement and a rustle of fabric, Jesse pulling the covers a little higher on their hips. “Ten bucks an hour for a shower and a snuggle.”
“Steep,” Jesse mumbles, nuzzling into Genji’s hair.
“Discount if you don’t snore,” Genji says, and Jesse’s low chuckle makes him smile again, listening to his breathing, his heartbeat.
“Hm… Deal.”
Genji doesn’t speak again for a while, relaxing into sleep. “Course I’ll stay,” he says, barely audible at all.
Jesse hums, and sleeps for the first time in days. Human.
Genji always seems to have that effect on him.