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The Blackwatch bases range from “villa stolen from drug lord, complete with hot tub, wine cellar, and rotating fuck bed” to “don’t bitch about the rain, McCree, that’s what your hat is for.” Today’s base is somewhere in the middle; there ain’t no wine cellar, but there ain’t no holes in the wall neither. They’re on the outskirts of Numbani, and Jesse is stuck playing babysitter to the agents on their way in and out; Reyes wants him grounded until his arm heals. Well. “Heals.” The damn thing is gone from the elbow down.
It’s a hot, sunny day, perfect for skinny dippin’ or shooting bottles off the back fence, but Jesse is forbidden from leaving the base. He finds a couch to plant himself on, lights up a cigarette with mental apologies to the good doctor, and starts in on his homework. It’s awful considerate of the terrorists to have such a strong online presence- Jesse can’t hack none, but these idiots don’t need computer skills to find. Their message board doesn’t even have a password.
He logs in and clicks around for a bit. It’s a lazy day. The base is a small warehouse modified to have a bucket and hose shower, rudimentary heating and a row of jail cells. The Overwatch tourists that drop by sometimes don’t know about that last bit, or if they do, none of them have squealed.
A bang on the door startles Jesse from the doze he was sinking into. He lifts his hat from his face and ambles over. It’s Jack, sorry, Mr. Morrison. Hard to think of him as Mister anything after the time Jesse wandered in at exactly the wrong time and saw him getting bent over a desk by Reyes, but hey, he can fake respectful.
“What brings you to this neck of the woods?”
“None of your business, son.” Jesse ain’t his son. If anything, Jesse is his step-child, which suits him just fine. Ungrateful stepchild was always a role he was comfortable in.
“Whatever you say, Jack,” Jesse says, drawing out the syllables of Morrison’s name, and wanders back to his couch. Morrison barks out something about rank, but Jesse ignores it. If Jack really has a problem, he can take it to Reyes. He flops down on the couch, drowsy despite the fact that he hasn’t done a damn thing all day. He thought he was over the blood loss from the damn arm, but apparently not. He flexes his fingers, annoyed. The metal glints back at him. It feels like his fingers, but it doesn’t look like them. It feels like how the squeak of chalk sounds.
This must be what Genji feels like all the time, with his whole body. Jesse falls asleep contemplating the fingers of his hand, tilting them this way and that, examining the little delicate movements of the hand he’s got instead of the hand that was his. Sooner or later, life takes it all.
He wakes up to a hundred and fifty pounds of robot flopping onto his gut and flails for his gun before he registers the raspy, electronic sound of Genji’s laugh. Genji is laughing at him, his chest rising and falling as he sits cross-legged on Jesse’s chest.
“Cowboy, you are even slower than usual. How will you get the Commander to put you into the field when you are so so slow even a cow could beat you?”
“Mighty quiet cow,” Jesse grunts. Genji shifts; now he is straddling Jesse, his thighs spread across Jesse’s chest, the fine, sharp blades of his ankle dangling near his face. Genji is like his sword; well-made and delicate, sharp enough to cut any fool who grasps at him without great care. He leans down, careless of his own flexibility, and examines Jesse’s arm, a bird picking over a shiny bauble.
“I see you have decided to upgrade yourself at last. It is too bad that Angela could not do anything about your face,” Genji proclaims at last.
“Big words for someone hidden behind a visor,” Jesse says sourly. There’s a hiss, and Genji’s visor pops open. It is rare for Genji to expose his scarred face, and rarer for him to leave it open. He is openly smirking.
“I am still better looking than you, cowboy,” he says, his scarred face tugging at his grin.
“You’re in a mighty fine mood,” Jesse says. Genji rolls easily off of him, his visor closing mid-movement, and lands neatly on his feet. His visor closes. There are other agents with greater strength. There are even faster, more stealthy agents. But no one has Genji’s grace, his movement like a sparrow in flight.
“I,” Genji proclaims, pointing a thumb at himself, “am going on a infiltration mission.”
“You go on those all the time,” Jesse points out.
“Yes, but this time I will be the decoy,” Genji says. “I am going to a fancy omnic party.” Jesse considers this for a moment; it does sound like fun. Genji’s body and superior stealth consign him to the shadows; their typical mission involves Jesse out front with a wire up his sleeve and booze in his mouth and Genji somewhere high and dark, waiting with a knife.
“What do fancy omnics do?” Jesse asks. “You got a vibrate function?”
“We go shopping, of course,” Genji says. “You are coming with me. Reyes has authorized me to borrow you.”
“Well, if that ain’t the best damn thing I’ve heard all day.”
The pick-up is an old beat up piece of shit that manages to channel every other shiity car Jesse’s ever driven. Beat-up pickups are the same around the world. Jesse drives. Genji sits shotgun, one arm dangling out the window. The pick-up goes in a private garage, and the two of them take public transportation. Best not leave Blackwatch gear where anyone could plant bombs under it.
Public transportation is an even mix of omnics and people; Jesse watches for guns, weapons modules, infiltrators, and good fashion choices. Genji is going shopping, after all. They emerge in onto a wide-thoroughfare filled with shops and glowing lights. Main streets are the same everywhere, just like the pick-up; rich is rich anywhere, just like poor is poor.
“The Omnics here do not wear shoes, but they do wear shirts and pants,” Genji remarks. He snags Jesse by the arm. “I would ask your advice, but I am not looking to dress traditionally.”
“Too bad,” Jesse drawls, and allows himself to be steered into a fancy store. Genji’s arm is cool and smooth against his own. “You could reconnect with your roots, impress everyone with your fancy ki-mo-no.” He stretches out the unfamiliar word mainly for the pleasure of rilin’ Genji. Ten years under Reyes thumb, and he still hasn’t gotten out of the habit of poking dangerous things with sticks.
“Only old-fashioned idiots wear that sort of thing,” Genji replies scathingly. Bait taken. Jesse glances away to hide his smile and Genji snakes a hand up and smacks the back of his head.
“Cowboy,” he says scathingly. “Stop trying to sabotage my mission. I have shorts to buy.” Their arms are still linked.
“So, am I going as an accessory, or what? I don’t think I match.” It is profoundly unlike Genji to be so touchy for so long; his incursions on Jesse’s face are much like his skirmishes in battle, sudden, unexpected, and quickly over.
“True,” Genji says. “We will have to buy you a green shirt.”
They make their way through several shops. Genji is very picky, trying and discarding pants and shirts at a dizzying rate. Several times, he stops and stares at himself in the mirror, and Jesse thinks that at last Genji has found something that he likes, before Genji abruptly declares that this or that insignificant detail does not match and throws it off.
“It does not go with my lights,” Genji says at last, and gets rid of the shirt. It is an elegant, expensive looking thing, made of fine dark cloth with spots of yellow gold along the cuffs. They are not in a cheap store.
“Do your lights change color?” Jesse inquires.
“They do,” Genji says. He looks cross. “I had not considered that.” Jesse resists the urge to laugh. Genji does not laugh. He considers the clothing, then stalks from the store, forcing Jesse to chase after him.
“Genji,” Jesse says, jogging after him. For a moment he thinks that Genji is going to run away, but instead Genji comes to a crashing halt.
“Perhaps I am no longer fit to do this,” Genji says, bitterness naked in his voice. “When I was younger, I loved shopping. I would spend hours spending my family’s money on my friends. Now that I am older, and no longer spending drug-money, I no longer have a body I know how to decorate.” Jesse isn’t sure what to say. They stand silently in the middle of the street, people laughing and talking all around them, rushing by with shopping bags and strolling hand in hand. In the crowd, they could be anyone; an omnic and his friend, a couple of civilians out for the night. Jesse never had any friends to go out with as a kid- he was too busy eating shit and running drugs for the Deadlock gang, but he can understand a little nostalgia. He misses his hand. He likes Genji just the way he is- slim and dangerous and capricious, with good taste in music and bad taste in friends- but it doesn’t matter what he likes. Genji is missing his body, his younger self, the things he had that he didn’t know he could lose.
“Buy me something,” Jesse says. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re fit to do whatever you want, however you want, but I ain’t no judge. Buy me something. I could use some boots.”
“You could use a lot of things,” Genji says, but he follows Jesse as he walks away, looking for a less busy street. They walk in silence, side by side, each perfectly aware of the other. Jesse’s elbow aches, and he flexes the metal fingers of his hand.
“Over there,” Genji says, and points. It’s a barber shop. Jesse frowns at him.
“I would never go to a party with someone with such bad hair.” Jesse scowls more.
“Anybody ever tell you that you’re a picky date?”
“All of the time,” Genji says. He links one arm into Jesse’s and starts to steer him into the shop. “Did anyone ever tell you you are a bad boyfriend?”
Genji’s directions end with Jesse in the barber chair waiting to get shaved and Genji chatting with the omnics in the reception. He is telling them how Christmas is a couple’s holiday in Japan. As Jesse watches, he leans in and confidentially admits that he wants Jesse to look good on their Christmas Cards. The targets, and they’ve got to to be targets, even if Jesse isn’t sure what Genji wants from them, all coo. Jesse stifles a laugh at the thought of Blackwatch leaving Christmas cards on the bodies of their mangled targets, cheerful cardboard emblazoned with seasonal greetings dropped on a shredded corpse. Genji’s dragon is a messy eater.
Genji saunters over, as if called by Jesse’s attention. His hand goes into Jesse’s hair.
“Long,” he says.
“To hold on to,” Jesse says, and winks.
“Hmm,” Genji says. “I think I will manage.” He heads back to the reception area, leaving Jesse with his admiration and his alarm. He flirts all the time, just out of habit, but that doesn’t mean he don’t mean it. If he didn’t have Reyes glowering over his shoulder like some kind of nightmare father figure he’d probably have slept with most of Blackwatch by now, and as it is he’s made a fair dent.
He’d sleep with Genji in a second, if Genji decided to, and Jesse is getting the vibe that Genji has decided something . It might be a trick, might be payback for the various jokes Jesse’s played on him over the years. Still. He sits in the barber’s chair and watches as Genji flirts cheerfully with the barber, with the omnic receptionist, and with the other people in the waiting room, taking suggestions about how to improve “his boyfriend’s” hair.
Finally, he gets properly shaved, and they pay and exit the barbershop, Genji blowing a kiss to the receptionist. He’s good at this, as good as Jesse. Better, maybe. In a world where every city was as open to omnics as numbani, he’d be good at wheedling information from people.
“You seem distracted, cowboy,” Genji says, and swipes one of Jesse’s legs out from under him. Jesse hops along, banging his hip on a trash can, and barely manages to right himself without hitting anyone else. Genji’s laughter rings out from behind his trash can.
“I was contemplating my haircut,” Jesse grouses. “I’ve paid less for dinner and a hotel room.”
“But you look good.” Jesse places a hand over his heart.
“Are you paying me a compliment?”
“You look better,” Genji amends.
“Still a complement,” Jesse says, grinning.
“Even a stopped clock is right twice a day,” Genji says. It’s one of Jesse’s sayings, an americanism that sits cutely in Genji’s mouth, spoken with his unfamiliar accent. Jesse beams.
“Aw, honey, you’re pickin’ up my…”
“Oh, no,” Genji says, cutting him off. “It’s contagious.”
They meander between the rows, Jesse rubbing his hand over the close-cut back of his head, Genji contemplating the window displays. He has stolen Jesse’s hat. Jesse has a lot of questions, but most of them are just rephrasings of the word “boyfriend???” followed by an increasing amount of question marks. Five years of Genji- and has it really been five years?- have taught him that asking direct questions is a good way to get tied in knots, so he waits. All of Blackwatch is skittish, but Genji most of all, as if he resents Jesse for the sudden, forced intimacy of how they met.
A shop catches Jesse’s eyes, and he directs Genji towards it.
“Look-” he says. “A shop for omnics.” The store window showcases a variety of carved, intricate metal plates. “Laser carved in store by our own artisans!” the sign proclaims.
“And here I have spent all of this time avoiding being carved by lasers,” Genji says snidely, but he goes into the shop. They are greeted by a truly dizzying array of mechanical parts and an omnic receptionist.
Jesse browses the wall, contemplating the different patterns. One of the skulls is almost Deadlock; a few modifications and it would be the twin of the sigil his old gang burned into him. The tap of steps behind him. Jesse braces himself and so doesn’t sway when Genji scales him like a tree, hooking his legs over Jesse’s shoulders.
“Howdy,” Jesse says, contemplating the skull. It would piss Reyes off, and while Reyes is pissy all the time, it’s been awhile since Jesse pissed him off. Genji follows his line of sight.
“Going to decorate yourself, cowboy?” The deadlock sigil was burned into his hand when he joined the gang, but now that hand is gone.
“Maybe,” Jesse says. He makes his way to the front desk cautiously.
“My boyfriend would like to have his arm decorated,” Genji says.
“Well, he’s going to have to lose an arm first,” the omnic drawls. Jesse holds up the shining metal where his arm used to be.
“Hmm,” the omnic says, lights coming on in her face. “Interesting.”
Jesse leaves the shop with the Deadlock skull burned into his forearm. Genji leaves the shop spray-painted in a delicate blue.
“Well, no one will mistake you for a stealthy ninja in that color,” Jesse remarks, and ducks away from the jab to his shoulder.
“At least it’s not orange,” Genji retorts. He is still wearing Jesse’s hat. Jesse creeps his hand up Genji’s shoulders, along the smooth fiber of his neck, and steals the hat off his head.
“How rude,” Genji says lazily. “What if my head gets cold?” They’re standing very close, barely an inch between their chests. Jesse can feel the warmth that emanates from Genji, can hear the soft, low hum of his internal workings.
“I’ll trade you for it,” Jesse says lazily. Genji’s visor opens. The hat is shielding them from the people around them, from the cameras they stopped earlier.
“What do you want, cowboy?” Genji asks.
“A kiss,” Jesse says lazily. “From my boyfriend.” Genji looks at him a long moment, considering, and then his eyelids dip slightly. He tilts his chin up. His lips part slightly. Softly, tentatively, anonymous in the midst of the shopping throngs, they kiss. Genji’s side is electric under Jesse’s hand, full of promise as a loaded gun, as a fist full of unmarked bills. His lower lip is cold metal, but it warms quickly to Jesse’s touch.
They part, Genji gazing upwards at Jesse, a wild smile growing on his face. Jesse is suddenly, clumsily aware of the exact distance between their bodies, the sudden electric possibility that he could touch Genji, could kiss him again, and again, and again.
“I do not think your hat was worth such a trade,” Genji says, smiling. “I will have to give you your kiss back.” He tilts his head slightly, and Jesse bends to him, chest to chest, as if they are an ordinary couple on the promenade, kissing as though they’ve just fallen in love.