Somewhat Clear

deerna
somewhatclear

Rating: safe
Fandom: Overwatch
Relationship: Genji/McCree
Tags: Huddling For Warmth, Bad Flirting, Canon-Typical Violence, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Wordcount: 1912
Notes: my entry for the McGenji Mystery Maker

Summary:

Excerpt:

“Good,” Genji says. “I’m going to sit on you, now.”
Jesse blinks, and hypothermia or no hypothermia, he suddenly feels a flush creeping up his neck. “Sorry, you’re doing what, now?” he babbles.

{ read on AO3 | read here }

In hindsight, it was lucky that he and Genji had been the only agents available today; a team of junior recruits, which typically were given this type of mission every other day, would have never been able to handle the utter mess they found themselves in.

But still. Jesse isn’t planning on spending New Year’s Eve freezing his ass off in the middle of a field in numbfuck nowhere Russia.

“We’re not waiting eight hours for extraction, Reyes,” Jesse growls in the comm. “That’s fucking ridiculous, we’re completely in the open, there’s nothing here. I told you, we had to get rid of them, what if their friends come looking for us?” He watches Genji break the ice on the river before dumping another body in. It’s the fourth time he’s had to do that. “To be fair, the cold will probably kill us first. Come and get us, now, this is not negotiable-”

“Suck it up, buttercup, it’s not up to me,” Reyes snaps. Jesse can almost picture him pinching the bridge of his nose. “Listen. Lock yourselves up in the van, it’s bulletproof and untraceable. Athena is locking on Genji’s GPS as we speak, we’ll use that to find you. Turn the heater on and wait for us.”

“We can’t turn the heater on, the battery is fri- Reyes!” he yells when he hears the tell-tale click of the communication being dropped. He tears the earpiece out and throws it in the back.

The door on the passenger side opens and Jesse almost pulls his gun out, but it’s just Genji climbing in the car. “It’s done.” His voice sounds raspier than usual. He must be tired.

“Thanks. Sorry for saddling you with the clean-up, I just finished talking with Reyes.”

Genji doesn’t acknowledge the apology. “How long before extraction?”

“Here’s the kicker,” he huffs in a bitter laughter. “Eight hours. They can’t dispatch birds for at least six hours because of the holidays. They can’t get authorizations through the lines.”

Silence. Genji’s red eyes are about the only thing Jesse can see inside the car, but he can’t read the emotion inside them, if any. He’s too tired for his cryptic bullshit anyway.

The inside of the car is getting colder, the heat from when everything was in working order eventually fading away. “Let’s get in the back. We can move the seats out of the way and have more room to, I don’t know, bore ourselves to death, I guess.”

They do. Genji folds himself with his legs crossed in a corner, while Jesse rummages through their packs. He feels the ninja staring at him, but he tries to ignore him. He knows he should keep calm, but he cannot. His hands tingle and he’s got the impression that the temperature is dropping lower and lower; maybe it’s just exhaustion, but it’s making him nervous. He’s cold.

His search only produces a half-eaten energy bar, a bottle of water that is on its way to get frozen solid, an emergency light and a health pack, but it’s better than nothing. Jesse eagerly breaks the sigil on the emergency light and the inside of the car is suddenly bathed in warm, golden hues. It doesn't do anything for the temperature inside the car, but Jesse feels better anyway. He inspects the health pack and lets out a relieved sigh when he finds it intact.

“Well, at least if we get frostbite we can count on this not to lose any extremities,” he muses out loud, sitting back, then he realizes what he said to whom. “Or any more, I guess. Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.” When he looks up, Genji is still staring at him but he doesn’t look any more offended—or any other emotion, to be fair. Still playing the cryptic ninja game, apparently.

Jesse’s eyes suddenly fall on his bare chest and arms. “Speaking of which- how aren’t you cold? You’ve been running around half naked since we were sent out.”

Genji just shrugs—the most human gesture Jesse has seen from him since ever— and carefully touches his own bare arm. “This body self-regulates. Doctor Ziegler assured the Commander that I wasn’t going to need any special equipment for this mission.”

“Well, good for you.”

Once again, Genji doesn’t comment. Jesse can feel the silence unravel his sanity.

“Listen, I know you don’t like speaking, but if we stay quiet I’ll go insane and I don’t want that to happen. Can we do the effort to hold a semi-decent conversation? Please?”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Anything, I don’t know. What do you usually do during the holidays?” Jesse asks, the first thing that comes to mind.

Genji stiffens and Jesse realizes his mistake. The most reinforced, unofficial rule around Blackwatch recruits is ‘do not ask about the ninja’ for a reason; and Jesse had gone and threw caution to the wind just like that. He has to be really tired.

“You don’t have to answer that—”

“We went bar hopping,” Genji says, voice so raspy it’s almost unintelligible. “I don’t remember much of those days to be honest, I always drank too much. But I remember that time I came home and threw up in my brother’s prized koi pond. He wasn’t impressed.”

Jesse blinks. He’s never heard Genji talk so much. “Oh wow, that’s wild.”

“What do you do?”

“Uh, not much to be honest, I never really celebrated the holidays like people do,” Jesse answers, still a bit shocked. He frowns, trying to remember. “When I was with Deadlock—you know, I had this gang—we had this motto like, crime never sleeps, so we never really took breaks. I guess you could say we were celebrating all year long. A year long holiday. Heh.”

“That’s what we did, too. Every night we went out, partying.”

“Y-yeah,” Jesse says quietly, looking at him. Genji’s eyes have gone distant, dim. His own brain feels stuck on that. “S-so—”

“You should eat that,” Genji says out of nowhere, and Jesse looks at the half-eaten protein bar in his hand. He didn’t even realize he was squishing it. “You need calories.”

Jesse grimaces. He’s cold, but he doesn’t want to. “M-maybe later. I can go a little longer.”

“I’ve seen someone die of hypothermia before,” Genji insists. “Eat that.”

Jesse wants to ask a million questions—Where did you see that, when did that happen? Why are you so suddenly worried for me, when you barely care about what is happening around you? Am I fucking dying of hypothermia, for you to urge me to eat this moldy garbage? What the hell is even happening, that you’re willingly sharing information about your past like that?—but he doesn’t. He shoves the slightly crushed bar in his mouth and chews, grimacing at the staleness.

“Good,” Genji says. “I’m going to sit on you, now.”

Jesse blinks, and hypothermia or no hypothermia, he suddenly feels a flush creeping up his neck. “Sorry, you’re doing what, now?” he babbles.

“I’ll keep you warm. This body self-regulates, I told you,” Genji snaps, throwing a leg over his to straddle him. He’s surprisingly heavy in Jesse’s lap—though really, what was he expecting from a literal cyborg? “It needs to be skin-to-skin or as little fabric in between as possible,” he says, trying to unwrap his serape from his neck and unlatch the body armor from his chest.

Jesse has to stop him with both hands. "You need to stop doing that, sugar, or we gonna have another problem on our hands,” he chokes out. He’s just human. He wanted to endure it stoically, but his mind has been filling with ideas since Genji sat on him, and he definitely doesn’t need his blood to rush to that particular extremity while he’s a step away from hypothermia.

He can see the skin around Genji’s eyes crinkle in confusion, and then in understanding. Genji huffs and laughs. “I can think of a couple... solutions that would also keep you warm,” he says, and his voice has never sounded raspier.

Jesse lets out a startled laugh. “You’re cute, but let’s test that when I’m not at risk of dying of hypothermia, maybe.”

A strained silence stretches between them while Genji stares at him for a moment. Without warning he pushes them down the seat Jesse has been leaning against, and rolls them on their sides. “Rest. We still have at least three hours to go.”

Jesse’s neck and face are pressed against Genji’s bare chest, and Jesse’s confused brain can only think that it feels really nice. His skin is surprisingly soft, and he smells like sweat, dirt, blood and gun oil. It should be a disgusting smell but it’s not—Jesse grew up around that smell. It’s home.

For a while Genji keeps poking him with very hard metallic fingers every time Jesse tries to doze off, but he’s gotta have relented at some point, because Jesse gets startled awake by the sound of his comm. He finds the tiny earpiece beeping and blinking its red light at him just next to his right hand, so Jesse picks it up and puts it back in his ear. “McCree here.”

“Hey,” Reyes’ voice comes in. “We’re coming in, ETA thirty-five minutes or so. What’s your status?”

Jesse takes a moment to assess their new positions. Jesse is now sitting up against the seat, while Genji is curled up on his side on Jesse’s chest, between his legs, lights dimmed and both his arms wrapped around his own torso. Jesse can’t tell if he’s asleep or not, but he’s the best thermic blanket he’s ever slept under in his life. Toasty warm. “Cold and tired, but alive. Tell me you have somethin’ warm to drink on that bird of yours.”

Reyes snorts. “We’ve got a gallon of hot coffee but that’s for Fio, sorry. I basically kidnapped her- she’s been flying fourteen hours straight for another mission, so it’s all hers.”

“Well, fuck. I guess I’ll die, then.”

“You won’t die, we have healers on board. How’s Shimada?”

“Functional,” Genji croaks before Jesse can ask. “Minor damage.”

“Okay, good, because Mercy is still off base. We’ll ship you to Tech as soon as possible.”

Genji doesn't say anything else, so Jesse gives the last details to Reyes and closes the communication.

Now that he has the certainty that extraction is on the way, Jesse feels simultaneously more lively and more tired than before. He’s physically and mentally drained, but he’s also grateful to be alive. The perspective of going back to the base and getting as drunk as humanly possible is suddenly a very real and appealing possibility in Jesse’s future.

“Did you mean it, earlier?” Genji murmurs, his voice vibrating deep in Jesse’s chest. He’s grown so used to the weight that he almost forgot that they were still entangled like that.

“What?”

Genji doesn’t elaborate for what feels like a long time. He sits up, and turns to look at Jesse, red eyes glowing in the dimming emergency light. Jesse never could tell what he was feeling, looking into them. “You’re the only one who treats me like I’m still human, even with this body."

“Well, you are human, so—” An ache squeezes Jesse’s guts. “Wait, did I say something weird?”

Genji shakes his head. He lies back down on Jesse’s chest and he closes his eyes.