GG 입니다... ♡

“…lost a large amount of blood,” he hears someone say; her voice is high, lightly accented around the vowels of English. “He should … just a few hours ... don’t worry…”

A hand squeezes his. The fingers are cold and metal, scratched to hell and back again.

The world in front of Genji is a confusing blur of movement and light. When he breathes, he feels his lungs rattle, and when he tries to move, he feels every inch of his body protest in pain. Each bump of the stretcher he’s on sends another wave of pain through him. There’s blood somewhere, multiple places even; he can’t tell exactly where it’s coming from, but he’s sticky with it and the stench is more than a little overwhelming.

When the stretcher comes to a stop, somebody stoops down low to murmur to him, “I’ll see you later, alright?”

I’m not so sure about that, Genji thinks, but all he manages to say out loud is a vaguely affirming “yeah.” And that’s enough for whoever is manning the stretcher, because he’s pulled away not even a second later. The hand in his slips from his grasp, and the sliding doors to what he assumes is one of the operating rooms closes with a foreboding thud.

This is a routine Genji is all too familiar with. He closes his eyes, trying to will the pain to take him out first. It doesn’t work, though, and after all the armor is pried off his body, there’s a mask placed over his face, and the sickly-sweet smell of anesthesia overtakes him instead as he struggles against it.

In the space between awake and asleep, it’s silent, dark. Genji has a few precious moments to consider whether he’s staring into the emptiness of death.

 When Genji awakens, it’s to the shaded darkness of a recovery room. The blinds are drawn tight, and the only sound is the steady beeping of his heart monitor, the drip-dripping of the IV connected to one of his many ports, and the quiet breathing of Jesse McCree, slumped in a seat in the corner of the room.

Ah, Genji thinks to himself. That’s right. I almost died.

Or at least that was how it felt.

The memories that lead up to his injury are still fuzzy. He can recall leaving on a mission with Jesse and a handful of other agents, but it goes blank before he’d even gotten off the ship at wherever their assignment was.

He wants to wake Jesse up. It’s selfish, because who knows how long he’s been asleep and Jesse has been awake, but he almost died, so that should count for something, right?

“Hey,” he says, his voice hoarse. Jesse does not stir, so he repeats himself, louder this time: “Hey.”

Nothing. Jesse snores, but that’s it.

Scoffing to himself, Genji shifts, using an elbow to prop himself up. He makes it midway to a sitting position before something in his body vehemently protests, sending a surge of pain and nausea that tells him ‘lay back down, you idiot.’ So he does, and he falls asleep without really trying not even a few minutes later.

The next time Genji wakes up, Jesse is awake too. He’s pulled his chair up close to the bed, upper body bent over something with wires spilling out of it as he works at them, one by one. Reconnecting them, tying them into manageable sections – it’s all very familiar, and Genji realizes a bit belatedly that it’s his own arm.

“Hey,” he says quietly, turning his head to look at Jesse better through the gap in the railing of the bed.

Jesse startles, pulling hard on a wire and nearly snapping it. “Hey,” he says back, a bit breathless. There’s a steadily widening grin on his lips, like he can’t help but grin. “Hey, you. Feelin’ alright?”

“I feel alive.” Genji rolls his shoulders, gives Jesse a pointed look. “And like I’m missing an arm.”

“Oh.” Jesse looks down at Genji’s arm, then back up at Genji, blinking wide. “Oh, right, yeah. Sorry, uh, Angela asked me to – to give this a look; she said it was pretty banged up, and I was hopin’ to get it done before you woke up again, but…”

“It’s okay,” says Genji, smiling something small and careful. “Are you having trouble with it?”

In truth, it doesn’t look like he is at all, but Genji is unused to being laid out with nothing to do. There’s not much he can do with one functioning and attached arm, but there should be something—

Jesse shakes his head, setting back to work. “I’ve got it,” he says. “Gimme a few more minutes, and then I’ll get it attached to you again. Sound good?”

“Sure,” says Genji.

There’s nothing else he can say.

Waiting is uncomfortable. He can’t think of anything to say, doesn’t know if he should, doesn’t want to, and so he lies there, watching through the bed railing as Jesse separates the wiring into little groups, three by three with a different brightly-colored elastic band for each one. It’s nothing like the way his other arm is organized, and Genji knows this because he was the one to organize that. It was all knotted and tangled, barely held together by stretched out bands that were about ready to retire from their job.

Genji knows the inside of Jesse’s arm too, though, and it’s organized in the same way that Jesse is doing now. Should he be thankful? Smitten? Awed?

Jesse snaps an elastic band tight against the last group of wires, then slides the paneling shut. Hefting the heavy prosthetic up with one arm, he scoots even closer to Genji’s bed and lowers the railing with his other arm by leaning on it. The sight of Jesse, slowly descending upon the bed railing, is just enough to get Genji to laugh for the first time since he’s originally woken up. It’s more a huff of air, barely even a chuckle, but it’s something.

“That’s the Genji I know,” Jesse mutters, his voice smug and giddy at the same time.

“Shut up,” says Genji, but it’s hard to sound annoyed at the person who’s stayed by his bedside for an entire day at the least. “Give me my arm back.”

With the railing out of the way, Jesse can lean over to slide the prosthetic into place. It’s careful work; he has to hook the wires up with their connections, then lock the prosthetic into place before he can open up the paneling again to make sure the wires are actually hooked up into the right connections.

Genji can’t feel it when Jesse first starts checking the wires, which is a strong sign that something in there isn’t hooked up right.

“Try the red group,” says Genji, referring the bright red band around a small bundle of wires. “Those are for touch reception, if I remember correctly…”

As a child, he'd seen the tattoos that adorned the arms and shoulders of his father, and even some of his other relatives. When Hanzo turned eighteen, he too spent days under the careful hand of the artist who pricked each drop of ink into his arm and chest. Genji wasn't allowed near the room; his father had given him a wry smile and said the sights and sounds may scare him off from getting his own.

In truth, there was no getting scared off, even if he was terrified. It was expected of him. He knew why he needed the tattoo, and he knew there was no getting out of it, even if he was a flighty, reckless teenager who couldn't hold a romantic interest in someone for more than a few days, let alone handle the commitment that came with receiving his tattoo. It was more than just a piece of art committed to his skin in scarring and ink for the rest of his life. It was a commitment to a legacy, a power.

He had to meditate on where the location of his tattoo needed to be, as was tradition. He was left alone in his room for what felt like weeks on end, but when he’d emerged it had only been a few hours short of a day, and the sun was just beginning to rise on the horizon. It left him with a vague image, but that was enough.

The sun rising signaled a new day. His eighteenth birthday. As he made his way to join his family in his last meal for an unknown amount of time, Hanzo walked alongside him, talking hurriedly, quietly, as he explained again what Genji would have to go through.

His father had smiled when they walked in. He looked happy, proud, but Genji did not feel the same. He felt sick. The food was not appetizing, and he barely ate. When he left, it was in silence as hard as the kind Hanzo frequently held, and he felt the eyes of his family on his back until he closed the door behind him and took off at a brisk jog.

“You’re late,” says a voice with a familiar drawl.

Genji pauses, looking over his shoulder. His lip pulls back in a grimace, but it is hidden by metal. “Yes,” he says to McCree, “I am. Thank you for bringing that to my attention.”

“Gabe doesn’t like people who’re late,” says McCree. He grins, tipping his hat back and revealing more of his face. It’s a habit that always has Genji’s fingers curling. “You think he’ll be happy to know you missed out on half an hour’s practice already?”

“I do not need practice.”

“What, so you're used to that new body of yours already?”

Genji falters, looks away.

The new body is different.

He cannot feel, but he still feels. It’s all data and perceptions, sensors that tell him what's there even if the feeling is vague and hard to understand, and he cannot get used to it. His performance has been off. Gabriel has been hounding him for weeks now on practicing and practicing, and Doctor Ziegler has been making changes each time they meet, three times a week – adjustments, re-wirings, re-fittings, everything. It all makes his head hurt even when it should not.

When he does not respond, McCree laughs. “It’s not a bad thing. You think anyone would be able to cope with somethin’ so life-changin’ in only a handful of weeks?” And then Genji does not respond again, so he just rambles on, as is so common for him. “Hell, it took me months to get used to this arm of mine. Gabe’s just being a dick. That’s how he is. And, lucky you—”

The sound of McCree pushing off from the wall, the sharp beep as the door to the training room slides shut, footsteps behind him as McCree approaches – it all sounds too loud. Maybe they’ll adjust his hearing tomorrow.

“—you get me as your new sparrin’ partner.”

Genji swears under his breath in Japanese, and McCree laughs again, so relaxed compared to how tense Genji feels. His shoulders square.

“I would rather go through the pain of having my limbs replaced again,” he snaps.