RIKIMARU!

Jesse’s fine. He’s fine. His guns need cleaning anyway so he climbs up onto the roof of a storage shed and sits there among the clutter of wooden crates and dusty, sun-bleached tarps and takes them apart. It’s fine work for jittery hands and Jesse fumbles the firing pin twice before he gives the whole thing up entirely, two field stripped revolvers at his crossed feet and a disconcerting, roaring blankness in his head. His shoulder hurts. The back of his neck’s gone from warm and tacky to uncomfortably crusty.

He doesn’t think Reyes noticed.

Which is fine. Jesee can take care of himself. Jesse’s not sure he can handle it if Reyes did anyway, which is why he’s up here by the comm tower, the Overwatch flag whipping about in the sea breeze above him, the rest of the base going about their business twenty feet below. The ocean rails against the sheer rock face the watchpoint’s carved into and the air is cool and sharply clean. Fine red dust from the desert clung to saltwater during the mission - his arms, his face, his lashes - and now that he’s drying off he feels it falling off him like powdered snow. He brought the badlands back with him. He’s a fucking mess.

He thinks of Route 66 and of coffee that tasted like boiled dirt. He thinks of Reyes’ big warm hand on his back, of his low voice in his ear, approving. He thinks of blood on the diner floor and his finger on the trigger. Then he stops thinking and puts his guns back together again.

They flew into Santa Fe round midnight on a hoverplane with no windows, bogged down by rappelling gear and NVGs hanging from their necks. Jesse didn’t much like night ops - didn’t seem fair if they didn’t see you coming - but this was Reyes’ playbook and no one saw Blackwatch coming unless they let you. Jesse rolled a stick of cigarette between his fingers and didn’t light up, Reyes’ briefing washing over him like the darkness, warm and suffocating. Light discipline had to be maintained the second they were wheels up on the mission so Jesse stuck it in his front pocket for later.

Now it’s high noon back in Gibraltar and the slightly crushed cigarette tastes like copper and fear sweat underneath the smoke. His breathing evens out with each drag and Jesse stubs it out on the concrete when he’s done putting his guns back together. Maybe he’ll go make nice now, he thinks, flicking the cigarette butt into the ocean below. Hit the showers and wash everything off him. Say something to Reyes. He’ll figure something out.

Anyway, he fucking thinks he has things locked down tight when he runs into the one person he wants to see less than Reyes. What was it his commander always said? He’s got shit for situational awareness. Shituational awareness. Fuck.

“Agent McCree,” Strike Commander Jack Morrison says, brows slightly raised, and Jesse has to give it to the guy for being this unflappable, considering Jesse almost dropped right on top of him from the narrow walkway above. He barely reacted the other time, too, come to think of it; Jesse hadn’t stuck around long enough to find out otherwise.

Jesse pulls together a sloppy salute. “Sir.”

Morrison smiles, all broad shoulders and clear blue eyes squinting in the sun like he’s glad to see Jesse, who’s covered in dirt and blood and smells like cheap tobacco, faded gang tattoos all the way down his skinny left arm down to his knuckles. Jesse feels like a stupid kid just being around him.

“Heard about the Deadlock op today. You alright?”

“I’m all squared away, sir,” Jesse says and grins wide, his split lip opening up again. “Never better.” He resists the urge to break out the fingerguns.

Morrison’s silence is thoughtful. Expectant. The sort of silence that prompts people to volunteer more information, not unlike the silence Reyes uses in interrogation rooms like a sharp knife on a sterile metal tray. Only it’s a considerate sort of silence, a kind one, and Jesse cannot tolerate people being kind to him right now, least of all Commander Jack fucking Morrison, who doesn’t know shit, who has everything Jesse wants without even trying.

“If there’s nothing else, Sir, I’ll be hitting the showers,” Jesse says, feeling his temper rise suddenly. He needs to leave. “Permission to be dismissed?”

“Permission denied,” Morrison says, knowing exactly what he’s doing. He’s a mean son of a bitch beneath that shiny armor and clean-cut super soldier veneer, and Jesse feels the big old smile slide off his face.

“Why the fuck not?” Jesse snaps, pure reflex, and then regrets it. Immediately. Fervently. His anger falters to panic. “No, wait, m’sorry -- I didn’t mean --”

Morrison’s brow goes up. “Gabe and I were talking,” he continues as if nothing’s happened, and Jesse shuts his mouth with a click.

Gabe. Of course.

Morrison pauses, and it’s the first time in the conversation he’s coming off as unsure. The tips of his ears are pink. “About what happened the other day.”

Oh.

So that’s what this is about.

“I won’t tell,” Jesse cuts in. He fixes his eyes on the Overwatch logo on Morrison’s chest plate, throat going tight. “I ain’t a snitch.”

Morrison huffs quietly. “He said you wouldn’t,” he says, pleased, and Jesse can’t stand the idea of them talking about him, fucked-out and languid, tangled in each other. Reyes’ big warm hand on Morrison’s hip.

Maybe Jesse’s angry because he didn’t see it coming. It’s not like he stood a chance anyway. It’s stupid. He’s stupid.

“Permission to be dismissed,” Jesse tries again, a little desperately this time, burning up with humiliation. “Please.”

“Denied,” Morrison says again, softer now, and Jesse makes a small frustrated noise in his throat, almost a whine. He didn’t peg Morrison for a cruel man but Jesse’s been dead wrong about a lot of things lately. “I see the way you look at him, McCree.”

Jesse freezes, tipping over into openly mortified territory now, free falling into it, screaming the entire time. And he considers throwing a flashbang down and getting the fuck out of the country before Morrison says anything else. He feels sick. “I--”

“I see a lot, actually,” Morrison says, clearly on a roll now. He steps in close and Jesse startles, his gaze jumping back to Morrison’s face, to the pleased expression on it, the crooked smile on his face. If he’d known Morrison better he’d understand it as fondness. “I suppose you’ll be happy to know that he never shuts up about you. And that I’m not exactly opposed to the idea of it.”

What. The fuck.

“Am I wrong?” Morrison asks, still crowded in Jesse’s space, too big and too warm. Too sure of himself. The way he looks at Jesse, there’s no chance he thinks he’s wrong.

“No,” Jesse rasps, reeling, and watches a slow smile light up Morrison’s face.