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Ask Me No Questions, and I’ll Tell You No Lies: 2/5

[ 竜 ] –         He doesn’t remember much about the day of his father’s funeral, but he remembers that morning. He remembers sitting in the courtyard, the fog still wet, heavy, and grey, still clinging to the branches of the cherry trees that had long since lost their fleeting pink blossoms. Everything had lost its color, and the wind painted ghosts along the engawa. He remembers how it lingered, even after the sun rose, and not a drop of pigment had been regained.

He remembered waiting. Waiting for someone who never showed. Waiting with the futile hopes for all the times he twisted and snapped, breaking his back to lay before his brother, to be there for him in any time of his need, taking his faults as his own, the favor would be returned, when he needed him most. But Hanzo never came.

He remembered running, but he doesn’t remember exactly when he stopped, nor any moment after that which followed. He made a point not to. Lost in the highs, the bodies, false color, the smell of sex, sweat, alcohol and the freedoms they gave him, freedoms he never found elsewhere, freedoms that left him craving more and more but never enough to be satisfied.

It was a week later before he remembered anything again. Was it a week? How many days had passed? It blurred.

And it was perhaps that which he remembered, and what followed, that wanted to forget the most.

“...I would have been there.” It’s not a lie. But it there’s ambiguity as to it’s meaning. Perhaps if anyone knew the thoughts in his head, they’d know what he meant.

He should have been there, his father’s funeral.

It was his duty to be there. His obligation to a distant man he only thought he knew.

And for the first time ever, he left his brother’s side unguarded.

ask and ye shall receive | no longer accepting

6: Gentle Peck

[ 竜 ] –         She doesn’t need his approval. Hana Song is a strong, capable woman who’d stared hell in the face while surrounded by a bubble of steel that could become a death trap at any moment. And yet, she still found it in her self to toss her head and twirl her hair around her finger with a grin that held all the brightness of the sun. 

Never once had Genji doubted her, even when their meetings had only been in passing. And he had even less of a reason now that they’d actually grown acquainted.

Though, he knew the toll of expectation, and how heavy it bore when even the smallest of achievement was overlooked. What it was like to be denied even the smallest gestures of adoration from someone who should care, especially at your weakest moments. It had only been recently that he had discovered just how far tenderness could go.

He sees her there, frowning, though she doesn’t realize it. Her soft jaw is clenched too tight as she’s lost in a thought she possibly shouldn’t be dwelling on.

It’s a bold gesture, but it’s one the cyborg still takes. He brushes the fringe from her face, and with a lean forward, he brushes the curve of his mask against the plane of her forehead.

yes you may | selectively accepting

21: Then there’s tongue

[ 竜 ] –         Where was it they stood now? It was a question that constantly plagued Genji’s mind ever since fate drew them back together. It was uneasy.. It always had been, and it lurked behind her blue eyes, even with her warm smiles and pleasantry. It was always as if something she wanted to say lingered on the tip of her tongue, but never would leave it. So it slipped through in other ways.

But he understood it.

There were plenty things he wanted to say. Plenty of things he wanted to take back, to atone for. But Genji had never been particularly skilled at expressing his emotions. Burying them under the guise of a grin and an air of carelessness? That, he could do. It was easier to just, not address them. Move on, focus on things that would help him forget. Self indulgence on things that brought fleeting happiness. Though that was something he’d been fighting to leave behind, even if it still continued to bite at his tail as though it were some innate part of him. Maybe it was. Maybe it would never fully leave him. Something to manage, instead, not get rid of.

Her name left him before he could stop it. Not a Dr. Ziegler, but her name, “Angela,” more pleading in tone than he ever meant for it to be. Perhaps he was not as in control of his impulsion as he thought. And in that second she responded, gazing at him with those questioning, yet sad eyes. His own were bare, free from the sanctum of his mask, and just as easy to read. Take them, too, from his skull.

He had no choice but to follow it through, now. See it to the end, like everything else.

Fingers caught on her sleeve.

“Just... one moment.”

The moment passed. Funny how all practiced and well dressed charisma and finesse found itself depleted the moment feelings became involved. His heart was thudding beneath a ribcage of metal and bone. Why did it have to be so heavy and loud? Why couldn’t it, too, be machine?

He tugs on the white fabric, gently, ushering her closer as he finally swiveled on his heel to rightly face her.  Locks of gold are tucked behind her ear. As he leans forward, he studies her face, watching, waiting for any hesitation, for any sign for him to stop. He would. None was given. So he pushed.

And in the next second, he ensnared her lips, scars and silicone pressed flush against her perfect, pink pair. And in that instant, they melted into each other, as if it was the final crack in the dam that held everything back. It spilled over. His teeth grazed over her lower lip. Arms closed about her waist, pressing her as close as she could get. And once invited, his tongue slipped past her guards, where it was greeted fervently.

He took it. He ran with it. And he wouldn’t stop running until she told him to. After all, actions often spoke louder than words. They always have.

snowflakes for smooches | No Longer Accepting

[ 竜 ] –         Funny how they always ended up here, toeing that line. Guns holstered, blades sheathed, they stood there no more than a breath apart in an unarmed, momentary  truce.

Of course, the Reaper loomed over him, posturing like some great predator waiting for the opportune moment to strike. How his broad shoulders squared, and chin lifted so the face behind that mask would glance downward at the fool beneath him who had the audacity to peer right back up at him with that same sort of unyielding defiance. Anything to make himself bigger than he already was. The added compensation, and the lack of intimidation it had on the cyborg was almost... laughable. It would have been, had the only reason it didn’t phase him was the certainty that it was no compensation. There was no fear of the possibility. It was a matter of probability. He could, and he would. A question of when. There was nothing laughable about that.

But ‘Reaper’... what a stupid name. Yet here he was, staring death itself in the face once more. It wasn’t something Genji feared anymore. Just like everything else, he accepted his eventual finality. There were things that terrified him far greater.

Like the man beneath that mask. Beneath that stupid pseudonym. And the effect he had on him.

Genji’s head tilted as he gazed upward, meeting that condescension with a casual air. He rose to that challenge presented to him, as expected.

The moment articulated fingers cupped the side of the Reaper’s mask, the billow of thick, suffocating black fog surrounded them. Genji paused, though it had already been lifted by a hair’s width. A pause, that was all. The next moment, and the mask was pried upward, but not off, lifted just shy of the nose. The same instant he stopped, the shadows ceased their movement, but not before they had poised to tear him apart, if they could.

Slowly, defiantly, Genji pressed closer. And the metal plane of his own mask ghosted over the greyed, decaying lips that greeted him.

snowflakes for smooches

[ 竜 ] –         The gesture is tentative, and he pauses a moment before he finally decides to commit to the act, studying the expression and lines of her face for any sort of resistance as he leans forward. He finds none, despite her questioning surprise that becomes recognition as he completes the thought. 

It’s a gentle brush of cool metal against her cheek, just shy of the corner of her mouth. A kiss, perhaps, in it’s own way without the removal of his mask. Curious, but meaningful nonetheless. The smile on Genji’s lips goes unseen. 

In So Few Words | Accepting

[ 竜 ] –         There’s a pensive silence that settles in the wake of her words, as if he’s soaking in all of the information that came before. There’s a great deal of it, and it slowly works its way through the nooks and crannies of his understanding, and with it, all of the weight. 

Bit by bit they chipped away at each other’s walls, and perhaps without realizing the power of erosion they had over each other. Then again, what else was to be expected of solitude? When there was no one else up here in these mountains but pious machines, and a cold, biting wind. Or maybe, it was the power of Sanctuary as he’d found it here, and invited Blaze to do the same. This red-headed stranger Genji was coming to find he had more in common with than they ever expected, and perhaps ever wanted.

Bit by bit, he was coming to understand Blaze as much as she was coming to understand him. She slipped under his plating and mesh, wrapping her fingers around the heart that still beat beneath it. And all the while he crept past her defenses, and behind the gnashing of her teeth and fury, finding the softness they guarded.

Like looking in some sort of distorted mirror in her green eyes.

And now, here she was, spilling more of her secrets, and the name of a brother she had once refused to mention, despite all the questions she posed of his own.

Genji shifts, uncrossing and refolding his legs beneath him. 

He says nothing in response, not for a long, drawn moment. There’s not much he can say. Not right now anyway. Even still, he grapples with the notion of Hanzo and his suffering, and how things transpired to where they ended up now. Forgiveness is a word that’s heavy on his tongue. But the blame was never on his brother to begin with, was it?

Who was he to offer her advice?

A hypocrite.

[ 竜 ] –         Touch is something sacred to Genji, more so now than it had been before. It was something never given to him freely, and it was something he perhaps gave too freely to all the wrong people once before. Never was it worth anything of real intimacy. All shallow, impersonal, something to fill an immediate need that he’d been so denied, then and there, and move on.

It was always strange to him when it was someone else who initiated, especially when there was nothing superficial about it, not looking to fulfill that immediate craving, looking for temporary satisfaction before moving on to the next victim.

Stranger now that everything was numb.

He can’t feel the softness of Jasmine’s skin, even upon where it touches his own, but he can feel how gently she touches him. Her fingers press small dents, organic tissue giving yield. But it’s... tender. And he takes it.