Chapter Text
The stink of death would never leave him. That bone achingly, gut-churning familiar scent of blood, gore, and injured flesh would follow him to the end of his days, and likely be there to meet him when his casket finally closed. Jesse McCree’s life had been written alongside death, from his days in Deadlock through to his time in Blackwatch, all the way up to his own Mercenary work; death followed like a shadow.
These assholes deserved it though. Jesse stood in silence for a moment longer before he twirled his revolver and slotted it safely back into the holster. There would be no payment for taking down this gang, but he would rest a little easier knowing there was one less scummy stain on the world hunting down Omnics for sport. Stepping over the body at his feet, Jesse strode through pools of blood that formed at his feet and stopped by the body of a larger male. His eyes were still open, his lips still twisted in the useless threat that had been spilling forth from his fat face before Jesse had put a bullet in his skull - and the skulls of his 5 companions.
“Probably shoulda got the keys from you before I killed ya, huh?” Jesse drawled, nudging the body with the toe of his boot. Of course, there was no answer, and Jesse’s lip curled up in disgust before he dropped to his haunches and began rummaging through the still-warm pockets of the corpse.
The keys he was searching for belonged to a car that had been stolen from an Omnic family; the father murdered in the street and the mother sold off for parts - or worse. Jesse had found the child alone, wandering the streets with only a blanket for comfort and his heart had broken. Taking the Omic to a shelter had been his first call, reclaiming the car and all the personal belongings inside was why he was here.
He couldn’t bring that child’s family back but he could return the memories.
He located the keys in the back right pocket, along with some loose change and piece of rolled-up fabric which seemed odd at first, but he wasn’t going to judge the man’s sentimental objects. Although given the cruelty the man had inflicted on others, maybe he deserved it.
Jesse stood, tossing the keys in one hand as he discarded the change and he was about to discard the fabric when something about it caught his eye. It wasn’t just any old piece of fabric, it was a rolled-up silk ribbon and as it unfurled slowly in Jesse’s open pal, his heart pulled south. There was something… familiar about it. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on like he’d seen it before somewhere important.
“Now where did someone like you, get somethin’ like this?” Jesse asked into the deathly silence of the garage. It looked far too expensive to belong in a place like this, never mind a city like this and as Jesse pocketed the car keys, he ran his fingers over the ribbon as it dripped like water between his fingers.
He had seen this before but… where? Did it belong to the Omnic’s family? Maybe he’d seen it in a picture but even as the thought formed, he knew they couldn’t afford something like this. Jesse turned on his heel and wandered slowly over to one of the workbenches, his stomach churning as he saw it littered with the very expensive, very precious pieces of technology that gave Omnic’s life. How many poor souls have come through here and ended up torn to pieces? How many victims had been—
Jesse froze as his eyes landed on an open metal box that contained various personal items that had belonged to the victims of the chop shop. Necklaces, rings, and watches, and one thing that caught Jesse’s eye that made his heart seize so painfully in his chest that he couldn’t breathe for a few long seconds.
Nestled in the box sat three Shurikens, dark blue in colour with a lighter blue over the blades. He’d know these’s Shuriken’s anywhere.
“Oh no…” They couldn’t have… could they? No… no, the concept was so alien that it didn’t sit right in the slightest but then Jesse lifted his hand and opened his palm to reveal the ribbon. The ribbon he knew he’d seen somewhere before. Oh… no…
Jesse turned sharply as the heat of anger skittered up his limbs, but any cruel scumbag here capable of telling him what he needed to know had died the moment he’d entered here.
Fuck. Think, McCree, think!
Jesse ran his eyes around the shop, from the six dead on the floor to the half worked on bike that hung from the rafters. If they were working on tearing Omnics apart, they weren’t going it in the open on the shop floor so there had to be something more. Something Jesse hadn’t found yet. Curling his flesh fingers around the ribbon, he snatched the Shuriken from the box and shoved them into his pocket before he dropped back down next to the leader and began rummaging in the rest of his pockets for anything he had missed. He located a phone but the battery was dead, a USB charger and some gum but nothing else. No more keys, nothing.
“You’re fuckin’ lucky you’re already dead,” Jesse growled lowly, running his tongue over his lips as a sudden deep hankering for a cigar rose. Anything to try and calm his nerves as his heart began to race fast and faster. Maybe it was just a coincidence. How many people wandered this world with ribbon and Shuriken?
Only one filled Jesse’s mind. One that carried so much pain in such a broken heart that for years that Jesse had ached to soothe but he had never got the chance. The timing was never right and Jesse… back then he was young. Stupid. Didn’t recognise the wounds that ninja bore were more than just physical.
As Jesse rose, he turned the USB over in his metal hand with a note of disgust, unsure he ever wanted to know what was on it - until an indentation caught his eye. An indentation he slid his thumb over and pressed down on.
Machinery clunked loudly below him and Jesse flinched, grabbing his revolver from its holster as the cement floor beneath his feet started to move. In a second, Jesse had rolled out of the way as a portion of the floor slid down an inch, then disappeared to the right underneath another slab revealing a metal staircase that disappeared down into the dark. Jesse watched in dark amusement as the body of the ringleader slid off the slab and hit the stairs, rolling down in wet thuds into the darkness before silence fell. Jesse was able to use those thuds to guestimate how deep the staircase went before he grabbed a torch from the workbench and headed down.
What he knew of this gang did nothing to prepare Jesse for what he discovered by the time he reached the bottom. The basement was laid out something akin to a morgue with rows of metal gurney’s all containing various pieces and body parts of what had to be unfortunate Omnics. Jesse checked each table, his heart pounding furiously under his tongue as he feared the light would come to reveal the body of the one person he had never expected to see again, least of all in a place like this.
By the time he reached the end of the row, Jesse couldn’t decide if it was luck or cruelty that he didn’t find what he had been cautiously looking for, and his heart sank down to his gut in despair. The ribbon and Shuriken’s meant that, at some point, his old friend had come into contact with these bastards. The fact that they were still alive hinted at how that interaction might have gone and Jesse heaved a deep sigh when he realised he was not equipped to track someone like that down.
Not until the silence of his own thoughts brought his attention to a painful sound that filled his soul with pain.
The weak sound of desperate, laboured breathing came from the other side of a wall. Jesse raised his gun and his torch and followed the sound with slow, careful steps. Along the wall, he noticed a crumbling doorway that he had missed on his initial sweep, too distracted by the metal corpses behind him. Stepping through the doorway, Jesse came face to face with the source of the sound and his relief was drowned in grief.
“Genji?!”
Genji didn’t speak. He didn’t give any indication that he was aware of Jesse’s presence. He was crumpled against the wall, his armour dented and scraped with various tools that were scattered around the room from the gang's attempts to pry pieces free. His arms were bound above his head with thick nails protruding from his palm and down his forearms. They’d nailed him to the wall like some kind of animal. His head hung low between his shoulders as his legs, limp as they were, trembled faintly as blood and neon blue fluid pooled around him. It stained the walls, his armour and as Jesse stepped closer, he could see where they had pried a piece of his abdominal plating free and discovered the flesh beneath. Flesh that was bruised and bleeding sluggishly from several deep lacerations. Had they been seeking out real organs?
Jesse took in the mess before him in a few seconds before he darted forward and cupped Genji’s face, half relieved that his helmet and visor still seemed to be secured in place even as the lights on his armour flickered dully.
“Genji?” Jesse tried again, coaxing the smaller’s head up to eye level but other than the pained breathing, silence resonated from behind the visor.
“Fuck, it’s alright Sugar, I’m gonna get you out of here just— fuck, just stay with me, alright?” Jesse pleaded softly.
He located a light switch, freeing up one of his hands, and shoved his gun back into his holster as he ran a hurried gaze and quicker hands over the tools on the bench beside him. One of these had to help him get Genji down from there, surely. It was during this search that Jesse located Genji’s Dragonblade, wrapped in oiled rags and hidden underneath the bench. That would be coming with him too.
Unfortunately, all Jesse was able to find to help was a rusted pair of pliers and his heart broke when he came to the understanding that pulling those nails free from Genji’s limbs was not going to be a pleasant experience.
“Genji, I don’t know if you can hear me,” Jesse began as he pressed up to the smaller cyborg and placed one hand on his shoulder. “But it’s me, it’s Jesse. You remember me, right? Crazy cowboy with more balls than sense. I’m here, I’m right here and I’m going to get you down from there and it’s going to hurt but I promise I’ll be as quick as I can.”
Genji didn’t react until Jesse ripped the fourth bolt free. A hoarse, pained gasp rose up from beneath his mask and Jesse’s heart clenched painfully as he worked on the fifth, then the six. More gasps and by the time Genji’s right arm was free and dangling limp, Genji’s breathing was rapid and pained.
“I’m so sorry,” Jesse swore as he worked on the next arm, the apologies falling like a prayer from his lips as he used his own bulk to pin Genji to the wall. It was the only way to stop him from collapsing forward and injuring himself further than he already was. By the time the last bolt was ripped free and Genji collapsed forward, he was whimpering and Jesse’s heart was broken.
He sank down onto his knees, cradling Genji’s smaller form to his chest as he gently cupped his mask with one hand.
“Genji? Fuck… I’m so sorry, I’m so fucking sorry,” Jese murmured over and over.
“J—-Jesse?” Genji’s voice was hoarse, broken but achingly familiar and as tears threatened in Jesse’s eyes, he couldn’t help but smile at the sound.
“Fucking hell, Genji… you gave me a right scare. I thought we’d lost you!”
“L—Leave—…. me,” Genji asked brokenly but it sounded less like a question and more like broken disappointment.
“What?” Jesse frowned, shaking his head. “I’m not… no! I’m not leaving you here. Ain’t no one in their right mind would leave you here.” Maybe it was the pain, the blood loss, or the fluid loss, Jesse couldn’t be sure but he knew Genji wasn’t all there behind that mask. He wasn’t leaving him here to die.
Genji’s words faded into silence and Jesse steeled himself, swallowing his tears as he gathered himself and stood, bundling Genji against his chest like he was a babe. Fuck this gang and fuck this place; how they got their hands on Genji didn’t matter. Jesse had him now and he wasn’t going to let him die.
***
As it turned out, that gang had thrived so well because there was little in the way of Omnic love in this city. Jesse had witnessed such things firsthand for years but none of it cut so deep as when he searched for help for Genji.
No Omnic medic would touch him because he bled red, and no human doctor would take him because he leaked blue.
Jesse couldn’t understand their logic; he was injured and in need of help regardless of where flesh ended and mechanical started, but no one wanted anything to do with a cyborg and one even snarled that he was nothing more than a twisted abomination before slamming the door in Jesse’s face. It took all his strength and resolve not to kick that door down and make that man eat his words. Eventually, Jesse tracked down an Omnic medic kind enough to offer advice, provide fluid, and an injection of nanites that would help repair the more life-threatening injuries and Jesse had dumped every dollar he had to spare in their hands in thanks.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough.
In the end, Jesse had no choice but to take Genji to a motel and attempt to treat the rest of him by his own hand, something that was easy when it came to flesh and blood but was trickier when it came to his cybernetics. Relying on the nanites was a risky move, especially since Jesse had little trust in black market technology and they would need to seek a professional before the end, but to his immense relief, the dull, flickering lights of Genji’s systems eventually flared back into life and Genji finally took a solid breath. Then another. Jesse gently hooked him up to a blood bag and a fluid bag, attaching the end gently into one of his sockets before he spent the next few hours stitching, cleaning, and wrapping up what flesh wounds he could reach. The dents and scraps on his armour would take more than Jesse could give, and as he finally settled into the chair with Genji unconscious in the bed, he made a mental note to track down an old Overwatch medic in the morning.
They would be Genji’s only hope.
He was woken three hours later by harsh, mechanical coughing and as Jesse opened his eyes, he was met with the slight pink hue on the horizon and Genji weakly leaning over the edge of the bed spewing up what looked like a tar substance. His visor was abandoned on the bed and Jesse’s heart wrenched as he watched, then he slid to the end of his chair and placed a warm hand on Genji’s shoulder. Genji flinched away immediately and when he looked up, Jesse was stunned to see tears swimming in those gold eyes clouded with pain.
“Why,” Genji croaked, “why couldn’t you leave me there.”
“What..?” Jesse’s heart skipped a beat in shock as he touched Genji’s shoulder again. “Sugar, I ain’t ever leavin’ someone in a place like that! What are you talkin’ about?”
“Why,” Genji croaked again, a pained sob tearing past his lips as he leaned over the edge and spewed once more. As Genji’s eyes rolled and unconsciousness took him, Jesse’s heart thumped off rhythm in his chest. He caught the smaller, easing him back onto the pillow and using a tissue to clean the end of his mouth. Then he pulled the blanket back up over his form and sagged back into his own chair.
Did Genji not want to be saved? How could that be?
The lingering question of why Genji hadn’t killed that gang was answered suddenly in Jesse’s chest and a wounded noise slipped past his lips. Genji hadn’t killed them… because he’d wanted them to kill him instead.
Had his path since Overwatch truly taken him down such a dire path that death was all he sought from life now?
And yet, as Jesse’s mind drifted back to their time in Overwatch and Blackwatch, the cruelty he faced from his family, from recruits. Hell, even now from doctors seeing him as too much of the other to provide help; Genji’s life was a tale of pain and abuse.
Suddenly his search for death didn’t seem all that shocking, and Jesse’s broken heart sat heavy in his chest.