in the name of love.
don’t; keep my muse from leaving for @heartofamxn
jesse feels the raw emotion welling before he can stop it; at first, it is soft, something quiet and personal. it is the increase of his breathing, chest rising and falling quicker with what feels like every passing second.
then, it is the tears that prick at the corners of cocoa colored eyes. they do not fall, not yet, but the linger there. make his vision blurred at the very edges and the voices that surround him seem to fade to static. everything feels like static. pin-pricks against his skin, something akin to a muscle falling asleep from disuse.
it was meant to be an evening of fun, and yet, anxiety does not take a rest. it happens anytime, anywhere, a side-effect of a bringing up in which his eight year old hands had clutched a gun, held it unsteady against the skull of a man he will never forget.
when he rises to excuse himself from the team, he does not hear their questions of are you alright? and son, y’ look a bit pale- because their voices do not even reach his ears. he’s stumbling into the hallway before he even realizes he’s taken a step, one hand clutching his chest. fingers curling into the fabric of the soft flannel gabe had laid out earlier for him, holding on so tight that his knuckles turn white.. the panic is crashing over him, a wave of immeasurable height, and he is nearly dropping to his knees, where it will consume him until there is so very little left.
before his back can slide down the cold wall, there are hands at either side of him.
how-? he doesn’t need to look up to know who it is, there is no one on base that would dare approach him this way when he’s like this, no one that can walk with such silence. no one, except genji shimada.
“jesse,” it is the only voice that cuts the panic in two, a knife made of only the most pure kind of love. and still, the young man cannot bring his head up, buries it in his hands where he sobs. open, broken, he does not have the frame of mind to think that the others can surely hear him- “jesse.” this time, it is more firm, though there is not even a hint of unkindness.
before he can bring his eyes up, watery and swimming as they are, there is a hand at his cheek. synthetic fingers brush his skin, do not try to swipe away the tears that still fall. no, they merely.. cradle. give him the contact he will only allow from this man alone.
“you are safe, jesse mccree,” his voice is a melody, a lullaby, something to soothe and lull and h u s h the demons that swarm his head. he shudders, chest heaving once - twice - and nods. it’s slow, but a sign that he is listening, at the very least. “breathe with me. here,” there is a hand on his own, bringing the one that has been clutching his shirt to lie flat against genji’s chest.
and, the cyborg breathes.
it is easy like that; to follow his every inhale, every exhale, to match their breathing until his own slows. until he is no longer swallowing air as though he has been drowning in the ocean, and all that is left - visibly - are the tears that have stained his cheeks.
“good,” genji’s voice sounds rougher. it is only when he finally brings his eyes up that he notices the other is not wearing his visor. how rare that is, to see him without it when they are not in the privacy of his room, “you do not need to speak, if you are not able. i am here. do you wish to go back to the party, or would you like me to take you back to your room?”
in the haze of the fading panic, jesse thinks, there has never been another like genji. and there never will be. he does not patronize, does not demand anything from the gunslinger, only cares for the state his mind is in. and, jesse thinks, he would not be alive without the cyborg.
“... room.” when he speaks, his voice is deep, throat sore from the sobs that had wracked his body and tore through him like rolling thunder. genji does not question him, wraps a reassuring arm around his shoulders. genji shimada has become more than the stars and the sun and the moon to jesse mccree, more than any other being alive could ever even wish to be.
a strange dance of cowboys and ninjas, one that had begun with a bubbling of friendship into something so much more. it is the soft hum of genji’s inner workings that lull him to sleep, it is the feeling of scarred lips on his own that he thinks of when they are thousands of miles apart, and it is the memory of those synthetic fingers brushing against his skin that brings him a sense of security.
“and, jesse?” genji speaks, interrupts his thoughts, “if you ever feel that you must leave, know that i would go with you. if you wanted me with you, i would follow you to the ends of the earth.”