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[flowlikewater]

( GENJI IS WITH YOU )
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[peacekeeps]

[ he chuckles. the sound is rusty. ]

Hard to say. My head ain't on straight.

[ he's already halfway in the process of reaching for his cigars, then maybe he rethinks it and reaches for that cup instead. small concessions. ]

It's easy to be mad as hell. Whatever happened to him then, he ain't right now. [ he fills the teacup and sets the kettle back down, straightening up a little so it's easier to drink. ] Everything else is clear as mud.

[flowlikewater]

He is no longer the man that we knew. [ He had mourned him but now it was different. Genji looks down at the tea in his cup and tightens his grip for a moment. ] He... said things to my brother. Things I had not yet broached with him.

[ He takes a sip of tea and closes his eyes. ] It was not how I wanted it to go. It was not— [ Genji's nostrils flare. ] I am quite tired of feeling betrayed.

[peacekeeps]

[ even though hardly anything about genji's attitude is recognizable now from those old days, the exactness of his tone still makes jesse's memory perk up a little. ]

... talked about you back then?

[flowlikewater]

Yes. [ He says it like it's a rock that was just dropped in a still pond. ] He had no right to use how I was as a weapon.

[ Genji shakes his head and laughs hollowly. ] It was very Blackwatch.

[peacekeeps]

[ it's too easy to picture, too--hanzo running into reaper somewhere in this town, the petty way gabe would've found the biggest open wound just to start peeling back the skin where he could. jesse doesn't know much about hanzo shimada, but he knows enough to know that the man spends time enough beating himself up in his own head without gabe in the mix.

and genji's business is his business, and no one else has a right to it, not even the man who picked him up out of the dirt. jesse looks down into his teacup, the frown between his own eyes deepening into a scowl. ]

Think he was tryin' to pick a fight?

[flowlikewater]

I do not know. I do not think it is worth to know. [ Genji takes another sip of his tea and places his hands back in his lap. ]

But you know enough about my state of affairs at this point. [ It's something he appreciates now, but he knows he is not the only one in the universe who has a struggle. ] I am not the only one he has tried to hurt.

[peacekeeps]

[ genji's probably right. all the same it still feels partway worth it, to jesse—jesse, who never would've dreamed of pulling a gun on gabe until the other night, who thinks it probably won't be the last time. there isn't a truce between them so much as there is just thin ice, waiting for jesse to be too clumsy or reaper to be too quick.

he shakes his head slowly. ]

I'm alright, Genji.

[ mostly. jesse has pretty low standards for alright that mostly amount to "plus or minus drawing breath at a given moment," but—he knows he'll move past it all eventually. he has to, if reaper's stuck here for the same amount of time they are. ]

Man gets thrown for a loop now and then. That's just livin'.