Okay, so I absolutely adore this fic so far, and I hope you all do too. However, I've been in a writing slump recently, so I have no idea when I'm gonna be able to update (this is actually a rather old fic). I'll do my best, but no promises.
Enjoy!
Jesse stood outside the Overwatch headquarters, occasionally taking a drag from the cigarillo in his hand. He watched the hustle and bustle of the citizens going by, though he had always preferred the relative quiet of the desert.
He decided to take a walk in the park across the road, away from the constant chatter of the busy city streets. Crossing it, he walked at a leisurely pace towards the shade of the trees. It was late spring, so it was pleasantly warm—not too hot, and the perfect temperature in the shade.
If it wasn't for his Blackwatch training to always be aware of your surroundings, he would have missed the tiny, high-pitched "caw" that sounded from the base of the tree beside him.
He looked down to see a small ball of black feathers, with two beady eyes and a beak staring up at him. It cawed at him again, almost as if asking for help.
"Fell from the nest, did ya? Poor thing," Jesse said softly, bending down to pick it up.
"Caw!" it said while cupped in Jesse's hands and cradled against his chest as he looked up, searching for a nest. He didn't see one.
"Even if I could find yer nest, I'm not sure how I'd getcha up there, little guy." Jesse looked thoughtful for a moment. "Alright, yer comin' with me. I'll take care of ya." The baby crow looked up at him as if to say, "You'd better not fuck this up." Jesse took off his jacket and folded it into a little makeshift nest. He put the bird inside and held it close to his chest to keep it warm as he walked back to Overwatch headquarters.
Once back in his room in the Blackwatch section of the building, Jesse dug out an old shoe box and placed the makeshift jacket nest into it.
"There ya go! All warm and cozy," he said, reaching down to gently stroke its head. As his finger neared the crow, it cawed and opened it its mouth.
"Oh, yer hungry, ain'tcha?" Looking around, Jesse realized that even if he knew what baby crows eat, he beyond likely didn't have it—he also hated the thought of leaving it all alone. Before the cowboy could even start thinking of a solution, there was a knock on his door. Even though he knew the crow couldn't understand him, he put a finger to his lips, motioning for it to be quiet. Turning to the door, Jesse began a mantra in his head: "Please don't be Reyes, please don't be Reyes, please don't be—" He braced himself and cracked open the door. When he was met with piercing red eyes and a metal mask, he breathed a sigh of relief.
"Genji, it's just you! Thank god." Genji immediately narrowed his eyes in suspicion.
"McCree," he said slowly. "What are you hiding?"
"Well, ya see—" Genji pushed past Jesse and peered around the room, eyes eventually landing on the shoe box. He ventured closer and knelt down, wondering if this was some sort of prank.
"A baby crow?" he said, looking back at the cowboy skeptically.
"I found 'im on the ground in the park across the street. Poor thing must've fallen out of the nest."
"I didn't know you were a bird person," Genji said.
"I'm not, but I couldn't just leave 'im there!"
"I understand," Genji said, reaching out towards the bird, who shrank away, presumably unsettled by Genji's mask and cybernetic body. He sighed and stood back up. "What are you going to feed it?"
"I was actually just tryin' to figure out how to run to the pet shop down the road without leaving the little guy all alone," Jesse said. "Ya wouldn't happen to wanna watch 'im while I'm gone, would ya?" Genji looked down at the fluffy little crow peering up at him, and decided he couldn't let it die because Jesse didn't know what he was doing.
"Fine. I will watch the bird." Jesse's face lit up like it was Christmas morning.
"Thanks, Genj!" he said, opening the door. He paused, suddenly grinning like a maniac, and Genji knew exactly what would come next.
"McCree," he said, a warning in his tone. Jesse just grinned wider.
"If you guys go to the crow bar—"
"McCree!"
"—make sure you stick together like vel-crow."
"MCCREE!"
"Aw, what're ya gonna do? Call the cawps?"
"MCCREE!" Genji growled, reaching for his wakizashi. Jesse rushed out the door and tried to pull it shut with his left arm, but Genji gripped the doorframe with his right arm, and it became a war of cybernetic strength—one which Genji was slowly winning.
"Genji, if you kill me, Reyes will murder you!"
"JESSE MCCREE!"
"Take it from me, Genj: even if you escape Reyes, you'll hate the life of a cawnvict!" Jesse said, then let go of the door completely, causing Genji to stumble backwards and give him an opportunity to run cackling down the hallway.
"JESSE MCCREE, I SWEAR TO GOD!" Genji shouted, but Jesse had already turned the corner and was out of sight.
Genji sighed and closed the door, turning back to see a very terrified baby crow.
"I am sorry," he said as he slowly approached it. However, once again it shrank away from him, so he sat down on the bed a short distance away from the box. He brought his hands up to the releases on his mask, and it came off with a hiss. As he placed it on the bed, he noticed the crow was looking at him curiously.
He knew crows were extremely smart, able to recognize faces and even facial expressions on humans. He smiled softly, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. It watched him for a moment, tilting its head to the side as if deciding something, and eventually it cawed softly:
"Caw?"
And Genji decided to try one more time. He knelt down and reached out with his flesh and blood hand, fully expecting the baby bird to retreat yet again. So you can imagine his surprise when it looked at him for just a moment, then hopped up onto his hand.
The bird and the cyborg stared at each other for a moment, Genji in surprise and the crow in confusion and astonishment, because how did this funny-looking human just take part of its face off?!
As he looked more closely at the crow, he noticed that it was getting some of its flight feathers in.
"So you are almost a fledgling," Genji said softly, so as not to startle it.
It replied with an indignant "Caw!"—"I'm not a child!" it seemed to say.
The cyborg let out out a small laugh, and sat back down on the bed, bringing his left hand up to gently scratch the crow's head as it closed its eyes in contentment. Suddenly, Genji felt little clawed feat gripping his shoulder. He didn't have to look to know it was his dragon—Soba—jealous off the attention the crow was getting.
"Do not move," Genji instructed the small green dragon. "We do not want to scare him." Right at that moment, the crow opened his eyes, spotted Soba, and froze. Genji, fully expecting the situation to go sour, warned Soba once again: "Sobaaa!"
Soba seemed to almost sigh in defeat, then slowly turned his head away, trying to convey that he was not a predator. The crow must have watched the dragon for a solid minute before looking at Genji for reassurance.
"He is a friend," the cyborg said, slowly reaching up to pet Soba, who gently nuzzled his snout into the touch. "See? He is harmless." The crow just cawed indignantly because now that there was no threat, it was focused on the fact that the funny-looking human isn't petting me!
Genji got the hint, and switched back to petting the crow, a fact to which Soba pawed at Genji's neck, trying to get his attention.
"Soba, not now," he said, and his dragon huffed in annoyance, disappearing into thin air. Meanwhile, the crow looked around the room and finally spotted the thing it wanted. It started to try to struggle out of Genji's hands and towards the water bottle on Jesse's nightstand. "Hold on, hold on! I will get you some water!" Genji said, standing up and making a burrito-nest out of the blankets on Jesse's bed. He wrapped the crow in it so just its head was sticking out and it couldn't fall off the bed and hurt itself. "I will be right back," Genji said, grabbing the bottle and heading to the connected bathroom to fill the cap up with fresh water.
He was gone less than ten seconds, yet in that small amount of time Soba had somehow still managed to make trouble.
"Caw, caw, caw, caw!" the crow shrieked over the running water, causing Genji to bolt out of the bathroom, fearing the worst. The crow was still wrapped in its nest-burrito, but Genji followed its line of sight and saw what it was so upset about: there was Soba, curled up in the shoebox atop Jesse's jacket with an expression more smug than Genji had ever seen on any person.
"Soba," he said.
The dragon settled deeper into the box.
"Soba."
Soba closed his eyes.
"Soba, you have three seconds to get the fuck out of that box. One."
Cracking open an eye, Soba looked at Genji with contempt, then closed it again.
"Two."
Soba sighed contentedly and made a big show of getting comfortable.
"Three."
The dragon didn't move a single inch.
"You want to play this game?" Genji said. "Fine." He grabbed the blanket nest, crow (who let out a small squeak of surprise) and all, and set it directly on top of the shoebox with Soba in it. A few seconds passed before a lump started to move under the blanket, slowly nosing around to make its way out from under it.
Genji had to suppress a laugh when a very irritated Soba poked his head out from under the blanket.
"Do not give me that look, Soba. You know you could have just floated out of there. Now, I am going to go fill up this bottle cap. Do not touch that crow." Soba just huffed again and stayed where he was, eyelids drooped in defeat.
Another ten-or-so seconds later, Genji walked out of the bathroom and once again Soba had gotten into trouble.
He was curled up next to the crow (if bird glares could kill spirit dragons, Soba would be dead five times over), half in the blanket, half out of it. He looked at Genji, and Genji knew one of two things were going through his head.
If I'm not touching it, you can't get mad.
Or,
You can't get mad if I'm being nice to it.
Genji sighed heavily, wondering when Jesse would get back and free him from his own personal dragon-and-crow-themed hell.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed! I have So Much Stuff planned for this, but again, no idea when I'll update. Fingers crossed I get out of this slump sooner rather than later.