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Trudging your way inside of your quarters, you wistfully peeled off everything from your body and leave it all dispersed on the floor as you made your way to your bathroom.
Useless.
You winced as the memory of one of the agents that was training alongside you earlier said under their breath. They didn’t try to make it sound subtle either. Sure, you were mute but you’re not deaf so you heard exactly what they said about you.Twisting the knobs, streams of water flowed from the faucet and slowly filling up the tub as you sat on the edge. You grazed your hand low enough to skim through the warm water as you let out a sigh feeling how warm the water was and the closest thing to comfort you’ve ever felt.Training today went awry just like most days. You tried your best to cooperate with the other agents so that you could have good teamwork if you were ever assigned to a mission, but because of your inability to communicate it became hard for them to understand where your position was and how you warned them about a nearby training bot. Surely enough, you weren’t exactly everyone’s favourite pick when it comes to teaming up but not everyone was fortunate enough to get the first pick.
No good.
You slightly hissed as you stepped inside the tub once the water was high enough until it spilled off the tub until you were fully submerged. The tub was large enough to fit your whole body but you still had to folded your knees up if you wanted to be a little more comfortable. You leaned your head against the cool porcelain of the tub as you inhaled deeply, taking in much breath as possible.It wasn't like you weren't trying to communicate with them. You did your very best to try and talk to them even when not training but they would always turn you away and take flight whenever they saw you because they didn't want to converse with a mute person. To think Overwatch was a community that accepts all flaws, they still had double standards for everything. Almost everyone here is either missing an arm or an eye, most of the new agents were perfectly put together from head to toe and so were you, just not your voice.There were few agents that accepted you the way that you are. And you've never been so thankful for them, you wished you could be sent on missions with them as well but because they were leagues away from you it was hard to catch up with them. I'm very replaceable, you thought to yourself as you brought yourself lower into the water and not minding the water that slithers into your ear.Finding yourself in Overwatch was weird. Not because you wanted to join but more rather that they found you and rescued you back to health.You were found perched on a pointy rock, barely any breath left in you at the rocky waves in Wales. An Overwatch agent found you and joked that you were a siren waiting to be saved and the name stuck even more when you came into consciousness and found out that you couldn't talk. You didn't remember how and why you ended up in the sea, but the sea was the only home you had and the only way to make you calm down was throwing yourself underwater so that you remember the reason why you're still alive right now was because of Overwatch, and you owe your life to them.
Unbearable.
You thought about leaving, not just from Overwatch but from the world as well. You were insignificant, it wouldn't matter to anyone if you were found dead.Maybe you could go on the next mission and get reckless so you could get shot by an enemy. But then people would commemorate that you died a hero, and you wanted to leave the world unnoticed and unremembered. You didn't deserve to have your name on the hall of fame, and surely the other agents wouldn't want to pass your picture every time they walked by so you want to save the trouble and let them go on with their lives peacefully without you.Maybe you could even go in a bit even deeper, until your breath dispersed into bubbles. Coming back from your previous life in waters and also ending it in waters seemed like a way to do it, it's as if you were sending yourself back to where you apparently came from."Darlin'?" a familiar drawl sounded somewhere outside of the bathroom. Leaning back up until you were laying on your back to the wall, comes in McCree walking in with his spurs clinking onto the tile floor. He wore a concerned look on his face as he pulled off his hat and ran a hand through his hair, looking down on you as he sighed and kneeled right beside the bathtub to reach your eye level. He could tell you were having one of those days, and it ached him more that this had been the third time this week he found you like this. He didn't like it, it reminded him when he first found you out of your breath on that stormy day. He was afraid of finding you in that same situation, but he wouldn't be able to save you in time."Hey, pumpkin," he greeted you with a sad smile as you sat up and smiled back at him. You weren't bashful leaving yourself bare for him to see. You believe that your relationship with him was beyond that point now and there was nothing to hide or to be shy about anymore.Jesse McCree was someone you didn't knew you needed. He was more than your saviour-- he was your mediator as you were to him and you couldn't believe yourself that someone like him would even go for someone like you. At first you didn't think he was serious, but how he would continue and try to talk to you until you gave him a definitive answer was very admirable and eventually you came through and that had been the day you thought that Overwatch wasn't so bad after all."Want me to help?" he asked and you decided to tease him by shrugging but kept a smile on your face. Chuckling, he stripped himself down before joining you and it was a tight fit now that the both of you were in the tub as water spilled everywhere when he stepped him, causing you to let out a croaky laugh that swelled Jesse's heart seeing you smiling like that. Every time he found you like this, he couldn't help but to blame himself because he wished he was there to tell those other agents off and convince them that your place in Overwatch was absolute.Grabbing a body wash, Jesse lathered his hands together, not minding his robotic arm getting wet but still he needed your help to properly dry it before it could potentially be rusted. You were in between his legs and hugging your legs together as you anticipated for him. Now with foamy hands, Jesse started lathering up your back in slow strokes as you gradually relaxed into his touch and let out a soft sigh feeling his fingers taking in every perimeter of your back. When Jesse slid his hands to your front, you craned your neck to shoot him a glare in which Jesse responded by retracting his hands and holding them up to defend himself."No funny games, darlin'-- just need to get you cleaned up," he reassured you and you let out a whimper, turning back around and letting Jesse cleaned you as he pleased. How Jesse wished you knew how lucky he was to be with you, he couldn't help but to express that every day with you. Whenever he was assigned to a mission countries away, he would record some personal voice messages for you to listen every day for as long you could send a picture of yourself in return was enough for him to finish up the job nicely and return home to you.Once you both were cleaned and dried, Jesse pulled off his prosthetic and placed it leaned up against the wall as you both got into bed together sans clothing. There was nothing going to happen between the two of you that night, you just needed an excuse to cuddle with him bare as the day you were bone. It felt natural, and closer to each other then ever before. How you fit perfectly snugged against Jesse's arm, it was almost like you both were waiting for this moment to happen."I love you, darl," Jesse confessed into your hair as your head was tucked under his chin and your hands were solemnly wrapped around his torso, feeling the rise and fall of his hairy chest. You had your own way to say that you loved him back. Without looking up at him, you traced your fingers onto where his heart was and drew a cartoony heart shape with your fingers. Hearing him chuckling, you knew he understood that completely and note that things could work out even if there was no words for you.If remaining in Overwatch and this world was worthwhile, surely enough Jesse McCree was one of them and you couldn't miss your chance out of it.
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You couldn’t help hide your excitement when you’re finally assigned to your first mission with the big boys. Getting recognized by Winston was such an achievement, you wanted to supply all the bananas in the world you could find for him.You finally figured out how to communicate with your teammates in battle and it took a lot of hard work and effort to perfect it and make a short and simple message for them to get. You personally worked with Torbjorn to create a little modulator that could connect you and your teammates with ease. You even had your own voice designated to your liking since you can’t recall how you actually sounded like in your previous life.Since then, more agents were friendlier toward you though there were a few sour ones when they found out you were tasked with a mission aboard. You didn’t mind, they could hate you all they want but it doesn’t change the fact that you finally made yourself valuable among the other Overwatch agents.Jesse was your first subject to show your new modulator (aside from Torbjorn) and he dropped the cigar in his mouth when he heard a melodious voice coming from you. He thought he was dreaming, and was thoroughly relieved when he founded your little contraption wrapped around your wrist and another one attached to your ear.”Ya scared me, buttercup— I never heard you sound before,” Jesse pulled off his hat and ran his metallic hand through his hair before putting it back on as you smiled cheekily at your lover. Though you still preferred to talk with your hands, the modulator was strictly for missions and also for other situations where your location was needed to be known. It also had Athena help communicate with you easily as you only had to use a holopad for that and that was tedious as it is testing your patience.You were excited to finally try it out on a real mission and everything was just a push of a button. It was your first time being on a larger Orca and you had a stupid smile on your face because it was really happening to you. The other agents present smiled at how excited you were and also recalled some of their favourite moments when they were sent on their very first mission, too.Like Hana pissed herself in the MEKA suit was so hilarious, you thought you were going to piss yourself as well.But as they went on with their stories about their first mission, fear suddenly bloomed in the pit of your stomach. Before this, you only did minor missions and even from those, they tired you out and that was the least missions could offer. You just hoped all the training and experience during small missions are enough to supply whatever you would face when it was the real deal.“Hey, sweetheart,” a larger body suddenly closed the gap beside you much to your surprise and it made you jump a little before you realized it was Jesse all along. Looking at him as you beamed, you hoped that your eyes didn’t show any sense of fear or uncertain. Jesse wasn’t one to catch up to those things but since you don’t have a voice to express your discomfort, he found other ways to read what your feelings actually are.“Big day for ya, huh?” he asked you, his signature smirk danced on his lips and you nodded at him a little bit too quickly. You then signed that you couldn’t wait to finally join in the field with him which earned you a loud laugh from him.When you first learned how to sign when you figured out you couldn’t speak, Jesse was the one who volunteered to learn it with you—acting as your translator. It was tedious at first, but you never knew how patient Jesse was learning sign language with you.But he was illiterate when you first signed that you loved him. You didn’t know if he just forgot what ‘I love you’ actually looks like, so you resulted in drawing a cartoony heart above where his heart was and that had since become your own sign of love with each other. It was childish, but it did the job and you both had been stuck together ever since.“Just know that ol’ Jesse got ya back, always,” he gave you a saucy wink and you let out a croaky laugh that managed to shock the other agents on board with you. You never actually let out any form of noise coming from you, so it might be a first for other agents to actually hear you.“Hey, McCree—do you think you could translate us with the questions I’m going to ask?” Hana asked eagerly, excited seeing you to sign in the speed of light. She was ever so curious seeing how your hands form comprehendible sentences and how Jesse was quick to understand them was a shock to almost everyone being the local idiot around base.“What do ya think, darlin’? Care to answer them?” Jesse asked for your consent beforehand, ensuring that you weren’t uncomfortable for suddenly being interrogated by your fellow agents. You thought it was a perfect opportunity for you to get to know your agents more, so you more than anything obliged to their wonders and hoped you could give answers that Jesse would be able to translate.“Oh, okay—let’s see here uh… ‘Please, go ahead,’” Jesse was taken aback when you suddenly started signing in their direction, and he had to be quick to translate them to avoid leaving them hanging. Soon, Hana, Lucio and Fareeha moved in closer to you and Jesse as they started firing off their questions.“You really don’t remember anything?”“How are you so good with a rifle?”“Have you ever dreamed you’d speak again?”“Whoa now—one at a time, fellas,” Jesse held both of his hands up, calming them down but you shook your head, happily to answer their questions one at a time. You look at Jesse with an assuring look on your face and he cocked his head down a bit, wondering if you’re ready to start answering and you nodded in return.You turned back to your newfound friends and started signing, hoping that Jesse would catch everything as you motioned your hands in various signs. They all stared in awe how you quickly know what to sign and was amazed with how you weren’t bothered at all being crowded by them.“I don’t remember anything, but I’m happy where I am right now.”“Jesse trained me a lot in the shooting range.” Jesse couldn’t help but to smile in triumph seeing how he was credited by you.“I never thought of it, but Torbjorn helped me a lot making it easier for me to communicate with y’all that don’t know sign,” Jesse answered their questions respectively and they all let out an amazed sound with how the both of you worked so well with each other, it’s not a mystery how you both would end up with each other after all.They then asked you to show them how to sign their names as well as their codenames. Your heart soared with how patient they were with you, and how they were willing to try and sign with you just made you achieve more than you could ever imagined. You even laughed with them when they made a mistake signing with their hands.“So, it’s Lu-ci-o—right?” Lucio flailed with his hand as slowly as possible for you to catch but you blushed in response. What he just signed was not what you had taught him and Jesse barked out a laugh after he finally caught your drift.“Ya just signed lewd, Lucio—and I think Siren gotten a little shy,” Jesse threw an arm around your shoulder to bring your bodies close but you looked away, too bashful to face him for letting them know about your intimate relationship together. They responded with whistles and giggles, which made your cheeks darkened even more from being exposed like that. You messed up—you accepted that.When you landed where the mission was located, the first thing to do was to eradicate the intruders that had taken over the perimeter and also save the hostages. The hostages had an important person that holds information that would lead them to know what Talon was after and you and your team couldn’t afford to lose them.It was going smoothly at first, that is until the enemy had launched a system lockdown and all communication devices were ceased to be used, including your modulator. This was not how it was supposed to go, you thought—at first you were glad being able to communicate and you smiled to yourself hearing your other teammates response when you used your modulator and hearing your artificial voice.But now that the entire system was useless, you were suddenly faced with the situation during training once again and you were frantic. You didn’t know how to tell them that you had hostages safe, but your location was unknown to them no matter how they shouted around asking where you were and even if you could give them a signal with your rifle, there were too many gunshots to actually pinpoint where you actually were.In the end, the hostages were saved, but they got away and they managed to obtain the information after all after breaking the main hostage. You couldn’t help but to blame yourself, and you could imagine not going on missions anymore after this fiasco.But they were all being such great sports, ensuring that you did nothing wrong and that the hostages were completely safe mattered the most. You wanted to believe that, you did—but still it pains for you to think that you could have done better. On your first mission with the other agents that was looked upon the other agents back at base, you really felt out of place in a jarring kind of way.“It’s fine, darl—ya did yer best,” Jesse’s gloved hand smoothed down your back as you were hunched on the ground, burying your face in your arms as you hugged your knees together. You didn’t have the heart to face them again, you thought how they would turn their backs against you just like the other agents did when you messed up. And you were completely expected that, no questions asked.You all couldn’t leave back to base immediately, so you all settled at a safe house that was near the ocean. The sight of the waves crashing against the high rise of the lagoon made you want to run in and drift away.You felt useless again, your position in Overwatch was being on the risk again no doubt and you could imagine being debriefed by Winston. He would disapprove with your performance, and you could go back doing minor missions once more. You could imagine the looks of the other agents seeing how you seemingly failed on your first mission.You could imagine them snickering at you, hearing them muttering ‘I told you so’ under their breath but loud enough for you to hear loud and clear. You knew so, but you didn’t turn down the mission so it was entirely in your hands that you got yourself into this situation.In the middle of the night, where everyone was already tuckered in after a long day of the mission and also coming down here. You slipped out of the safehouse and approached the shore where the moon was enough to lighten your way towards the waves that grows closer to you. The strong breeze couldn’t stop you from stepping on the cold sand as you slowly peeled off the layers on your body, not minding the cold wind that hits your skin.The water was surprisingly warm in the cold night, but that’s to be expected—it was natural. You stepped even further into the sea, the water rising up until your lower half was submerged. You had a little trouble going forward from the larger waves that was forming as you gotten far enough but it was still too shallow for you—you needed to have your whole being underwater, it was your only form of comfort.You and the sea are old friends after all.You were being pushed back a bit as the waves were splashed against your abdomen and you could taste the salt in your mouth but you still prevailed. You needed this, you needed to prove to yourself that Overwatch has given you a new life—you just needed a harsh reminder.You were almost floating at this point, your feet barely grazing on the sand beneath you. You didn’t even look back but you could tell you were far enough, you couldn’t see the shore anymore and the lines that separated land and sea.Thought from the loud waves that filled your ears, undeniably you heard the wavering sound of your name being called out. You wanted to imagine it, but then there was a second time you heard it. You craned your head around and there you saw him, Jesse was struggling to get to you—still fully clothed wearing his attire, not minding being soaked through.You stopped in your steps as you bobbed slightly, the waves almost pulling you back away from him but pushed you towards him nonetheless. You wanted to hit him for being reckless, but you were being reckless yourself but he had a good reason to do it for you.Taking a deep breath, you dived into the water and followed the current of the waves before you heard Jesse screaming loudly at the sight of you disappearing. How the water moved alongside with you was purely magical, it felt as if it was helping you leading your way back to Jesse. The sea could be both scary and beautiful, and it was home to sirens like you.Coming back up when you were met with the sand again, you saw Jesse looking for you frantically before he calmed down when he saw you. He practically sprinted his way towards you despite the waves slowing down his approach, but you met him halfway as well.“Darn it, what is it with ya and being buck naked?” Jesse pulled off his serape from his body and draped across your body once you were close enough. You wanted to smile at him cheekily, but you thought again that this was not the time for that. Even from the dim moonlight, you could tell that Jesse wasn’t happy seeing you like this again. This was even a large liability to him because you were so close to return back to the ocean this time.He couldn’t afford to lose you to the sea—he’d fight Poseidon to get you back if you did.When you both reached shore and settled down on the wet sand as the dispersed waves hits your feet, you both admired the waves together and enjoyed the sound of the sea together. He had an arm around you protectively, afraid of you diving right back into the water and you were tempted, but didn’t think you could go far if you did not with Jesse being around.“Tell me,” Jesse started and you looked at him, finding his eyebrows scrunched together as you made out his worried expression. “Something bothering ya? Because I keep seeing ya like this a lot—and it’s starting to scare me,” he asked you and your eyes drifted back to the sea, wondering how you wanted to answer him.He had been so kind to you, being your lover and companion since day one. You didn’t want to spare him your troubles with your disability and your lack of communication with the other agents. Jesse McCree had done so much for you, the least you could do was making him worry for your troubles.“… I won’t push ya for answers, pumpkin—but lemme tell ya this,” he sighed before holding my shoulders together with his hands, making our bodies facing each other and he looked deep into your eyes with assurance.“Ya don’t have to this alone—I’m here. I’ve always have, and would be there for ya as long as ya breathe,” he assured you and your heart swelled with how you gotten yourself such a reliable man like him. You didn’t understand, he could have done better than this but he chose to stay. He wanted to stay with you, and that was enough for you to know that he’s got you.You didn’t realize you were crying, but Jesse brought up a hand and wiped off the tears from your cheek with a thumb and you leaned into his touch. Leaning in, Jesse took the chance and captured your lips with his. He tasted like his cigar, with a mixed of the saltwater from the sea but it all felt right. Pulling back, Jesse rested his forehead against yours as he hushed you with loving words and consoling you with his hands resting on the sides of your neck.Realizing it was getting late, you both went back into the safe house to wind down for the night. “Feast yer eyes, darlin’!” Jesse removed his hands from covering your eyes as you blinked a few times. You finally got the full picture when you see your teammates, all clad in their bathing suits cheering and clapping at you for joining them for a day at the beach together.Figuring out that the Orca would come in a little late, Ray had informed you all to ease down a bit before he would arrive according to the ETA, giving you all enough time to have fun at the beach close to the safehouse.You were taken aback from the behaviour of the other agents, how they acted as if you didn’t do anything wrong during the mission. You thought you were still dreaming, but the fact that they were smiling at you was clear as the day as you felt the sand between your toes.“Come on, Siren! Let’s play mermaids!” Hana called to you as she had a buoy around her waist which was cute and fitting for her. You looked around and saw the other agents easing off while splashing at each other in the ocean, building sandcastles that was thoroughly impressive as well as Fareeha burying another agent and placed shells at the inappropriate places.You felt so welcome.You couldn’t help but to beam at them, for accepting you and your mistakes—you almost felt like your place in Overwatch was inevitable after all.“Come on, darl—let’s show em who’s the real Orca before the real thing arrives,” hand in hand, you and Jesse approached the sea together as you smiled.When in doubt, return to the sea.