CYOA – Life And Death Situations – Chapter 12 (Patreon)

 warnings: none

Rather than go to the lab to try and find out more about the scratches, Jesse and Lúcio will make their way to Lúcio's home to meet Gabriel...

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Jesse makes a soft sound of annoyance. What the hell was a Zenyatta? He had thought they were looking for a… human. Or a person, at the very least.

“I… I have met him. Just earlier today.” Lúcio sounds so surprised, one hand lifting and pulling two dreadlocks over his shoulder to play with; a nervous habit that Jesse is already familiar with

So it is a person? This Zenyatta?

Jesse is relegated to a bystander as Lúcio’s admission visibly shocks Genji who physically reels back, mouth moving as he seems to be looking for words.

“He is where I am working,” Lúcio explains, and Genji slaps his hands against the stone like an excited child. His whole demeanor changes just with that one declaration. Jesse and Lúcio flinch as Genji all but catapults himself into the water. He’s gone for but a split second before he reappears close to the surface approaching quick as an arrow.

There’s a weird feeling twisting through Jesse’s body witnessing just how fast they can move in the water. This knowledge paired with his hands on experience of their sharp claws is… very unsettling. Sweat breaks out along his spine just trying to remember the impossible ache from before.

Behind Genji, Jesse is absolutely sure he can see the dark foreboding shape of another creature in the water. Is it Hanzo? Why is he not showing himself?

Genji breaks out of the water right in front of them, his fingers digging into the pebbles and sand to pull himself up onto the shore a bit. The sight is giving Jesse the creeps – it’s like watching a sea monster emerge. Genji smiling so wide and showing off impossibly sharp teeth is… not helping either.

He slowly steps closer to Lúcio, ready to grab him by the back of his cloak and pull him out of the danger zone.

“You have seen him?! How is he?!”

Genji looks like he wants to reach out and curl his hand around Lúcio’s ankle. Jesse’s hand lifts behind Lúcio’s back, fingers slowly grasping his cloak, but not yet pulling.

Lúcio, not paying attention to it, nods slowly.

“I’ve seen him. He is… doing well, I think. He’ll soon be back with you.”

The water is so loud. It is difficult to understand Genji asking for confirmation. Jesse’s eyes flick back up towards the sea. Why is it so loud? The water does not look particularly disturbed, the wind hasn’t picked up as well.

His fingers slowly go lax again, arm sinking back down to his side. He begins to zone out of the conversation.

Jesse should have felt proud about being the instigator of all this problem solution, but instead he just feels… weird and achy and empty. He lifts his flashlight and slowly lets it swipe across the water.

The rushing of the sea seems to become louder and louder, slowly drowning out the voices of Lúcio and Genji until all Jesse can hear are the waves crashing against the shore. The ache inside him grows, slowly encompassing him. It’s different to the pain from before, yet equally upsetting.

He wonders where Hanzo is. Why has he not shown himself?

His flashlight finds the dark spot a few feet behind Genji. He is sure eyes are watching him, calm and predatory, and the ache inside him flares.

He needs to get in there. Dip down into the cool water, and let it soothe the burn.

A hand clasping his arm tightly and shaking him has him jerk out of his trance. He almost lets the flashlight fall to the ground. His head swings around, feeling as if on a creaky hinge.

He mutely stares into Lúcio’s confused and worried face, then to his hand clenching around the flashlight and at last back to the water where the light of it is flicking against the waves. Genji is gone. They are alone once more.

“Jesse? What is up with you?”

Jesse slowly shakes his head. He realizes that he’s been in the process of taking a step towards the water, and slowly puts his foot back down before Lúcio can see it. Cold trepidation and fear trickles through his body, sweat making his skin feel clammy and sticky.

He does not feel right. In fact, he feels a bit feverish; like he is getting sick.

“Ah… it’s nothing. I just… it just was a long day. Where’s… Genji?” He speaks like he is drunk, his tongue not really obeying him. Lúcio’s grasp on his arm becomes tighter when Jesse tilts towards the water as if drawn to it by strings.

Lúcio reaches around him and gently pries the flashlight out of his hand.

“He’s gone. I’ll tell you later. You… don’t look too hot right now. Come…”

He gently tugs and Jesse, for lack of a better alternative, just turns and follows like a puppy.

.o.

“He seems… sick,” Genji murmurs, peering towards the beach where Jesse is moving on unsteady feet as he follows after Lúcio.

“Good,” Hanzo hisses next to him, ever vindictive. He grasps Genji’s arm and pulls him along not unlike the pair of humans on the shore.

.o.

“Jesse…? I’m going to show you something now, alright? Don’t be scared…”

Lúcio tries to put on a brave face but he’s feeling pretty scared himself looking at Jesse’s pale, clammy face. Jesse is a rather… robust man, and he’s never seen him anything but perfectly fine and on top of his game.

His behavior on the beach had been… erratic and concerning.

“What do you mean?” Jesse murmurs. He sounds like he has a mouth full of cotton candy, but is visibly trying to pull himself together. During their walk through the city he had multiple times tried to turn around and walk back towards the water, but whatever that had been seems to have washed out of his system at last.

As Lúcio watches, he drags his hand across his face, blinking rapidly until his eyes look more or less lucid.

“You’ll see,” Lúcio answers softly. He doesn’t know how to explain Gabriel to him. He also doesn’t know how to explain Jesse to Gabriel, but today seems to be a day of firsts, and Lúcio has always believed in ripping off a bandaid as fast as possible.

While Jesse clumsily pushes his boots off his feet, they can hear the water sloshing about in the other room. Gabriel already has realized Lúcio is not alone, and Jesse, freezing in his movements, seems to come to the same conclusion.

He turns towards Lúcio as he rights himself back up, mutely staring at him. Lúcio nods and grabs his forearm, gently pulling him along.

“Gabriel,” he calls as he rounds the corner into the living room. “I brought a friend.”

.o.

Jesse is not prepared for the sudden static raining down on them from the ceiling. He instinctively ducks down before realizing that it is only noise. Lúcio’s hand is like a vice around his forearm, aching but grounding at the same time.

He doesn’t let him flee, even though that is (embarrassingly) his first instinct.

When Jesse finally looks up, he feels his stomach drop at the sight of the huge aquarium with its equally big occupant.

It’s like stepping into a horror film. While Genji and Hanzo have been disturbing to see, they still had an eerie beauty about them with all their twinkling colors and scales. The creature in the aquarium on the other hand is all long black tendrils that move like hair in the water.

“Holy shit,” he finally exhales. He lifts a trembling hand and drags it across his mouth, the sound of his palm rasping over his beard strangely grounding. He can feel himself trying to flinch away and look elsewhere, but has to force himself to keep staring at the creature that is slowly moving in the water, its contours shifting constantly. It looks more like a shadow than anything else.

The screeching static from above suddenly stops.

Only in the absence of sound does Jesse realize how his head had started to feel ready to burst like an overripe melon.

“What is the meaning of this?” the voice is deep and menacing and sends goosebumps skittering down Jesse’s spine.

Lúcio slowly lets go of Jesse’s forearm and advances towards the aquarium.

“This is Jesse. I told you about him before.”

The agitated motions of the creature’s tendrils slow down somewhat. It’s dark eyes size Jesse up from top to bottom before it a scoffs, a slew of bubbles rising from gills along his ribs. Jesse feels... surprisingly self-conscious.

“Thought he’d be bigger,” the voice from above murmurs. The dark eyes of the creature snap back to Lúcio, fixing on him like a predator. “I’m stronger than he.”

Lúcio clears his throat, visibly flustered. The pounding headache Jesse suffers increases minimally.

“Buddy,” he croaks, voice a bit weak and scratchy. “What the Hell…?”

Lúcio nods as if to himself and turns around towards him, one hand pressing gently against the glass of the aquarium.

“I said that I knew their kind even before you, didn’t I?” He lightly drums his fingers against the glass while Gabriel moves up against it, fingers curling around the upper edge to slowly pull his human upper body out of the water. Jesse can’t help but notice that the guy is ripped. There are scars everywhere, and he looks murderous with his shorn hair, but the longer Jesse watches, the more he has to admit that he, too, is handsome.

The creature – Gabriel, that’s what Lúcio had called him – does everything with a slow dramatic quality that creeps Jesse out while Lúcio visibly thinks it’s cute.

“I knew him beforehand,” he continues when Jesse doesn’t say anything. “We had a couple hybrids at the institute before. I took him home when we realized that he was going to die in the other environment otherwise.”

He pauses there, staring at Jesse as if willing him to understand something, but Jesse feels nauseous and achy and just beat up in general from the long day. He can’t make his brain function.

“Oh man…” he groans eventually. He wonders if he looks as exhausted as he feels as he makes his way over to one of the armchairs and plops down into it.

.

Jesse’s not freaking out. So far so good. Lúcio starts to slowly relax all those muscles that had tensed up in his body.

Gabriel is quiet, just watching the both of them, his face set in a tight scowl. Lúcio has no idea what he is thinking at that moment, but he can’t help but wonder about his behavior just before. Had he been jealous of Jesse? The thought makes him weirdly happy.

“So what is it with the…” Jesse awkwardly motions up towards the ceiling.

“Ah! Yeah, that was… that was probably freaky for you,” Lúcio says with a small, nervous laugh. He hooks his foot into a stool close by and pulls it in to stand on. He still has to reach up a bit to very lightly tap against the panel slowly blinking just above Gabriel’s right ear. “I had to implant this to form his brain waves into speech, so to speak. It’s… more complicated than that, of course, but it’s the gist of it. The speakers just function as his mouth.”

He gently cups Gabriel’s cheek in his palm while glancing up into his face. Gabriel holds very still, his dark eyes boring into Lúcio’s. He looks very attentive.

“We hadn’t known hybrids were able to speak like humans. Their vocal cords are generally oriented towards a different range and quality of sound. Though maybe it is just Gabriel? It’s really cool, if you think-”

“Please not now, buddy. My head is already about to burst,” Jesse groans. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, fingers digging into his long, messy hair.

Lúcio blinks at him and slowly pulls his hand away from Gabriel’s face.

“Ah shit. Sorry. Do you want some painkillers?”

Jesse hums, obviously trying to gather his thoughts when the speakers on top come to life again, the deep voice eerie yet with a strangely flirting quality.

“You are one of us. One of my kind.”

Lúcio immediately turns, watching Gabriel in confusion, just to see him sniffing the air, hands tight enough around the edge of the aquarium glass that it looks like his sharp nails will make it shatter any second now.

When he lowers his head again, his eyes are fixed unblinkingly on Jesse.

Jesse looks equally confused as Lúcio.

“What?” Lúcio eventually asks. Gabriel’s eyes keep on Jesse, something like a sadistic grin spreading on his face.

“He is one of us. From the sea. A hybrid, if you will.” He speaks the word with obvious distaste, then just looks smug and satisfied in the face of their confusion.