JESSE (Mcree X Fem Reader) | Completed

Chapter Fourteen: Wounded

You're stunned. "What?" Dumbfounded. "I-I'm sorry." Jesse slinks back, embarrassed. He puts his head in his hands and says, "I didn't think you felt the same way but-" you interrupt his sentence with a hug.

"Jesse, I love you too. I just didn't know if it was appropriate to well, tell you." You chuckle. You hear a gunshot in the distance. "(Y/N), I'm glad we got this out, just in case we die. Because now this is going to get harder." You swallow nervously. He takes your hand, still hesitant. "We have each other. We're a pretty good team. I know that this a lot to ask of you, but we can always back out. I assure you that if we can do this, it'll be worth it." He gives your hand an assuring squeeze.

"We'll change the plan. I've had lots of time to think about it, and it would be better if we both snuck in the same way. I can give you a rundown, but first, we need to get our of here." You both run as quickly as you can along the rocky terrain. You scurry up a quick ledge and look behind you. "Um, Jesse?"

"Yeah?" He turns to see that you're being followed and swears under his breath. "Do not engage. If they fire, we retaliate."

"Why? Last time you were ready to shoot first."
"They fired first. This mission isn't about killing these guys, it's about getting them behind bars. Their new leader is garbage at his job. They're terrorizing this town only, so we're trying to get them as far away from here as possible." Jesse explains this hurriedly as he darts forward. You struggle to keep up with him. Soon, you hear a shout of, "Jesse McCree! Put your hands in the air!" The two people round the bend, you see a man and woman with bandanas around their noses and mouths, so that you can only see their eyes. They're both pointing guns straight at you.

"You too. Both of you. Now." You look at Jesse panicked, asking frantically with your eyes for instruction. Jesse only looked at the gang members, chuckled, and said, "Fine, fine. You got me. Knew I shouldn't have come back around here. C'mon Janie, darlin'. Give 'em your gun."

You gingerly hand over my weapon, and Jesse does the same. They tell you to put your hands above your heads, and Jesse counts to three under his breath. All of a sudden, a flashback of the team spar flashes in your mind. As soon as he says three, you both kick them in the heads. You take on the guy, and he takes out the girl. It's a pretty even fight for Jesse and the girl, but the guy is much physically stronger than you. Soon you find yourself pinned to the ground. You go limp, and struggle less and less, but his grip is iron. He takes out his gun, pinning you down with his left arm and knees, and puts in to your forehead.

"Jesse McCree! Stop your struggle or she dies! Martin is more than willing to let your partner go, but if you don't stop we won't hesitate to kill her." Jesse immediately stops his struggle with the woman, and turns to see you pinned to the ground, fear echoing in your eyes. You don't know it, but burning guilt singes him every step. The woman had been knocked out seconds prior, and fear begins to rise in the man's eyes as well.

"Let her go." He growls.
"Then- then don't struggle. Let us, er, me take you in. We'll leave your damsel alone." His words sting you. You don't want to be known as helpless. You don't just want to be the girl the guy rescues time and time again. You watch as Jesse nods, saddening resignation in his eyes.

Then the man makes a fatal mistake. He gets up. He lets go. Soon your foot flies towards his crotch, and the aim is true. Your hear him yelp in pain, and you smirk. The next thing you know you feel a familiar warmth in your shoulder as warm, sticky, blood flows from shoulder. You see his gun, smoking, pointed right at you. With a burst of anger and adrenaline, you kick it out of his hand, and knock him to the ground once more. You take his gun from the ground, point it at him, and say, "I'm no damsel," and you knock him out cold.

Panting, you turn to see Jesse smiling widely. "C'mon, we gotta get out of here- plus deal with that nasty thing." He gestures to the wound in your shoulder. You nod in agreement, trying to stay strong despite the pain creeping through your shoulder. As the adrenaline fades, you find yourself feeling more and more pain.

Soon, you find a roomy cave looming above Deadlock's base of operations. Jesse opens a small medical kit you packed and asks, with flushed checks, "I-if you don't mind, now don't take this the wrong way," he gets more confident as he moves on, "I'm going to need you to get that arm out of that sleeve so we can tend to that sucker. We're gonna try to stop it from getting infected." You do as he says graciously, you really don't care at this point.

"Well, it's good and bad news. That was a clean shot. Went straight through, no bullet fragments, so it'll be harder to get an infection from those; bad news is you'll be bleeding a hell of a lot more now." He talks to himself to keep himself busy, and you respond with the occasional nod or grunt. Soon he mixes up some ointment, and gets out a needle and thread.

"I'm not going to tell you that this won't be excruciatingly painful, because I'd be lying. Bite this. I don't want this anymore than you do, but..." He sighs and begins to stitch up the wound. You'd think that you'd be used to pain at this point, but this is excruciating.

It takes quite awhile to stitch up both sides, but once he does, you breathe a sigh of relief. You're covered in sweat, and your shoulder's covered in blood. You look at Jesse, whose hands are caked in your blood as well. He takes some water and washes them, (there was soap in the medical kit) before applying the ointment he'd mixed and wrapping it up.

"Jesse."
"Hm?"
"Thanks. It means a lot to me."
"What, you just think I'd let you die?"
You smile.
"No, of course not, I wouldn't let you die either. I-I don't know. You're a great guy, despite all of the things you've done in the past that have ranged between questionable and unforgivable." He chuckles.
"Hey! Is that blood?" You see that he scraped his knee.
"It's nothin' serious. But yes, your astute observation is correct." He puts on (his best attempt, we all know how good his Italian accent is) a haughty British accent for the latter part.
"C'mon, you should at least put like a bandaid on it or something."
"A bandaid?"
"Oh come on, all of the mightiest heroes use bandaids. Come on."
"No can do- we don't have any."
"NO BANDAIDS! Why I'll DIE without them!" You pretend to faint, but when you hear noises of voices and scuffling, you quiet down.

"May want to keep our voices down a bit." Jesse says. You nod. You both head back further into the cave, into a darker part of it. "I'll take the watch for tonight. Your body needs time to heal, okay? I'd actually recommend staying here for at least another day. We have time, and we need to be ready. Okay?"

"Yessir. Can.... do." You find yourself yawning, and you lay your head on Jesse's shoulder without protest, and he puts his arm around your waist as to not hurt your shoulder. Soon, you drift to sleep, and Jesse moves you to a bedroll on the floor, with his serape scrunched up as a makeshift pillow. He tucks you in, then leans against the wall, fighting the urge to smoke as to not harm you, and watches the whole night.

That night, you dream in words. Phrases flash across your mind like "memoria, vitiatas inficit" and "memoriam sacrificii" and throughout it all you hear an omnic's voice reading it to you. Phrase after phrase of an unfamiliar language flash through your head, but finally, after a whirlwind of sound and sight you're only left with a faint ringing, one pitch. Over and over, never seeming to end. And soon, even it fades, and you are once more left with nothing but darkness.