CYOA – Chapter 19 – Life And Death Situations

warnings:  character gets held underwater

Rather than springing in at the deep end, the two will explore each other slowly... (No heavy make-out session this chapter but next)

---

The chili has not been one of his best, but Hanzo has been a surprisingly thankful eater anyway. It was… honestly a pleasure to watch him scarf it down with such gusto, his face flushed a delicate pink of excitement.

He even complimented Jesse on it which was such an awkward moment that Jesse actually prefers if he… never did that again.

In any case. It had been a nice, enjoyable evening up until now, so Jesse is not quite sure how they got to the point of him kneeling in front of his filled bathtub with Hanzo ready to dunk his head under.

“Not sure about this, buddy,” he says softly, hands in a white knuckled grip on the rim of the tub.

Hanzo frowns.

“I do not understand that word.”

“Uh… friend. It means friend.”

“We are not friends,” Hanzo says immediately with a calm certainty that makes Jesse wince. Ouch.

“Well.” Jesse clears his throat and shifts a little on his knees, staring at the water in his tub. “That doesn’t really make this easier, does it?”

“I would not let you drown,” Hanzo says with a roll of his eyes.

Jesse frowns. He reaches up, and sees Hanzo flinching back for a second but grabs his chin anyway to force him to look him in the eyes.

His heart rate is spiking as he is all too aware that Hanzo could be slashing at him out of panic or spite, but a second goes by and nothing happens. Hanzo just stares at him confused and a bit pouty.

“I would appreciate it if you would take this a little more seriously,” Jesse says softly, grip firm but not harsh. Hanzo’s facial hair feels silky against his fingers.

The creature doesn’t say anything, so he continues: “It’s my life on the line, alright? This is pretty scary for me. So. Can I trust you?”

Hanzo looks reluctant like a misbehaving child, his dark eyes slanting away to the side so he doesn’t have to look at Jesse. He seems more and more like a goddamn cat.

Jesse slightly shakes him with the hold he has on him.

“Can I trust you?” he asks again, part of him freaking out that Hanzo lets him do all of this. Slowly, the sea dragon nods, looking back at Jesse from underneath lowered lids.

“Yes,” he murmurs.

Jesse forgets for a moment to let go of him, caught in just how gorgeous his eyes are. How sharp the dark markings around them.

Eventually, he slowly lets go and leaves Hanzo to quickly brush over his goatee to make sure it is lying nicely just the way he wants it to.

“Alrighty,” he says on an exhale, looking at the water once again. He grabs his shirt and pulls it over his head so he wouldn’t just soak it.

“Do it, then.”

.o.

Hanzo has grabbed him by the hair, and pushed him under. Jesse’s heart is jackrabbiting in his chest until he feels nauseous enough that his stomach revolts against the chili.

They shouldn’t be doing this. Not like this, and not in that unfortunate order, but neither of them has thought the whole thing through, he feels like.

There’s a second of his lungs burning, and him flailing as he immediately tries to go back up – and then the burn eases and his mind goes curiously blank. It couldn’t have been more than five seconds that Hanzo’s held his head underwater.

His body responds to it like it is the most natural thing. Jesse couldn’t say that he feels anything open at the sides of his neck, but he can feel the water rushing in; an alien sensation in and off itself.

He blinks slowly, feeling sluggish and dreamy in the lukewarm bathwater, his limbs heavy as he hangs over the edge of the bathtub, the porcelain digging uncomfortably into his chest. It makes breathing more difficult but not at all impossible.

There’s no conscious effort to drag the water in; he just does it… until he thinks about it and it becomes impossibly difficult to do and instead of pulling the water down, he somehow manages to push it up into his mouth.

He convulses and chokes on it, which is when Hanzo pulls him back up by his long, shaggy hair.

Jesse sputters and gasps, blinking profusely as he feels like his world is turning on its head when breathing on land is harder than breathing underwater, but just like before, his body adapts smooth and without a hitch.

He spits out a mouth full of lukewarm bath water. He sits there, just staring ahead, one hand subconsciously pressed against his mildly aching chest.

When he glances up eventually, he feels like Hanzo is looking rather… concerned.

“What happened?” the seadragon asks reservedly, carefully putting his hands back in his lap.

Jesse’s gaze sticks to the movement, staring at how Hanzo’s fingers are mildly shaking before he curls them into the palms of his hands.

He reaches up, wiping the wet strands of hair out of his face, head trying to wrap around what just happened. It couldn’t even have been three minutes, all in all.

“I think… I breathed underwater,“ he says eventually. He stands on shaking legs and stumbles to the bathroom mirror, twisting his head and trying to peer at his neck, but… there‘s nothing there.

“I could just suddenly breathe. An’ then you pulled me back and... I could still breathe.“

In the mirror he sees Hanzo staring at him in a mix of fascination and disquiet.

“So… what does it mean, you reckon?“ he asks to break the quiet when Hanzo just sits and stares at him, his face twitching in complicated patterns.

„That…“ Hanzo stops and stands slowly, back ramrod straight and hands folding behind his back. „That you are one of us…“

„How does that even work?“

„I don‘t know,“ Hanzo responds softly and turns, wandering out of the bathroom and leaving Jesse to mop up all the water from the floor.

.o.

Jesse is not sure about the atmosphere when he gets into the living room, but it is… at least not hostile, surprisingly enough. He would have thought that Hanzo would be enraged and in denial or something, but instead he is sitting very primly on one end of Jesse’s old couch and is just quietly staring at his hands that are lying on his knees.

He had wanted to ask him more about all of this, but the question get kinda… stuck when he sees how lost Hanzo looks. The seadragon has also made it very clear that he did not have any answers to them.

Has this ever happened before? Can only Hanzo do it, or Genji as well? Can all humans be converted or was Jesse special? Was it just a freak accident in which they were simply surprisingly… compatible?

That his sudden change had to do with Hanzo’s venom in his system was indisputable for him. Maybe Lúcio needed to conduct some tests after all…

Jesse sits down on the couch with a gusto that has Hanzo slightly bounce on his side and throw him a dirty glare. Jesse ignores it in favor of grabbing the remote and throwing his arm over the backrest, encompassing Hanzo’s shoulders loosely.

“Alright. Enough gloom and doom for the night. How ‘bout we just calm down, and I’ll try t’ find one of the classics for ya.”

“The classics,” Hanzo echoes flatly, obviously not understanding, but when Jesse turns on the TV, he seems to forget to ask, focusing in on the sound and picture with the air of a shark. It sends goosebumps down Jesse’s spine.

Hanzo is very cultivated and reserved, but there simply are mannerisms that just scream predator. Jesse is taller; bigger in the hips, sturdy and a damn good brawler, but he feels like he wouldn’t want to get on Hanzo’s bad side either way. Hanzo would go directly for the throat and probably rip it out with his teeth without second thought.

There’s a movie running. Jesse doesn’t pay it too much attention because Hanzo is frankly more interesting. He is damn pretty, that’s for sure.

“So…” he tries awkwardly, suddenly very aware of the arm he has behind Hanzo’s shoulders. it would be easy to let it slip down and curl around him. He has no idea how Hanzo would react, frankly. “How do you like the human world so far? It’s different than below water, huh?”

Hanzo’s brows twitch as if he were annoyed and wanted to shush Jesse, but when the question registers, he turns to look at him. His irises are so dark that his pupils are almost indistinguishable from them, but Jesse is close enough now to be able to see how they blow wide at his sudden proximity.

Frankly, he is a bit surprised himself about how close he has come to Hanzo already.

The sea dragon’s eyes narrow a little but he does not push Jesse away. He watches him with quiet curiosity.

“It is… different. Yes. I can not say if I like it, yet.” He pauses for a moment, then allows regally: “I can not say if I do not like it, either. It is all just…” He seems to be searching for the words, so Jesse supplies haltingly: “Too much?”

“I… suppose so. Yes. It is a lot to take in all at once.” He lowers his gaze and looks at his hands which are primly folded on his lap.

Jesse swallows against a dry throat and moves his hand, lightly touching a strand of Hanzo’s ink black hair, rubbing it between his fingers to feel how soft it has become after a wash and without any of the salt in it.

“I am sure it will become easier,” he says softly. “The longer and more often that you stay out here. There’s a lot to see…”

Hanzo nods slowly. There is a steep fold between his thick brows as he seems to intensely think about something. Jesse looks down as well now, staring at Hanzo’s square, strong hands.

There’s a moment in which he remembers them pushing him beneath the water’s surface, making his belly seize as his body reacts to the reminder of just an hour earlier. He blinks slowly and takes his arm away, both of them sitting side by side and just… thinking.

“Jesse.”

Jesse jerks slightly at the sudden sound of his name. His head swivels and he stares at Hanzo, heart beating a bit faster.

“...Yeah?”

“We need to find out more about this. Your friend. From this… facility. Can he help us?”

Jesse blinks slowly. He hadn’t expected that. Hanzo looks up, fixing him with his intense, dark eyes. Jesse feels pinned like a little insect.

“You mean… Lúcio? Uhm. Yeah. I… guess so. We could try.”

Hanzo nods regally, eyes sliding back towards the television.

“We should,” he says, seemingly blocking Jesse out immediately afterwards, letting him sit there and just stare at him.

What a weird beginning to an… exciting evening.