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i.
They wake in Angela’s bed this time. Genji is the first to rise, a phantom habit thanks to old nightmares, and he moves out to sit out on the balcony and breathe the cool morning air. Those nightmares haven’t happened for a long time now; they seem far away now, like the other parts of his life, and he thinks he likes it that way.
Jesse joins him some minutes later, but judging by the way he trips over the doorframe and almost drops his cigarette when Genji says hi, he wasn’t expecting anyone else to be there. Genji only laughs a little at him, and Jesse flips him off before dropping himself unceremoniously into his lap.
“No room,” Genji complains—not that he actually does anything about it, except kicking his feet a few times and poking at Jesse’s side.
Jesse, whose inexplicable resistance to tickling gains him an advantage this time, pats his hand sympathetically before moving to light a cigarette. “Tough.”
Genji can’t see his face from where he’s sitting, but Jesse sounds like he’s smiling, and that makes him smile too. “Angela’s still asleep?”
“Still out like a light.”
He had fallen asleep before she came home from work. Considering that he fell asleep at one in the morning, she must have worked late again.
“Your ass is on my legs,” he informs Jesse.
Jesse only stretches out his legs and lifts them to hang over the side of the chair, effectively draping himself across Genji’s lap. The chair is barely big enough to support them both, but Jesse seems unconcerned as he takes a drag of his cigarette. “That it is,” he says, grinning.
When Genji kisses him, the taste of nicotine is dull, barely-even-there like most tastes are. Jesse kisses gentlest in the mornings, he thinks, slow and languid, like they’ve got all the time in the world. His hand is warm where he cups Genji’s cheek — he’s most affectionate in the mornings too.
He is also wearing socks.
“You’re wearing socks,” Genji says in observation.
Jesse eyes him sideways. “So?”
“You wore socks to bed.”
“I forgot to take ‘em off,” Jesse says, and he sounds a little defensive now and it’s also a little cute. Genji thinks he’s cute.
“Okay,” Genji relents. For now.
They watch the sunrise as best as they can; there’s another complex right behind theirs, which means they only really watch half of the sun rise.
When Jesse finally stands up and declares he’s hungry, Genji’s legs are pins-and-needling, but he doesn’t let it stop him from following Jesse back into their home.
ii.
Angela is trying to scrape a burnt pancake off a pan when they find her in the kitchen. “Don’t look,” she says. “Or smell. Or…be here. Yes, don’t be in here at all.”
“Good morning, gorgeous,” Jesse says anyway, swooping in to wrap his arms around her middle and lift her into a half-twirl.
“The pancakes are suffering, Jesse!” she shouts, but she’s also laughing in delight and so is Jesse and Genji thinks, I’m in love, I’m in love.
“I’d say they’re beyond suffering,” he says, peering into the charred remains crackling on the pan. “…Yes, they’re very much dead.”
She narrows her eyes at him, but she doesn’t look very threatening, still wrapped up in Jesse’s arms and wielding a rubber spatula. She’s wearing that old Kiss the Cook apron over a loose white t-shirt and one of Genji’s boxers.
“Well, no wonder they’re dead,” Jesse says as he finally puts her down. “You’re using that rubber spatula again.”
“The steel one was missing!” she says, shaking her head. “And how many times do I have to say that this spatula is very comfortable to use and easy to clean—”
“As many times as you want, but it’s never gonna flip pancakes right.” Jesse grins, dropping a quick kiss on her cheek.
“I think,” Genji says with a laugh, “that means he’s offering to cook breakfast for us.”
“Ah.” Angela tilts her head thoughtfully. “You know, I think you’re right.”
“Now hold on—”
Angela flashes him an innocent smile. “We haven’t checked the mailbox in, what, three days?”
Never mind that that is a bad habit none of them can apparently overcome—Genji nods eagerly. “It must be full overflowing with letters, and. Things.”
“You’re both terrible humans,” Jesse says as he unties the apron from Angela’s neck and slips it on himself, “and lucky that I love you.”
Angela grins and leans up to kiss him, short and sweet. “We are.”
Genji agrees, We are.
iii.
Halfway through breakfast, Genji feels Angela’s foot knock into his, which means that Jesse’s isn’t far behind, never one to lose to a game of footsie.
Angela says, “Who’s wearing socks?”
iv.
“There are moments when I’m proud of myself,” Jesse says, trying to shift his leg where it’s awkwardly bent against Genji’s knee, “and this is not one of them.”
Genji also shifts so that he can use his arm as a cushion for Angela’s upper back against the side of the tub; sometimes her back aches, a side effect from having worn her Valkyrie suit for so many years.
“I mean,” she says, leaning forward slightly so Jesse can adjust, “it did sound romantic.”
“And I am proud of you,” Genji says, “for not wearing your hat into the bathtub.”
Jesse sighs forlornly. “Nah, that was a sign of weakness.”
It’s a tight fit in the bathtub, even if theirs is bigger than most. Genji has to sit a little bit to the side so he doesn’t hit his head on the faucet, Jesse’s been trying to get the water to bubble up for the past ten minutes, and Angela sits tucked between them, legs hanging over the side of the tub.
“Who said we could all fit, again?” Genji asks, waving his hand through some suds.
“Me,” Angela admits sullenly.
In the end, they shower instead. It’s much easier to fit themselves standing up than sitting down. He offers to wash Angela’s back, though it takes effort to concentrate with Jesse massaging shampoo into his hair.
When they get out, Angela announces that her fingers have gone pruney — Jesse laughs when she uses the word pruney — and Genji chuckles and rubs her hands sympathetically. The synthetic flesh of his hands don’t really wrinkle, and Jesse’s hand seems rather unaffected too.
They end up wandering into Jesse’s room — they technically have their own bedrooms, but they almost never sleep separately nowadays. They spend the most nights in Jesse’s room because it’s closest to the kitchen, and it’s evident too: There has bee a suspicious build up of all of their clothes here.
Genji is pulling on a pair of sweatpants when he remembers something. “Ah. I didn’t finish my laundry, did I.”
“Nope,” Jesse says, popping the p. “I would know, ‘cause I tried to do my laundry this morning and found out that someone was infringing on my laundry day.”
“You change your laundry day every week,” Angela says with a snort.
“Variety’s the spice of life,” Jesse says. Yeah, something like that.
v.
Genji is on his way back from the laundry room with a basket of his clothes when he walks by Jesse’s room and realizes he and Angela are still in there.
He pauses by the open door, tilting his head at the sight of Angela and Jesse sitting on the edge of the bed, Angela carefully putting Jesse’s prosthetic back in place. “You ought’a take care of your hands, you know,” Jesse murmurs. “You’ve got almost as many callouses as me. Callouses? Callousi?”
He hears Angela laugh. “Why, have you counted?”
“Uh huh,” Jesse insists. “You’ve got more than I did when I had two hands, which is really sayin’ something.”
“I think I’ll demand a recount.”
“Oh yeah? C’mere then.”
Angela pretends to jut her chin out haughtily as Jesse makes a big show of peering down at her hands and pointing out each callous. Genji watches them, bemused, how ridiculous Jesse looks in a loose red flannel and faded, blue-striped pajama pants, how Angela’s damp hair has soaked a giant wet spot over the back of her shirt, how they curl in towards each other, eyes crinkled in laughter.
When Jesse spots him, they both demand he come inside and settle who has the rougher hand.
As Genji moves to join them, laundry effectively forgotten, he thinks to no one in particular, This is where I belong.
vi.
Not everyone understands.
Isn’t it hard? someone once asked with genuine puzzlement.
Yeah, it’s a goddamn pain trying to all fit in one bed, Jesse had snarked, the first to turn defensive.
No, no. Isn’t it hard trying to…love more than one person?
We don’t try, really, was Angela’s answer, accompanied by a small shrug and a slight squeeze of her hand around his. We just do.
vii.
Their server must notice how he has his arm slung over Jesse’s hip. It’s become subconscious to Genji, how his synthetic flesh seems to yearn to make up for his dulled senses by seeking longer contact, but it seems that everyone seems to notice when they are in public.
“What a lovely couple you make,” their server says, beaming.
Genji smiles, if not a little awkwardly, and Jesse coughs a small, “Thanks,” as they’re seated at a circular table.
Two minutes later, Angela finally rejoins them from the bathroom. The server bristles when Angela shifts her menu, plates, and chair to be closer to him and Genji, especially when it leaves the other half of the table barren.
“Breadsticks,” she begins.
“Last time you gave yourself a stomach ache from how many you ate,” Genji reminds her.
“But so did you,” Jesse reminds him in turn.
“Fine,” Angela relents. “Soup?”
“Tomato basil,” Jesse reads out loud, enunciating in all the wrong places and making their server’s eye twitch a little. “Yeah, Genji, wasn’t this the one you said you could taste pretty well in that other diner?”
They’re in a restaurant, which is rather synonymous with diner, but clearly not synonymous enough for their server.
“Right, so we’ll start off with tomato basil?” Jesse says, enunciating in, yet again, all the wrong places, and their server now looks close to breaking his pen or his knuckles or both, considering how white his knuckles look.
At the end of lunch, Genji takes them both by their hands and tugs them out of their chairs. He can feel several eyes on them as he leans in and kisses both of their cheeks, one by one, before leading them out of the building.
“Will that ever get old, I wonder?” Angela muses once they are outside.
“No,” Genji answers, and Jesse’s barely-contained grin must mean he agrees. “No, it really won’t.”
viii.
“It’s hot,” Jesse says, wrinkling his nose.
Angela eventually slows to a stop a few steps ahead of them and turns around, hands on her hips, but her face is beginning to flush a little too. “It’s summer, and we’re outside.”
“Yeah,” says Jesse, thumping his head against the football like it might knock the heat away from him, “and it’s hot.” Angela, perhaps out of sympathy, takes a ponytail from around her wrist and tosses it to Jesse, who sighs raggedly and puts his hair up. He's let it grown longer than usual, though a few strands are still short enough to escape and hang by the sides of his face.
“And you’re still wearing socks,” Genji points out, because he just now notices and can’t understand how Jesse can be wearing ankle socks when it’s this humid. Even he has foregone his visor and most of his armor for a simple cotton shirt and shorts.
“The sun’s on it’s way down,” Angela says, raking her bangs back and away from her face. “I say we wait it out in the shade?”
The “shade” she’s referring to is a large tree they passed about ten minutes ago, which means they must walk another ten minutes in the heat to reach it, and by then the sun has begun dipping below the horizon and Genji wonders if they should have just made a run for the car.
“Shade,” he cries as he throws himself to the cool grass.
“Don’t hog it,” Jesse chides, sidling up next to the trunk before Genji can splay his legs there and claim it.
Angela ends up sprawling between them, lying on her belly with her book opened. Genji watches the sun disappear behind a cluster of trees, counting the seconds until there is more shade than light on the ground and the air doesn’t feel so stifling anymore. “Now I’m ready beat you,” he declares to Jesse, who turns to him with that competitive glint in his eye.
“You’re on,” the other man says, scrambling to his feet, and Genji is quick to stand too and race after him.
They use Angela’s sandals to mark the goalposts of an invisible goal, and then they get to work trying to settle a score that’s been undecided for weeks.
It ends in a draw, or so they tell themselves. In reality, one of them accidentally kicks the ball in Angela’s direction and Angela, barely looking up and appearing only mildly inconvenienced, hits the ball away and sends it bouncing towards the goal.
“That means next time, you have to join our game,” Genji explains later as they pile back into the car.
“Sure,” Angela says with a little smile, “if you two feel like admitting I am clearly the best at football here,” and then the ride-home-plus-all-of-dinner is filled up by discourse of football versus soccer.
ix.
Genji believes he can taste the sweetness of wine, or maybe it’s just the sweetness of his lovers’ lips.
What a horribly cheesy thing to say, he thinks, but the thought occurs again anyway when Angela cups his cheek and kisses him slow and deep.
He could make some joke about just finishing dinner and now getting on with dessert, but he’ll save it for another night.
“The dishes,” Angela whines half-heartedly when they try to pull her onto the couch with them.
“Can wait until morning,” Jesse finishes.
“It will still be your turn to do them, by the way,” Genji reminds as he fumbles with the buttons of Jesse’s shirt. “I hate your shirts, have I told you that?”
Jesse croons smugly, “I don’t hear you complaining when you’re wearing them to bed.”
Fair.
“Tomorrow,” Angela says, situating herself between the tangle of limbs that is Jesse and Genji’s legs, “we are going to wake up very hungover and very sore.”
“Very sore,” Jesse agrees, flirtatious, nosing at the neckline of her shirt.
“Sore in our necks,” Angela sighs.
None of them make any real efforts to stop.
x.
Genji wakes last, certainly very hungover and very sore.
“Please don’t say you two finished the painkillers,” he says, walking into the kitchen where Jesse has evidently wrangled control of the stereo. A woman belts out some country ballad, clashing with the bright sunshine and a plate of so-called smiley fries that Jesse is finishing up.
“Saved you one,” Angela says, coming up from behind him and pressing a pill into his hand. She kisses the back of his neck, where it’s still real flesh and he can feel her lips, warm and slightly chapped. Genji catches her by the hand before she can move away and kisses the back of her knuckles.
“Hey, hey,” Jesse says, pointing the rubber spatula at them accusingly, “who’s wearing the apron here, huh?”
Genji laughs, and he and Angela plant kisses on both sides of Jesse’s face, because the apron says to and because he looks lovely when he’s a little flustered.
They eat breakfast together, all sluggish and slightly sleepy still, and Angela asks a few minutes in, “Who’s wearing socks again?”
Genji bumps his toe against someone’s socked foot, and he can tell it’s Angela’s because he feels the metal of her ankle bracelet. “You, actually?” he says, and Jesse does an awful job trying to hide his laughter behind a glass of orange juice.
After months of living together, they should know better than to cram into the bathroom all at once, yet after breakfast they find themselves there anyway, trying to brush their teeth simultaneously. It’s clumsy but it’s familiar, full of mouthwash-slightly-spilled and toothbrushes eventually sitting in the same cup.
When Genji looks in the mirror and glimpses all of their faces, he sees the laughter and contentment and love there, and he decides this isn’t just where he belongs; they are whom he belongs with.