insomnia

[forfun]

the i n s o m n i a meme

It happens to everyone - sometimes, you have nights where you just can't fall asleep, no matter what you do. It could be for a number of reasons, or no reason at all. And this is what's happened now: you've been laying in bed for what feels like hours, just tossing and turning, and nothing seems to help. So what's left to do? Get out of bed and go wake someone else up, of course. If you're not getting any sleep, then why should they? i n s t r u c t i o n s • Post with your character (note the name and fandom in the subject). • Other people reply to you by generating a number from 1 to 10. • Have fun! o p t i o n s 01 • FEAR. Maybe you're hearing strange, indeterminable noises; maybe there's a severe storm happening outside; maybe you watched a scary movie before bed? Whatever the reason, you're terrified and it's keeping you awake. You just want to wake someone else up so they can protect you from the monster in your closet. 02 • HUNGER. Your stomach is growling and it just won't stop. Or perhaps your throat is so dry you could cough up a tumbleweed? Well, you've gone to the kitchen to remedy this and hey, that was a pan that just dropped on the floor. It was loud enough to wake the dead! Oops. 03 • PAIN. Your body is completely worn out, be it from exercise, battle, sickness, or what have you. Either way you're in enough pain to keep you from sleeping, so maybe someone else has a home remedy or something, or can at least help you take your mind off of it. 04 • SOLITUDE. For some reason, your bed just feels so empty at the moment. You're feeling terribly lonely and really just want someone to keep you company for a while. Maybe it'd be easier to fall asleep if you're with them... 05 • DISCOMFORT. Your room is an oven. Either that or a freezer. Or maybe this bed is just really uncomfortable? Who knows why you can't get to sleep, it feels like it could be anything. Why even bother trying? Maybe someone else can preoccupy you until you feel tired enough to ignore your discomfort. 06 • PENSIVE. Something's on your mind, and no matter how hard you try to focus elsewhere, it's just not going to work. Your body may be tired, but your mind is incredibly busy and it's virtually impossible to get to sleep. Surely, talking it out with someone else will help? 07 • SADNESS. Something terrible has happened that day, perhaps; or you could just be severely depressed. Either way you're trying your hardest not to cry yourself to sleep, and it's not working at all. Better find a way to get it out of your system somehow; you need a shoulder to cry on. 08 • ANGER. You are just... fuming. Who knows why - that annoying dog is barking again, or maybe the people next door are getting busy and keeping you awake. Whatever the reason for your ire is, you'd better put an end to it so you can get some damn rest already! Go wake up a friend so you can complain to them. 09 • RESTLESS. You're far too energetic to sleep right now. Maybe you're just trying to do so out of necessity - you have to be up early tomorrow! But you just don't think you'll be able to fall asleep for a while now, so why waste the time trying to sleep when you could be doing something else? Namely bothering someone else - you're totally jealous because they're getting more sleep than you. 10 • WILDCARD. Choose one of the options above, or make up your own scenario.

Comments

[asoulatpeace]

The movement drew Genji's attention, but he remained still until Hanzo spoke. Then the only movement was a slight turn of his head to indicate a change in his focus. "I do not see anything outside to be concerned with," He answered. There was so much to see in the world, too much to dismiss it all as 'nothing', but none of it was worth immediate mention. "You have not been sleeping. Is it always so?"

In the early days of his recovery and subsequent process to become a cyborg, he had often been too drugged not to sleep. But before he had come to accept himself, all of himself, he had often found quiet moments to be the most difficult. When it had been impossible not to be painfully aware of the mechanical parts of himself.

[with_honor]

Hanzo rankled under his brother's concern. He was the elder. It was his responsibility to look after the clan but he had walked away from that hadn't he? He grunted so his brother knew he was paying attention and not deliberately ignoring him. This was trying after years of being alone and filled with bitterness.

"It's nothing. My mind is restless, that's all." He tried not to dismiss Genji's concern. His brother meant well. He had to accept that it did not make him weak to say so and to have his brother hear him admit such a thing. "Why are you awake?"

He thought Genji had found inner peace with himself. He should not be restless.

[asoulatpeace]

The thought crossed his mind to pry further, but he decided not to press the issue. Hanzo would sometimes try to be his older brother again, and other times it seemed like they could only be at odds. Finding balance and a new relationship between them was a delicate matter.

"My mind will not be still enough to sleep." It seemed when he finally had his life in order the world was preparing to fall apart again. How unfortunate that all the peace Overwatch fought for should dissolve, but he was determined to find some good amidst it. There was an edge of restlessness he couldn't rid himself of entirely. It would have had him up and pacing when he was younger, or even a few years ago. Genji did not need to do so now.

[with_honor]

Finally, Hanzo sat up so that he could see his brother. Genji had no expressions now, only the metal mask that he wore at all times to hide his face. The face Hanzo had destroyed. Yet, he tried to read his body language, to remember how his brother acted and held himself to get a hint of his thoughts.

"Your mediations aren't helping you tonight?" He asked as he folded his legs underneath himself. He did not expect his brother to have the troubled mind. He was a student of that Zenyatta who kept offering to teach Hanzo the same lessons. Those lessons he continued to refused.

He would find his own peace in his own time. It would not come from stepping away from the world and mediating for days on end. It would come from avenging what he had done.

[asoulatpeace]

If talking about Genji's lack of sleep was more comfortable for Hanzo than his own, Genji did not mind continuing the conversation. He inclined his head a little at the mention of meditation, his gestures and mannerisms more restrained than they ever had been when he'd been wholly flesh or in that turbulent period after Dr. Ziegler saved him.

"They do help, they do not entirely resolve my restlessness this night." A little lost sleep here and there was hardly a great matter. He'd lost more to changing timezones and Overwatch missions that did not take into account the human mind's need for sleep. If he were truly determined, he could likely get some sleep, but attempting it was even less appealing now that his brother was speaking with him. It was progress. "But it is a nice enough night."

[with_honor]

It was a pleasant evening. The air was pleasantly warm and besides the crickets there wasn't a single sound except perhaps some occasional traffic in the distance. He was certain most of their allies were sleeping peacefully.

"You do not have to sit watch," he offered. It was easier to do something when he was restless. There were times they could not stand to be in the same room as each other when tension ran high between them and they were more likely to fight each other than their enemies. If Genji could not sleep he was free to go and take care of himself.

He picked up his bow from where it rested next to his bed. "I am awake and can keep guard."

[asoulatpeace]

"You also do not need to," Genji noted. Between the automated defenses set up and the number of experienced combatants sleeping lightly nearby there were very low odds anyone would get the drop on them. While he appreciated the sentiment that had his brother reaching for his bow, things tended to go poorly between them whenever they had weapons in their hands and no enemy to point them at. Occasionally even when they had enemies more deserving of their wrath.

But there was always time to change. Genji unfolded his legs from his current seated position and made his way to Hanzo in near silence despite the metal to flesh ratio in his legs. "But sitting here not sleeping is doing neither of us any good."

[with_honor]

Instinctively Hanzo's fingers tightened on his bow as his brother made his way over. They might not be enemies anymore but they had fought too often for him to forget the threat Genji posed. He was a very gifted warrior and his robotic enhancements had only made him stronger. With a very deliberate breath he relaxed his fingers. His bother was not here to kill him. This time.

"What do you propose we do instead?" If Genji suggested a spar Hanzo would refuse. That way only led to more fighting and in no way would relax either of them for sleep. He couldn't predict what his brother was thinking. Not that he could as a young man either. He had never expected Genji's betrayal of their clan. What did he know of his bother now?

[asoulatpeace]

The slight tightening of Hanzo's grip didn't escape Genji's notice, but he did not react to it. Instead, he held out his right hand to pull his brother up from his seated position. It was the arm that had been most damaged, and was now artificial up to his shoulder. The sensations he receives are far different from those of his flesh and blood parts, but they are not strange to him after so many years.

"Nothing that would wake everyone else," Genji assured him. If pressed, he would answer, but he did hope his brother would go with him without arguing.

[with_honor]

"None of them would wake unless we wanted them to." They were, after all, ninja.

It used to be when they were younger and Genji more wild he could on a rare occasion talk Hanzo into some wild scheme that usually had them running away from the authorities. He felt the same sort of resigned exception as he followed his brother.

They might not wake the others but he still imagined nothing but trouble when they were through with whatever madness Genji would suggest. Older and wiser his brother might be yet Hanzo doubted he had changed so fundamentally. He still had much to learn.

[asoulatpeace]

Genji learned just how light sleepers some of the others were in unfortunate ways. But he was not going to argue with his brother on that fact, partly because he didn't want to argue. Partly because they could have the argument without waking anyone and that wouldn't help his point.

He also recognized that look Hanzo gave him before he stood up. That look that took him back to their childhood when he'd gone to great lengths to get his brother to 'go have fun' with him. The look that said Hanzo knew how it was going to end but he'd do it anyway because they were brothers. Back then seeing that look meant he'd won. Now it meant that he had a lot of work to do to get his brother to recognize that he had changed.

He left their room and went for the stairs, hopping over the railing rather than descending them, and went for the door to the basement. The structure that was currently serving as their base was not meant for this purpose, and not as large as it should be for so many, but it served its purpose.

[with_honor]

Hanzo did not have the robotic enhancements that Genji had and as such he could not simply jump down to basement level. He climbed instead, quickly leaping between levels with ease. Why take the stairs when there were quicker ways to descend? It wasn't as if the others didn't use their skills for other purposes.

"I am not sure what you intend down here." The assassin in Hanzo was not comfortable in such a closed in space with someone who had fought him before. He ignored this part of himself for the sake of his brother.

It was trying, a test, to set things right. Hanzo did not believe life was like the stories their father told him. They were not the dragons of legend, though they controlled them. They were bothers trying to make amends, nothing more.

[asoulatpeace]

"You are restless, yes?" Genji asked as he stepped into a long mostly empty storage room. He moved a little quicker now that there was more to shield what little noise he made from reaching and waking any of the others. "I used to engage in target practice when I could not sleep." Not that he needed it, and not that Hanzo did, but the repetitive motion of throwing and then retrieving helped.

Back when he'd been uncomfortable with himself. Hanzo was uncomfortable with him, and there was a level of cautious vigilance he felt around his brother. Particularly when he was armed. He stepped back out of the line of fire and also at a little further distance. There wasn't really enough room to get far enough away from Hanzo that Genji wouldn't be able to close the distance quickly, but it was a start at least.

[with_honor]

It seem his instinct about his brother and his bad ideas was still holding true. Genji wanted to practice with weapons around each other? If they argued, if they fought, it could easily turn violent. Hanzo was more aware of his brother's skills these days and their fights were more equally matched but he did not fully trust his chances against Genji's cyborg body.

"Target practice is not... the worst idea you've ever had," he said after a moment. To become the level of warrior he was Hanzo spent hours practicing. He could not argue that the repeated, familiar motion of drawing the bow and taking a shot helped him mediate easier than incense and tea. "Certainly not as bad as that night in Tokyo."

Touching on their past was sometimes a terrible idea. They argued even before their father's death though not often as violently. He could easily bring up a painful memory instead of a good one. Navigating what they could talk about without fighting was like navigating unsteady rooftops.

[asoulatpeace]

His brother's reluctance about his idea was more than clear, but Genji wanted to get past this difficulty they had being armed around one another. Avoiding being armed around one another was simply not possible, and they needed to practice it to become better. Much as they had practiced their ninja skills. The mention of the night in Tokyo made Genji turn his head away.

"If that is the standard to which you are holding my ideas, I could suggest seeing how many arrows you could put into McCree's door without waking him and it would still not be worse than that night." As an adult now, Genji could admit that was not his best idea. In fact, thinking back he felt guilty for the trouble he'd gotten Hanzo in, even if he'd been entirely unrepentant at the time.

"You may go first, brother." Genji said, gesturing to the make-shift target he'd set up. Everything may not have gone according to plan that night in Tokyo but Genji would be lying if he said he hadn't thoroughly enjoyed himself.

[with_honor]

"I could tie bells to the arrows and McCree would not hear them over his snoring," Hanzo said dryly, in a rare moment of humor. He had flashes of it, less and less as he got older but when he was younger and more willing to rebel he was quite sarcastic. Genji had always had the better sense of humor.

He stepped forward, putting himself a fair distance from the target and drew his bow back. Hanzo imagined the shot first in his mind in a second before he released and the arrow landed with a satisfying thud in the center. Every shot was first made with the mind his first instructor had told him. Every shot he had taken since was done this way.

He did not miss his brother's slight embarassment. That night had been very wild and Hanzo came out of it not understanding the appeal of Genji's preferred lifestyle. Perhaps that was part of the problem. He had never bothered to try and see things from Genji's view because it was always wrong. Still, he thought much of it wrong but he didn't truly know how his brother thought now.

[asoulatpeace]

Genji seated himself on a nearby table, crossing his legs and getting comfortable to watch his brother shoot. The movement of his arms, the set of the muscles in his face. Thinking back on how he'd behaved back then, how much more social he'd been and his very active nightlife. There were times he felt a little lonely in comparison, but he knew it had been more about his money and skill, both as a ninja and in other areas, rather than any actual companionship.

"They weren't all bad," Genji said after further thought. "Do you remember that night out on the golf course?" Of course, they'd eventually been noticed and had the authorities after them but up until then Genji thought everything had been good. It was really his fault they'd been seen as well. Had they stuck to the golf course itself and not the club and bar for golfers they would have been fine.

[with_honor]

They weren't all bad because their father doted on Genji and let him get away with everything while Hanzo endured lectures and punishments that his little brother did not. There was resentment back then which had helped fuel his anger when he tried to bring his brother back into line. It was still down there, deep under the surface.

"I remember you almost fell into a water hazard." He glanced away from the target to his brother with a slight smirk before he focused his attention once again. Hanzo took everything seriously but he was especially so about archery. Even this light conversation with his brother would not distract him. "You were too easily distracted."

Ah, there was the lecturing older brother he too frequently fell back into being around Genji. It was ingrained into him as surely as the tattoo on his arm. As it stood he had no intention of stopping that.

[asoulatpeace]

"It was only water." Although Hanzo would have scolded him if he had and he would have argued and then he might have jumped into a water hazard on purpose later just because he could. There was precious little common ground they could agree on back then, and their memories of that time still influenced Hanzo's view of him.

But there wasn't much they could talk about of the present either. Genji lowered his head a little, though he still kept his brother in his field of view as he flipped open the plate on his right fore-arm that concealed two-dozen shuriken and the mechanism that would rapidly supply them to him to be thrown. Genji took very good care of his mechanical parts, and had already checked everything earlier, but there was no harm in checking again.

[with_honor]

Hanzo hesitated before his next shot. The sound of Genji's mechanical parts always reminded him of the damage he had done to his own brother in his rage and frustration. Hanzo had created this version of his brother as surely as the doctors and engineers that made the body had. He was the destruction, the death that caused the rebirth and it did not, never had, sat easily in him.

"Can you go in water now?" It was rare that Hanzo asked about Genji's condition. The guilt made his fingers tremble slightly on the bow string and his shot was an inch wide when he released, the only real outward sign that underneath the surface his emotions were rolling like a summer storm.

It would be his emotions that would lead to trouble between them. It usually was.

[asoulatpeace]

The question was progress, as far as Genji was concerned. He accepted and embraced what he was. It would help Hanzo to do so as well, he thought. "Yes. It would be quite a hindering weakness if a little water was all it took to stop me. I sink a little, but it is not a problem." The alloys that comprised the armor and the structural parts of his cybernetic limbs and suit were light. There was more open space than not in his right arm in particular. The varying buoyancy made being in water an unusual experience if he wished to remain upright. It was not pleasant, being submerged while he was armored, but stripped of the outer layer and with only the limbs and vital pieces attached it was not too bad.

The process of drying himself out fully, particularly the right arm, was tedious. It was one of the few times he had been accepting of assistance before he'd come to terms with being a cyborg.

[with_honor]

Hanzo truly wanted to know just how much of Genji's body he had destroyed but knowing the answer would only make him feel guiltier. There had to be enough for the dragon to recognize him as Shimada and answer the call yet all he saw was robotics. He could not deal with more guilt at this point, not when there was so much for him to work through. Of course, he wasn't really working through it very quickly. He continued to refuse help dealing with it.

"It would have been short sighted of Overwatch to make a human anchor," he said dryly as he launched the last arrow at the target. He swung his bow over his shoulder and walked to the target to remove his arrows and inspect them one by one. "Some of their goals are short sighted but they are not complete fools."

He gestured to his brother. "You may have a turn if you wish."

[asoulatpeace]

"I would be a most attractive anchor, but I do not believe the fish would appreciate me," Genji said, rising from his seated position and closing the covering on his right fore-arm. He was not sure his brother's choice of word, human, rather than cyborg, was a positive sign or not. Genji wanted to help him accept this, but it was not something he could force or rush. Much of it was on Hanzo's end.

Genji waited for Hanzo to clear their make-shift target range before he began. A quick movement of his wrist and the mechanical components of his arm placed three shuriken between his fingers. Picking a spot just above where Hanzo had been aiming he launched all three faster than a human hand and wrist could have possibly moved, landing them in a neat row one above the other barely millimeters apart. Another flick of his wrist supplied him with more.

He did not really wish to have a turn at target practice, and would have rather continued to watch. But it was important that he do so.

[with_honor]

Hanzo crossed his arms over his chest and watched his brother. It seemed like Genji did not have to make any sort of effort at all in the action. His aim seemed better and the arm he used to throw seemed to work more like a gun reloading than anything human. It bothered him. Genji had always been talented. He shouldn't need such things to help him.

Then again, he used specialized arrows. He could hardly throw stones about technological enhancements.

"You're still worried about that?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Whether women find you pretty or not?"

Genji had a string of girlfriends and one night stands when he was younger. He had assumed as a cyborg that Genji would no longer care about those sorts of things. Omnics could love according to them. Perhaps he assumed too much when it came to the changes in Genji.

[asoulatpeace]

Another volley of three landed right beside the first with inhuman precision, adding another neat row. "I meant it as a joke," Genji admitted, turning his head to look at his brother even as he launched a third volley, just as precise as the first two. After that one he paused, the three shuriken resting easily between his fingers. "But perhaps it was in poor taste. Relationships based on the superficial no longer interest me."

When he'd been recently made a cyborg he could not have imagined allowing anyone to see the mix of scarred flesh and cybernetics that was his body. After, he was no longer interested in such shallow flings.