|Dead Heart| Reaper x Reader

Chapter Twenty-Nine - Better

A/N - this will come up soonish, but yes, unfortunately our sweet murderer (reaper) won't be present for quite a bit... (well not in person at least,,, can you see me winking?) I've always wanted this fic to be more accurate to a real storyline ig?? I've obviously humanized the reader character waaaay past a bland blank slate for the sake of the story..sooo thats also translated into trying to make everything else (semi) realistic. (aka not forcing a romance, slow pacing, real emotional conflict, etc.)  Hope yall understand !!

The one thing you never expected was to ever see Arturo again. So getting to see his chest rise and fall, even with bandages and casts covering him from head to toe, was a thunderstruck.

Tears didn't stop falling from your eyes for god knows how long. The fact he was alive that he was here, with you. 

In any right, you were absolutely the luckiest fuck in the world.

A similar story happened to Arturo, though he got mangled in the front lines in a hero's gambit gone wrong. Something like trying to defend a fellow agent from a particularly lethal attack.  It made sense, nothing unexpected from Arturo. Didn't mean he wasn't dumb as rocks.

Not long after your stitches were repaired and you had a long nap, you were told of Arturo's status, of his condition, and where he was.  Turns out more than one rookie agent thought it would be best to try and save fallen Talon soldiers, you were grateful, you were so goddamn grateful.

The only thing, he hadn't woken up just yet.  A mix of drugs and chemicals had sent him into a medically induced coma in order to let his body heal.  Thanks to Angelas medical technology, he was healing at twice the rate of someone in an average hospital.  Cuts and scrapes healed overnight, and bones could retether in a matter of weeks.

You were already informed that the two of you would be questioned together.  That alone came as a shock, putting two Talon agents in a room together seemed like an accident waiting to happen.  But with the way Winston would speak to you in passing, or even how he observed your condition, you knew that he didn't see you as an immediate threat.

He never did, and a part of you found it to be rather insulting, that your own abilities were so underplayed that he didn't bother to even lock your door.  Though, with all confidence, you were terribly aware that you barely gave him a reason to worry, hell, at this point you had all but denounced Talon.  These past few days of recovery and brief conversations with the Overwatch leaders was a whirlwind.  Studying up on the political climate and status of the world wasn't much easier.

You weren't a changed person per say, but your mind had definitely opened by a longshot.  Nothing was cemented in your brain, every moral value, every fact had become uprooted, floating in your mind until they could finally replant themselves in your consciousness. In order to do that, you really needed to speak to Arturo.  Someone who really knew you, and right now, your best bet was him.

Like every single day since you learned of him, you sat planted at his bedside.  Fists clenched into a knot as your eyes never left his countenance. That day was especially worrying, Angela had offset his medications to the point where he could regain consciousness, though all of that depended on whether or not he was even able to. Your whole being begged that he was.

Your wounds were mostly healed, but it was really his that worried you most. He had sustained a few bullet wounds to the abdomen, along with a fractured rib and broken left leg.  You knew his injuries weren't that bad, Mercy had told you that much, but the blood loss was something else.  If you had lost a pitcher of blood, then he lost a fountain. 

For better or for worse, he was important to you.  He was your rock that held you through the storm that was Talon.  In a way, you were also his.

His brown, chestnut hair was ruffled to and fro around his face, knots embedded into some places, while other spots curled.  His freckles were covered by the spare bandage or cut.  You had seen him once or twice in a similar state after a particularly intense sparring match, but never like this.