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The mission is a disaster from the jump .
It’s not the fastest a mission has gone screwy on McCree. No, that award’ll go to a whole 9 minutes flat in Geneva, buildings leveled and too many lives lost on a shitty batch of information. Nor is it the stomach-dropping, heart-pounding fallout of watching his world burn; Gabe and Jack gone across screens on the other side of the world, halfway through being chased down by Deadlock dogs and losing his arm halfway in the muck.
It is, however, a goddamn mess , when Sombra pops up and knocks out half of their defenses just as Widowmaker shoots Hanzo out of his perch after a drawn out sniper battle. He hardly has the sense to hold himself together, vision seething over red before Baptiste rushes past him, Genji tearing through the resistance by his side, screaming through vocal processors and exploding into vibrant green and a dragon’s rage.
Somehow, they retreat, Reinhardt’s shield crumbling and Zarya pulling Genji in by a sparking arm as the Orca’s bay doors slam shut.
Hanzo’s bullied into a cryo-pod, protests weak and half gurgled through clenched teeth and blood-tinged spittle. Jesse watches that ever present scowl freeze over, his heart doing that uncomfortable twist yet again, and he realizes—
This is a problem.
Six hours, one blunt mission report, and too many cups of coffee to count later find Jesse pacing in front of the Med-bay doors, the operating light burning bright red, a halo of light in the dim hall.
On top of the shit retreat, multiple team members got the short end of the stick. Reinhardt had a nasty concussion he’d be nursing for a few days, and Genji was with Torb dealing with some replacement parts for a knee, but the rest of them had gotten out with a few cuts and scrapes. Jesse’s own arm is wrapped in clean bandages, bright white and glowing against the dull grime covering the rest of him.
Except for Hanzo.
He doesn’t know the specifics, doesn’t want them now, would sneak the file from Angela later, once it was over.
Once this was all over, and there was nothing left but scars and faded memories.
He just remembers seeing red blossoming under Hanzo’s gi, breath shallow and his arm bent at an odd angle.
His chest squeezed at the thought, heart twisting like a knife was slipping between his ribs.
Too damn close.
It’s been months of too close calls and barely making it out. Jesse can’t recall a mission in the last four months that either he or Hanzo have made it out of without some sort of injury. Solo or group, they may be Overwatch now, but trained covert-ops agents are in short supply, and ninjas even shorter.
He licks at the corner of his lip for a cigar that’s lacking, for fear of Angela’s no smoking ‘or so help me Jesse I will gut you—’ in the med-bay rule.
This whole thing was a hare-brained venture. Sure he may be a hypocrite for going along with it, but they were all insane for coming along for the ride when Winston hit that recall button. It’d been nonstop work ever since he’d tracked Echo down and gotten Genji on his tail as a result.
Wasn’t all bad, he grouses, but watching the people he cared about get knocked down again and again…
Even after all these years, there are some things he just can’t get used to.
Especially with Hanzo.
Confusingly with Hanzo.
Who was hooked up to who knows how many machines, with Angie and Bap keeping him alive—
He wonders, hands gripped together so hard the scabs reopen, knuckles white and pallid under the force; wonders how he’ll reconcile losing something that hasn’t even started, that’s barely even begun because of an unlucky shot.
He falls asleep there, on a rickety, ‘stick in your back and the indent will never leave your spine’ steel chairs, till a gentle hand taps his shoulder and he tenses, palm wrapped around Peacekeeper’s handle as he cracks an eye open.
“Mornin’ Ange.”
Angela frowns a little, lips pressed a little too thin, eyes red and hair tucked back into a tight surgical cap. “How many times do I have to tell you not to sleep on the waiting room chairs?”
“Just as many as ye’ll have to get me outta’ the med-bay.” He grins, a little too wide, too tight. “How’s he doin’?”
“He’ll live, I’ve fixed the damage to his lungs—the rupture alone—”
Jesse sucks a sharp breath through his teeth, pinching his forehead between his fingers. “Ange— I gotta be honest, I’m not up to hearing the gory details right now.”
She sighs, nodding. “Well, I’ve ordered his removal from active duty for at least two months, perhaps more if he doesn’t sit still.”
He drops his head between his legs, a deep shuddering breath escaping his chest in a whoosh.
“Mind if I crash for a visit?”
“So long as you can keep him away from that bow of his, yes.”
Hanzo comes-to in pain and more pain. His right side is a searing nerve, halfway between pain and excruciating numbness; dragons writhing, lashing, trapped in his skin like a live-wire.
Don’t fight it, master.
You’re safe.
He tries to speak, to summon his dragons and hold them close—but he can’t—
There’s a pipe lodged in his throat, and he chokes on it before panicked, blurred voices swarm around him. A mask is shoved over his nose and he’s dragged under once again.
The next time he drifts back to reality, his eyes flutter open before slamming shut with a groan. The harsh, fluorescent lights of the med-bay comes into focus, stabbing into his retinas and causing more regrets than cheap bathroom whiskey and a disco dance floor.
Of course.
He snorts, tilting his head (and oh, his neck protests that ), finding one cowboy sagging by his bedside, lips curled in a wry smile.
“Heya darlin’.”
Recovery is a bitch and a half.
Even if it’s not him going through it, watching Hanzo glare his way through eating his meds and the sheer need to do something is a struggle. Hanzo’s bed-bound for the first week, even with Angela’s advanced tech, and Jesse’s booted from the room each night and back first thing in the morning.
He sneaks in anyway, curling up next to a grumbling archer that only laughs at his clinginess, and his heart shudders at the thought that he could’ve lost this.
Angela gives up stopping him after the third day.
Physio is another hurdle, Zenyatta patient, and Mei ever more so, but Hanzo struggles, and Jesse flounders.
He’s not sure if he should help—or if it would even be wanted.
Two weeks into the recovery process, when Hanzo and Genji have had a spat loud enough to shake the foundations of Gibraltar itself, he decides it’s been enough.
“Are you just going to stare at me all day?”
“Dunno sugar, you’re quite the specimen.”
Hanzo huffs, not even deigning Jesse with a response, deciding to glare at his tablet like it’s the French assassin that near put him in the ground instead.
He falters, knuckles rubbing back and forth over Hanzo’s knee, a vain attempt to sooth the dragon. Or keep him from breaking an expensive piece of tech in his frustration. Maybe both.
He just—
They’re new. This is new. Maybe it was soon—too soon—but lord above they needed a break and Jesse is going mad, watching Hanzo stress out like this.
They deserve a break.
“Hey, darlin’…”
Getting Hanzo on board is... easy.
Maybe Hanzo had been more stressed out than he’d figured. He doesn’t ask questions, just gets his suitcase ready with a brutal, angry efficiency.
Jesse ignores the cracked tablet screen.
So he clears his mission roster with Winston (and that is an awkward, uncomfortable conversation) and gets the go-ahead from Angie.
Three weeks after the fuck-it-all-up mission, and one day after Hanzo’s quiet discharge from the Gibralter med-bay with a sturdy sling keeping his right arm in place and a shiny fresh scar along his ribs, they leave.
The tension is palpable as the plane ticks down.
When Jesse had suggested a vacation (“How about we take some time away, sweet pea?”) he hadn’t been expecting something so literal. Perhaps a weekend in town out of base. At most.
He hadn’t expected to be parcelled onto two flights and shimmeyed into the southwest United States under an alias that McCree had provided with a wink and no answers.
At least Haru Kishimoto is an improvement over Henry Wilson. How Winston thought that would work was a mystery.
They pass through London first, and then another long fight through to Dallas. He doesn’t find anything interesting about the flights themselves, save one detail: Jesse’s palpable distress.
Each hour finds Jesse growing stiller and stiller, a black hole of radiating stress and nerves that seep into Hanzo’s skin like a bad oil treatment.
The layover from Dallas to Santa Fe ticks infinitesimally by. Three hours in a tiny waiting area, his partner’s empty stillness setting off all his emergency lights.
Jesse had given him basic instruction on what to pack, a few weeks’ worth of clothing for a desert climate. But he had offered no real reason or explanation why they were going to Bumfuck, New Mexico. Hanzo knew he had grown up there, from his wanted posters to his colorful history with the Deadlock gang, how they sprung up like a new growth of locusts after a drought.
But most international forces also want him (Dead or Alive, no less), an orphan with no one, no family left to speak of, and hunted in his very own home.
So why spend his vacation in a place where they’d expect him most, dangerously vulnerable, and leave them both exposed? What purpose would that serve?
Though, he muses, it is no different from his own yearly pilgrimage to the Shimada estate, in mourning of a brother he thought he had killed in cold blood. Before all of this.
Some things have no reason or rhyme.
So he presses into Jesse’s side, as much as the bastardised-immovable chair arms will let him, and feels the tension seep out iota by iota.
It doesn’t work entirely, but by the time they’re landing, Jesse’s eyes have some life back in them rather than the empty black holes they’d slipped into.
Soba and Udon wriggle under his skin, near shouting in excitement, and he has to slam them down before they pop out in the middle of the airplane.
Their suggestions don’t help either.
Why is Master’s Boyfriend sad?
He’s not sad, Soba. Udon grumbles, He’s just being pissy.
Then Master should kiss it better!
You’re both idiots. He sighs, and Jesse wraps an arm around his shoulder, oblivious.
The annoyance of security and customs for the third time in a row is a short and painful one, and if not for Jesse’s tight hand on his Hanzo swears he would have gutted the moron accusing him of ‘not being Japanese enough.’
Americans.
Eventually, but never fast enough for getting out of the hell called airports, Jesse leads Hanzo towards long-term parking, the small, greying building fading against the harsh summer heat.
He had expected a cab.
Jesse grins at him, teeth a flash of white before they’re gone again, hidden under a mask.
Whatever he expected, it wasn’t this.
Perhaps he should have prepared more thoroughly.
Along a line of varying vehicles, from the newest model hover cars to sleek motorbikes shining under flickering garage lights—
“Ta-da! Hanzo, meet Bessie! Most reliable girl I’ve ever fixed up.”
He did not expect a rusted old truck.
He half expects this thing to run on diesel!
It ran on diesel.
Southwest America, Hanzo wonders, is a complete contradiction.
The monstrous machine sputters to life under Jesse’s hands, and he pulls them onto the road, whistling a cheery tune he’s never heard before.
It’s the calmest Hanzo has seen him since they left base, and the deeper they go into the country, from freeway to highway, along mountain passes, to country roads into small towns and dirt back roads, the sharp creases he thought were buried into Jesse’s face fade one by one till just the crow’s feet crease around his warm, dark eyes.
The radio sputters on, and Hanzo chuckles as Jesse whistles along.
Perhaps this would not be so bad after all.
Jesse curses under his breath, tongue anxiously pressing against his lips for a cigar he doesn’t have.
Hanzo hates it.
That he hasn’t shattered the steering wheel from how tight he’s been holding it is pure luck on its own.
The face Hanzo had made when Jesse had unveiled Bessie! This was such a mistake. If he thinks she’s a rust-bucket then what is he gonna think of the rest of the place?
Should’ve just gone to Paris and booked a room for a month. He likes art and fancy, hoity-toity shit.
Jesse, you moron.
This was the worst idea.
The drive is a test of patience, whistling along with the tunes and teasing Hanzo with facts about the surrounding cities, the villas they pass and the mountains carved out and towering over the reddened desert.
Hanzo at least seems a little interested after the sheer horror of discovering Bessie, a small quirk tucked up against his lips as he watches Jesse take them up a less-used dirt path.
Bessie rocks back and forth, wheels jumping over pot-holes and ditches untouched since the last time he came up this way.
The wooden gate comes up fast, his shimá’s maiden name emblazoned on a plaque front and center. Jesse sighs, another knot in his chest unfurling at the sight.
For a moment, he can almost imagine her saddle blankets draping the wooden gate, their bright yarn a sign to everyone near and far—
He shakes his head.
Those days are long gone.
“Hold on a sec.”
Hanzo nods and Jesse hops out of the cab, loping over and unlocking the solid oak gate. It swings open before he is in the cab again. And then they are in.
Showtime.
If ‘Bessie’ had been a surprise, the house is another.
The home is… quaint.
Hanzo blinks up at the small adobe, single story home shaded gently in the setting light of the sun. He looks back at the dirt path, the sturdy wooden gate, the foliage and trees lush despite the desert heat.
Jesse is busying himself with the bags, going on about something or other, his smooth, honeyed drawl overlapping the singing of crickets.
“Had to rebuild it a bit—but the old place has held up, home is home ye know?”
Hanzo nods numbly.
Wait.
What?
“Home?”
Jesse stills, suitcases half out of the truck bed, and rubs the back of his neck and oh no.
“Yeah. Figured I’d take you somewhere nice.”
Hanzo is not there. He is on another plane of existence, where Genji can laugh at his obliviousness and his consciousness can recover from the shot to his ego.
“Han?”
“Ah. Yes.” He says, This is his home, this is his home, say something nice! . “Yes, it’s... very nice. Nice grass.”
Jesse’s face does something complicated, and if he could, Hanzo would melt into the ground; but lacking the structural capability, he steels himself, grabs his carry-on and trudges to the door.
He can feel Jesse’s eyes burning into him.
They burn still as Jesse lets them in, their bags abandoned in the foyer. He hovers in the doorway, watching as Jesse turns on the lights, takes off sheets from furniture.
His arm jolts when he tries to shift it in the sling.
Ok, clearly helping is out of the question for the moment.
Jesse, the blessed idiot, lopes over, rough hands a blessed relief against his back.
“I gotta get the place set up, but I had Anita—lady up the road, she takes care of the place when I’m not around—stock the kitchen and get most everything else ready. Get some tea, I’ll get you the tour after?”
Hanzo nods, tongue glued to the roof of his mouth.
Jesse walks away, disappearing into a small hallway, and he sags. The wall is cool despite the heat outside, and he relishes the cold before ambling into the kitchen.
The kitchen is also… quaint. Everything is quaint. It’s awash in cream and soft red tiles, gold trim not unlike the pattern along Jesse’s serape. The stove is simple gas, and the window is lined with small flower pots and herbs.
It’s charming.
He rummages in the wooden, engraved cupboards (and hates that he has to get on tip-toe, he’ll badger McCree for a stool), reaching for the tea Jesse promised and—
His hand finds a box which sounds, when shaken, like loose-leaf, and in pulling it out he’s struck dumb, again.
Jesse has sencha.
Not just sencha. Hojicha, matcha, oolong, chamomile, lavender.
Neatly arranged in a row beside Jesse’s usual coffee beans.
There’s an odd hiccup in his breath as he grabs the chamomile, moving almost as if by a string. He hadn’t thought—Jesse had said his neighbor had been by to stock the kitchen but—
As the kettle warms, he takes stock.
A brand new rice cooker in the pantry. Soy sauce, rice wine, sake, white vinegar. Uncooked white rice, next to flour and baking soda and who knows what other American things.
Tsukemono, wasabi, mirin, and countless other things stacked in the fridge, alongside the bacon, tomatoes and the bell peppers Jesse is so ought to use.
s the kettle whistles and he pours his tea, sipping slowly and sitting at the small table, there’s an odd feeling in his chest that Jesse made sure that Hanzo would have ingredients for his comfort foods.
That he knew his favorite teas, that he had even been paying attention enough to know which he took.
And oh, that is a thought.
His chest feels tight, and oh, is his breath coming a bit fast?
You are having a gay panic attack.
Soba, please, the master cannot be having a gay panic attack.
Then what do you call this Udon!!
Shut up, both of you.
Shimada’s don’t have gay panic attacks.
Master, you’re spilling the tea.
He curses.
Jesse walks in on his (boyfriend? lover? angry Japanese archer?) mopping up a small puddle.
“You wanna explain—”
“No.” Hanzo cuts him off, cutting into Jesse with a glare that would bring lesser men to their knees.
Jesse, the insufferable fool, just smiles.
The rags are tugged from his fingers, gun-calloused fingers catching on his.
His breath catches, and there’s a beat as Jesse pauses, waiting, before he pulls away to go rummaging in the fridge before setting up around the stovetop.
He sees a tamagoyaki pan.
Wait.
What?!
Jesse winks and off he goes, Hanzo helpless to watch, sipping at horrifically lukewarm tea as Jesse with a ruthless efficiency mixes, cooks, and plates up beautiful, round tamagoyaki over a bed of rice.
He’s staring.
He hasn’t had homemade tamagoyaki in years. Staring one down on a plate in New Mexico hadn’t been on his to-do list today, or on his radar of plausible conclusions for the night.
“Ah... I guess you didn’t want eggs right now?”
Jesse’s voice, the slight despondent tilt, snaps Hanzo out of his fugue, his eyes meeting Jesse’s across the table.
Jesse hasn’t even touched his own plate.
“N-no, I… I wasn’t expecting it. Thank you for the meal.”
His… partner? boyfriend? beams, blinding in its intensity, digging into his own food and sparing him the heartache. He follows suit, the cheese-filled omelette bursting with flavor over his tongue, paired with the pickled radish and rice.
The rest of the meal is finished in silence, utensils scraping against plates. The dragons hum under his skin, circling in joy as he empties his plate.
This is already far more than he expected.
Jesse clears the table before he can move, a gentle hand on his uninjured shoulder keeping him in place with a soft “lemme handle this” before he’s shuffled off to the living room couch.
He feels like an invalid, unable to do simple chores, depending on McCree for washing dishes.
Their bags have disappeared from the entrance, and he scoffs. Perhaps the bedroom?
He can feel his dragons’ curiosity, and he clamps down on their… willfulness, taking in his surroundings. The living area is awash in the same reds and creams of the kitchen, rust oranges, and hints of green.
There’s a rich, red rug spread at his feet, covered in patterns he doesn’t recognize but which warms his heart in a way that he can’t quite place.
He’s sinking into the plush, warm couch, eyes slipping shut—and slips into the empty chasm of sleep.
“Hey Han, do you wanna get to bed—” Jesse stumbles out of the kitchen, wiping his hands off with a hand towel—
To see his archer passed out on the couch.
God that is cute.
It shouldn’t be. Hanzo’s face is scrunched up like he bit into a lemon and a spoon of wasabi at the same time, jacked up shoulder crushed to his chest and body sagging against the couch arm.
Why in the world is this cute!!?
Hanzo shivers, and Jesse sighs, sinking into the cushions beside him and wrapping his serape around the both of them, pulling Hanzo against his chest and letting the weight off of his injured arm.
It’ll do for now.
Jesse hums, nose pressed into Hanzo’s hair, smelling apple-scented shampoo and letting himself relax, drifting off.
They can use the bed tomorrow.
He’s five today, and Shinálí Asdzą́ą́ said he could help with the lessons! He’s so excited! Shimá said Papá would be back in time for cake cutting too!
He grins, wide and gap-toothed, running ahead and starting the work on feeding Star and Naranja.
Looking back, the house... did the roof always look that black and burned?
He giggles, dumping their feed into the horses’ troughs, Star’s muzzle tickling as she tries to eat his hair.
“Hey now! Wait, wait! You’ll get your food!” He laughs, scratching her behind her ear just how she likes it.
The screaming starts sharp, a high-pitched wail that rings in his ears, forcing him to his knees with his hands clasped to his head.
Naranja kicks out, his head turned to a skull with glowing red eyes, and he turns to ash in front of his eyes before he can blink.
There’s a raging inferno surrounding him, his arm is gone, where is Shimá, where is Gabe?
Where the hell is his team?
Where is he?
The flames circle closer—closer—
His eye burns, searing through his bones till he’s nothing left but cinders—
And Jesse startles awake—again—soaked in sweat and in a house that is wrong in ways he could never put into words.
Hanzo wakes up alone, just as he fell asleep.
He clamps down the bitter wave seeping up through him. Soba twists unhappily, sending a jolt of electricity down his arm and he grunts, turning—
And gets caught in folds of deep red wool.
He stills, thumb tracing the lines of gold that border Jesse’s serape before sitting up, detangling and wrapping the soft cloth around his shoulder, hiding his burning ears from the judging living room.
The living room with giant French doors leading to a huge backyard.
How had he not noticed that?
Right. Jetlag.
The smell of cooking (baking?) distracts from the promise of exploration, and he sneaks back to the kitchen, peeking around the entryway.
Jesse is cooking again.
Since when does he cook this often?
The McCree he knew could barely scrape together canned beans or a sunny-side up egg. He scrounged on leftovers or cleaned dishes on the chore roster. The old guard made jokes, ribbing his old skill of burning any food to a crisp.
He didn’t make perfect tamagoyaki and... pancakes?
He was making pancakes. And bacon.
There’s a French press he hadn’t found the night before, and the heady scent of coffee permeating the air.
“What are you doing?”
“Mornin’ sunshine.” Jesse turns, flipping a pancake in an effortless twist that makes Hanzo’s throat close up.
That also might be the ridiculously pink and frilly ‘Kiss the cook’ apron he’s wearing.
It’s ridiculous. It’s... it’s…
It was doing horrible things to Hanzo’s brain.
Specifically situations where Jesse was wearing nothing but that apron and-
“Earth to Han? Darlin’’?”
“What.” He blinks, staring into dark amber eyes that have somehow come nose to nose with him, and he snaps a half step back, near slipping on smooth hardwood. “What is it?”
“Coffee’s ready hun, wanna sit down?” Those deep, dark eyes seem to stare into his soul, and his eyes dart away, nodding.
He lets Jesse guide him to the charming (and why was everything in this house so charming?) table, bullied into the chair with a steaming cup of dark, rich coffee.
The cup is ridiculous, covered in cartoon bees and wildflowers. There’s a spread of creams, sugars (white and brown), honey, butter, jams…
He barely has the chance to look on, slack-jawed, when a plate stacked high with golden, fluffy pancakes and topped with crunchy, crisped bacon is set in front of him.
Did he say he wasn’t going to have a gay panic attack?
He drowns that thought by stuffing his face.
The coffee’s divine, though he drowns it in too much sugar and cream to be considered ‘healthy’ or ‘cavity avoiding.’ The bacon is crisp and fatty, and the pancakes, drenched in honey and butter, are fluffy and perfect.
Enthralled by his food, he misses the lovelorn, heartbroken stare Jesse has leveled at him.
“Han?”
“Hmm?” Hanzo mumbles, fork half sticking out of his mouth.
Jesse leans forward, thumb brushing against Hanzo’s chin, slow and deliberate, gentle.
It burns. Hanzo feels his ears burn red when Jesse pulls away a chunk of pancake coated in sticky honey and licks it into his mouth.
“Missed a lil’ bit there, sweetheart.”
He was going to die.
Once they’ve washed up—and he’d refused to let Jesse do it alone, like he couldn’t help at all, he was not that useless—he learns he missed morning chores.
Apparently this was not just a home, not to Jesse.
This was a ranch.
He’s given a perfunctory tour of the home: the living room and kitchen, which he’s already seen; a study;, weapons room/surveillance op; a guest bedroom; two full baths; and the master bedroom.
It’s gorgeous, and from what little information he can glean from Jesse, he’s built it himself, ground-up from the aftermath of the crisis.
Finally, they reach the French doors leading out to a dry heat that knocks Hanzo back from the sheer intensity like a slap to the face.
Jesse shows no ill effect at all. Damn him and his desert acclimated body.
The back side of the home is a lush garden, full of trees and cacti and flora. Though, to his eternal shame, the grass is yellowed and dying under his feet. Cracking and snapping under each footfall.
Nice grass . He thinks. I should be shot. Of all things.
“The kids have been excited all morning, I think they know you’re here.” Jesse drawls, leading Hanzo down a short cobbled path.
“The kids?” He asks, eyebrow cocking up, “Did you forget to mention other lovers? Former dalliances? How many child support payments are you behind on McCree?”
Jesse chuckles, a tiny smirk wrapped around a brand new cigarillo, though he has yet to light it. “Darlin’! You wound me!”
“I have done nothing of the sort.”
“Nah darlin’, you’ll see.”
He huffs.
Jesse leads him into a long building, the doors swinging inward to the smell of fresh hay and manure—
Oh.
Four beautiful, loud, smelly horses.
“Oh.”
Jesse laughs and hands Hanzo an apple slice. “One at a time then.”
Marigold is the baby, seven years old and saved from a breeding mill. Jesse found her through one of his jobs and she’s a sweetheart, gently taking the offered apple and kissing Hanzo’s hand in recompense.
Blue is a retired racing horse, near lamed from his racing days and prone to limping. He’s shy, but Jesse bribes him with oats and eventually, he lets Hanzo pet his mane, combing out the knots gently.
Lady is Jesse’s pride, his baby, though he tries not to show favoritism. (Hanzo sees him sneaking her an extra piece, don’t you lie to me Jesse McCree.) She’s a chocolate thoroughbred that he bought first.
She brought back some life to his home.
The last….
“Maybe... we should leave Rebel for when you got both hands.” Jesse pauses. “He’s not the most…. sociable.”
“I can hardly believe my ears. Jesse McCree, famous cowboy, unable to steer one horse?”
He watches Jesse bristle, a smug smirk oozing across his face as his boyfriend snarls.
“Darlin’... You don’t tame a mustang. They put up with you.”
“All I’m hearing is excuses, cowboy.”
He watches Jesse crumble from the slump of his shoulders to the droop of his eyebrows before he sighs.
“It’s your death wish.”
Rebel is a bastard.
He’s three stalls away from the others, and Hanzo’s about to question the decision before Jesse stops Hanzo from stepping forward, prosthetic elbow jammed in the spot where Hanzo’s head would have been caught between the jaws of a furious horse.
“Morning to you too, Rebel.” Jesse drawls. “Did you want an apple? Or is my arm tastin’ better this morning than yesterday?”
The mustang grunts, backing off and flicking his ears.
It feels like a middle finger.
“I like him.”
“Of course you do.”
“He’s mine now.”
“Darlin’!”
Once Jesse’s done the last checks on the kids, he leads Hanzo away, promising they’d come back later, and towards a greenhouse.
“You’re a farmer.” Hanzo wonders, “I’m dating a farmer.”
“Rancher, darlin’. I have a ranch. Horses, sometimes chickens. Barely grow anything.”
“But you do grow things. Thus farmer.”
Jesse groans, pulling the brim of his hat down, hiding his face and burning cheeks.
Hanzo, ignoring his boyfriend’s suffering, wanders into the greenhouse. There’s a generous variety of vegetables and fruits growing: peppers, herbs, and tubers, all lined up and labeled in rows.
“What is all this for?”
“I sell produce seasonally. There’s a farmers market that’s pretty nice in town, it makes a decent sum. Anita, the neighbor, takes care of the kids and the produce when I’m gone, and she gets a cut for taking care of the place. Her family’s nice, they’re new around here and didn’t see the place before the crisis.”
“I like it.” Hanzo hums. “I like this place. You’ve put such effort and care into it. There’s more property, yes? It expands into the wilderness? When the sling comes off, perhaps you can take me for a horse ride.”
The kiss Jesse sweeps him up into is breathtaking, and his head spins in all the right ways when they break apart.
“Darlin you are so fuckin’... hell yeah, let’s take you out for a ride soon.”
He snorts. “Perhaps in more than one way.”
Jesse’s offended shout echoes across the canyon.
Three days into their stay, groceries run out.
Jesse wakes him at ass-crack o’clock, bundled in wools and mittens, the early spring chill setting into the desert’s early morning.
Bessie starts in spurts, a roaring hum under his feet that warms Hanzo’s through within minutes.
Thank lord for diesel fuel heaters.
The trip into town is short, and Hanzo suffers it by pelting Jesse with peanut shells when he sings with the radio.
It just makes Jesse sing louder.
When Bessie comes to a halt, Hanzo bails, slamming poor Bessie’s door shut and speeding (well, not really) into a packed farmers market.
He loses Jesse in the crowd, the sound of his laughter smothered behind him. Hanzo takes a moment to enjoy the fresh air, taking a deep, long, breath; the crisp air coils in his lungs and escapes like the smoke of dragons of his own blood.
The market is a booming, living thing around him. It breathes, moves around him, parting like water, people passing by, children squabbling over fresh caramels and vendors advertising their wares.
The sudden scent of baked goods catches him, and he follows his nose.
Jesse wheezes, watching Hanzo run from his bad (and he can admit it, it’s bad) rendition of a near hundred-year-old rock song. But how could he resist?
Watching Hanzo’s ears go red is a rare treat.
The market thrives around him, a humming, beautiful thing. The last time he had been home, the winter snap had scared his community into their homes against the cold. He’d holed up in a tiny bar hours out of town, not quite into Mexico, and crawled into a bottle.
It didn’t manage to drown out the screams but it did well enough.
Christmas wasn’t his best moment.
He meanders, picking up the necessities and greeting the locals. Sally’s grown quite a bit, helping with her dad’s stall. George waves him down from behind the catacombs of his massive beehives, and hands off far too much honey for two grown men to use in six weeks.
“George c’mon, this is too much—”
“Morricone, take the damn honey, I owe you a lot more.”
He nods, tipping a non-present hat and moving on.
Once the truck bed fills up, the cooler topped with fresh milk and dairy, he tracks down Hanzo.
It doesn’t take long.
Hanzo’s ever present sweet tooth betrays him yet again. He’s munching away at cookies, and Señorita Isabella has gone into lecture mode, describing the merits of each of her products.
Knowing Hanzo, he’d buy the entire stock, and Jesse wouldn’t get a bite.
“Now hold up there Darlin’ Haru, don’t go runnin off on me like that.” Jesse strolls up, an arm wrapping around Hanzo’s waist and pulling him flush against his side. “I see Lady Isabella has you in her clutches.”
“None for you.” Hanzo grumbles.
“Honey! I’m hurt!” Jesse gasps, metal fingers pressed against his chest in mock hurt.
“So Joel finally brings a man home. I thought I’d never see the day.”
Jesse laughs, turning his grin on Senorita Isabella. “Aw c’mon granny, I’m a catch. Gotta show my man the homestead!”
“Your man wants cookies.” Hanzo grumbled, sticking the last of Isabella’s famous chocolate chip cookies past his perfect lips.
“Well then, Señorita Isabella, how about two dozen of my man’s choice? And your lovely apple pie, of course.”
The lady scoffs, packing away his order, the chit chat smoothing over his ears and Jesse’s knuckles running over Hanzo’s hip.
Hanzo presses against his side, an offended huff leaving his lips. “You are rather famous.”
“All in the charm, Darlin’.”
“No.” Hanzo mumbles. “No, I don’t think it is.”
Jesse takes him to breakfast afterwards in a small, hole-in-the-wall cafe, their legs tangled together under the table pressed tight from knee to ankle. The booth is soft, his ass sinking into the cushions as he stares at the menu.
The server recognizes Jesse and asks after him, his horses.
Asks about Hanzo.
“Ah, Sofia, meet Haru. My Darlin’ came down with me this year to see the place and meet the kids. Thought it’d be good for a vacation, you know? Haru, this is Sofia, she built this place up all on her own, owns it too.”
“Ah, hello.” Hanzo nods. “It’s good to meet you.”
Sofia smiles, bright as the sun, and Hanzo is getting uncomfortable with how friendly people are here.
Or perhaps how friendly they are with him.
He’s saved by Jesse, the gentlemen he is.
“How’re the kids doin’ Sofia? How’s Annie’s elementary classes going?”
“She’s doin’ great! Straight A’s this year! I’ll let her know Uncle Joel is here for a visit.”
“Aw well ain’t that great. Give her a hug from me.”
“Will do. Let me know when y’all are ready, all right?”
“Will do, sweetheart.”
Sofia walks away, and Jesse winks. “You decide what you want Haru? Not sure if you were hungry after all those cookies.”
He snorts. “Do you have any actual recommendations? Or will you leave me to flounder on my own, Joel? ”
Jesse grins, slow like molasses, and sets his menu aside with a slow confidence that settles electricity into Hanzo’s bones.
“I got you honey.”
Honey drenched sopaipillas, spicy hatch green chile enchiladas and hearty posole filling their stomachs along with far too many margaritas plied into Hanzo’s hands by a charming cowboy have him just past the point of too soft for his own good.
He wonders, watching Jesse pick up the tab yet again, sweet-talking the waitress and getting more sopaipillas packed (which Hanzo WILL hoard, of course) if he deserves this.
This softness. This gentle care and attention.
Driving home, Jesse sings loud, grinning at his partner and laughing as Hanzo hums along.
He wonders if he gets to have this man who somehow thinks he’s worth the effort of reform and forgiveness. He’s just like Genji, thinking he was worth hope, and reformation.
This is Jesse’s home. These people know him, as much as they could know an alias. He’s well entrenched in his life. A simple travelling rancher and journalist.
And he’s brought Hanzo along.
Willingly.
Thought him worth opening his home too, risking his safety for. His anonymity, his peace.
What was he supposed to do with that? He spends the rest of the day helping put away the groceries and feeding the kids in a fugue state.
Jesse doesn’t bring it up, but Hanzo knows he’s acting off. Jesse makes onigiri for dinner, misshapen and sticky, nori flaking between his fingers, but bursting with flavor.
It’s like he’s falling deeper into the spider web of affection.
It’s terrifying.
The days slip by, he sleeps in Jesse’s bed, and Angela oversees his physiotherapy over holo-vid.
And he wonders.
Recovery is frustrating, and his daily check-ins with Angela are... annoying, but he makes progress.
Days slip by, days of sleeping in Jesse’s bed, eating Jesse’s homemade food and helping around the ranch. The horses slowly warm to him, though Jesse refuses to allow him near Rebel without him by Hanzo’s side, constantly blocking bites or kicks from the mustang.
He falls in love with the cottonwood tree offering shade to the wide porch, spending evenings in its shade while Jesse makes dinner. The fireflies surround the porch in flickering lights every night, a sea of warm yellow light.
It’s… peaceful.
More than he’s been in ages.
The shiny bugs look tasty!
Don’t be an idiot. They’ll be too crunchy.
And there it ends.
Neither of you are eating bugs.
Aw.
You need to stop thinking with your mouth Soba.
Hanzo huffs, rolling his eyes and casting a glance back at Jesse through the window, the kitchen window framing him in the low evening light.
The man is perfectly content, swaying his hips to an inaudible pop tune on a cranky old radio, sleeves rolled up and a tacky man bun up—
In all the time they spent together on base, he’d never seen the man this…
Free.
Sometimes though, he catches a far off look in Jesse’s eyes. Like he’s lost just out of Hanzo’s reach.
It happens at the oddest times: repairing the kitchen sink’s ever present drip, sweeping the porch, fixing a hole in his serape, feeding the kids—
Little moments—
Hanzo recognizes it, in a way.
It’s the face he saw in the mirror for years.
A man haunted by ghosts. Staring over the edge, barely holding on.
At the tipping point.
“Scootch up Darlin’, make some room.”
He shakes his head, pulled from his musings to grin up at Jesse, “Already tired?” Jesse grumbles, dropping onto the porch swing with a rough woven basket between his legs.
“Keep up that attitude and you won’t get any crepes.”
“Well, we can’t have that.”
Jesse smiles, warm and syrupy, and goes about divvying up the goods, sticky mango smearing across Hanzo’s lip as he bites into the sweet.
“You have been holding out on me, pretending to not be able to cook.”
“Aw Darlin’ I didn’t mean ta offend.”
He huffs, digging into the second crepe he steals from Jesse’s hand, ignoring the offended squawk it gets. “Not good enough. You’ve spoiled me, I expect this daily from now.”
“Well, I aim to please.” Jesse hums, that mischievous spark shining through his eyes.
Oh.
Oh.
“Is that so?”
“I wanted to show you home. Let you enjoy the place.”
“And bribing me with sweets is supposed to achieve what, exactly?” He asks, eyebrows raised.
“What else? Gettin’ you to relax, hun.” Jesse hums, cuddling up closer to him. “You’ve been all sorts of stressed, it’s been good to see you indulge in that sweet tooth of yours.”
He shoves Jesse for that, ears burning red as Jesse’s serape and getting shit-all for it, Jesse chuckling under his breath before cuddling back into his space like an over-sized pup.
He tolerates it.
More so when Jesse starts peppering kisses along his cheek, soft and ticklish, leaving a scratch of beard burn in his wake.
“Tickles.” He grumbles, free hand tangling in Jesse’s wild hair.
“Aw, sorry Darlin’.” Jesse laughs, sounding not at all sorry, sneaking a quick kiss against his lips before angling further down. “How about I make it up to you?”
He hums, taking a moment to let Jesse stew in anticipation, those glittering umber eyes staring up at him.
“Very well.”
Jesse nods, leaning up to steal a deep, filthy kiss, lips tangling together before he slides away and Hanzo grumbles at the loss, biting his lower lip in recompense.
“Rude.”
“Let me make it up to you.” Jesse hums, pulling the zipper of Hanzo’s hoodie down inch by painstaking inch, letting the cool evening breeze brush against his overheated skin like a balm. Goosebumps erupt over the trail Jesse’s mouth leaves behind, down the hollow of his throat, the dip of clavicle—
He gasps as Jesse tweaks at a nipple, twisting meanly before sucking at the other.
Hanzo claws his hands down Jesse’s back, his t-shirt rucking up under his palms as Jesse drags himself down—down—down—
Till all he felt was an iron hot brand against his member, Jesse’s wide palm pulling him up out of his sweats and into Jesse’s wide, smug mouth—
And from there, it’s all but over.
In the aftermath, with Jesse laying sprawled across his lap like an over-achieving golden retriever and his nerves gone to some other dimension he can’t quite recall—
Hanzo sighs, fully content to whittle away the rest of the evening under the clear desert sky.
Jesse grins, too goddamn smug for him to be anything other than bragging, but Hanzo lets it slide (for now).
He stares up at the cottonwood swaying in the wind, watching the leaves come off in gentle tufts.
“That tree... was my Shimá’s favorite.”
Hanzo startles, staring down at Jesse, who’s gone glassy-eyed at the tree he’d been staring at.
“Your... Shimá?”
Jesse grunts. “it’s.. Navajo. For mother. My family was Diné, cept my pa. Just used to it.”
Hanzo nods, looking up at the tree for a moment before speaking. “She loved it then?
Jesse nods “Shimá loved how the colors changed every season. She loved to sit under it every evening and feed the chicks there… it’s the only thing that survived the fire.”
There’s so much in that one sentence, he can barely unpack it.
He stares back at the tree, and it’s yellowing, gentle leaves, and thinks.
“It reminds me of the willow tree we had in the garden. After my mother’s passing, they chopped it down... my father couldn’t bear to see it.”
Jesse nods, “I’m sorry you lost that reminder of her.”
“I’m sorry you lost your mother.” Hanzo whispers.
They sit in the silence, hands clasped together, and stay like that for hours till the first rays of morning shine through the clouds.
One morning, after a successful grocery run where Señorita Isabella scalps him for a strawberry and honey-drizzled cheesecake that Hanzo’s been staring at for what seems like an eternity, he takes a detour before heading home.
Hanzo, bless his soul, doesn’t notice, lost in his sugar haze of crepes.
He’s been a little lost recently, despite stopping Rebel from snapping at him every two seconds.
And oh how that had burned, watching his mustang nuzzle up to Hanzo like an oversized puppy. He couldn’t get the beast to stop snapping at him, and Hanzo got him to eat straight out of the palm of his hand!
He lied, it’s adorable. His heart is melting.
The arboretum is a little out of the way, but the owners have the best saplings and seeds for miles around. There’s not much else around for miles save for desert outside the greenhouse and long lines of blooming cactus and shedding trees, hardy desert flora and fragile imports.
“What is this place?”
“Got an order to pick up, but I thought you’d like a change a pace. I figured I needed some new plants for the garden and flowers for the windows.”
“So you are not just a farmer, but a housewife.” Hanzo chuckled. “Decorating with floating plants and kitschy kitchen accessories.”
“Hey now, you leave my lavender sprouts out of this!” Jesse chuckles, leading the way into the building.
“I will bring up the lavender as much as I want.” Hanzo walks past him, a cheeky grin on his face.
It’s nice.
“Go ahead an look around, see if you like anything specific. I’ll go grab the order. Won’t take a minute, sugarplum.”
Jesse strolls away, watching Hanzo waver, like the gentle swaying wind chimes could uproot the man with the barest touch.
He wonders—
Half an hour of bartering and friendly banter later, he has seeds in hand; the poblano peppers that had shriveled in last year’s crop can be replanted. He even has some new corn seedlings ready for a trial run. He’s never grown the vegetable before, though he remembers his mother having rows upon rows of them, stretching as far as he could see.
Maybe it’s time to restart a tradition.
“So Joel—” Jordan starts, her chipper tone pitching up another octave. “Who’s the handsome fella?”
“Not you too! C’mon, can’t a man have his privacy?” Jesse groans, rolling his eyes before ruffling the teenager’s hair.
“Hey!” She ducks, not avoiding the disaster he’d imparted to her ‘do, before sticking her tongue out at him. “Everyone’s talking about it, Mr. Grump finally brought a date home. Of course we wanna know all about it.”
Jesse sighs., “It ain’t like that? I don’t think? We’re—Haru’s—he’s a special sort.”
Jordan squints.
“You’re a moron.”
“Hey! Does your pa know you talk to customers like that?”
“Pa’d tell you the same, I’m just relayin’ the message.”
“Brat.” He laughs, coming to a stop next to a row of decorative plants.
Some that look mighty familiar.
“How about you help me out with something else?”
They find Hanzo deep in the decorative flower section.
Jesse grins, the cheekiness of a young boy giving him a spring in his step as he sneaks up behind his lover and—
“What is it, Joel?”
“Aw dang, you caught me.” He groans, tucking his chin over Hanzo’s shoulder and looking at what has Hanzo stuck, both feet planted firmly to the floor.
Hanzo, for his part, continues to stare daggers at the innocent thing.
The thing, of course, being a bonsai.
A camellia bonsai, to be exact.
“Now what’d that poor thing do to get the old whiter-and-die glare?” He leans forward, grasping the pot and picking up the fragile thing.
“Wait no—” Hanzo protests, but he can’t stop Jesse when he holds the tree out of reach, on Hanzo’s bad side (and he’d pay for that later, if Hanzo stepping savagely on his foot is any indicator.)
It’s gorgeous really, deep red and pink petals against a small but sturdy trunk, healthy green leaves shining back up under his touch.
Jesse pauses, watching Hanzo—who is studiously not looking at him, arms crossed and chin raised as if to challenge any comment.
There isn’t much from Japan in Santa Fe after all.
“Hey Jordan,” Jesse shouts, “Got something else for you to pack up.”
The look of pure awe that flickers across Hanzo’s face is one he tucks away in his chest before it flutters away, masked by his usual indifference.
He betrays himself by the glow of blue around his arm, and a bright red around the tip of his ears.
Jordan winks at him when she hands over his purchase, and he takes the ribbing with good grace.
Hanzo spends the drive with the bonsai in his lap, another lost look on his face.
The bonsai joins his chamomile flowers on the windowsill, the evening sunlight shining through the leaves like a curtain of moss.
Hanzo walks like he’s in a mist, putting the milk in the pantry and the rice in the fridge. He does the wrong exercises on the wrong arm and gets scolded by Angela.
Even the horses notice. Rebel chomping on Hanzo’s pineapple ponytail in offense at getting half his usual dinner.
Jesse watches, eyes narrowed as he corrects Hanzo when they plant the corn seedlings. The poblanos are set aside to go into the soil next week.
Dinner’s muted, Hanzo’s usual enthusiasm cut, and Jesse sighs, letting him sit while he washes up.
“Cmon, up you get. We’re getting drunk,” Jesse coaxes, pulling Hanzo up by the hand and dragging him along to the couch, handle of whiskey in hand. “And getting drunk needs sweets, so pie. Now sit.”
Hanzo grumbles, flopping on the couch with no less grace than a house cat doped up on two month’s worth of cat-nip, glowering at Jesse through slitted eyelids. “And what’s the point of getting drunk right now?”
“Don’t need a point in having fun with my Darlin’.” He pours two thumbs of warmed whiskey into a pair of tumblers, offering one to Hanzo with a wink. “C’mon Darlin’, humor an old cowboy.”
Hanzo groans, a low, amused sound, and huffs through his nose before he snatches the glass, taking a long swallow.
Jesse watches his throat work, Adam’s apple bobbing, and forces himself to swallow.
“Darlin’—”
“Mmnh?” Hanzo huffs, wiping away a stray drop of amber moonshine. “What is it Jesse?”
“Babe, what’s got you in all a twist these last few days? You’ve been all outta sorts.”
Hanzo pauses, fingers grazing the rim of the glass. “There is nothing wrong—”
“Bullshit.”
Hanzo’s face pulls back into a snarl, fangs glinting in the low-light. “Do not presume—”
“I’ll presume all I want when you’ve been actin like a eunuch in a whorehouse—” Hanzo makes a sound between confused and disgusted, “—but whatever bullshit is goin’ on in yer head, I’m tired of it. The self-hating bullshit crap you put yerself through, I see it whenever you look at Genji just a lil’ too long. You get... distant. Like you might be here, but your mind is far away. And now you’re lookin at me like that.”
Hanzo stutters, a breath catching in his throat before he speaks.
“McCree—I—”
“Hey now… what happened to Jesse?” He grins, tight around the corners. “Don’t go two steps back on me now.”
Hanzo swallows, and Jesse stares him down, unflinching.
The silence stretches, unrelenting, interrupted only by the steady ticking of the corner grandfather clock, a steady drum to their stand-off.
“You... are not wrong Jesse.” Hanzo says, shoulders slumped. “You brought me here, to a place that is intrinsically bound to you and your safety. And you’ve trusted me with this. At a risk to yourself. How could you expect me to just accept—”
“Accept what? That someone cares ‘bout yer self-sacrificial, reckless ass?” He cuts Hanzo off, and if his deer-in-the-headlights look is anything to go by, he hadn’t been expecting it. “Well, I do, and I’m not gonna stop because you don’t think you deserve it.”
“And you would risk your identity for this? Your home?”
“ Dammit Hanzo,” Jesse hisses, slamming his glass down and crowding into his boyfriend’s space. “I wouldn’t have brought you here if I wasn’t serious about it. If I didn’t know that I wanted to see you feedin’ the horses and gettin’ lost in the farmers’ market and wakin’ up in my bed—”
He’s saved any further embarrassment when Hanzo grabs him by the collar and smashes their lips together, biting into Jesse’s mouth with a groan that resonates deep in his chest.
Jesse whines, hands coming up to cradle Hanzo’s face, but gets caught somewhere between the afghan and Hanzo’s sling. Hanzo hisses, nipping Jesse’s lip in retaliation.
“You’re embarrassing,”
“Aw Darlin’—” Jesse chuckles. “An’ here I thought you liked embarrassin’.”
Hanzo cuts a glare so vicious it could level a skyscraper.
Jesse grins, pulling back far enough to grab the pie.
“How big of a slice you want sweetpea?”
(In the end, McCree gets a small slice for himself, and Hanzo steals the rest of it, like the sweet tooth gremlin he is.)
Hours later, with the moon fat and yellow and heavy in the sky just visible out of Jesse’s gorgeous French doors, and his stomach full of spiced whiskey and warm apple pie (and damn Jesse, for exploiting his sweet tooth) he cuddles closer into Jesse’s shoulder, weathered serape thrown over them both in a facsimile of the first night.
He huffs, wondering, as Jesse stares down at him, if this is what being content is.
“Hey Darlin’, why were you glarin’ at that poor camellia somethin’ awful this mornin’?” Jesse asks, drawl already deep, pitched low and husky under the whiskey’s fire.
“Tsubaki are... they are a particular flower that are associated with warriors and samurai.” He whispers, eyes drawn to the bonsai. “They symbolize a noble death in that, when they bloom, they silently behead themselves.”
Jesse stills above him, staring at the flower before snorting “Well... that’s morbid as all fuck.”
Hanzo chuckles, shaking his head. “For most, the flower is just a flower. Like a red rose.”
“So I can say it means you’re all the passion I need?”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Aw Han, c’mon.”
He shakes his head, staring back out at the desert, stretching out for miles.
“I wonder what sakura would look like, against your desert sand.”
“Yeah?” Jesse asks.
“Mm.” he mumbles. “I miss it often, the blossom-viewing festivals. More so than I ever did tsubaki. That flower has only ever been full of bad luck and sorrowful deaths.”
Jesse’s face does another complicated thing, and Hanzo still has gotten no better at deciphering it, because as soon as it is there it’s gone, and he’s being bullied to his feet and towards bed.
It’s not until he’s drifting off, wrapped in warm arms and soft duvets, does he realize it was something akin to—
When Jesse wakes the next morning, it’s to a mouthful of hair and a damn gorgeous archer.
Honestly not a bad start to the day.
The blue glowing ferret-snakes are new, though.
He blinks.
Rubs his eyes.
Nope. Still there.
The twin radioactive hallucinations stare back at Jesse, one curled up atop Hanzo’s back like a cat curled up under a patch of sun.
The other one is just… floating.
Ok.
This is new.
The floating one glares (?) at him, its fluffy mane puffing out before it drops straight onto his chest, horns (and why the hell does it have horns?!) poking into his skin, just on the side of uncomfortable before huffing out a sigh and falling asleep right there.
What in the fucking hell?!
He freezes up, breath caught in a sudden half state as he watches the three other living things sleeping on him, and connects the dots.
Ho—ly shit.
One hand, (the prosthetic, Jesse ain’t losing what little remains to curiosity) lifts, and he runs a finger along the mane of the dragon sleeping on his chest.
The dragon puffs out a huff and pushes into the touch, nuzzling his finger with a long, tooth-filled maw and oh geez—
He’ss petting a dragon.
Reeha's never gonna believe this.
Hanzo drifts awake in bits and pieces, Jesse’s usual alarm replaced by the sounds of—
Laughter?
He groans, burying his face further into a warm chest.
Jesse shuffles under him, a muscular arm coming up to wrap around his shoulders, his sleeping sling tightening.
Stupid thing.
He sighs, cracking his eyes open to a sight not unlike one of those American sitcoms.
Jesse grins, tossing a ball across the room, a wide smile splitting his face.
Like the sun was tucked into his chest.
“Are you always this rambunctious in the mornings?”
Jesse turns that blinding smile down on him.
“Just when I got a handsome man in my bed.”
“Flatterer.”
Two simultaneous squeaks crash that thought into a steaming pile of rubble.
Soba scampersup, a small ball clamped in her mouth.
What?
“Well look at that, ain’t you a wonderful gal?” Jesse croons.
Soba squeezes the ball between two rows of sharp fangs, the plastic sack squeaking pathetically.
This cannot be happening.
“Now c’mon, you know how this goes, hand it over.”
Jesse moves to snatch the ball.
Soba whines, skittering back and crashing into Udon, the two tumbling into a knotted pretzel and teetering off the bed into the ether.
A cacophony of angry squeaks follows.
“Well, there they go.” Jesse huffs, meeting Hanzo’s eyes with a smirk. “They’re a rambunctious sort, aren’t they?”
“You can see them.”
The sudden crease in Jesse’s brow leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.
“The noodles? Course I can, kinda hard not to, with em glowing up in my face Darlin’—”
“Noodles?!” Hanzo squeaks.
Great spirit guardians, passed from generation to generation, familiar form never seen outside of the family line.
Likened to common food.
Jesse played fetch with us! Why do we never play fetch?
Soba! Let go of the ball!
No!
The two tussle, rolling under the bed as Hanzo gapes.
“Hanzo?”
“I-I do not—” He starts, torn between the urge to strangle his fools of spirits and drowning himself in the shower from sheer mortification.
They played fetch for god’s sake.
He’d never live it down.
Attention hungry fools.
He finally meets Jesse’s eyes (as the two dragons slam into another leg of the bed).
“Sounds like I got myself into another Shimada pickle.” Jesse chuckles, and it almost makes it ok.
Almost.
“You’ve seen them on the field before. Our dragons don’t reveal themselves in such a form to anyone other than family, but—”
He’s interrupted by two noodles flopping onto his chest.
Master! I have the ball!
NO! It’s my turn for Jesse to throw for!
The two snap at each other, the small, sad pink ball missing a few chunks of plastic in it.
He shoots a glare at Jesse, a ‘this is your fault and you’ll get yelled at for it later,’ glare.
“Hey now! I didn’t do nothin’!”
“You did everything.” Hanzo huffs, snatching the ball with practiced ease.
Master!
Master why!!
“You’ve had enough.”
They whined.
Spoiled brats!
“Hey now, listen to your pops you two.” Jesse scolds, waggling a finger like one would to unruly toddlers.
His head explodes when the two bow their heads, contrite.
Shameless!
“Well, looks like your thing about family has an exception.” Jesse says, Udon rubbing against his hand.
“... It seems so.”
Can we have pancakes today?
When Jesse actually gets the chance to call Naruto 2.0, the conversation… is enlightening as much as it is confusing as hell.
“Hey Genji, when did Zen meet yer dragon?”
“After our marriage. Though Ramen was ready the first week we met… wait, why are you asking?”
“...”
“You didn’t.”
“Hey now! I didn’t expect a face fulla noodle—”
Genji’s howling echoes across the earpiece, manic and tinny.
“Hanzo you Soul Hoe!”
The sling comes off the next day, and Hanzo feels free for the first time in over a month.
Angela’s work is perfect, as always. His fist grasps Rebel’s reigns in a firm hold.
Jesse stands a few feet away, suiting up Lady, though his eyes are trained, hawk-like, on the two of them.
Hanzo smirks.
“Honestly. You just need a firm hand. I know Jesse isn’t much of the sort—”
“Hey!”
“But I think we can get along. Don’t you think?”
Rebel huffs.
Rebel lets Hanzo get the saddle on him without a fight.
He lets him mount .
Jesse stares.
How many years he’s had that stubborn mustang, and he’d never gotten one foot over the saddle before Rebel bucked him off.
And here Hanzo is, less than a month in and in the saddle.
It’s a goddamn miracle.
He scrambles up on Lady’s back, kicking into a trot behind Hanzo as they head onto the well-worn path leading into the mountains behind his property.
“Didn’t know you knew how to ride Darlin’,” he says, leaning forward and loosening his grip on Lady’s reins.
Hanzo shoots him a mean-looking smirk—and oh, there it was.
“Yabusame was one of the many archery forms I had mastered in childhood. Simple riding is nothing in comparison.”
He whistles, long and low. “Mounted archery, huh? Must’ve been a sight.”
“Perhaps one day you may bear witness.” Hanzo smirks, bringing Rebel to a trot beside him, and the horses butt heads.
“I think I’m bearing witness to a much better sight right now hun.” He grins, eyes dragging down Hanzo’s chest, even tucked away in his stolen-button down as it is. It doesn’t stop the buttons from trying to pop open, the poor things barely holding closed. “Got all the eye candy I need.”
“Then perhaps... some inspiration.”
“Huh?”
Hanzo chuckles, low and dark, and it has Jesse’s stomach dropping to his knees.
Before he can say another word, he moves.
Hanzo snatches his hat off his head with lightning speed, his head bare in a second, hair puffed up and frizzed under the harsh sun.
He doesn’t notice, though, when Hanzo drops it on his own head and winked at him.
“Giddy up Cowboy.”
Oh.
His tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth, eyes wide and palms sweaty, at the moment Hanzo turns and gallops away.
Well.
Shit.
“Now hold on a minute!!”
Game on.
It ends, as it always does: with them tangled together, lips chasing each other in a mess of limbs rolling around in the hay.
“Sneaky ‘lil minx.” Jesse grabs at Hanzo’s shirt, the poor buttons straining under his fingers.
“You’re as predictable as always.” He smirks, grabbing at Jesse’s ample backside.
Jesse huffs, working his shirt open with quick flicks of the wrist. That familiar, broad, furred chest comes into view as he laughs, reaching up to grab at the cowboy’s neck, dragging him down to mash their lips together. Jesse grunts, an aborted, half disgruntled sound into his mouth.
Hanzo smirks, nibbling on Jesse’s lower lip. The gasp he pulls out of Jesse is deep in his chest and echoes into a growl.
Jesse’s hands, iron brands against his hips, drag him up to rut lazily against each other. He grunts, eyes shut and head thrown back, Jesse’s hat goes rolling off, lost in the mess of hay poking into his back as his boyfriend mouths along the edge of his tattoo, nipping a dark hickey into the column of Hanzo’s throat.
He can feel Jesse through his jeans, heavy leather chaps dragging against his own. It’s tortuous, and he reaches down to unzip them, to try to relieve some of the tension building up—
Before Jesse catches his hands in a tight, iron grip.
“Nu-uh, not yet Darlin’.” Jesse hums, dark and pitched like molasses, teasing as Hanzo groans.
“Bastard—”
Jesse laughs, (the damn fool) eyes glittering as he presses his weight down. Their hips slot against each other like an uneven Jenga puzzle.
Hanzo’s thoughts flatline, derailed into simple heat and need.
Damn cowboy.
“God yer pretty, specially in my gear—” Jesse mumbles into his skin, beard tickling against his neck.
“Flatterer,” He spits, dragging his nails down Jesse’s chest, enjoying the shiver he gets out of him. “Now move, cowboy.”
Jesse smirks, that extra spark back in his eyes, glinting in the low light.
Right before he pushes him into the rest of the hay.
Hanzo counts that as a win.
Jesse heads into town one day alone, far too early for Hanzo to be bothered to get up, and promises to return with cake.
That was excuse enough.
It gives him reason to sleep in, at least.
After feeding the kids, (and thwarting yet another attack on his hair from Rebel), he takes to exploring the property.
Jesse had explained the breadth of it before, but he hasn’t seen the rest of it.
“The area covers around four acres, roundabout,” Jesse said over paella and fresh grilled shrimp. “I haven’t done much with it, was plannin’ to maybe get some chickens, plant some fruit trees, but with all the runnin around I ain’t been around enough.”
“So for now it’s a large field?” Hanzo asked.
“Just about. And some mountain paths.”
Thinking back on the conversation, he sighs, saddling up Rebel before heading out.
They’d spent some days tending the weeds and hacking at overgrown ivy, so he evaded those swaths, following the fencing along before circling around to the mountain edge.
He finds craggy, broken down remains of what he assumes were homes at one point, built of the same clay and brick of Jesse’s humble home scattered like small gravestones throughout, hidden beneath scrub brush and knee-high grass.
Until he climbs further into the mountains and finds a small alcove.
Bordered off, protected.
He slips off Rebel’s back, tying him to a nearby post before slipping into the opening.
His breath catches.
Small, white and grey crosses and headstones dotted the ground, wooden crosses rammed into pliant earth and names carved into memorial.
This is a grave.
A tomb.
It throws him back to the Shimada Clan Manor, his mother’s and father’s neat and pristine gravestones side by side.
Genji’s.
He kneels, soil soaking his hakama as his hand traces the names of the nearest cross, a smooth, white marble.
Gabbie McCree
2039-2044
So young.
He glances down the line, finding similar names.
Similar dates.
2044.
Just around the beginning of the Omnic crisis.
A yawning pit opens in his chest, a numbness he can’t tamp.
He shuffles out of the alcove, questions burning in his chest and threatening to spill over.
Questions he doesn't know if he could ask.
If it was even his place.
Rebel whinnies, nipping at his sleeve before cantering down the mountain.
He pats his mane and heads home.
Jesse gets home with a spring in his step and an armful of cake.
It’s even strawberry sponge-cake.
“Señorita Isabella missed you today, she even gave me a discount for, an I quote, ‘her favorite customer.’” Jesse grins, offering a large slice to Hanzo, a smaller plate in his own hand.
Hanzo nods, biting his tongue.
“Perhaps now you will be more sociable in town,” he jibes. “After so many years and only now you get a discount?”
“Yeah yeah, have yer fun.” Jesse rolls his eyes, flopping onto the couch and digging into the treat. “Ain’t like I’m treatin’ yer sweet tooth—oh wait.”
“Yes, yes, we all know what a sacrifice it is.” Hanzo hums, staring into the small, gentle curls of whipped cream. The sponge-cake is decadent and sweet, and the fruit tart.
Still, he keeps drifting back to the little alcove of graves and names he knew all too well.
Most if only through Jesse’s nightmare fueled sobs.
Jesse groans and cuddles into Hanzo’s lap, startling Hanzo.
“What are you doing?” he asks, blinking in confusion.
“I’m bushed Darlin’, been runnin’ around all day. Mind being a pillow for me?”
“No. You’re heavy. Get off you cow-fool.” Hanzo grumbles, accepting his fate and running his fingers through Jesse’s hair.
“Oh? Rude.” Jesse grins, leaning into the touch.
Hanzo doesn’t respond.
Udon and Soba scamper around, playing with a few plush toys that Jesse had left around for them to mess with.
Hanzo sighs.
He feels truly laid low.
He stared out the French doors, the sun setting over the horizon, bleeding pink and yellow. He can hear the kids neighing out back and birds crying overhead.
It’s something he could get used to.
“Alright, spill.”
Hanzo stills, hand buried deep in Jesse’s hair.
“What?”
Jesse cracks an eye open, meeting Hanzo’s gaze. “Something’s eating at ya. Wanna let it off yer chest?”
Hanzo pauses, biting his cheek before sighing.
“I found a small graveyard today. Up in the mountains.”
Jesse stills, his chest freezing before taking shallow breaths, shutting his eyes and taking a deep breath.
“Did you now.”
“I did not mean to... intrude.” He stumbles. “But... I recognised the names. At least, some of them.”
The silence hangs heavy in the hair, the two quiet before Jesse swallows.
Jesse sighs. “It’s not... that ain’t your fault honey.”
“Being an orphan is not yours either.”
The silence stretches.
He can hear each tick of the grandfather clock’s second hand.
Tic, tic, tic.
Hanzo’s fingers tug insistently, snagging a stubborn tangle before smoothing it out and continuing their path. Rough calluses rubbing circles into his scalp.
Even now, thinking about it is…
He hadn’t expected Hanzo to stumble face-first into his family, but... well.
Here they were.
He’d never have to tell anyone about this. But if he couldn’t tell Hanzo... who would he tell?
Who else? When he brought them into the home he built atop the ruins of his childhood.
He doesn't know how to explain.
“Jesse?”
He looks up, wide amber eyes meeting dark umber.
“Sorry Darlin’, I just... tryin to find the words.”
Hanzo nods, mouth set in a grim, heavy line, and Jesse’s tempted to kiss the serious look off his face. it’s so adorable.
“In your own time.”
He nods, settling in deeper, cheek nuzzled into Hanzo’s lap.
Might as well enjoy a few comforts he could while recounting this shit.
“I was born on this ranch, had a whole family. Told you that before a bit. We gave some riding lessons—that’s how I met Ashe, she was the prissy rich girl that hated coming cuz her parents forced her to, and I was a snot-nosed kid that loved the horses.”
Hanzo nodded, a flicker of a frown passing over his face before Jesse keeps going.
“Well, she stopped comin, didn’t see her again till long after but… after the raids, and the bombings, and the waves of omnics and fires…”
He pauses, voice catching before pummeling through. “Well, after that, I was an orphan, and she was still a prissy rich girl with an authority problem—and then—”
“And then you made Deadlock.”
“We made Deadlock,” Jesse nodded, “And then I turned traitor for Blackwatch… and after the fall… I was alone.”
He shuts his eyes, letting himself sink into Hanzo’s hands running through his hair.
“So... after a while, I came back. There wasn’t much left. I tried to see what I could salvage but... there wasn’t much.”
Mustangs long since run off or shot, their carcasses rotted away and skeletons bleached under the scorching desert sun.
He can’t put into words the pain of finding nothing but broken, rotting timber that crumbled to ash under his fingers. Nothing but some cracked foundation and warped flooring.
Somehow, his mother’s necklace survived. Pinned under a charred door frame and hidden from raiders and scavengers that decided the ruin was an easy target.
That first night, he wrapped his fist around the chain, clasped like a prayer, and sobbed.
He was all that was left.
“So... I rebuilt. Buried the bones, or what I could find, in our family plot… and I left.”
(He doesn’t bring up the fact that he’ll be buried in that same plot one day, probably sooner than later, right next to his mother and sister and even further back.
Or how he found them one after the other—
How it broke his soul into another piece each time he did.
His grandmother, his father, mother.
His sister.
Nothing more than skulls and half eaten skeletons, scavenged by wild animals and the elements.)
But he tries his best not to think about it.
“I’d come back every once in a while, with money from my bounties and hunts. Got the kids eventually and started paying the neighbors to take care of the place when I wasn’t around. They didn’t know me, still don’t—not really. Hell, they moved here long after the crisis; they don’t have a connection to my town, they don’t know the truth.”
“They don’t know you survived.” Hanzo whispers, his voice a soothing balm.
He chuckles, a hoarse, wry thing. “They know the tragedy, but no one around here connected the dots. Most folks think the whole family got wiped out. No need to dissuade ‘em otherwise.”
“But… I can’t… there ain’t no way I can explain the feelin’ of digging up my lil sister’s skull from under a shattered roof. Havin’ to bury her, and everyone else? I can’t… This place is all I got left. I remade it as best I could. Some changes here and there, but… it’s never gonna be like it was. I just knew I needed my home back. I needed to know I’ll be buried in my home. I don’t remember the songs. The traditions, the funeral rites. I was too young. I might be Diné, but—”
He chokes, tears catching in his throat before shutting down.
Hanzo, the beautiful bastard, just holds him closer.
“My people were born here, they died here... and I’ll die here too. Same as them,” He chokes out, and Hanzo hums, a gentle serenade against his ears.
He falls asleep there, and it’s a peace he hasn’t gotten in years.
He takes Hanzo up to the plot himself the next day.
The kids don’t make much fuss, they know the route pretty well by now after all these years, but Jesse still holds them with a firm hand.
Hanzo keeps quiet through the entire trip up, shoulders locked like he’s on the way to an execution.
They tie off the kids before slipping into the tomb, and Jesse kneels before the graves, whispering a soft prayer in words Hanzo doesn’t recognize before turning back to him.
“Wanna meet the gang hun?”
He watches Hanzo teeter between unsure and awkward before nodding stiffly, and Jesse offers a hand, pulling him in and getting him to kneel beside him.
“Hanzo, this is Gabbie. My lil sis. She was a rambunctious sort, always stealing cookies from the top shelf—but she’s got a big heart. Gabbie, this...is my honey Hanzo, he’s been real good to me, I hope you like him too. He’s a little grumpy sometimes, but he can be real sweet when you get to know ‘em.”
Hanzo flushes, right up to the tip of his ears (and it’s a sight to behold) before bowing. “It’s good to meet you, Gabbie.”
It’s easier. This time.
Hanzo makes dinner this time around.
He burns it, quesadillas turning black against the stovetop. But he tried anyhow, and that’s what matters.
Jesse eats it anyhow, stealing it before Hanzo could dispose of the sad thing.
Hanzo’s loud, angry protesting aside, he chomps down every bite.
The noodles think he’s crazy for it, but hell, anything for love, right?
Three days before they’re set to head back to Gibraltar, their clothes hung out to dry and the high noon sun beating down, Jesse bullies Hanzo into Bessie for one last trip into town.
“I hardly see why you need me for a milk run.” Hanzo grouses “I’d rather stay to pack.”
“And here I thought you hated packing.” Jesse rolls his eyes, absently scratching Soba under her chin as she curls around his neck, purring like a cat in the sun. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while sweetheart, c’mon,” he cajoles, grinning that same charming smile he always does, and Hanzo melts.
He’d had plans to spend the day lazing with the kids.
Though... confronted with that smile…
Rebel could wait a bit.
Soba squeaks in agreement.
The arboretum is as lush as it was the first time they came.
Jesse leaves Hanzo amongst a field of fertilizer, sacks of manure stacked high in wheelbarrows. Rows of tomato seedlings sway in the breeze, the sharp smell of just cut grass and blooming flora tickling his nose.
He grumbles, letting the noodles loose to explore as they wait. Udon wavers in the air, like a lazy kite on a slow summer day.
It forces a snort from him, the sight of the two of them lazing about burning a little ember of joy in his heart.
He drifts, wandering between the rows of tomato plants, palm tickling as he runs his fingers along the stems.
One particular seedling catches his eye, its stem drooping heavily and sun spots all along the leaves.
It looks sad.
Pathetic little thing.
Hanzo shifts, eyes darting from side to side.
No one around.
Good.
(He would deny, to his dying day, that he ever did this.)
Hanzo kneels, eye-level with the sad thing before whispering, “You can do it, little one. Those sun spots don’t suit you after all.”
The tomato wavers, bobbing in the wind.
He grunted, “Thats the spir—”
A thick pair of arms encircle his waist, lifting (and he forgets— far too often—how strong Jesse is despite his bulk) Hanzo off the ground in one smooth movement.
“McCree!!” He yelped, squirming against the hold as Jesse laughs, the booming sound vibrating through Hanzo’s back for a brief moment before he’s dropped—
In another wheelbarrow.
His ass meets soil and what must be a bag of fertilizer, and he glares up at his boyfriend, snarling through fangs. “JESSE—”
Jesse grins wide and easy, holding onto the wheelbarrow like a farmer ready to plant. “Oh c’mon Darlin’, ye didn’t even notice yer gift.”
“What gift are you blathering on about?” he hisses, before his eyes drift back down to the wheelbarrow he was stuck in.
Oh.
Oh.
There, in a gold gilded pot, is a healthy, beautiful sakura sapling.
He might be a bit gob-smacked.
A bit more than gob-smacked.
Soba and Udon are downright delighted, perching in the top branches and shouting at Hanzo like it is the summer solstice festival.
His tongue’s glued to the roof of his mouth, jaw working uselessly as he stares, caught between the plant and Jesse.
Jesse, the dumb, perfect bastard, is far too smug for his liking. Like a cat that got the cream, grinning at the three of them before tossing a casual thanks behind him to the owner (he assumes), and as you so please, wheels Hanzo out of the shop and towards the rusty abomination truck.
“Thought you outta have something to remind you of home whenever you wanna come.” Jesse says, “It’ll take a while to get real big though, but we can do with a mini sakura petal viewing show for now.”
Hanzo stares, incredulous.
“You mean... for the house.”
Soba squeaks.
Jesse nods. “Yeah, I mean, I like you, and… I figured it would be nice for you to have something whenever we come to town.”
“You assume I’ll be coming back.”
“Aw Darlin’ I know you will, at least for some country sweets and to see the kids.”
“You are incorrigible.”
Jesse laughs, doubling up on himself. “Hey now! I thought you liked me!!”
“You make assumptions—”
“Hey now—”
“Simply liking you is a poor description of the depth of my feelings for you.”
The look on Jesse’s face in one he’ll cherish for years to come. Shock, oozing into confusion and then hopeful joy.
“Ya mean—” He starts, and honestly—
Hanzo’s had enough of waiting, of holding his breath.
At the tipping point.
He grabs Jesse by the lapels, pulling him forward and smashing their lips together beneath the baby sakura’s fluttering branches.
The muffled squeak he gets before Jesse goes pliant under his grasp is worth everything.
It’s a wonder Jesse doesn’t drop Hanzo and the tree.
(The noodles, for their part, seem overjoyed by the development.)
They plant the tree in the front yard, in the perfect spot with just the right amount of sunlight just off the porch.
Hanzo's just a bit smug that it’ll eventually frame the home, kitty-corner the old cottonwood.
Their future, alongside the past.
The last three days of packing take hardly any time at all, and Hanzo’s disappointed as he’s brushing the horses down on the last night. Rebel nips his hand gently and gets an extra treat before he heads to bed.
The end of the month comes in a blink of an eye, Hanzo helping Jesse put away the bedding and covering the furniture again before locking up.
And they leave.
But not for the last time.
They come back now and again, most times together, sometimes alone.
Hanzo becomes a fixture of the town, the local sugar fiend and resident animal whisperer, taming every beast they adopt. Even the more irritable sorts.
And once Overwatch goes legit?
They retire.
They settle. Make a home, and a life for themselves.
Tired after years of being on the run, not wanting to further endanger their friends, or to bring doubt on Overwatch’s legal status with their histories.
They let the new blood take over.
So they have too many dogs, a lot of horses, and a few chickens that, though Jesse had protested, Hanzo becomes unreasonably attached to.
Sometimes the others visit. Genji, Angela, Reeha.
They’re happy.
Soon, the sakura tree grows, it blooms and gets stronger. Gives more and more shade. Each spring, they sit on their porch and enjoy their own private flower viewing festival.
