Chapter Text
Hanzo Shimada’s life began and ended with his bottle of sake. In the privacy of his small room at the Watchpoint, he let his world meltdown until it was just him and the current bottle. He’d start small, with one drink using his proper sake set and his masu. But, then the thoughts came bubbling up with the burn that hit the back of the throat, and he’d forgo the set and ceremony in favor of drinking straight from the bottle.
It was easy to fall into after the initial drink. He’d put the set away to clean and polish later, ever so particularly, but in that moment, all he cared about was reaching a state in which he didn’t feel consumed by the cold chill of guilt in his chest. It got harder and harder everyday, trying to reach the calm, relaxed state induced by his drink of choice. Always took a couple more sips each time to get there, but it wasn’t as if Hanzo minded. There were always more bottles of sake to be purchased, with family money still accumulating in his back account, and always more nights to be had.
He spent every night alone, just as he had for the past ten years. Though, there was certainly more alcohol than there used to be in his nightly rituals. When was it that he stopped using the masu for every drink, and not just the first? The answer eluded him and he let it go in favor of drinking the last drops of that night’s bottle.
He was warm, and that was all that mattered at night.
-
The mornings were initially difficult, though Hanzo never let anyone see his own aftermath. He’d pull out his flask and take a hardy sip to help ease the hangover, before getting to work meticulously putting his room back together. The empty bottle is properly disposed off, the set is washed and polished, and he washes his face free of any tears that might have come to stain his cheeks during his long night. By the time he finished his morning ritual, eased by his handy flask, his headache was gone and he nearly felt human again.
Interacting with the other members of new Overwatch was hard and inevitable. There were small polite comments to be made, and he had some sort of image to keep up. He was the arrogant archer, and it was imperative that he played his role in the elaborate stage of Overwatch’s daily dramas.
The encounters that went beyond simple “Good morning”’s and “How are you?”’s were the hardest for him. When people had questions on their mission schedule, or if Hanzo had seen this person or that one, when Winston and the Soldier were briefing him on his roles and his vantage points for an upcoming mission. Hanzo had to sit through these encounters and pretend as if the chill hadn’t spread to his head and as if his own voices and that of the dragons in his skin weren’t eating him alive.
It left him exhausted. He had avoided unnecessary contact for years, never needed to know more than the name and the bounty from someone before he could blessedly leave to do his job. Now, surrounded by more people than he had properly interacted with in years, it was hard for him to navigate the social structures and find his place among the group of agents, old and new.
It was hardest with Overwatch’s old members. Those who had known Genji and were there to bear witness to the horrible things he had done to his brother. Had seen the slashes, the stabs, the loss of limbs, the blood, the flames, the flames, the flames.
Stop.
The dragons never stop, the dragons constantly remind him of how he let the flames consume himself and his brother. Remind him that the loss of his own legs will never even compare to the loss and damages he inflicted on his brother, on their counterpart dragon. Once they begin, they never stop and they grow louder and louder, yelling and snarling until it feels as if his head was going to explode and he weighed thousands of pounds, unable to move unable to speak unable to cry out for help-
Stop.
Take a drink. And another, and another.
Feel the slight warmth running through his veins, just enough to quiet the dragons down a bit until they leave the forefront of his mind.
Where was he?
In the middle of a mission briefing. Winston, Reinhardt, Soldier, McCree, Tracer, and Dr. Ziegler sat at the conference table around him, chatting back and forth while looking over a map of their next mission, on Ilios.
His flask was half empty. He was going to finish it by the end of the briefing, that much was certain.
McCree was looking at him. Why was he looking at him?
He’s probably remembering what Genji was like, probably thinking about how you inflicted so much pain and death upon your own kin, your own brother. He’s probably thinking about how Genji used to throw himself into harms way on purpose, used to pull out his wires and attempt to destroy the “omnic” body he’d been forced into after Hanzo murdered him.
Hanzo cannot hold that stare for any longer, looking away under the pretense of looking at the map. He doesn’t know why they plan these things out to such detail. He used to pride in these meetings, used to participate. Until he had been on the ground with these people and found out that no matter how much they planned, it was going to be hell on the ground and all of Hanzo’s carefully laid plans were abandoned in favor of his team winging it.
He takes another long drink, and lets himself drift off to let the warmth spread through his body, slowly, systematically.
After the meeting is dismissed, McCree is still looking at him. He might be in the middle of a conversation with the good doctor and the crusader, but he is most certainly looking at Hanzo. It’s unnerving, and Hanzo reaches for his flask to find it empty.
He’ll have to refill it when he gets back to his room. He was going to hit up the target range for a couple of hours, practice and hone his skills some more before the meeting, but he’ll go to his room first. There’s no way he would be able to go to the practice range practically sober.
McCree tries to catch him on his way out but gets interrupted by a Tracer blinking right in front of him. Quietly, Hanzo is grateful because he wasn’t sure that he’d be able to stand under the cowboy’s critical gaze any longer. His fingernails bite into his palm, hands curled nervously as he made his way back to his room.
There’s nothing more satisfying than opening up a fresh bottle of sake. He steals a quick drink straight from the bottle, to calm his nerves, before pouring some into his flask. He grabs stormbow and heads out.
There were multiple firing ranges in the old watchpoint, but when restoring the Watchpoint to functionality, many of them were abandoned. Hanzo has picked one out for his own, customizing it to his own practice needs and his preferences. Targets were at various angles and distances, perfect for the archer to practice and even lose himself to the feeling of nocking an arrow, pulling the tight bowstring, and hearing the satisfying Thunk when it hit the desired target.
He was just getting ready to aim an arrow when the doors of the practice range squeaked open, startling him. He released the arrow, wincing at the sound of the arrow clanking against the ground, just short of the target. He turned, shocked to see the gunslinger himself at the doorway.
“I didn’t know anyone else came down here,” Hanzo murmured, as an apology for occupying the space. “If you’d like to practice, I can gather my arrows in a moment-”
The cowboy didn’t let him finish. “I came down here to talk to ya’, darlin’.” He approached slowly, almost as if he was certain that Hanzo would be scared off and run to escape. “Everyone’s getting together tonight to watch some movies in the common room. Lucio’s idea. The kid seems real excited ‘bout gettin’ us all together, somethin’ about team bonding. Basically, I wanted to extend his invitation to ya’,” McCree explained, coming to a stop about four feet away from Hanzo, ever so hesitant.
But it wasn’t just about the movie night, was it? No, this had to be tied into the looks of concern McCree shot at him during the meeting. So the gunslinger was worried about him, probably because Hanzo had spent every night in his room in the four months since Genji took the extended mission. Worrying is bad. Worrying means that McCree cares about him maybe even slightly, might even come to check on him sometime. Worry leads to someone finding out about his nightly rituals and thinking that it’s time to put a stop to the one thing that keeps Hanzo Shimada alive.
So, Hanzo smiles at him as best as he could muster, as if he was truly excited to hear about this invitation. “I’ll attend, then, if it means that much to him. I’ll just need to shower first. The common room…Is that the room that is next to the kitchen?” He hadn’t ever been in that room. Never had the desire to enter it, considering that there was always a minimum of four people in it during their down time. Too many people. How many people did “everyone” entail? How many people would look at Hanzo, the archer, the cold blooded murderer, the kin slayer, the brother kill-
“Yeah, that would be the one. If you’d like to help set up, come by around eighteen hundred. We’ll be making snacks, setting up the couches with pillows n’ stuff. It’ll be nice.”
Hanzo found himself nodding, and his lips quirk up into another faux smile. “I look forward to it.”
McCree gives him a hard look, as if he could see right through the facade that Hanzo was trying so hard to keep up. He sighed after a moment, and tilted his hat up a bit so he could look Hanzo in the eyes properly. “You know, just ‘cause Genji isn’t here doesn’t mean that you’re all alone. Sure, bunch o’ us disliked you in the beginning because we knew what Genji was like, ‘fore the fall and all. But if Genji can forgive you, the rest of us can too. Nobody hates you here, Hanzo. Don’t be a stranger to us.” He didn’t let Hanzo respond, turning on his heels and marching out of the room with his spurs jingling.
Hanzo thought it would be easier if he was just dead, at that exact moment. He found himself pulling the arrows out from the targets mechanically, thinking about how much effort it would take to keep up a facade for an entire night. He certainly wouldn’t do it sober, couldn’t afford for the dragons to start speaking up when surrounded by their whole team.
It was going to be a long night.
-
He grabbed the bottle directly, after his shower. Another fresh one. How many did that make this week? Five or six? Probably. Taking a hefty swig, he leaned against his bed frame. God, he was hardly even presentable. McCree hadn’t really mentioned any kind of dress code for such a gathering, so Hanzo had donned his sweatpants and a comfortable t-shirt. However, it wasn’t his clothes that were dragging his look down. His hair wasn’t really cooperating after his shower, and his eyes looked empty when he had checked himself briefly in the mirror. It was rare for him to spend more than just a glance in the mirror, to notice something like that, but it seemed jarring how dull they looked compared to what they used to look like.
Why did he agree to go, anyways? What would they get out of having him sitting there between all of the heroes of their team? Nothing, they’d probably be uncomfortable having a murder in the room. A kill- He cut himself off a bit earlier than usual on the dragon’s usual phrase by taking another long drink.
Leaning against the bed became sitting at the foot of it, going between trying to tame in his hair and taking easy sips of the alcohol to fill the time. What did that clock say? Ah, it didn’t matter. He still had plenty of time til he had to be in the common room.
And so time passed.
And the amount of sake in the battle got steadily lower until it was empty. Which absolutely wouldn’t do, because he was hardly feeling that lovely warmth going through his body. He got up, attempting to shuffle his way towards the closet that he kept both the empty and the full bottles of sake in, the ones he had shipped in by the crate without the knowledge of Dr. Ziegler or Winston. He tried to put the bottle down gently. He did. But it seemed like it was too far from the ground when he released it from his fingers, hitting the tile of the closet harshly and cracking itself open.
“Damn,” He muttered, leaning over to pick up the shattered pieces of glass. His balance wasn’t quite what it was when he was sober, and he found himself falling into the bottles. He grimaced as he felt some of the glass cut into his hands and knees, knowing it would be pretty hard to explain at a later date.
The dragons began to speak up again, blue beginning to rise up from the points of his cuts. He could see their strong blue running through his veins, could feel their power come up through him.
“Kinslayer,” Ryuu hissed out, rising up from his left wrist.
“Brother killer,” Tatsuo added, coming up from the right. “You killed your own kin because you were too weak to see the clan was controlling you,” He hissed, urging Hanzo’s hands downwards to grab one of the pieces of glass.
“It’s only a matter of time before before he realizes you are beyond redemption,” Ryuu added helpfully, staring up at Hanzo with his glowing eyes.
“Before he comes to kill you, give you the end you deserve after what you did to him,” Tatsuo finished, pushing the hand down til the glass shard was pressed up against Hanzo’s left wrist.
“Don’t give him the opportunity to. Do it yourself and you’ll be free, Hanzo,” They spoke in unison this time and Hanzo found himself unable to deny their logic.
He didn’t think it smart to deny the wise dragons, even though their advice seemed as sound as it was scary. He pressed his hand down on his own wrist, the pain of the shard of glass cutting in deep dulled by the warm lull from the sake.
The dragons seemed to grin and laugh, curling around each other as they watched the blood begin to drip down from his wrists onto the floor. The only light with which Hanzo could see his arm in was the illumination from the dragons, from those wise spirits as he began to bleed out.
Bang, bang, bang at his door, startling Hanzo even in his drunken haze. “Leave, I do not wish to be bothered,” He slurred out, his head turning towards the open door of the closet as the room door was opened anyways. “I said leave, the dragon does not wish to be disturbed,” He repeated, realizing that the blood was beginning to flow much faster now.
“Hanzo, what the are you doing in the closet? Why didn’t you come to the common room?” McCree’s voice steadily coming closer.
Shit, that was not good, was it? The dragon spirits were hissing, growing larger as they threatened to take away the last of Hanzo’s strength.
“Hanzo!” McCree gaped, looking between the curling angry dragon spirits looming in the closet space to Hanzo’s wrist wound. “Hanzo,” He repeated, moving past Ryuu and Tatsuo to pull Hanzo into his arms.
“Ang’, get to your clinic. Hanzo’s injured, looks like he’s lost a lot of blood. Seems self-inflicted, thinkin’ he’s drunk off his ass.” McCree huffed out into his com, shifting Hanzo in his arms so he could move faster towards the medbay.
Hanzo’s vision was getting steadily permeated by black dots, the sight of McCree getting blurrier and blurrier until everything was black.
“Hanzo, stay with me, darlin’...”