( closed ) we're out of practice, we're out of sight

[peacekeeps]

who: jesse mccree & hanzo shimada
what: reaper has been in town for like 10 minutes and has laid the full wwe smackdown on everyone's triggers, !!THANKS DAD!! after which jesse checks in on the shimada he knows least.
when: 4-16 presumably
where: communal housing, floor 8
warnings: none!

[ nighttime again in the communal housing. jesse still can't think of ways to successfully avoid this place. lucky enough he and reaper seem to exist perennially outside of each other's orbit. the work keeps him busy too—he tells himself it's useful to have the lay of the land; truthfully he's pitifully grateful for the excuse to stay on the move. it keeps him from seeing that rotten face at night when he closes his eyes, black smoke spilling into his memories; it keeps him from remembering the newscast the day it happened, explosion in zurich, ten different broadcast languages to tell him the only man who ever believed in him was dead, and maybe he should've been caught in that rubble too.

he's in the kitchens at half three for what feels like the hundredth time but is in actuality just the fourth or fifth. the coffeemaker's feeling especially indolent today, the drip just arrhythmic enough to keep jesse from going wholly out of focus. he's in civilian wear today, or as close to it as he gets: shawl hung up by his bunk, hat too, just sweats and a tee after his late shift, his gun on the counter like reyes could change his mind in the middle of the night (when jesse, if he's honest with himself, knows he won't).

he's rubbing his face with his cold hand to wake up a little more when he hears footsteps in the hall behind him. his attention shifts just enough to realize that it's hanzo shimada. there's a split-second where he remembers genji tearing out of the room like a bat out of hell and then coming back tight in the shoulders, all closed up when he's been so careful to be open, and he remembers hanzo coming back later looking like he got hit by a freighter—and his mouth works before his brain does. ]

Hey, Hanzo. [ he's calling out into the hall, low enough not to wake anyone else up. ] You got a sec?

Comments

[peacekeeps]

[ he chuckles to himself and he can't tell to what, exactly--it all seems unlikely but far from impossible, that the man seated at the table was a boy once who needed constraints on his sweet tooth, that they really are alike in this. he pours into the unchipped mug, slings the kettle back onto the stovetop and reaches up to rifle through the cabinet. ]

Is that right.

[ he finds the small honey jar and circles back around at last, stepping over to the small table, setting everything down tidily one by one: his own coffee, the tea, the sweetener. ]

Seems to me like we're co-runnin' a pretty beat-down club then, partner.

[kuyamu]

[ his head dips forward in a bow to thank McCree as he sets their drinks out, the gesture habitual, and then opens the honey to drop spoonfuls into his tea.

he doesn't know whether it's from the show of courtesy or just that McCree's easy nature is infectious, but Hanzo feels much more relaxed than he did only a moment ago when he walked in here. (wonders, idly, if that was McCree's intention, to ply him with good manners.) it's a soothing balm to his tiredness, at least, making it hazy instead of weighted. ]

We apparently meet at three in the morning to discuss our lives over vile drinks. [ finished with the honey, he picks up his mug in both hands and takes a sip; and then he meets McCree's eye with a smile a little less bleak. ] The club was almost certainly doomed from the start.

[peacekeeps]

[ he settles down in the seat opposite hanzo in a sprawl, one arm slinging its way over the back of the seat. he curves his other hand around his mug. there's an answering small smile on his own face, a twist of his mouth that's both sardonic and relenting, caving into the feeling that he's managed to carve out some kind of liminal space where he doesn't have to act relaxed. he's surprised by how easy it feels for him to push, even though by all rights it's not like he cares, not like he knows anyone these days well enough to peel back their open wounds. ]

Club ain't doomed till one of us figures out a bedtime.

[kuyamu]

[ Hanzo snorts; he's surprised, really, by how much he enjoys McCree's humour, how effortless it is to fall into step with his banter. it happened even back in the elevator, and Hanzo thinks it might be the sharp edge just beneath the surface of McCree that makes things easy just as much as the friendly charm he projects.

although — he looks over McCree, lazily draped over a chair — although, he is absurdly laid-back. it might be that everyone has this kind of rapport with him. ]

Ah. [ he leans forward onto the table, forearms braced on its surface. ] Then really, its survival is guaranteed until Genji finds out about it.

[ he's learning strange new things about this back-from-the-dead Genji all the time, and possibly one of the strangest is that he seems concerned about things like his own and others' health. Hanzo can't count the number of times he used to find Genji stumbling through the door at 3AM, 4AM, still drunk or high or bleeding — and right now he's almost sure Genji would tell him to go to sleep, if he found him out here in the kitchen at this time.

certainly now after that confrontation. now that he knows Hanzo has spent his days here waiting to die. ]

[peacekeeps]

He does know how to worry, don't he. Wasn't like that when I knew him.

[ he sounds more bemused than nostalgic. he's still trying to figure out where the past ends and all of them begin, and with reaper in the picture it's easier said than done.

he's quiet for a moment, and then—yeah, okay, he can't resist. he's been careful not to pry with either brother about the past, content to let other people's bygones remain their own, but. he feels like he's in it anyway, just a little, some distant asteroid accidentally caught in a wary orbit. ]

Was he like that with you?

[kuyamu]

[ that's such a ridiculous thought to associate with Genji as he was in the clan that Hanzo actually reacts with a bark of laughter — softened by the late hour, quiet so as not to wake anyone, but definitely a surprising sound from someone who has thus far been mostly restrained. ]

When I knew him, Genji would be dragged into the house at 4AM by guards, too drunk to stand on his own feet. [ he's nonchalant about it; he dealt with Genji for long enough to say this without any solemnity. the sharp burst of humour does dull as he goes on: ] He cared nothing for others. My brother was a selfish man and a ruthless assassin.

[ he knows that's not entirely true. there were times Genji would find Hanzo fracturing under stress from their father, or from the weight of the clan's expectations, and he would drop whatever he was doing to try and pull Hanzo back from the edge. ultimately it ended in them arguing more often than not, but it was a cycle that continued in the Shimada home until the very end. and Hanzo never really forgot that Genji was the only one then who ever worried for him at all, it just... he feels more aware of it now.

Genji did care, but. there's a lot of bitterness from those years that Hanzo still has to unravel on his own time. ]

[peacekeeps]

[ the laugh does take him aback, just for a second, but it's so obviously weighted that he can't quite appreciate it fully. he rests his chin on his hand instead, taking him in.

the man from hanzo's memories seems like a natural extension of the one jesse had met all those years ago: he'd seen that ruthlessness in action, at least. but if genji had seemed selfish back then too, then jesse reckoned that he had the right, the way people fold in on themselves after suffering. hanzo must have done the same; he doesn't seem all that used to company, anyway. or questions. or people like jesse who can't keep their fool mouths shut. ]

So you were the one doin' all the worryin' back then.

[kuyamu]

To call it worrying would be generous.

[ Hanzo is honest, but he always seems to be honest in the way of a man at a confessional, like everything he admits should condemn him. maybe because it's the only way he's ever talked about these things; kneeling before a shrine or a grave and imagining the dead looking down on him with disgust, the same way his errors were seen with contempt when he was the heir. his gaze drops, and then his eyes fall shut. ]

I was trying to run an empire. [ he won't let it sound as if he were any better than Genji. as a member of the family, certainly he did his duty, but as a person — on any scale, Hanzo would be worse. is still worse now, by leagues. ] The elders' expectations were that I would remove anything obstructing that. That is all I was concerned with.

[peacekeeps]

[ the unspoken obvious thing being that genji had proven the ultimate obstruction—he'd said as much, in their short time together before genji had disappeared. jesse lets his head linger on his hand. his expression doesn't change but remains sedate, just curious enough to keep pushing. ]

Did he know about it? When the order came down.

[kuyamu]

[ he isn't surprised that the conversation has gone in this direction, because McCree must have called him over for a reason, surely. and like he had said: heard y'all had a long day. he knows that Hanzo and Genji had some kind of talk, and that it didn't go well. given that, it seems obvious for this to come up eventually; he's waited long enough for someone to ask him directly about it.

still, it takes him a while to get the words out. broaching this with Genji means bypassing these parts, the description and details, because they both know what happened. he swallows, mouth dry, but doesn't drink. ]

No.

[ his voice is terribly quiet, paper-thin; the only reason he doesn't go tense is because he hasn't got the energy for it. his relaxation bleeds away into exhaustion instead, the form of him sinking like something unbearable is weighing down on him. ]

He knew they were angry. [ had to have known. the entire atmosphere of the estate changed when their father was killed, and Genji no longer had anyone to defend his rebellion. but maybe because of that, he wouldn't have noticed the tension ratchet up a few notches in the days before it happened. ] But that had been the case since Father died. When I handed him a sword and he realised I was serious, he looked at me like...

[ like Hanzo had already put the blade through him, his face pale with disbelief and betrayal. but really, Hanzo hadn't expected it any more than Genji did. he thought Genji would yield as soon as he realised the gravity of the elders' disapproval; maybe, at the very most he could imagine, they would fight and then Genji would understand, surrender before it could go too far. he never went there intending for Genji to die. it hadn't even been a possibility in his mind. so what does it say about him, then, that he carried it out even so?

Hanzo passes a hand over his eyes, a fine tremor running through him, visible in the way his fingers shake. ]