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The Only Ten I See, Ch. 11
🕑 Added 2019-12-16 02:43:57 +0000 UTCHey hey! I was gonna put this off until tomorrow, but I was getting on my own nerves picking at it incessantly, so I'm putting out a later-in-the-evening-than-usual update. I also think this may be the penultimate chapter. We'll see after final writing and edits whether there's one or two more chapters to go, but we are certainly near the end.
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[Genji]: It’s been a while since I got a complaint about McCree’s bad jokes. Are you sick or actually working for once?
The diner’s vinyl seat groaned as Hanzo shifted his weight. He stared at his phone for so long the screen went dark, at a loss once more for words worth sending to his brother. The text was innocuous. Teasing. Maybe even masking some actual concern over Hanzo’s recent silence. It was a relief to know that his brother cared enough to pester, but it also produced some minor distress that McCree — and the mission, surely — had managed to distract him from Genji.
Neither of those thoughts occupied him the way the last one did: there was nothing to suggest Genji knew about this thing with McCree. He fixated on the idea, unable to dislodge it now that it had arrived. He was uncertain whether Genji should know. Not telling him made it feel uncomfortably like a secret, but telling him seemed presumptuous somehow.
It assumed he and McCree had something worth discussing, and Hanzo realized he did not know that McCree would agree that they did. He wasn’t sure if Genji would care either, but if he did, there was a distinct possibility he would be annoyed to discover his brother and his close friend were... whatever they were. The other side of the dilemma was that Hanzo would quite like some advice on how he might go about asking McCree to define whatever they were, among other things, and he was not sure he had anyone to ask who was not Genji or McCree himself.
There were a dozen missteps he could make in any direction. Traps around every corner. He bit back frustration with McCree; however unfair it might have been, Hanzo wanted to blame him for all his turmoil. McCree should know he was hopeless at this and should therefore give him some guidance, or at least be the first to broach the subject. Instead Hanzo received no verbal confirmation of what it was he was working with, only several conflicting gut feelings — conflicting, and worse, coming from a gut that he could not trust to know what it was talking about even if it could settle on a singular conclusion.
He only barely resisted the urge to bash his forehead against the table’s sticky surface. They had work to do, and continuing to tie himself in knots over McCree was both a distraction from the mission and pointless given the current state of affairs. Things between them were pleasant — more than pleasant, albeit littered with lingering questions — and yet his restless mind found a way to nag him.
He supposed he should be grateful it had taken this long for doubt to wriggle back in. At least he had gotten a few days to actually enjoy himself.
There was a thump and another squeak from the seating as McCree returned to his spot across the table. “Havin’ second thoughts, honeysuckle?”
Hanzo was sure he blanched at the question before his brain caught up. McCree might have been observant, but he couldn’t read minds; he was focused on the mission, as Hanzo should have been.
“No. Are you?” He made himself relax, looser-limbed and smiling in spite of the sudden bout of anxiety lining his stomach.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? Because if you are not sure—”
“You’re gonna have to let me live it down one day,” McCree said with a lingering sigh.
“I don’t think that’s true.”
McCree’s eyes narrowed into an unimpressed squint. “It’s not gonna be a thing. Now go do… whatever.” The wiggle of McCree’s fingers was clearly meant to pass for nonchalance.
Hanzo wondered if, in another time and place, he could develop the nerve to assure McCree that he need not worry. Whatever else lay between them, Hanzo’s loyalties were quite clear. Both personally and professionally, he could list very few people with whom he might align himself ahead of McCree. If he dared to examine it long enough, he might find that the list held only a single name.
It was a terrifying thought, and this was not at all the time for it. He distracted himself — and briefly delayed the next step in their mission — by texting Genji back.
[Hanzo]: I am working.
It seemed too serious, maybe terse, but he didn’t know what else to say. A glance at the mention of McCree’s bad jokes made him chuckle and produce the worst possible thing he could think of in the moment.
[Hanzo]: ...on my tan.
That finally accomplished, he didn’t think he could put off the next step. With a last glance at McCree, he made his way to the diner’s counter seating. His approach was not as casual as he had hoped, if Sharon and her son’s blatant curiosity were anything to go by, but he could see few alternatives now that he’d begun.
“Hello, officer.”
Wade turned to him with a look of pleasant surprise. “Fancy seein’ you here.”
“I was hoping to speak to you in private, if we could.” Wade’s eyebrows shot up, and he glanced over his shoulder toward McCree, who was still seated at their table and staring very intently out the window. Hanzo had no proof of it, but he was almost positive McCree had been watching them before. “Not like that.”
There was little else he could say here in public, so he slipped the number to his burner phone across the slick countertop. Wade sighed as he took it, but his resigned smile did not seem false.
The text message arrived shortly after they left the diner. After some bickering wherein McCree reminded him he had absolutely no leg to stand on if he insisted on going alone, they drove to the address Wade had sent. It was an abandoned parking lot, half of it gravel and the other half faded, cracked asphalt. It was private and exposed all at once, but Wade was alone and unarmed. It didn’t make him entirely trustworthy, but it was at least a hint at good intentions.
Explaining the evidence they had available did not take too long. They had compiled a list of known members of the gang and identified the location of the weapons and means of transport. All the police had to do was follow up and ensure all the evidence went through the appropriate channels to count. The trickiest part was finding ways to explain it all without mentioning Natalie or the prior involvement of Ashe’s Deadlock chapter. They had to hedge somewhat in places, but the parts that mattered most were true.
“I can take it up with my captain,” Wade assured him when they were finished.
“Is your captain trustworthy?” Hanzo sighed as he watched Wade’s brow furrow. “We have reason to believe some of your people may be… compromised. This is why I am asking you instead of coming to the station.”
There was a wet whistle as the policeman sucked air through his teeth, but he nodded. “That does complicate it. I’ll look into it. It’s all I can promise.”
It seemed they would have to be satisfied with that.
In an ideal world, Wade’s involvement would take the whole thing out of their hands. But with the implication that there were police themselves involved with the gang activities, they couldn’t simply trust that Wade was one of the good ones — or that if he was, he could be successful when so many of his peers were corrupt.
It was also not as simple as dropping anonymous tips. They did that too, at least through the state agency. McCree was hesitant to tip off federal authorities. The higher up the chain the operation went, the more likely it was that the wrong people would notice McCree or, in some ways worse, recognize it not as the actions of a wanted criminal, but as Overwatch meddling. They couldn’t risk it yet.
And so they put their faith in whatever fraction of local law enforcement weren’t criminals themselves. If all went well, the locals could begin the cleanup, and McCree and Hanzo could be out of town before Tennessee authorities arrived.
For now, of course, they had to wait. Wait to see what Wade would do with the information, wait to find out if or how or when the local force would take action. Wait to see if it was successful.
If it came to it, Hanzo and McCree were more than capable of terminating the gang’s activities through less legal means. It was just that it seemed a drastic measure, given how many of them were new to this and only indirectly violent via their current smuggling operation.
Killing may not have been their preference this time, but they nonetheless readied themselves for all possible outcomes. They sat at the table, cloths and oils and spare pieces laid out between their coffee mugs. Hanzo had the one with the red barn this time, and McCree’s was an even tackier souvenir piece whose fading neon letters proclaimed, What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
Hanzo had already strung his bow, and he looked it and his arrows over, checking that nothing was in need of repair. Should worse come to worst, subtlety would no longer be required; he could work with his most efficient tools. The dragons moved restlessly under his skin too, readying themselves in response to Hanzo’s anticipation.
“I hate sittin’ on my hands,” McCree muttered. He wore his definitely-not-brooding face as he inspected his favored body armor, tugging at straps and running his fingers over its beaten surface. Like so many of the innocuous things he got up to, it was an unexpected threat to Hanzo’s ability to focus. He blamed the gleaming blue nipples.
“Are you craving a fight?”
McCree’s mouth tilted sideways. “I wouldn’t complain about an excuse to punch a few people.” There was this wry mischief on his face that he also got when he was about to proposition Hanzo for sex; this association did little to help Hanzo’s focus.
Drawing upon a lifetime of discipline, he returned to examining fletchings after only the briefest mental detour to a fantasy in which he scattered everything aside to indulge in further distractions. For a moment there was only the sound of their quiet preparations, then McCree sighed and glanced back up. “Talk to me.”
“About what?” Hanzo asked.
“Dunno. Just antsy, I guess. We’re almost done here. Lookin’ forward to going back?”
Hanzo considered it. Going back meant being face-to-face — face-to-mask, he thought ruefully — with his brother again. He did look forward to it, but it was never easy. And they would have to leave this place behind. Surely that spelled some inevitable change for this thing between him and McCree. “I’m not sure,” he answered honestly. “I like it here. Parts of it.” Even spoken so indirectly, it made him feel exposed. It was curiously difficult to say aloud, and it was made more so by McCree, who had ducked his head to study his armor again.
“It’s not so bad, but the charm’s wearing off. I’m ready to get back to normal.” McCree let out a puff of air Hanzo assumed was meant to be a laugh. “Back to jobs where we actually do things.”
“And then you will complain that you need a rest.”
McCree’s mouth tilted, but it didn’t make him laugh again the way Hanzo had hoped it would. “Probably. I still can’t wait to get back to my bed. Never thought I’d miss that thing.”
The way he said it set Hanzo on edge. He supposed it was unfair to interpret it to mean anything in particular, but it was hard not to wonder what McCree’s idea of getting back to normal entailed, or whether sleeping in his own bed also meant sleeping without Hanzo. The prospect of returning to the Watchpoint loomed, and he wondered once more what that meant for what they had here.
He did not know how to ask though, so he smiled blandly at McCree and went back to the task at hand. His efforts to focus were met with moderate success until his phone went off.
[Genji]: That was BAD.
[Genji]: You’re spending too much time around McCree.
Hanzo flipped the phone face down with more force than was strictly necessary, and he went back to his arrows. His face was hot, and he could feel McCree’s curious glances weighing on him.
Genji didn’t know. If he did know, this message was still only teasing. Genji had changed. There were no elders to report to, no father, no one pitting them against each other, and no need to divulge each other’s secrets to win a favor or two.
The two of them knowing each other again — as adults who had followed such different life paths than those laid out by their family — was as much the point of Hanzo’s commitment to Overwatch as any search for redemption. If Genji asked questions, it should mean simply that he cared to know about Hanzo, and if he teased, it was an effort to act like something approximating more typical siblings. Nothing more. Nothing hidden.
Besides, it was probably a coincidence and Hanzo was working himself up over nothing, running on ancient, paranoid instincts activated by his uncertainty over their impending return and all that it implied. Unless McCree had said something. But surely if Genji wished to discuss it, he would be much more direct; their arguments since reuniting were evidence of that much.
Despite his valiant efforts to argue with the voice in his head, the questions refused to go away. He thought he should contain them somehow, if only because he had not yet determined what the most likely consequence of asking them would be, but McCree forced his hand.
“You look like you’re planning to murder your phone.” Only once McCree brought it up did Hanzo realize he was scowling, brow knitted so tightly it took some effort to relax his face. He was sure the smile with which he tried to reassure McCree looked more sheepish than anything else.
He could not think of a good enough reason to deflect, and all his anxieties seemed to bubble up at once. He was grateful that he managed to sound as casual as he did. “Genji said something that made me wonder if you had told him. About—” Uncertain what he was meant to call it, he simply gestured between them.
McCree’s eyebrows shot up, but he covered it quickly with the return of that mischievous look. “About the kitchen table? Exciting mission prep?”
“About us.”
“Ah,” McCree said. If he was trying to convince Hanzo he hadn’t known that already, he was failing spectacularly. “I didn’t say anything to him. Did you?”
“No.”
“Okay.” McCree shot him a very strange look, and it seemed the only possible course of action was to agree that it was okay and return to their mission preparations.
He almost succeeded, except that he could feel McCree glancing up at him from time to time. Hanzo cleared his throat. “Did you want to? Say something, I mean.”
McCree let out a soft grunt. “Do you want to? You seem concerned about it.”
“I don’t know. I thought you might… know more about these things.” He had a sinking feeling in his stomach. It was bad enough to confess to a weakness, but it was worse to admit McCree did know more about some things. His know-it-all ego would be too pleased by it. Worst of all, though, it meant putting himself in yet another position to be vulnerable to any number of answers he might not like. He considered that it might be better not to know, and he wanted to climb under the table, maybe start digging through the flooring until he found one of those underground tunnels. Perhaps he could take up a new vocation as a mole person.
“Not like there’s a script here. But Genji’s not gonna care who you fool around with unless maybe he’s got his eye on ’em too.”
Something about those words made his body go cold with trepidation. He was not sure how he would describe what they were doing together, but… “Fool around?” He tried out the term and it tasted wrong, made his mouth feel too dry.
“Knock boots? Bury the weasel?” McCree’s mouth quirked up. “Do the forbidden polka?”
“You made at least one of those up.”
“I wish I did.” Despite the strange anxiety, it made Hanzo laugh. “Whatever you call it, you don’t have to tell him anything you don’t want to.”
None of this actually answered the question as Hanzo had intended it, but he could not tell whether McCree was only being funny or if this was more deliberate deflection. In either case, Hanzo’s options appeared to be to ask more directly or drop the subject altogether. He straightened his spine and asked, “And if you were going to tell Genji, what would you call it?”
“Ah,” McCree said again. He looked confused, then concerned, and then utterly inscrutable. With the flicker of each expression, the knot in Hanzo’s stomach coiled tighter. “You sure this is the best time for this conversation?” Hanzo regretted asking, and McCree continued in a rush. “It’s just that if we see action, I don’t want either of us distracted or off our game.”
They had agreed before: mission first. But that was with regard to physical activities. He was not sure what the protocol should be for settling his own inner turmoil. Part of him wished to back down; if he didn’t pursue it, he could perhaps go on believing that McCree’s reaction was only surprise.
He glanced again at McCree’s mug with its worn old letters meant to mimic a neon sign. There was a very real possibility he had misjudged the entire situation. The thought clawed at his throat, made it tight when he said, “You started it, and I assure you that anticipating some conversation is going to distract me at least as much.” He tried to relax, to make it sound like gentle chiding. If McCree’s face was anything to go by, he was not fully successful: a tiny flinch broke the unreadable mask.
“I don’t know. I haven’t given it much thought.” It didn’t sound like a lie, but it didn’t sound entirely true either.
“That seems… unlike you.”
McCree let out a laugh, but it sounded off too. “Does it? It’s just compartmentalization. There’s the job and you here, and everything else is somewhere else. So yeah, it’s cleaner not to think too much about it. It’s nobody’s business what we got up to here anyway.”
All the words and their meanings seemed to flood in at once: compartmentalization, here, got up to in past tense. McCree was avoiding telling anyone else. Whatever Hanzo’s desires for privacy, McCree’s seemed to extend somewhat beyond that. He wondered if it was shame or something even worse.
For a moment, a thousand words pushed so hard at Hanzo’s throat that none could escape. Then the cold of the realization settled it, and he felt strangely weightless. It wasn’t pleasant, but it did pass for something like calm. “Like Vegas, right?” he asked with a gesture toward McCree’s mug. He made himself smirk. McCree looked as if he might say more, but he ultimately held his tongue, so Hanzo added, “I understand.”
He didn’t, of course, or at least he did not like the things he could understand, but he wasn’t sure he was allowed to be angry. Affectionate as McCree had been, he had only ever promised that they were friends. Surely McCree had to know, would never capitalize on Hanzo’s more-than-friendly feelings just for sex, but Hanzo supposed he had never put into words what it was he felt.
They had laid few ground rules, revealed none of their expectations. Hanzo was the one who had read into it. Even then, his gut had been warning him all along, and he’d written it off as mere nerves.
An alert dinged on both their tablets, sparing him from having to discuss this further and lose his unexpected composure. It was the first alarm in a series of security measures: someone was approaching the house. Hanzo pulled up a video on his tablet to find Wade getting out of his car.
He was alone and by all appearances unarmed, although Hanzo was only willing to trust that assumption so far. Still, it was unlikely he posed much of a threat. They were cautious about it, moving into action quickly and carefully, their discussion set aside for the moment.
They needn’t have worried. McCree let the door open slowly, gun at the ready just behind it, but it seemed Wade had come for exactly what they’d hoped. “We followed up. It’s enough to start an investigation.”
“Can’t just call for that?” McCree asked, sounding like Wade’s very presence strained his patience. It was laying the act on too thickly for their new ally, and Hanzo bit back his own irritation.
Wade’s gaze flicked between the two of them, but to his credit, he was not cowed. He met McCree’s eyes. “I know we don’t have a force big enough to take on a whole gang. I don’t like the idea of losing good folks, especially if you’re right about our people’s involvement.”
“And?”
“And I… had a hunch. Looked you both up.” He pointed at Hanzo. “You don’t show up anywhere I got access to, but you.” He laughed as he gestured back to McCree “Well. You don’t get a rep like that without knowing what we have on you.”
Hanzo did not consciously will it, but he found himself between the two of them, Wade taking several shuffling, stumbling steps backward. “Easy, man,” he said, hands up as if to show he meant no harm.
“This mean you’re here to arrest me, officer?”
“I wouldn’t try that alone.” Wade laughed nervously, then choked it off with a fearful glance at Hanzo. “Um. No. Record says you’re former Overwatch, and I’ve— I’ve heard the rumors. And I thought, what’s more likely? One of the most wanted men in the States showin’ up here to hunt gun runners on his own, or him workin’ for Overwatch again?”
“If Overwatch is back up, they’d be nothin’ but a bunch of criminals,” McCree said. “Still worthy of arrest. But I wouldn’t hate the chance to do some good around here. Maybe you could put off handcuffing me til we take care of your problem.”
Wade swallowed and nodded. “That’s what I was thinkin’. I was also thinkin’ it sure would be nice to have some backup. Figure someone who’s dealt with terrorists might have some expertise to lend. I don’t think there’s any need for handcuffs.”
He explained that the police had already followed up on some of the leads, made a couple arrests that would lead to a couple more if they squealed as easily as they had for McCree. That would have been all that was needed, except that they couldn’t move quickly enough; those that hadn’t been arrested were now scrambling to get the guns together, whether to get rid of the evidence or try to finish the sale.
They were planning a raid tonight, but if police suspicions proved correct, they could use all the help they could get. It was easy to agree to; Hanzo and McCree had been prepared for worse, all told.
Wade relaxed over the course of the conversation, as he realized Hanzo was not going to hurt him so long as he presented no threat. His fear dissipated enough that when they were finished discussing logistics, he asked, “So are you two actually, y’know?”
“What a great question,” McCree said, clapping a hand down onto Wade’s shoulder. “Too bad that’s not any of your business.” It did not take long to dismiss their guest after that, nor for McCree to turn toward Hanzo. He looked wary, possibly irritated. “Did you mean that bullshit about Vegas?”
“I thought you wanted to put this off until after,” Hanzo hedged.
“That was before you said that. Did you mean it?”
“I was agreeing with you. Compartmentalizing. There’s no need for what we have done here to go back with us, right?” The temptation to punish McCree somehow was too great to deny entirely, but he could be proud that the worst of it was only the acidic bite in his voice.
“I didn’t say that. I was talking about my thoughts, not sayin’ that’s how we should act.”
“How should we act, then?”
McCree met that question with petulant silence. It was no better than before, and in some ways worse, because now Hanzo had to remember, and the only new information was that McCree was upset with him. For saying aloud what he’d assumed McCree had intended. Infuriating.
“You will be happy to know I’ve decided you were right,” Hanzo said. “We never should have started this conversation before our outing.”
“Well, we did start it, and now it is a distraction, so I guess you were right too.”
Hanzo did not know what to say to that, and he supposed he looked very stupid with his mouth hanging open. He had never had an argument where an admission that the other party was right was met with the same, only for it to function as fuel for the conflict. “You are unsatisfied with the conclusion I have drawn from things you said, so what should I have assumed?”
“I don’t… I don’t know.”
“Then what is the point of talking further?”
“I don’t know.”
Hanzo could not fully comprehend what about this made him so angry. Whether or not he was allowed to be mad seemed inconsequential now. McCree had not lied to him or intentionally led him to believe there was more than this fooling around. Hanzo had thought there was more because McCree had seemed to open up, talk to him about personal things, but perhaps he was only sharing things any of his friends might know, and Hanzo had made it into something bigger. McCree had been quite specific that he wished to have both a friendship and sex; his flirting and sharing could have been merely the bridge between those two things, not something of any greater significance. He had not defined what he wanted in particularly romantic terms, no matter how much it had made Hanzo’s heart clench at the time. So if Hanzo was angry, he was only angry that he was not getting what he wanted, which was a very different sort of thing to be upset about than if McCree had truly done something wrong.
Perhaps Hanzo was only angry with himself for building it into something it was not. But whatever this was, it was more than sex or friendship-plus for Hanzo. It was improbable that McCree did not know this, and maybe that meant he had done something wrong, something worth getting mad about, even if it was difficult to define or articulate. With so many variables and questions, he could not justify being cruel to McCree, but neither did he have the patience to render himself vulnerable again and again only to be faced with more uncertainties.
He put a stranglehold on his feelings and forced himself to speak slowly and calmly. “I am beginning to suspect that ‘I don’t know’ is going to be your answer for any of my questions. Is that right?”
“Probably so,” McCree said quietly.
A tendril of anger escaped then, but he did his best to show restraint. “You told me before that I was sending mixed signals, but you have too,” he accused. “Because you don’t know what you want. Or you are conflicted about it, now that the prospect of returning to normal has become more real. Or— or you are… ashamed of this. Me.” That last was harder to say, and he cleared his throat before he could continue. “Maybe I deserve that, but I also deserve to know. Which is it?” McCree’s face may have been difficult to read at times, but the guilt painted across it now was easy enough to see, and it said as much as his silence did. “If you have no answers, then there is no conversation to have. So we can pause this — all of it — until you are less confused.” Some small part of him hoped that McCree would suddenly correct his assumptions again, and he would for once be relieved to be so wrong.
“That’s—” McCree stopped at a single word, teeth clicking as he shut his mouth. After a deep breath, he continued, “Fair, actually. That’s fair.”
It seemed that was the end of that conversation — or not-conversation, as it were — but neither moved right away. McCree looked as though he had a thousand things to say, and Hanzo might have liked to hear the entire jumble of words if he was not so sure that several of them would be very painful. He excused himself, and if that made it too obvious that he wanted a moment to avoid McCree, it was difficult to care.
The bedroom was hardly a neutral zone, all things considered, but there were few rooms in this house, and fewer still that afforded privacy. Only once he had shut the door did he release the ragged, shaking breath it felt like he’d been holding for hours. He thought it might hurt, but instead he simply felt as though someone had hollowed him out.
