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In the Pocket: Prologue
🕑 Added 2019-12-02 00:08:10 +0000 UTCThis isn't quite December's reward so much as a lead-in.
While I put together chapter one to make sure it's what I want it to be, I realized I needed to do something with this old scene. It stands alone better than it works to open the first chapter, and I didn't want to lose it entirely since it's a good "catch up to speed" bit, so I'm using it as a prologue (or teaser, maybe). This was originally posted on Tumblr foreeeever ago, but it's been made over a little to better fit with the upcoming story.
This part is probably only a Teen-Mature rating, but we all know the sequel to NTIC is gonna get really explicit... Chapter one will be out later this month, once I'm confident it's got everything in it that I need it to have.
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If you’d asked Jesse what sort of future he had pictured for himself, he probably wouldn’t have come up with this one. He’d half expected to die young — younger, he supposed, since Hanzo kept growling at him that thirty-six was hardly old — figured he’d go out blaze of glory style, or maybe, when he’d been feeling extra morbid, bleeding out in a ditch somewhere.
Regardless of how it all went down, a lavish vacation had never really seemed like something he’d get to have. He sure as shit hadn’t ever expected to wind up like this: on a private beach in the South Pacific, lounging in the sun and daydreaming about where his life might have led.
Sure, vacation might’ve been bought with blood on his hands, but it wasn’t like respectable employment came easy with any kind of background check. Fareeha had tried, a few years back. Helix had a few former Overwatch folks on their payroll, but they’d all been Overwatch proper. One glance at Jesse’s past — no matter that those records were supposed to be sealed, no matter that he’d been a minor — and they’d turned him away. He figured between the criminal past and the Overwatch connections, they’d guessed he hadn’t been one of the ones working above board and didn’t want another scandal. He might as well have gotten Blackwatch tattooed on him just like Deadlock, because anybody with half a brain could put two and two together these days.
Besides, even if a respectable employer could be sweet-talked into letting one shady applicant slide, no way they were gonna allow for two. And no way was Jesse taking on any kinda dangerous job without Hanzo to watch his back; the last time he’d tried, he’d lost an arm and taken a bullet to the gut for his trouble, and Hanzo’d both saved his sorry ass and threatened to kill Jesse himself if he ever did it again. That was right before he’d dissolved into the sobbing mess. Nearly fifteen years together, and Jesse could still count on his original fingers how many times he’d seen Hanzo really cry. He wasn’t real keen on seeing more of it, much less being the cause of it.
The whole scene still haunted him, in some ways worse than the loss of the arm itself. It popped into his head, replayed on loop to let him know when an idea was especially stupid. No solo work, then.
But most of their skills, individually or combined, were crafted in pursuit of some kind of violence. Jesse’s particular talents didn’t extend to much else, least not anything that could pull a paycheck; he knew better than to say that where Hanzo could hear though, unless he wanted a stern lecture followed by a deeply embarrassing, itemized list of things Hanzo admired. So the options were to set up somewhere nobody knew either of them, take on some false identities and settle into jobs normal people did and that neither of them were any good at, or to do the shit they excelled at and do it together. Bounty hunting was an easy decision, all things considered, and they were good enough at it that they could be selective, only pick up bounties for folks who deserved it.
They’d almost made it a game: find the nastiest types, the ugliest souls, the ones who bent the law but didn’t always break it. The ones who hid behind money and a thin veneer of respectability to cover all manner of sins. The ones who’d offer a fat check just to be left alone. Find those bounties, take the money they thought would let them escape justice once again, then tell them no anyway. There was something about the work that satisfied both parts of Jesse — the bloodthirsty side that felt like a second skin, worn and comfortable and almost as old as he was, and the part of him that wanted to do real good in the world, most likely cultivated by too much time spent with Overwatch.
He’d never figured he could have both, just like he’d never planned on a life where he hit thirty and kept going, never planned to have things like vacations, never planned to wind up happily monogamous with the finest specimen this world had to offer.
“You’re going to burn,” said a voice behind him, just before Hanzo’s face popped into his field of view, upside down and no less handsome for it. Hanzo had always been devastating from any angle. Jesse tipped his head up and back, almost on instinct, and Hanzo gave him a quick kiss, chaste in contrast to the way his thumb stroked down the side of Jesse’s neck. “Are you brooding on our vacation?”
“Never,” Jesse insisted. “Daydreaming. Was just thinkin’ about how gorgeous you are, then you appeared outta nowhere. Must be fate.”
“Must be.” Hanzo smiled and ran a hand from Jesse’s bare shoulder to his chest, to let it rest just over the hawk tattoo. Jesse was well past any reaction like embarrassment at his own feelings; instead he felt only idle amusement that even something as small as Hanzo’s hand over his heart could still make it beat faster. “And what were the daydreams about?”
Jesse grinned wide and shameless. “Get down here and I’ll show you.”
Hanzo snorted out a laugh. “I’m not sure your lounger will hold both of us.”
“I’m sure you can’t be sure if we don’t test it.” Jesse smiled wider, and he caught one of Hanzo’s wrists, trailed fingers up his forearm just to feel his sun-warmed skin. Hanzo laughed again, but he did it anyway, circled round from behind him and sank down onto the low wooden chaise, legs tangling with legs and fingers tangling with hair. Hanzo kissed him slow and soft and smiling, and Jesse ran his hands down every inch of skin he could reach — which was a frankly obscene amount, given Hanzo’s preference for the tiniest possible swimwear.
Jesse was curling his hand lazily over the curve of Hanzo’s ass, trying to tuck their hips closer, when the wooden lounger gave an ominous creak. Jesse was tempted to ignore it — he’d suffered worse on this vacation, namely sand in places he didn’t feel like revisiting — but Hanzo was out of his grasp and on his feet in the blink of an eye, just in time for the braces that propped up the recliner to give out behind Jesse. He landed on his back with a wince and a sound that was probably a very manly grunt and definitely not a squawk, but all told, the damage could’ve been worse; at least the thing was still holding on all four legs.
Hanzo, of course, only laughed and laughed, at least until Jesse managed to get to his feet and wrestle him back inside, where there were several perfectly comfortable, perfectly sturdy surfaces to put to use. He was grateful that figuring out which surface it should be was the hardest decision he’d have to make this whole vacation.
