Chapter Text
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v.
There is a picture of you in Winston’s office. The uniform looks good on you.
Cole snorts. This is the first thing Hanzo has to say to anyone other than Genji in nearly a dozen letters. He’s stopped trying to convince himself he’s not curious to read more of these in particular. The letter immediately following doesn’t disappoint.
Sometimes I think I see you looking.
Sometimes you smile and I think… maybe.
These are not grand gestures, and even they may be imagined.
I do not like to hope. You will remind me of the reality soon enough. You always do.
It strikes him that it has taken Hanzo two notebooks and some change to bring up physical attraction. It’s not impressive exactly, but it certainly sells the depth of Hanzo’s feelings. If someone asked Cole to sit down and come up with a list of Hanzo’s positive attributes, he would have started with the purely physical. It doesn’t quite make him feel guilty, but he does think that maybe this is why Hanzo’s the one doing the writing and Cole’s the one who’s only ever gotten to read a real life love letter as a snooping third party.
I almost told you today. Almost, almost.
You looked very sad, but I am not the one who gets to comfort you. I am not even sure where to begin.
I am not sure anyone is sure with you. I think you try very hard not to need it, and most others would prefer to believe you.
What would you do if I told you I didn’t believe you? Would you let me take care of you?
He nearly shuts the book. There’s an ache down to his bones; it feels like nostalgia for something he never actually had.
It’s one thing to be smacked with the proof that Hanzo is capable of complex human emotions. One thing to discover there’s a hidden romantic under all the anger, someone who lives with a desire to care for someone and a paradoxical fear that he will fail at it. It’s a distressingly familiar sentiment.
Hanzo doesn’t trust himself any more than anyone else here does. Probably less than some. And yet there’s this part of them that aches to connect with someone. To take care of them. Despite the incredible shortcomings in Hanzo’s interpersonal skills, he is capable of seeing beneath the surface of someone else and loving that part.
He finishes the third notebook in a daze, unable to shove all the thoughts to the back of his mind. They finally crystallize with Hanzo’s own words:
I know some of your past, although I am hardly your favorite audience. I see that it troubles you.
I have seen the worst parts of myself. There is nothing you could confess that I could not accept.
vi.
He reads until his vision starts to blur. He starts again at the beginning, but there are no clues he overlooked the first time: the kill list remains their only lead. In the days that follow, with nothing else to occupy his mind or his time, he reads and rereads.
He can admit it has nothing to do with the mission any more.
On the second or third pass, sometimes the letters make him wonder if they’re all actually to the same person. They make him second-guess his belief that they’re for Angela. Their most specific passages emphasize Hanzo’s feelings, not the subject’s characteristics.
Who knows how many of them have had the kind of morning where they needed to spike their coffee to get through? Who knows how many of them have given Hanzo the cold shoulder, or put themselves in harm’s way for an innocent person? It could be any of them, and that’s assuming he can trust Hanzo’s assessment to be completely accurate.
Because that’s the thing about romantic feelings, isn’t it? They romanticize, especially given enough time to linger and pine. Especially when you have to hold them in.
There are times when he’s reading that something within him rings with recognition. Times when that same something demands to be heard. Those times make him realize he is a fool. He’s no more reliable an interpreter than Hanzo is.
He can recognize the wishful thinking that’s biasing him, but he can’t place what the wishful thinking is about, precisely. He’s lonely, he knows. Exaggerated or not, nobody’s ever shared these kinds of feelings with him. So much of what Hanzo writes are things he’s wanted, deep down, for someone to say to him.
What’s unclear is whether it’s someone or Hanzo. The shock of discovering that Hanzo has all this buried inside him has forced him to... reassess.
Cole’s always found him attractive. So much so that he used to be annoyed by it — by the traitorous part of him that can look at Hanzo and see anything more than a fratricidal monster. So much so that he’s felt guilty, ashamed, like he has to hide it away because it feels like he’s betraying Genji to even think of it in the shallowest terms.
Genji doesn’t care. Or wouldn’t, if he knew. But still, until very recently, it always felt like he was doing something wrong to even consider it. He can rationalize all he wants; his gut still insists on shame.
And now. Now it’s conflicted shame. Because Hanzo has these feelings for someone, and chances are higher they’re for someone else than that they’re for Cole, and here he is thinking about whether he’s allowed to let himself off the hook for maybe sometimes attaching Hanzo’s face to a run of the mill jerkoff fantasy.
He’d be lying to himself if he tried to pretend that’s all this is though. On some level he wants those letters to be for him. He wants someone to tell him off when he deserves it, to tell him he’s not as bad as his demons say he is. He wants someone to know what it’s like to fuck up and keep trying and someone who still believes that he is trying to do good. Wants someone who has this sort of unshakable faith in him, even knowing he’s not perfect, even if they’re mad at him sometimes.
He wants someone to love him the way Hanzo’s clearly capable of loving someone.
vii.
He has favorite passages now. He’s taken pictures of them to save once this is all over, put them on his comm behind multiple passwords so nobody else has to know how far beyond due diligence he’s gone. How much he’s let Hanzo get under his skin.
He’s also been back to Hanzo’s room a couple times over the past several days. Cole’s still watering his plants. He couldn’t tell a soul why, but he does it, and it makes him feel good to have done it.
He has pictures, and he’s been back to Hanzo’s room more than once, and yet he still hasn’t convinced himself to put the notebooks back.
The stupidest part is that Hanzo isn’t even here. There’s always been a voice in the back of his head whenever anyone’s gone too long; it tells him this is it, he’s never gonna see them again. He can keep the voice quiet as long as he stays busy, but it gets louder with every passing day.
Hanzo’s not here, but he’s taken up residence in Cole’s head and won’t get out. It feels like it happened too fast, but he’s not actually sure it did. He thinks he knew, before, that Hanzo was at least more than the angry austerity on the surface, and different from the man who tried to kill Genji. Why else would he have accepted Genji’s story or the boundaries Genji put down? Why else would he have done no more than bristle with anger but keep his mouth shut?
But that’s a far cry from sitting with the knowledge of what the letters contain. He didn’t do anything to earn that level of intimacy.
viii.
His comm goes off while he’s elbow-deep in engine parts, adding his experience in amateur tinkering to Torbjörn’s expertise. He’s covered in grease, which turns out to be a blessing in disguise. It means he doesn’t get to his comm right away, and Torbjörn won’t see his reaction.
When he’s finally scrubbed his hands and dug both oil and gritty soap out from the creases of his prosthetic knuckles, he finally gets to check his comm. When he reads the message, he has to sit down.
They found Hanzo. They’re bringing him home.
The kill list helped after all.
As useless as Cole has felt, it’s a relief. It’s a relief, too, to know that his compulsive reading served some greater purpose than to satisfy his own curiosity. It seems to justify it all in hindsight.
He’s aware, of course, that it doesn’t justify his keeping the notebooks. He knows he should have put them back in Hanzo’s room by now, but he hasn’t quite been able to convince himself to do so. He’s been telling himself they might still need them, but that excuse appears precisely as flimsy as it is now that Hanzo’s coming back.
There’s time, though. Time to put them back before Hanzo gets here and finds them missing. He still wonders if it’s the right thing to do. The longer he has them, the more he believes he should tell Hanzo that he’s read them. If nothing else, it will clear some air between them; he’s not sure he wants Hanzo to go on thinking Cole’s dismissed him out of hand, and there’s no other way to explain his change in perspective.
Mostly, though, it’s just that he’s selfish and likes to feel the paper under his fingers. The pictures he took won’t recreate that particular sensation.
The day they bring Hanzo back in, they take him straight to the medbay. Cole’s not even around to see him. He hears secondhand that Hanzo will be in there at least until the following morning.
He makes sure to water Hanzo’s plants one more time, but he doesn’t put the notebooks back.
ix.
He waits until everyone who’s going to visit has left before he dares to go see Hanzo in the medbay. He wonders if he should put this off, wait until Hanzo’s well enough before he drops this invasion of privacy on him too, but selfishly he wants to get it over with. And maybe to see for himself that Hanzo is doing okay.
Hanzo looks surprised to see him, eyes going wide before they narrow and drop straight to the shopping bag Cole’s carrying. Right. Of course. He’s been stuck with the Hanzo in his head and in the notebooks for so long that he almost forgot how suspicious he can be. He’s bristling under Cole’s gaze, and his face draws up tight with pain when he shifts uncomfortably.
It’s not a great start.
Hanzo is the one who finally breaks the awkward silence. “I was not expecting you.”
“Yeah. I bet not.” He doesn’t know why he says it like that, and he takes no satisfaction in the way Hanzo visibly withdraws. Still, it’s sort of impressive, the way Hanzo collects himself, spine straightening the best it can in the hospital bed.
He still isn’t quite looking at Cole when he says, “I hear you’re the one who located me. Thank you.”
“It’s nothing.” Cole winces at that too. It wasn’t nothing. Certainly not to the person whose life he helped save, but not to him either. He can’t un-know the things he had to learn to make it possible. He clears his throat and braces for impact. “About that, though.” He sets the shopping bag on the table beside the bed, and he pulls out one of the notebooks just enough that Hanzo can see what it is. “Thought you should have these back.”
Hanzo looked drawn and sick already, but his face somehow goes even paler. There’s a muscle at his temple that tics as he clenches his jaw. “I wondered how you could have known.” His voice is tight, and he looks like he might be nauseated.
“Sorry. If we’d found any other clues first, I wouldn’t—” Cole stops himself, because he figures that’s not actually the part that’s bothering Hanzo. He switches tactics. “Nobody else knows these even exist. They won’t either. Not from me. You might’ve heard I’m pretty good with secrets.” He tries a reassuring smile.
Hanzo doesn’t appear reassured. He isn’t even really looking at Cole. “Thank you.” He shuts his eyes and takes a shuddery breath. It might be pain, but Cole suspects otherwise. When Hanzo’s eyes open again, they’re finally on Cole’s face. “Is that everything?”
It’s hard to tell what Hanzo’s searching for. Cole can think of a dozen things to ask him — about how many feelings he buries behind the anger, about the unaddressed letters, about the one and only line he wrote to Cole — but it’s obvious that this is humiliating enough. “I read it all,” he says instead of asking. “Some of it, um. More than once.” He flinches even as he says it, and Hanzo does the same. “Maybe you don’t wanna hear this from me, but I don’t agree that you deserve to be alone. I think if maybe you let people see all that stuff you write about, you might— things might be easier. And I think you’re right. That we could be friends.”
Hanzo makes a noise, surprise or disbelief or something closely related. “I don’t need your pity, Cassidy.”
“It’s not.”
“If you haven’t noticed, I have friends here. They simply aren’t you.”
He doesn’t know what to say to that. In his surprise, he thought he was discovering things about Hanzo that nobody else knew. But maybe plenty of people knew; maybe Cole was just too stubborn to see it before. “You’re right. I’m sorry I didn’t give you a fair shake before now.”
Hanzo scoffs. “I do not care about what you think is fair.” He’s staring down at his hands now, which are curled into fists on his lap. “Are we finished here?”
“Yes? No.” He lets out a quiet laugh, nervous and feeling stupid for it. “No, I also wanted to say that… whoever it is you’re writin’ to, they’re a lucky person. Lotta people would kill to have someone think those things about them.”
Hanzo’s nose scrunches. “ Whoever—” Then he shakes his head and laughs too, bitter and biting. “Are you—”
They both jump at the sound of the heavy door opening. Angela stands there, clipboard in hand, and she has one eyebrow arched in Cole’s direction. “Visiting time is over.”
He thinks about arguing. About asking for more time. But Hanzo’s shoulders are hunched by his ears, and his face is pale with pain, and his eyes are wide on Angie like she’s some kind of saving grace. He’s so much brighter when he looks at her, relief clear across his features after Cole dragged him down.
Later is probably the better choice here.
He puts one foot in front of the other and doesn’t look back.
He’s left with the nagging sense that maybe he leapt to a lot of conclusions. Which makes them all that much luckier that at least his hunch about the kill list was right, if so many of his others are wrong.
x.
Angie’s tech might as well be magic for all Cole understands it. Hanzo’s up and walking within twenty-four hours, although anyone looking close enough could pick out the faintest limp.
Hanzo’s surrounded most of the day. It reveals the truth of his statement: he may be lonely in one way, but he certainly has made friends here. He seems fondly exasperated by the way Mei and Lena hover, inquiring after his needs like he’s not healing rapidly under the influence of Angie’s biotics. Cole wants to ask too, but it’s pretty clear it’s not his place, so he sticks around long enough to hear Hanzo give an assurance he actually believes, then he makes himself scarce.
It doesn’t take long to realize all the attention is wearing on Hanzo. It’s still not his place, but it’s also such an easy problem to solve that he can’t quite resist. At lunchtime, he’s in the kitchen digging supplies out of the fridge, listening to Mei insist she should carry Hanzo’s food to the table for him.
“You know,” Cole says to her, “I overheard Winston say he’s lookin’ for you. Don’t have a clue what all the jargon’s about, but it seemed pretty urgent.”
Her eyes go wide and she apologizes rapidly to Hanzo, then she insists Cole should help instead. That’s not exactly what he’s here for, but he agrees.
As soon as she’s out of earshot, he hands Hanzo’s bowl to him, then he resumes making his sandwich. Hanzo stares, suspicion written into every line on his face, and Cole bites back the urge to say something challenging. Instead he tries a smile and a shrug. “Looked like you could use a break from all the fuss.”
Surprise peeks out from the suspicious mask. Hanzo lets out a stiff thanks, then he’s gone.
The limp fades quickly, and things return to normal. It’s just that now he can see more of Hanzo than he did before: he has friends, and he smiles more than Cole ever realized, and he doesn’t ever seem to look Cole’s way.
He thinks every day about the solitary sentence Hanzo wrote for him, and he tries not to let it get under his skin. Most days, it’s a losing battle.
It still feels strange to return to his room without the notebooks to keep him company. He thumbs through some of the photos on his comm, but it’s not the same without the pages under his hands. His thumb hovers over one of the later letters.
Your hair is always unkempt. You have better things to do than worry about your hair, I am sure, but I am always tempted to touch it when it is like that.
Perhaps I should buy you a comb to save us both.
It is funny. There is only one way I wish to change you, and even that is merely an excuse to touch you the way I would like.
He scrubs a hand through his hair before he realizes he’s doing it, then he laughs ruefully. The sound still can’t shake out whatever’s coiling in his chest. If he closes his eyes, he can almost feel it: someone else’s fingers in his hair, carefully prying snarls out, the pads brushing along his scalp until it tingles.
He falls asleep to that thought.
The pang that accompanies him on waking makes him delete the photos he took. It doesn’t erase the words burned into his brain, but at least it can assuage temptation.
xi.
It gets easier. Hanzo doesn’t relax around him, exactly, but he does stop acting like Cole’s trying to get something over on him. He’s more like his typical stiff and standoffish, and Cole figures that’s the best they’re gonna do for a while.
Then they get the mission assignment.
It’s nothing too out of the ordinary, except that Cole’s assigned to stick by Hanzo’s side. They hole up in a musty hotel room with clean sight lines, and then they wait for the orders.
Hour one is nothing but the two of them sitting in strained silence broken only by comm chatter intended for their teammates elsewhere. Hanzo sits so still that Cole wonders if he fell asleep sitting up. Hour two is more or less the same, give or take a bathroom break to reveal that Hanzo is, in fact, awake.
In hour three, Cole flops back onto the bed, and he stares at the ceiling and tries to ignore the restlessness building under his skin. He’s done this work before, but usually he’s alone or with someone willing to talk to pass the time. He’s got no idea what to do with Hanzo.
At least from this angle he can see more than the back of Hanzo’s neck. He can almost see his full profile, his jaw framed by the meticulously shaped beard. His eyes are shut, a feathery fan of dark, dark lashes casting tiny shadows over the lines beneath. He looks tired, strained, and it’s hard to shake the sense that it’s Cole’s fault somehow.
He also looks damn near edible.
The thought hits like a ton of bricks. Cole has never felt the observation so viscerally before.
He sits up on the bed and rubs his own tired eyes, then he evacuates the bed altogether. Hanzo’s still in his head, and nothing makes that clearer than getting distracted on a mission because his partner — the guy who’s currently outright ignoring him, sitting so straight he’s gotta be aching by now — happens to be devastatingly hot. Cole paces the small patch of floor available to him, then he decides he’s done with the silence.
“I don’t get you.”
Hanzo’s shoulders stiffen minutely, but he doesn’t answer.
“I really am sorry for snoopin’, but I’m not sorry it helped you, and I’m glad I learned what I did, actually—”
“Stop,” Hanzo barks, and Cole’s mouth shuts so fast he feels his teeth clack together. “I told you I don’t want your pity.”
“And I told you it’s not pity. Why would you think—”
His name and Hanzo’s both crackle through the comm. “Targets inbound.”
Cole sighs and gets in position, thinking, later, later.
Later comes, and so do Genji and Winston to escort them back to the drop ship. There’s no chance to get Hanzo alone on the flight. Cole lets Angie look him over on the ship, and he tries not to watch too close when she does the same to Hanzo.
He’s not successful.
Hanzo watches her warily and pretends that he’s not, and she’s as cool and professional as can be. She leaves as quick as she can. It’s subtle, nothing anyone should notice unless they’re as invested as Cole is, but Hanzo’s body seems to slump the moment her back is turned.
Then he turns, and Cole has to make himself look like he was busy doing anything but what he was actually doing.
After they land, they debrief in the conference room. When it’s over, Hanzo’s slow getting out of there, and Cole sees his opportunity.
He pushes past all the warnings in his mind insisting he shouldn’t, and he touches Hanzo’s arm. There’s a high chance Hanzo will hit him, but instead he goes stiff as a board before slowly turning to face him. The others glance at them as they filter past, but nobody stops to ask questions.
“Can I talk to you?” Cole asks.
Genji throws him the strangest look, but whatever he sees, even he keeps walking. Hanzo can’t — won’t — cause a scene with everyone so near. He’s frozen under Cole’s hand, and stays that way even once they’re alone.
“Five minutes,” Cole insists. There’s a plea in his voice he wishes wasn’t there. “That’s all I’m askin’.”
Hanzo’s eyes widen, searching his face before they cut down and to the side like some speck on the floor is suddenly the most interesting thing in the room. Cole’s already put him through enough indignities, so he does his best not to think of the look as sullen. “Five minutes,” Hanzo agrees flatly.
He wouldn’t put it past Hanzo to have a mental countdown to the precise second, at which point he’ll cut the conversation off and go back to the cold shoulder, so Cole talks fast. “Why are you avoiding me? Are you avoiding me?”
Hanzo snorts. “No. I am not. We spend exactly as much time together as before, except for your recent attempts to ambush me.” Cole feels his face fall just in time for Hanzo to glance up and catch it. He wishes he had more practice reading Hanzo, because too many things flicker across his expression to have any idea what it could mean. “You said this is not pity. So what is it?”
“You’re not who I thought you were. Or— I didn’t give it enough thought before, and now I have, and I don’t like knowin’ all this about you without knowing you, too, and so I thought… I don’t know. I thought I’d make an effort?”
“An effort.”
“Yeah.”
“You say this is not pity. But you understand why it sounds like it, do you not?” There’s a strain there now, maybe a plea for him to understand something else Hanzo doesn’t want to say. It’s just out of reach, pressing on the edges of his awareness.
“I suppose. Don’t know how to make you believe it’s not. Don’t even really know why that’s the first conclusion you jumped to.”
That doesn’t get a response, but it does get Hanzo looking at him, cautiously searching his face before he looks away again. “What is it you want, Cassidy?” The question is preceded by a soft, strange sound in Hanzo’s throat, and his tone isn’t unkind.
The answer burns on the tip of Cole’s tongue, but it feels too stupid to say out loud. He can feel the clock ticking in his head, and he forces himself to speak. “To get to know you.”
Hanzo makes that noise again. “Because of what I wrote.”
It feels like a trap even as Cole answers, “Yes.”
“So you violate my privacy, read things that were not for you to read, and then you try to ambush me to discuss it even when I tell you I don’t want that. Because you want to get to know me.” Hanzo lets out a frustrated huff. “If it isn’t pity, what is it? Some misplaced guilt? Surely you are not here to mock me.”
“Of course not.” It comes out in a rush. In some ways, Hanzo may be right about the guilt, but certainly not the rest, and Cole still can’t fathom what he’s done that would bring Hanzo to any of those conclusions, except that Cole himself can’t come up with any better way to explain what he’s doing or what he wants.
Hanzo’s got his jaw clenched tight again, and there’s a red stain across his cheeks that’s got equal chances of being anger or embarrassment. Cole would put his money on the latter though. He knew this was humiliating before now, but he’s been running roughshod over Hanzo’s every effort to save face. Belatedly, he realizes he’s been going about this all wrong. Not that he’s had any better options, considering Hanzo’s refusal to discuss the issue at all, but still, he might’ve considered that he keeps rubbing salt in a wound Hanzo’s trying to heal.
He’s been pushing, trying to force it, because he’s been eager to get to a point where it doesn’t feel quite so fucking weird to have this much of Hanzo in his head, without thinking at all what that might be like on the other end. Especially for someone like Hanzo. Especially for someone who’s convinced Cole’s operating out of pity, no matter how many times Cole’s assured him that’s not the case. No matter how much Cole thinks that’s absurd. It’s not just that he has no reason to pity Hanzo; he can’t come up with any reason anyone in his shoes should.
The only person who’d have even a half decent cause for pity would be Angie. Because she’s the one Hanzo—
His brain trips over the thought, static crowding in for a moment before the revelation hits. Hanzo’s staring at some place just beyond Cole’s ear now, but he too seems to realize something has shifted.
He could be wrong. Again. But Hanzo’s only even standing in this room — enduring something he’s given every signal is both embarrassing and exhausting — because Cole asked him to. He’s been talking like Cole knows things that he doesn’t — or didn’t. It’s not like he’s memorized every letter word for word, but he can’t think of a single one that categorically proves he’s not the subject.
Hell, he even had that thought, however fleeting, however much he confused it for bias or some sort of wish fulfillment, back when he was reading them.
He doesn’t want to assume, because that’s what got him here in the first place, but he knows the answer even before he asks, “Who were those letters for? The ones with no name.”
Hanzo looks startled, then like he’s forgotten how to breathe. It takes him a moment to collect himself, and Cole watches him do it with open fascination. It’s impressive, like watching someone put up a wall brick by brick. “You know the answer to that.” His voice is rough, but the tone isn’t.
“Yeah,” Cole says stupidly, unable to come up with anything more articulate. Whatever reserves Hanzo drew on before are slowly dwindling, because his face seems to grow more tired the longer the silence hangs between them. Cole doesn’t know what he wants to say, and even if he did, the words won’t come. They’re all stuck in his throat, trapped there by the force of his epiphany.
He’s not used to feeling helpless, but there’s nothing he can think to say, no way to speak it if he could think it, and there’s nothing he can do when Hanzo’s face finally falls and he announces, “Your five minutes are over.”
To his credit, Hanzo’s braver than Cole is. He lingers for a moment, searching Cole’s face one last time before he makes up his mind. Then Hanzo’s gone, and Cole’s left standing there like a goddamn idiot.
xii.
Hanzo wasn’t avoiding him before, but now he most definitely is. Cole can’t find it in himself to blame him for it, but it’s frustrating as hell when all he wants is to try to talk to him again.
The irony isn’t lost on him that he’s finally noticing Hanzo’s absences now that he wants him around. He can’t yet define what else it is he wants, but he knows that much.
Not that he’d know what to say, exactly. What are you supposed to say when someone’s all-but-admitted they think they’re in love with you, and the best you’ve offered is that you want to get to know them better?
All he can do is make space. Look the other way when Hanzo quietly slips out of any room Cole’s just entered. Let Hanzo lick his wounds while Cole figures out his own head.
Hope that door’s still open if and when he gets his shit together and wants it. Hope it’s closed if he doesn’t.
Hanzo said before that he didn’t care what was fair, but it sits wrong. Unfairness always has, and it does now too, because he knows things about Hanzo that nobody else is supposed to know, and he’s burdened with carrying that inside his head but isn’t allowed to return any of it. Restore some of the balance between them.
Even if he was ready to lay it all bare, it’s not like Hanzo’s going to let him.
The solution, just like his last epiphany, hits him hard and fast, leaves him floundering and astonished at his own previous stupidity.
xiii.
It takes two glasses of hard liquor and one cigar he’s practically chewed his way through, but he finally manages to begin.
I figured you already spilled enough of your secrets. Here are some of mine:
I’m a writer too. Not letters, usually. You’re probably better at that than I am. But I have a pen name, and I write. Mostly politics, sometimes culture and travel stuff. Sometimes I like to flatter myself thinking my friends have read it. If you want to go find my blog or any of my articles, it’s Joel Morricone. You’re one of five people in the whole world who know that, so keep it to yourself. I have to make a legitimate living somehow.
I tell everybody my parents died in the Crisis. Keeps people from looking too deep. Really, they’re retired on the same farm Reyes moved them to fifteen years ago. Some other people knew that, too, but you’re probably the only one left alive who does.
It’s been over twenty years since I’ve seen them though. For all I know, they think I’m dead and the guy on the wanted poster just shares a name and a passing resemblance. There’s a story there, but I think I’d rather tell that one in person. Or at least not in this letter.
What else?
I’m a year younger than my paperwork says.
I worked black ops so long sometimes it’s easier to believe the lies I’ve told about myself than remember the truth.
I have bank accounts under four different names.
I can’t decide if it’s worse that I used to dream about the people I’ve killed or that I don’t any more.
I’ve never been in love. I’ve gone through the motions a few times. I know what it should look like. I like to think I was pretty good at it, but I didn’t feel it.
But I can tell you what I know I want in a person: Smart. Confident. Good at the job. (They have to be in the job or something like it. How the fuck do you explain what we do to anyone else?) Optimistic enough to keep going. Cynical enough they don’t drive me crazy with their rose-colored glasses. At least as stubborn as I am. Lets me take care of them too.
I don’t know. It’s hard to turn it all into some kind of itemized list, isn’t it? But I hope some of it sounds familiar to you. Maybe it’s not on the wishlist, but I like that you’re kind of mean too. And it’s hard to even think of the list now without picturing your face. (Not for nothing, but it’s a nice face.)
And I didn’t think that hard about it all before I found your notebooks, and I’m sorry I had to learn everything I did that way. I should have given you a chance before that. Because if I had, I might have figured out a lot sooner that you could say all the things to me I always wished somebody would.
Maybe that’s selfish, I don’t know, but it matters to me, and I think it matters to you too. Even if you’re sick to death of me after all of this, you should know you have something to offer somebody.
And if you still want to offer that to me, I meant what I said about getting to know each other better. We can do that. As friends, if you want, or more. Your call, but for what it’s worth, I prefer the more.
He pauses, pen hovering over the page. There are still too many thoughts clamoring to be let out, and yet he figures that if he keeps writing, it will only show Hanzo how jumbled his head really is. He’s feeling cowardly enough as it is; he worries if he makes too big a mess of it, he’ll never send it, and that’s not the point. It might be meant to replicate one of Hanzo’s letters, but this one’s also meant to be read.
I can wait. I can give you all the time and space you need. No need to avoid me. I promise.
He stabs the pen down a little too hard, and instead of his name, he writes, You know who this is.
It takes another drink for him to screw up the nerve to do something with the letter. At first he thinks he should rewrite it — there are a dozen places he’s scratched things out, scribbled in the margins, edited as he went along — but in the end he thinks fair’s fair. He got to see Hanzo’s raw drafts. Hanzo can have his as-is too.
He folds it up, and fully embracing the liquid courage, he’s out of his room and taking unsteady steps toward Hanzo’s. He’s never tried passing notes in the Watchpoint before. He’s not sure he’s tried passing notes since he dropped out of high school, actually. But he discovers that it’s not as easy as he anticipated: these doors don’t have a crack large enough to shove anything under.
While he’s shuffling his feet and debating the merits of simply taping the letter to Hanzo’s door or having Athena’s drones deliver it some other time, there’s a quiet hiss and the door opens in front of him. Whatever he’s expecting, his presently addled brain is not prepared for the sight of Hanzo, shirtless and sleep mussed and staring him down like he’s lost his mind. Which he may have, more or less.
“What are you doing?” Hanzo hisses.
Cole does his best to match the whisper. “I brought you something. Well. It’s for you, but I wasn’t gonna be here when you got it.” He gestures between the two of them and mutters, “Space.”
Hanzo carefully plucks the letter from his hand. Their fingers don’t touch, and it makes his chest hurt.
“It’s a letter,” Cole says helpfully.
“Are you drunk right now?”
“No, but I might’ve needed a little help.” The sense that Hanzo thinks Cole’s lost his marbles is only increasing, but he does let out a funny sound Cole thinks could be the start of a laugh. “So you can read that. Or not, I guess, but I’d prefer it if you did. And I will be, y’know, around, if you have thoughts about it.” He winces. “I really, really wasn’t expecting to have to explain this yet.”
This time Hanzo snorts, although he still looks cautious. “Clearly.” It’s hard to say what Hanzo’s thinking, but he’s looking at the letter like it might bite him, which Cole suspects he sort of deserves.
“I’ll let you get to that, then. Or whatever it is you were gonna do.” He’s proud that he kept his eyes on Hanzo’s face. “Goodnight.”
xiv.
He doesn’t drink any more that night, just in case, but it’s not like Hanzo comes knocking anyway. Cole could cave to the temptation to get shitfaced, and it wouldn’t matter.
It’s probably for the better, though, because he wakes with the twinges of a headache he knows could be worse. The ache pulses in time with a rhythmic knocking, which takes him too long to realize is at his door. He winces as he calls out to give him a minute, because he’s not going to take the chance that it’s either a mission or Hanzo without brushing his teeth first.
When he finally opens the door, he finds Hanzo on the other side. He’s holding two cups of coffee. “I thought you could use this after the night you had,” he says with a tiny smirk that feels like the sun finally peeking out of the clouds. Cole accepts the drink with more gratitude than is probably necessary for a single cup of coffee, then Hanzo asks, “May I come in?”
“Please.” He might be staring, but he honestly wasn’t expecting Hanzo to respond first thing in the morning, or to come bearing caffeine, or to want to talk in his room, so he thinks he ought to be forgiven.
Hanzo pulls the letter free from his pocket, and it’s a lot more worn than Cole remembers it being last night. “I read it. Several times,” he adds with a faint flush. “And then I read your blog. It’s, ah, very good, although I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on certain matters.”
“Like what?”
Hanzo stops short. “Do you really want to discuss how very vehemently I disagree with your attitude toward organizational hierarchies right now?”
“Yes, but if there’s somethin’ more important—”
“I want to thank you for watering my plants. And to know what you meant by ‘more’.” Hanzo’s cheeks turn that charming shade of pink again. “When you wrote—”
“I know what I wrote.”
“That is a relief,” Hanzo says dryly. “So, more?”
Cole can’t stop the smile as he starts to explain, and by the time he’s finished, he’s given them both cause to be grateful he thought to brush his teeth.