Chapter Text
A funny thing happens when you become a professional photographer; you suddenly get a whole lot more invites to places. A man’s gotta have rules though, and with even his own family expectin’ him to bring his new ‘plus one’ along, Jesse McCree does not work for free.
A line of photographs sway on a line across the window. Jesse watches idly as the photograph of Fareeha pullin’ out the air guitar during drunken karaoke on her 21st flutters in front of the look of betrayal captured on Gabe’s face moments before getting a faceful of wedding cake from his new husband. Angela’s face, caught mid-sneeze as she posed with her new doctorate, rattles along with the trees in the warm summer breeze.
Outside the window and beyond railing and the ledges where he keeps his collection of cacti, all the way across the narrow alleyway that separates the two apartment buildings, McCree can catch glimpses of his neighbour as he went about his day.
Jesse doesn’t know his name. He’d never spoken to his neighbour, had only heard his voice as it drifted across the alley and in through his open window. In the hot Sante Fe summers, McCree got used to hearing the door slamming at all hours as his neighbour hosted the occasional raucous party. It didn’t bother him none with the strange hours he kept, but Jesse noticed.
When he came back from covering the Null Sector in London and survived the murderous robots only to break his leg walking back to his hotel, McCree’s neighbour was gone. Jesse would have thought the man had moved out but all his stuff was still there, even the little bonsai tree on the windowsill left untouched. He notes the silence but he’s more focussed on the cast he's currently wearing from his ankle up to his knee.
It was the better part of a week before McCree realised the apartment was not as empty as he thought. Jesse could probably pass his neighbour in the street and not immediately recognise him, but he was certain; the man living in the apartment across from him was not Jesse’s neighbour.
Laid up with a busted leg, Jesse’s got plenty of time to pay attention now. This new guy’s so quiet, it takes McCree days to realise he’s leaving before the sun rises most days and only coming back when it’s dark. He’d known corpses that’d made more of an impact than this newcomer, but what tips him over from strange but harmless to suspicious was when McCree would see him. He’d be sitting by the window, staring at nothing as a steaming cup of something goes cold in front of him. Haunted, if McCree has to put a word to it.
Which was all a roundabout way of sayin’ — when McCree sees something moving in the apartment across from his, he leans forward in his chair and watches the other window for a glimpse at his not-neighbour.
When the apartment stays dark and quiet, he sits back with a huff. Jesse doesn’t know if he’s more disappointed on account of his curiosity or his boredom. He’s never been holed up like this before with nothing to do. His mind can’t take the boredom, the stillness of sittin’ in one place all day. Maybe that’s why McCree is so fascinated by the new man across the way — if he isn’t going out to find trouble, he is gonna make sure trouble finds him.
That’s how Sombra finds him when she rattles open the lock in his front door. “Why the fuck are all your lights off? Quit brooding in the dark!” she yells at him from across his apartment as she kicks the door shut behind her.
“It’s too hot for lights, and I ain’t broodin’!” Jesse yells back. “I’m thinking! Y’know, that thing where you use yer brain?”
“You’ve got one of those?” Sombra snipes back as she dumps her armful of groceries on the kitchen counter. She pokes at the Chinese takeout containers and makes a small noise of disappointment at finding them all empty.
“Har har,” Jesse mutters. He turns back to the window but whatever he’d seen movin’ is gone now.
Sombra wanders over to where he’s sat by the window, flicking on the light as she goes just because she knows it irritates him. “You owe me a coffee,” she says, giving the not-broken foot. She’s holding something behind her back, which immediately makes Jesse suspicious.
McCree scowls and lifts his leg out of danger. “I don’t owe you shit. How do I know ya didn’t just get me Mountain Dew and Doritos?”
“Gabi gave me a list,” Sombra hisses like that doesn’t exactly prove Jesse’s point. “I brought you another thing too.”
Sombra pulls the something out from behind her and presents it to McCree with a smirk. It takes a moment for Jesse to quit scowlin' at her and look at it, and then he takes the picture frame. The photograph is the one he'd broken his leg for in London, the shot that had been on front pages the world over the same morning he'd been figurin' out how to hobble around on crutches. It’s a good shot, the omnic larger than life as it bears down on him.
Jesse sets the framed photo down and heaves himself out of his chair, grumbling that it ain't coffee if it's mostly sugar. Sombra trails behind him to his bedroom, mercilessly mocking him for needing his ‘old man sticks’ and only pausing to take the opportunity to poke about his room.
They eventually make it out of the apartment, with McCree's crutches and without Sombra stealing anymore of his damn clothes. She rubs her wrist where he swatted at her and pouts all the way to the coffee shop — the independent one that’s further than the chain, Jesse is sure to point out. "I'm jus' sayin', of all the times to have particular tastes—"
It’s nothing she ain’t heard before and Sombra rolls her eyes so hard she’s gotta be giving herself a headache. She sticks her earbuds in to escape and Jesse’s more than happy to let her. He glances around the rest of the coffee shop while Sombra pretends not to know him. It’s always entertaining seeing what kind of hipster arseholes sit around in a place like this at two in the afternoon on a Tuesday.
Jesse doesn’t expect to focus on a man sitting towards the back. There’s nothing immediately eye-catching about him when there’s a half-dozen other guys with a laptop in front of them, all working on the next great American novel. He's handsome, sure, with an undercut and long black hair tied back in a bun that has Jesse wondering if it's as soft as it looks — but there’s something there that’s poking at the back of his mind, relentless.
Jesse keeps staring at him as the line slowly shuffles forwards and Sombra's too distracted by her phone to make fun of him for ogling. The guy has his brows all furrowed and his lips pursed in concentration while his eyes dart rapidly over whatever he’s writing. Was writing, since his hands are hovering over the keyboard, frozen into frustrated stillness. Poor guy's strugglin' with writer's block. McCree winces in sympathy — there's a reason he takes the photos and doesn't write the articles, he ain't got the gift for words like Lena and Lúcio do.
The man sighs and sits back as he apparently gives up for the moment. He scrubs at his undercut and Jesse can hear the rustle-scratch of it from across the café — it makes his fingertips tingle. McCree rubs his hands against his jeans to get rid of the feeling and finally drags his eyes away from the man. They’re at the front of the queue and he hasn't even decided what he wants to order.
Sombra pops out her ear buds and orders her usual whipped cream and syrup monstrosity, which gives Jesse enough time to collect himself and order what he always does, a coffee black as his outlook. Sombra makes a face and asks for one of the huge muffins they have too. “Thanks for paying, Jessito!”
McCree pulls out his wallet, while rolling his eyes, and takes the chance to peek at the guy as he's handing over his money. The man's got his chin propped on his fist as he gazes around the café and he meets Jesse’s eye for a split moment. His heart gives a loud thump at the intense scrutiny on the man's face and Jesse damn near drops his wallet.
Sombra finally notices his distraction as he curses and fumbles his wallet. "Yo, what's up with you, vaquero?"
"Nothing," McCree grunts as he tries to glance away without drawing attention to it. He knows it's the wrong answer when she immediately starting glancing around the café.
"If I were a cowboy with no taste and a questionable dating history," she muses aloud in Spanish. Jesse makes sure to accidentally elbow her as he takes his coffee, leaving Sombra to grab her own drink as he hobbles over to a free table. It just so happens that it's in the corner behind mysterious hot guy.
McCree sinks into the chair with a moan as he finally takes his weight off his busted leg. Sombra kicks his boot again as she passes him to sit at the other side of the table. She sets down her muffin and coffee before steepling her fingers in front of her face and giving Jesse a calculating squint. "It's the guy behind me, isn't it?"
Jesse doesn't want to respond and give her the satisfaction of knowing she guessed right, but she's just so damn smug about it he has to know. "What makes you say that?"
"Tattoos, piercings," she lists off on her fingers, "shredded, looks like he could probably kill a man with one hand tied behind his back. Honestly, you're kinda predictable."
McCree calls her something that if he said in Gabe's hearing, he would have a lot more problems than his adopted sister laughing at his taste in men. He’s of a mind to argue — for no other reason than his damn pride — when he gets caught on the first thing she'd said.
That's the moment the mysterious hot guy decides to stretch his arms over his head, and what Jesse had thought was the sleeve of his jacket is actually a sleeve tattoo. He damn near chokes on his own tongue as he follows the indigo storm clouds shot through with bright lightning and the twisting body of something with scales up and down the thick muscles of the man’s arm.
The thought that’s been poking at him finally makes a breakthrough as Jesse realises he’s seen this guy before, though he's never been in the same room as him. He’d remember dark eyes like that but the distance between their windows was too far for him to make out faces. McCree could only see enough to know that the new occupant was not the same man that liked his parties, and enough to see the dark tattoo the man had from his shoulder down to his wrist.
"Oh shit," Jesse says louder than he means to.
Sombra's eyebrows shoot up but she's smart enough not to turn around and stare. "What? What?"
"I've seen him before, I — he lives in the apartment across from me." Jesse doesn't know where to even begin to tell her about his spying, so he doesn’t.
"You don't sound so sure," she says archly, "and none of my neighbours make me look like that."
"Never spoke to the old one n’ he moved out while I was in London, and the invitation to his apartment-warming party got lost in the mail."
Sombra scowls, giving him that calculating look again. Jesse sets his jaw in a stubborn line to keep from saying anything he’ll truly regret — he hates when she looks at him like that, like he’s a stubborn bit of code she can just pick apart.
"Do I need to call Gabe?"she asks eventually.
"No, Jesus, don't do that." Gettin' other people involved when he doesn’t even know what to make of his suspicions about his new neighbour is the last thing he wants.
Sombra taps her phone against the table for a moment but quickly makes up her mind as she unlocks her phone and gives it all her attention. Jesse knows that look as well. "Sombra," he hisses.
"I'm just finding out who he is, relax," she says casually, like she isn't hacking into a stranger's computer while he sits behind her. "You know, you really should be careful about what WiFi you connect to, this place isn't secure at all."
"It ain't secure because you're the one hacking it!"
Sombra just blows raspberries at him and keeps typing away on her phone. McCree is torn between hiding his face behind his hat and keeping watch. The mysterious hot guy, who is also possibly his new neighbour, is oblivious as behind him Sombra makes a noise of triumph. "Hm, I think I recognise that name."
"You do?" Jesse scoots his chair around while Sombra holds out her phone. Hanzo Shimada. Disappointment makes his heart sink. "Doesn't ring a bell. Y'sure about that, Som?"
Sombra taps at her chin. "OK, here's the deal. I do a little more digging on this guy—"
"Sombra!"
"And in return, I let you see what he's writing." She gives Jesse a feral grin as she holds her phone aloft and out of his reach. "You want to read this, trust me, it's so good."
"Why don't I believe that for a moment?" Jesse mutters. His curiosity, and insatiable need to stick his nose where it didn't belong, gets the better of him. There's a reason they have a pact not to tell Gabe certain things, and Jesse holds out his hand with a defeated sigh. " This is probably illegal, y'know."
"You just keep thinking that," Sombra says cheerily as she drops the phone into his hand. "That's why you became a journo—"
"Photographer—"
"—and I became a hacker, because one of us has to get shit done around here."
McCree grunts, still wavering on whether to read the man's writing or not. "Not sure I approve of your way of gettin' shit done but I promise to bail you out when y'get caught one day."
" Only the bad hackers get caught, " Sombra scoffs, "and I'm the best there is. The best also needs to powder her nose."
"Gross," McCree says, just to make her roll her eyes as she heads for the bathroom. He looks down at the phone in his hand and sighs as he succumbs to inevitability and swipes to read whatever had the mysterious Hanzo Shimada focussing so hard.
The farmhand glanced up at Cailan as he walked into the barn. "Howdy," Joshua said with a cheeky grin that still made Cailan's heart flutter in his chest and his cheeks warm, the same as it had the first time the charming cowboy had turned that smile on him. Like seeing him was enough to make his day.
Joshua went to tip his hat and didn't seem to remember until his hand brushed through his messy blond hair that he'd left it hanging from Marigold's stable door. He twisted away to swipe his hat back, and Cailan could only stare at the way the back of his neck went blotchy red. "Hope ya don't mind my state of undress," Joshua said as he flicked a stray bit of hay from the brim.
"No, it's fine," Cailan quickly reassured him. Now that he was facing Cailan, his eyes couldn't stop returning to the farmhand's broad chest, the sun-browned breadth of his shoulders. Sweat drops were carving slow tracks through the dirt on his strong arms — the same arms he had dreamt about last night. The thought alone is enough to have the dream replaying in technicolour in his mind, remembering the feeling of Joshua pressing him down into his bedsheets while his large hands trailed over his skin.
Joshua's chest expanded on a sharp inhale, and Cailan finally glanced up to see Joshua staring back at him with a expression so intense it left him breathless. "Darlin'—"
"Excuse me."
Jesse's head snaps up with what is undoubtedly an incredibly guilty face. In front of him, Hanzo Shimada has his laptop tucked under his arm and his coffee cup in hand, face completely neutral as he stands at the other side of the table.
"Uh," Jesse says eloquently.
"I require the power socket," Hanzo says, not at all put off by Jesse's sudden inability to form complete words. He points to the wall behind Jesse, who dutifully glances over and down. It's directly behind his chair, and when McCree does a quick check of the café it's the only one not being used. "My laptop is on low power."
McCree could say no, or he could get up and leave the coffee shop right now. Caught as he is between his curiosity and his broken leg, he stays put.
"Yeah, sure, go right ahead," Jesse says, tripping over his words now that he's found them again. He scrapes his chair around the table as Hanzo sets his laptop down and plugs it in. He angles it so Jesse can't see what he's typing — like it makes any difference.
Hanzo immediately goes back to staring at his laptop, and knowing exactly what Hanzo's writing with that serious kind of focus has McCree struggling not to laugh. He coughs to cover it but Hanzo is still sitting right next to him and Jesse has to figure out what to do about that. He kinda wants to go back to reading but even Jesse isn't brave enough to read a man's porn while he's sat beside him. Jesse taps Sombra's phone against the table, unconsciously echoing what she'd done when she'd been considering hacking Hanzo's laptop. He stops as soon as he realises but his restless hands need to be doing something — he picks at Sombra’s muffin but it’s deeply unappetizing, even to annoy his sister.
"You new in town?" Jesse asks aloud, catching himself by surprise as much as Hanzo. He recovers as Hanzo goes utterly still. "Don't think I've seen you around before."
"I am working," Hanzo tells him flatly. He doesn't even turn away from his screen.
McCree has been an investigative photographer for going on two decades now, ever since Gabe picked him up and figured out he had a pretty good eye for a story. Since then, he's faced war profiteers and crime lords, exposed some of the darker sides of people and politics. His leg wasn't the first time he'd been seriously hurt in the line of duty; Jesse had been bruised, beaten, shot at and lightly stabbed.
Hanzo's rejection doesn't sting but it is just about the most confusing thing he's heard all day. Either Hanzo's lying or somehow what he's writing is work, and his scowl definitely isn't the face of a man who's at play. Against his better judgement and suspicions, Jesse might actually believe him. "Sorry," he says and actually means it.
McCree lifts his hat to scrub at his hair. Why does Sombra always take so damn long in the bathroom? He's tempted to pull out his phone and scroll his newsfeeds until she gets back — hoping that Hanzo doesn't clock that he's got two phones — but Hanzo’s watching him out of the corner of his eye now.
Being watched was never McCree's preference. That's why he has the camera; folks like him blend into the background, letting him capture those moments when people think they aren’t being watched. Jesse grits his teeth as he looks at nothing, sipping his coffee and picking at the muffin like he doesn't feel Hanzo's eyes on him.
He's just about resolved to let Hanzo look his fill when the man speaks. "I am new," he says slowly. "I came to this city for family reasons."
"Oh?" Jesse can't help but ask as he turns back to Hanzo. He feigns innocent curiosity, lifting a single eyebrow and hiding his face behind his coffee mug.
Hanzo gives a hesitant nod, like he isn't sure he should be talking to Jesse. His eyes are wide as he takes in Jesse’s face, darting over his hat and flannel shirt before dropping down to his broken leg.
Jesse grimaces — it didn't even make a good story. McCree had been covering the omnic riots in King’s Row for a couple of weeks before he found himself on the frontlines of the altercation between law enforcement and the group calling itself Null Sector. The OR-14 came charging straight at Jesse, guns hot, and he waited until the last possible second to dive out of the way. His leg took the brunt of the impact with the concrete but he got the shot he wanted.
McCree's trick knee hadn't thanked him for the stunt, however, and the phone call from Gabe to chew him out for pulling such a dangerous move had him regrettin' every decision of his life. As if Jesse hadn't learnt everything he knew from Gabe. If he’s remembering right, Jesse had been arguing that exact point while limping back to his hotel room when he'd gone and tripped on a chunk of debris.
What McCree thought was just a bruise from the hard landing was a crack in his tibia; when he tripped and landed on his leg again, he finished breaking it.
Not that Jesse cares about impressing Hanzo; for all he knows he murdered Jesse's last neighbour and dumped his body in a shallow grave in the desert.
McCree's prepared for the mild curiosity on Hanzo's face as he wonders how he busted his leg. He doesn't know what to do with what he would describe as interest on anybody else. Hanzo can't be interested in him like that, there has to be another reason why his eyes suddenly go sharp and his lips are pursed in thought again.
"Are you from Santa Fe?" he asks, leaning forward a fraction. Hanzo's elbow slides closer to his coffee cup, perched dangerously close to the table's edge, and Jesse's caught between watching him and making sure it doesn't fall.
"Yup, born and raised." McCree doesn't know what to make of Hanzo's considering hum. This was supposed to be Jesse getting information from Hanzo, not squirming as the man scrutinises him, like he's trying to figure out his story again, except he's only focussing on Jesse now. Hanzo doesn't say anything, just keeps watching him, and McCree feels like he has to keep talking. "I've travelled all over but I keep coming back. My folks think I'm crazy but I guess I was just born for the desert and sun. That, uh, pro'lly sounds a little nuts given the heatwave we're having at the moment but when I was in London all I could think about was comin' home again."
Hanzo nods again. He's got this considering look on his face, like what McCree's saying is worth listenin' to. Jesse rubs the back of his neck where he can feel himself going hot with something like embarrassment. "If y'needed a local to show you some of the good places around town while you're here, I'm your huckleberry."
Hanzo's eyes go wide, leaning back in his seat in apparent surprise. His elbow goes wide and Jesse can only watch as he swipes the coffee cup clean off of the table. It clatters to the ground, thankfully empty, and rolls to a stop against the toe of Sombra's boot. She picks it up with a raised eyebrow at the both of them, like she just caught them conspirin'.
"Can't take you anywhere," she sneers.
"Sombra—"
"I apologise," Hanzo says over Jesse, "I should have been more careful."
Sombra gives him a squint. "S'not the first time someone's thrown their coffee cup at me." McCree grinds his teeth together while Hanzo goes red, completely at a loss for words. Sombra is unbothered as she sets Hanzo's cup back down on the table and picks up her own, taking a long sip and smacking her lips obnoxiously. "You wanna head out now, Jes?"
Sombra tilts her head at Hanzo as she asks, anything but subtle. Unless you would rather stay? she's asking, and McCree grits his teeth so hard his jaw aches.
"Naw," he says stiffly, "time to hit the road." Jesse heaves himself to his feet, fumbling to hold his coffee and get his crutches out from under his chair. Sombra doesn’t offer a hand, too busy pouting at her half-eaten muffin.
Hanzo might be hiding behind his laptop as Jesse shuffles around the table, but leaving without another word feels too weird. Like he's running away. "Hey, Hanzo?" Jesse says, sharp enough to make him jerk in surprise. Jesse juggles all his shit again so he can tip his hat. "See ya around."
Hanzo nods and McCree walks away before he can do anything else embarrassingly blatant. Sombra at least has the good sense to wait until they're back out in the blistering Santa Fe sun before she starts giggling. Seeing Jesse is all it takes to reduce her to loud honking laughter, with tears in her eyes. Every time it seems like Sombra might be calming down she just has to mime tipping her hat to completely lose it again. Jesse doesn't even bother waiting for her, just starts walking back to his apartment as fast as his busted leg will take him.
"Wait, wait! Hang on, fuck," Sombra wheezes, staggering after him. Jesse doesn't stop hobbling. “You in a grouch 'cause I interrupted your flirting?"
"We weren't flirtin'."
Sombra lets him know what she thinks of that, and loudly. It doesn't matter if she doesn't believe him, they weren't flirting. Jesse was asking questions and feigning interest because Hanzo was suspicious as hell and he was trying to figure him out. Hanzo listened to him because—
McCree lets out an aggravated huff. "We were not flirting,” he grunts again and can’t figure out why it sounds so unconvincing even to his own ears.
Sombra takes a huge bite of her muffin and talks with her mouth full, spitting crumbs. "Is that why you pulled that face, y'know, when you went—" she makes a shocked face so exaggerated McCree can't help but snort "—because you know you're incapable of being anything but embarrassingly cowboy all the time? I don't think you've got anything to worry about. He's obviously got as big a thing for cowboys as you do, except you want to be one and he wants one to—"
"I don't need to hear this!" McCree interrupts her loudly.
Sombra cackles as she retrieves her phone from his pocket. "Sure, vaquero. You owe me more coffee, just so you know. One for letting you read what he's writing and then another after you two—"
McCree whacks her in the ankle with a crutch. He never does tell her that he suspects Hanzo Shimada of something untoward. How the apartment is exactly the same save for the occupant, down to the bonsai tree on the window sill and the colourful poster on the wall behind. In his own mind and to an audience of one, his suspicions had seemed so well founded but Jesse knows Sombra will just laugh and make fun of him for his apparently obvious crush on his neighbour.
Once Sombra leaves to report back to Gabe on successfully poking Jesse until he left his apartment for the day, Jesse tries to get some of his own work done. He might not be able to go out and take the photos but there's still plenty that need editing. To say nothing of the emails he's let sit unanswered all this time. If he had his druthers he’d let ‘em sit a while longer but Gabe would end him a scathing text sooner or later — or worse, send Sombra after him again.
It's been dark for hours by the time McCree sits back from his laptop and stretches his arms over his head, popping his back like popcorn in a microwave. He lifts his glasses to scrub at his tired eyes — if he never has to see another damn email inviting him to an interview he doesn't want or a reward night with too many people and too little booze, it'll be too soon. There's a breeze coming in through the still-open window that he luxuriates in for a moment, the cool night air breathing a little life back into him.
A light comes on from outside his window, spilling into his apartment in a soft haze — Jesse’d forgotten to turn his lights on, between the heat of the day and his emails, and hadn’t noticed he was broodin’ in the dark. Hanzo’s apartment is lit up, and Jesse knows the sound of that particular door slamming shut. Hanzo can’t only now be coming in from the coffee shop — it's been hours.
McCree scoots his chair around to get a better angle of the other apartment. There's something else that's been buzzing around McCree's head since they'd walked out of the café, though he hadn't been able to think about it much with Sombra poking at him. He'd let it be, knowing that sooner or later it'd come into focus and he’ll finally see it all clearly.
It had something to do with the coffee cup Hanzo had sent flying off the table. Jesse keeps coming back to that moment Hanzo's elbow had sent it the floor, and he props his chin on his fist as he mulls it over while waiting to see if Hanzo walks into view. It's bad manners to get a takeout cup if you’re planning on sticking around but Jesse’s pretty sure he isn't getting hung up on Hanzo's lack of social etiquette. He’d just expect a hipster who sits in cafés to write his porn to know better and it ain’t like Hanzo's ever in his apartment anyway.
McCree jolts upright as the realisation hits like a shock down his spine, enough to make the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. If Hanzo's a hipster spending his days in cafés, why wouldn't he sit at the table with the power plug next to it? A regular knows they're a commodity and stakes his claim before he needs it. And the coffee cup — it'd been empty. If he wasn't a regular, why was Hanzo sat in a coffee shop without any coffee?
It certainly weren't for the company, not with how Hanzo had brushed him off so quickly only to slowly, hesitantly try and get a conversation going. How it’d taken a minute before Hanzo actually leaned in while McCree spoke. So he spends all day in cafés and only orders one drink, speaks to nobody, and it ain’t a long-term habit. Might’ve only started going he'd moved into his new apartment. McCree can’t know for sure but the same instincts that get him the shots tell him there's something there, something worth following.
McCree startles again when Hanzo slumps at the table by the window. It's easy to recognise Hanzo now that Jesse knows who he's looking at, the shapes of his tattoo and his hipster haircut. He's holdin' something — a towel maybe, or a dishcloth — and Jesse fancies he knows why when Hanzo’s presses it over his eye.
Somehow the justified feeling never appears, knowing that Hanzo’s getting up to something that even from a distance looks like it’s gotta hurt. Instead Jesse’s heart sinks when Hanzo moves his hand away from his face and Jesse can see more clearly what kinda state his face is in. Based on years of falling into and out of trouble, Jesse knows the swelling might go down with ice but will still leave him bruised and aching down to his teeth.
Hanzo hunches further into himself, a miserable ball of pain without even his usual hot drink. All the time McCree has been watching him and it only strikes him now that he’s living a lonely sorta life. Jesse’s been in his position, beaten to hell and nobody to care about it, but not in years.
Jesse would bet his camera Hanzo doesn't speak to very many people while he lurks inside coffee shops and wherever else he goes. Something's driving him out of the apartment until late at night and that same something's beating the hell out of him.
McCree's already reaching for his phone to tell Sombra when he stops with his finger poised over the 'Call’. There's still not much he can tell her — his neighbour's taken to going to coffee shops only recently and could’ve walked into a lamp post. It is more than that though, Jesse's gut insists, but he puts his phone back down on his desk. Let Sombra come back to him with whatever she finds out about Hanzo Shimada — if she finds something, she's more likely to listen to him. And if she doesn't, Jesse doesn't have to endure more teasing.
Either way, McCree suspects that he's finally found the trouble he was looking for.