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Gripping the edge of the sleek marble countertop, Hanzo sucks in a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and levels a glare at his reflection in the mirror.
His reflection glowers back: his already-stern eyebrows drawn over his eyes, mouth turned down into a deep frown, the very antithesis of the happy fiancé he is supposed to be. Stop being pathetic , he instructs his mirrored counterpart, and himself. It does nothing to ease the ache in his chest and he slumps, defeated, over the sink.
Just outside the door and some thirty feet back is McCree. Hanzo had left him lounging in the hotel bar in their little corner table, nursing a bourbon and browsing an article on his phone. Ostensibly, they were waiting for their target to show so they can plant a bug and leave, but Hanzo had had to dismiss himself when his chest began to ache.
Three days of this. Three days of pretending to be engaged, which in turn meant three days of false affection, constant proximity, ridiculous pet names, and pretending to be irritated to cover how much he is actually pleased by it all.
Undercover fiances. What an absolute joke of a cover. In what way, truly, was this any more effective than simply arriving at the event as companions? What purpose did it serve to spend three days pretending McCree is his husband-to-be except to torture him? Perhaps this was some form of punishment for his past sins, a subtle method employed by a secretly bitter Winston to punish him for his past crimes against Genji.
Except Winston didn’t have a cruel bone in his body, nor half the social awareness required to even be aware of Hanzo’s predicament in the first place, and this hotel was such a popular honeymoon destination resort that it would simply raise fewer eyebrows for a couple to spend the night than a pair of men in a platonic friendship.
Hanzo sighs deeply. It is no one’s fault but his own that he has ended up here. Pining for someone he does not deserve, failing to quash those feelings when they first arose months ago, failing to put even the barest of distance between himself and his interactions with McCree--those were his mistakes alone, as are the consequences.
He takes another deep breath and tries to school his features into something that isn’t the absolute pinnacle of misery. He ends up with something approaching neutral. It will have to do.
He exits the bathroom, returning to the ridiculously sleek, gilded hotel lounge. McCree is just where he left him, idly scrolling through a news article on his phone. He looks up as Hanzo resumes his seat and smiles warmly, as though as though Hanzo’s return has truly brought him joy.
“Welcome back, sweetness,” he says. He reaches his hand across the table, palm-up, and Hanzo doesn’t think twice before taking it. These simple displays of affection had been an adjustment at first, but now he craves them like nothing else. “Everything alright? You were gone for a few.”
“Of course,” Hanzo replies smoothly.
That smile again, as though Hanzo has done something worthy of it. McCree returns to his article. “You didn’t miss much,” he says. “Startin’ to think this might have been a bust.”
“I am inclined to agree.” Hanzo downs the remains of his vodka tonic, watery with the ice that melted while he had a minor breakdown in the bathroom. “But we still have some time here. It would be a shame to waste it entirely.”
“That’s true.” McCree’s thumb strokes mindlessly over the backs of Hanzo’s knuckles. Something in Hanzo’s chest squeezes, too tight, and he gets to his feet.
“I am going to go for a walk,” Hanzo announces, a simple code for I am going to go scout out the area.
“Alright. You need any company?” McCree’s gaze barely flicks up from his phone. He may genuinely be engrossed in his article, but Hanzo knows better than to believe McCree is any less aware of his surroundings.
Yes, Hanzo thinks immediately, unable to shake the disgustingly romantic notion of walking along the piers with McCree at his side.
“No,” he says aloud. “I will not be long.” He trails his hand across McCree’s shoulders as he passes. “I will meet you back in our room soon.”
“Alright.” Then McCree does something odd: he tips his face up a bit, toward Hanzo but with his eyes still glued to his phone, and pauses as though he is waiting for something.
And Hanzo does something odd, too, in that even though he recognizes that something is not quite right, he still dips down and presses a dry kiss to McCree’s forehead before he departs.
He gets a few steps away from the table before he fully realizes what he has just done, and it takes every ounce of self-control not to break stride. He can feel McCree’s gaze burning between his shoulders as he walks away and he fights not to look back, afraid of what he will see on McCree's face if he turns back.
In spite of everything they have had to do these past few days, no form of kissing had been a part of it, and Hanzo had just broken that so easily that they might as well not have been faking at all.
His lips tingle faintly with the memory of the warmth of McCree’s skin. Hanzo walks faster once he gets through the front doors, taking long strides down the sidewalk and around dozens of other tourists to put distance between himself and his mistakes.
--
Surprisingly, the mission wraps up later that evening, the bug successfully planted and transferring valuable information back to Athena to be combed through later. Hanzo and McCree elect to stay the last night, rounding out their week and taking advantage of one night to relax.
The first part of the day passes quickly with the tension of their work, but once the dust settles and they retire to their suite for the night, Hanzo starts to feel nervous. Their suite is not small by any means, but now it feels constricting, trapping him with nowhere to hide with the weight of his stupid kiss hanging overhead. He can feel McCree’s eyes on him as they move about the space in their nighttime rituals.
“What?” he finally snaps after the fourth time he has caught McCree staring, only for McCree to look away and pretend to be doing anything but.
McCree winces, caught out, but he doesn’t try to make an excuse this time. He finishes folding a t-shirt and sets it on top of his duffel bag, considering it for such a long moment that Hanzo wonders if he managed to forget he was asked a question.
“I was thinking,” he says finally. “Or, well, wondering about something.”
The air evaporates from Hanzo’s lungs. He turns away to the wide desk on his side of the room, pretending to be invested in his tablet. “And that requires staring at me?”
“Maybe doesn’t require it, but . . .” He trails off, wrestling with some internal dilemma, then asks, “Did you mean to kiss me earlier today?”
And there it is. Hanzo bites back a sigh, taps at a random app on his tablet to maintain the air of nonchalance. “It was part of our cover,” he says simply.
“Okay. ‘Cept that hadn’t really been a part of it, until then.”
It strikes Hanzo then just how ridiculous this conversation is. “I do not know what else to say,” he says coolly. “We have a cover to maintain. I maintained it as we have the last several days. I do not see what difference it makes.”
“Three reasons.” Hanzo finally looks back, curious in spite of himself. McCree meets his eye “One,” he says, “as I just said, kissing wasn’t a part of the deal unless it was some sort of emergency. Between that and you disappearing for ten minutes beforehand, it makes me wonder.”
“That was dif--”
“ Two, I’ve run a couple covers like this before, and sometimes when you do it for more than a day or two, someone gets a little more invested than they mean. Feelings can run a little high, even if it doesn’t mean much, and it can be awkward later. So if that’s what’s happening, I’d like to know so we can sort it out now rather than later. And three . . .”
McCree suddenly finds his folded t-shirt very interesting again. He picks idly at the fabric, takes a deep breath, and says, “Three, I may have been enjoying this whole thing a lot more than I should be, and not because I only just now got invested, so I wouldn’t mind it if that were the case for you, too.”
Hanzo feels his jaw drop slightly with surprise. He is unsure whether to be relieved or alarmed or some combination of the two. McCree still doesn’t look at him, fiddling with the shirt, his shoulders slowly drawing up until they nearly reach his ears.
Hanzo swallows. He takes a few steps closer to the bed and licks his lips. “And if I said that were true?” he asks.
McCree’s head snaps up. He searches Hanzo’s face for something, perhaps some hint that he may be lying. A tentative smile pulls up one corner of his mouth. “In that case,” he says slowly, “I’d say there’s a lot to talk about, but for now I wouldn’t mind you doin’ it again.”
Hanzo closes the gap between them, putting himself in McCree’s space. He takes the stupid t-shirt out of his hands and sets it aside on the bed. McCree lets him, his eyes never leaving Hanzo’s, waiting. Hanzo’s heart beats against his ribs, not with nerves but anticipation.
He thinks of McCree secretly wanting this just as much as he has--wanting a dozen things that were off-limits, quietly aching with an affection he felt he had to hide, unaware just as Hanzo was of the truth of the matter.
He reaches up, wrapping his hand around the back of McCree’s neck, and he barely has to guide him down into a proper kiss.
It’s not quite perfect, contrary to Hanzo’s childish daydreaming about how it might be. It’s a little awkward and stilted, two men who haven’t been with another in years feeling out each other. But it’s soft and sincere, and the second one is better, and the third one better still.
By the time they break, McCree’s hands have found their way to Hanzo’s hips, and Hanzo’s fingers are threaded through McCree’s hair. Hanzo opens his mouth to speak, but is surprised that McCree seems to be stuck in a brief stasis, his eyes still closed even after the kiss ends. Hanzo has a couple of seconds to take in the faint flush on McCree’s tan cheeks, the dusty brown of his lashes, and even a few faint, barely-there freckles scattered across the tops of his cheeks before McCree’s eyes flutter open and meet his again.
Hanzo forgets what he meant to say. McCree grins wryly and says, “Now think how good our actin’ would have been if we’d figured this out at the start.”
Hanzo laughs softly. “We still have to leave undetected in the morning,” he points out. “I am sure we will have plenty of chances to convince any non-believers of our relationship.”
“That’s true.” McCree tugs him closer, pulls them together chest to chest. “Hope you don’t mind, but I plan to take every last opportunity to show ‘em.”