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Hanzo’s ears flicked and his tail arched. The tail arch was to be expected; the flick of his ears, another sign of his frustration, was a behavior he had learned recently. Despite Hanzo’s annoyance, McCree smiled.
“I know,” he assured Hanzo in Standard. “I’m just… I’m trying to understand. This… doesn’t happen in human culture.”
Hanzo’s eyes narrowed and he tapped his closed fan thoughtfully against his chin. “ Humans don’t have soulmates? ”
There was that word again. The translator chip, which McCree used for the meeting where he had heard the word for the first time, had called it “soulmates”; McCree had the feeling that it was more than that, and that the translation was woefully… well, either inaccurate or not quite what that word meant. Translator chips were all well and good, but sometimes they were entirely inadequate for anything but a general translation and certain cultural nuances were lost completely.
Translator chips made by Hanamurans, whose tech was prized across the universe, were naturally the best but they still had their faults. It seemed that McCree had found one of them.
In truth it was just as well. McCree preferred the work of translating it himself— he’d gone through the work of learning the language so why not apply that knowledge? At the same time, he had difficulty actually speaking Hanamuran and the translator chip allowed for his blunders. Why lose face in butchering the language when you could rely on the chip?
With Hanzo, who could understand Standard just fine, it worked out: McCree could practice listening to Hanzo’s rumbly voice speak in his native tongue and Hanzo could practice listening to McCree’s accented Standard. He would need the practice if he and his brother intended to live on the Overwatch .
“That word,” McCree said carefully, shaking himself from his musings. “What does it mean? Can you say it again?”
Hanzo watched him for a moment and then flicked his fan open to hide his mouth from view. This at least, McCree was familiar with from the Standard year he had spent with another clan: he was bashful. Given the topic, he was probably unsure of himself, unsure of how to describe something that he knew, had always known for all of his life, to an outsider. To his “soulmate”, or whatever that word meant.
As if sensing McCree’s thoughts— and as if sensing how ridiculous it was for him to be ashamed— Hanzo flicked the fan closed. “ You have not heard the word before? ” Hanzo asked carefully.
“I was a bodyguard the last time I was on Hanamura,” McCree reminded him. “And as you can tell… I can understand your language but I can’t speak it… yet. I’m trying, though.”
Hanzo’s tail arched and its tip, decorated with thin pieces of hammered metal that clicked together like little bells, flicked to show his amusement; he tapped his closed fan against his sternum to show that he was laughing as well, though his face remained blank of what humans might describe as expression. “ You sound like a dying animal .”
McCree didn’t recognize the name of the animal that Hanzo used, it was probably an animal endemic to the island of his clan, but the word he used was a compound one and that at least McCree could translate. Or perhaps he thought he could and was mishearing, because the word Hanzo used would be “angry-screaming-phallus”.
Then again, the Hanamuran word for “phallus” sounded similar to “rock”, which was a coincidence that had always amused McCree. Neither made much sense in this context, so McCree chose to ignore it instead of think too much about it. Angry-screaming-phalluses were not what was important in this conversation.
“The point is,” McCree told Hanzo, “that I doubt I would have discussed these… soulmates with people.”
Hanzo touched the tip of the closed fan to his right cheek— a Hanamuran frown. “Soulmates,” he echoed very carefully in Standard.
“That’s what the translator used when you first brought it up,” McCree explained. “Humans— some humans— believe that they have a soul. Like a ghost that inhabits the body. You can have the bodies marry, but the souls don’t always connect. A soulmate is that connection— a hypothetical connection.”
Hanzo tapped his fan against his cheek and his tail curled next to him; he was thinking, trying to understand McCree’s explanation. “ You claim that you are ‘soulmates’ ,” Hanzo concluded. “ It is something you say that you are, but humans have no way of knowing .”
“Yes,” McCree agreed. “And they do not have to be romantic, though most stories say that they are. I can say that Nox is my soulmate, because he understands me better than most humans do.”
He was relieved that Hanzo did not ask if Nox had a soul, or how McCree could be so bonded to an AI. Perhaps to Hanamurans that wasn’t a question, given their close relationship with technology. “ You could say that you and the Sānta Fē are soulmates ,” Hanzo said cautiously, stumbling a little over the ship’s name in Standard. McCree found that he liked the way that Hanzo said it, liked the accented vowels. “ Because you are each other .” Hanzo tilted his head, moved the tip of the fan to his chin; he was frowning again, but a different kind of frown. “ Perhaps you and the dinosaur are soulmates too. ”
Unable to help himself, McCree snorted derisively. “The dinosaur” that Hanzo referred to was a descendant of an ancient Terran avian called a “goose” that was known for its...difficult nature. It had somehow snuck away from its handlers the last time McCree had been called upon to aid environmental research for the Overwatch and has refused to leave since.
Nox loved the wretched creature and it had a small tag on a ribbon around its neck--not around its leg as typically done for such creatures— that allowed it to open the doors on the ship.
Hanzo rested his fan along his jaw in a Hanamuran smile. He knew how wicked the damn creature was, had more than once had the unpleasant experience of the goose chasing him for the charms on his tail.
“That beast and I are not soulmates,” McCree told Hanzo with mock severity. They shared a smile— one in the human way, one in the Hanamuran way— before Hanzo frowned again. The fan was poised again at the tip of Hanzo’s chin, careful of the sharp blades hidden by the fine cloth.
McCree was amazed at how many damn frowns the Hanamurans had in their repertoire. He was pretty sure that this was what he used to call the “negotiating frown”, the one that was used to convey that he didn’t like the way something was phrased— it was a way to politely point out that there was something wrong or duplicitous about the words used.
“I understand,” McCree assured Hanzo. “We’re connected.”
Hanzo moved the tip of the fan back to his cheek. “Connected,” he repeated in Standard. “Your language is difficult.” He moved the fan to the other side of his face and lay it against his jaw— he was smiling. “So many words mean different things.”
Unable to help himself, McCree threw his head back and laughed. When he looked back at Hanzo, he found that his lips had pulled back to bare his teeth. It looked like a snarl, but McCree knew that Hanzo was trying to smile like McCree did. Smiling the way humans did, McCree lifted his left arm— for most Hanamuran emotions were conveyed with the left arm— and laid his hand along his left cheek and jaw to smile back at Hanzo.
“Soulmates,” Hanzo said carefully in Standard. He then repeated it in his language.
“They don’t sound the same,” McCree agreed. “Say it again in your language?” Hanzo repeated it slowly. It was another compound word and McCree struggled to piece it together.
He recognized the most personal, absolute kind of “I” in Hanamuran. It encapsulated all that one was: mind, body, and the “heart” or “spirit” that Hanamurans believed existed in everything, living or dead; it encompassed future and present and past.
McCree had rarely heard it used, except for the rare occasion where he, as a bodyguard, had accompanied his charge to a Hanamuran wedding. The couple had used it in their vows, tying everything they were, had-ever-been, and ever-shall-be, to their other.
For that reason, he could also recognize the other word as the absolute form of “you”.
You-and-I , all that we are, all that we will be, all that we were; mind, heart, and body, we are one.
There was a third word there that McCree didn’t quite recognize and he very carefully repeated it to Hanzo. He corrected McCree’s pronunciation— there was a glottal stop and an accent that he had missed.
“I’m sure I’ve heard that word before,” McCree told Hanzo. “But I don’t remember where. The first two, I recognize. It’s talking about you and I, is that correct? You and I, and all of us.” Hanzo nodded. “That other word though. It sounds familiar.”
Hanzo used another word and McCree could hear the similarities— he could also recognize it.
“That’s…” he struggled to put it into Standard, to think of the right word. “Melody. Harmony.” The best way he’d heard it described was many-sounds-braided-into-one-song but the Standard word harmony didn’t quite capture the artistry implied in the word. It was taking cacophonous sound and making it sound beautiful and serene together.
McCree gestured at Hanzo’s tail and Hanzo smiled in the Hanamuran way before tucking his fan into his belt. He tugged his tail into his lap and ran his fingers over the wires and cord stretched between the spines. Hanzo played a simple melody and McCree wished that he had the hearing acuity of Hanamurans to better appreciate the sound.
He watched Hanzo play his “tail harp” and thought. “You-and-I”, and this idea of “harmony”. It wasn’t quite the same word but the similarities made McCree think that it was derivative, so a portion of the translation might overlap.
Hanzo continued to pluck the strings of his tail in an absentminded kind of way— a typical Hanamuran pastime. In a negotiation, this might be seen as an insult— a way to say that the other party or parties is boring the negotiator, or that the negotiator does not believe that the others are worth their time. McCree knew— somehow— that Hanzo was doing this out of self-comfort, to ease his nervousness.
And, he had the feeling, to show McCree.
Show what, McCree had to figure out on his own, but Hanzo was showing McCree something, or trying to. He looked down at Hanzo’s tail harp, watched his fingers pluck at the strings in a melody that to McCree was just sound but to Hanzo was music.
He rolled up his sleeve and tapped at his computer to wake it up. “I think I understand,” McCree muttered. “But let me check. It’s not harmony or melody .”
Hanzo paused, his hands splayed over his tail harp.
“ A structure that cannot adequately be represented by a single structural formula, but is a composite of two or more structures ,” McCree read. “ The reinforcement of sound by reflection from a surface or by the synchronous vibration of a neighboring object . The condition in which an object or system is subjected to an oscillating force having a frequency close to its own natural frequency .” He licked his lips and looked up at Hanzo.
The Hanamuran was leaning close, his ears pricked forward as he vibrated with an odd kind of energy. He was like the last echo of his tail harp, which continued to hum in the air between them.
“ This word ,” Hanzo said. “ What is it? ”
McCree swallowed. All of a sudden it was as if he could feel it too, could feel the echo of Hanzo’s tail harp, the hum in the air between them. As if he could feel the… whatever-it-was between them— as if a string was stretched between them and plucked. Not quite music but a sound that echoed in body and mind and heart.
“Resonance.”
Hanzo blinked and leaned closer. “Resonance,” he said very slowly in Standard, trying out the word as if tasting it. “ Say it again .” McCree obeyed. “I feel this,” he said carefully in Standard. “I feel this… Resonance. Humans do not have it.”
“No,” McCree said weakly. “We don’t but… perhaps that’s our loss.”
They were quiet for a while. Hanzo went back to playing his tail harp, this time entirely for self-comfort. McCree felt scrubbed raw, as if he bared more than he meant to with the utterance of a single word that in Standard, meant very little in regards to emotions.
Very little in comparison to “love” and “soulmate” and a thousand other words like them.
He watched Hanzo. This word, that in Standard was so innocuous, was the most important to Hanamurans— important enough that once Hanzo uttered the words to his family, everything had changed.
You and I, everything that we are, are resonant .
“ I cannot hear it ,” McCree said very slowly in Hanamuran, struggling with the harsh sounds and accents and glottal stops that didn’t exist in Standard. “ Not the way that you can, but…you-and-I make beautiful music together. ”
Hanzo’s fingers stilled on his tail harp. The tip of his tail twitched. “ Your accent is atrocious ,” he said in the same language.
“I…can’t claim to understand this,” McCree told him, switching back to Standard. “Is this… Resonance . Is this considered romantic?”
His soulmate— the one with whom he Resonates— tilted his head to the side. “ It depends ,” he admitted. “ Like your soulmates. It does not have to be .”
McCree thought of the way that Hanzo’s tail had curled around his waist when they had first met and Hanzo had felt their Resonance— as if trying to tangle their tails together, as Hanamurans did while courting. He thought about how Hanzo brushed his shoulders, his back, touched him gently when not in the presence of others.
“ I like you ,” he told Hanzo carefully in Hanamuran. “ And I would… like to explore our Resonance. Romantically. ”
Hanzo watched him, not revealing the tenor of his thoughts before attempting another human smile. “ I do not know how humans court each other. ”
“And I don’t know how Hanamurans court each other,” McCree pointed out, switching back to Standard. “But…I’m willing to learn with you.”
Leaning closer, Hanzo peered at McCree who closed the distance between them, pressing his nose to Hanzo’s in a Hanamuran “kiss”. Hanzo purred— a sound that McCree didn’t know that Hanamurans made— and nuzzled McCree back.
McCree smiled. “Do you know how humans kiss?”
“ Touching lips, correct? ” Hanzo asked, his brow furrowing. “ It seems… ”
“Weird?” McCree’s grin hurt his face but he couldn’t imagine stopping. “I’m sure it must to you. Do you want to try?”
“Yes!” Hanzo jumped back and pulled his fan from his belt. He flicked it open and hid his face from chin to nose behind it in embarrassment.
Very carefully— the edges of the fan were sharp, to be used as hidden blades— McCree tilted the fan down to show Hanzo’s face. “It’s alright,” he breathed. “Shall we?”
Hanzo swallowed nervously. “ What do I do? ”
“Sit back,” McCree urged him and Hanzo obeyed, kneeling in the grass. He licked his lips and got to his knees as well, closing the distance between them, carefully moving aside Hanzo’s tail so he wouldn’t accidentally step on it. Hanzo watched him with wide eyes as he approached, his tail twitching nervously. “Is this okay?” he asked, gently resting both palms against Hanzo’s cheeks.
“ Yes ,” Hanzo breathed and two of his hands caught in McCree’s shirt, the decorated tips of his nails catching against the fabric.
McCree smiled and gently leaned in, tapping his nose against Hanzo’s before turning his head and slotting their lips together. It was a soft kiss, a gentle brush of lips. Hanzo’s pupils shrank to tiny points as he watched McCree.
“How was that?” McCree asked breathlessly.
Hanzo was shaking as he seemed to consider that. “ It was… strange, ” he said at last. “ I think… I need another taste of you. ” This time his fingers caught on McCree’s hips, tugged him closer until he was nearly straddling Hanzo’s broad thighs. With their size difference, McCree’s legs were spread wide and he shuddered at that implication.
He leaned in, pressing his lips to Hanzo’s again and groaned. Their second kiss was sloppy and uncoordinated, but that was to be expected as Hanzo struggled to mimic the motions of McCree’s lips. They reluctantly parted and McCree opened his eyes to find Hanzo already looking a him; his pupils were enormous now, nearly swallowing his irises completely.
“It’s strange,” McCree whispered between them. “I barely know you and yet I feel like I’ve known you my whole life. Or maybe I just think I do.”
“ You said that humans do not have Resonance, ” Hanzo pointed out. “ And if you felt it, you would know. You feel it in your bones, in every drop of blood and marrow, in the finest vein and hair. It fills you— and you would know if you feel Resonance. ”
McCree sighed. “Then I don’t,” he said, a little disappointed. “But it sounds painful. Does it feel weird that I don’t fully Resonate with you?”
“ It is merely something that you cannot feel, ” Hanzo told him kindly. “ Or that you have no way of knowing. Like the blind not knowing color— they cannot see it but that does not mean that it does not exist. I can feel your Resonance with all that I am— and that is enough for me. ”
It wasn’t, McCree could tell that it wasn’t. There were still so many questions left unanswered. Would McCree, captain of the Santa Fe , a pilot of the derelict space station Overwatch , remain on Hanamura with Hanzo? Would Hanzo, the eldest son of the ruling pair of the Shimada Clan, leave and follow McCree? Would they part ways?
If Hanzo left he would lose his place in the hierarchy— and given that his horns were decorated in gold, his rank was very high indeed. Silver for the ruling male and female of the clan; copper for the Elders who offered counsel.
Gold for the best and the brightest males and females, the ones next in line for consideration should the ruling pair step down.
Such thoughts cooled the fire in him. What would happen to them now? They were Resonant, evidently the most sacred of bonds.
But then, that was silly. Hanzo had already contacted Overwatch — he and his brother were leaving Hanamura to work with them as the connection between the Shimada Clan and Overwatch . His leaving— resulting in the loss of his place in the hierarchy— was already planned.
There were other things to consider, things that were for minds greater than his to worry about. For now, he had Hanzo and Hanzo was happy. Whether this would be the case in a few Standard months when he thought about the repercussions of his choice, would remain to be seen.
But for now they had this: a budding courtship— and the ringing notes of Resonance.