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For as much time as he spent in the med-bay, Hanzo had never grown accustomed to the silence that came with it.
Meditative silence was one thing. Whether it was the launch deck roof-top access, the rec-room kitchen, or even his own quarters, Hanzo knew he could close his eyes and force all of his thoughts out, and instead focus on feeling only the fabric of his clothing, the bend in his knees as he sat, and his lungs inhaling and exhaling in a steady rhythm. All noises faded into the background; all but the ones he wished to listen for.
That mindful quiet was soothing in exactly the same way that the medical bay was not. It wasn’t even truly quiet, all things considered. The air conditioning unit rummed, sputtering on truly hot days, and the bio-machines blipped and beeped, graphing and charting all kinds of readings on monitors that were always placed just out of view.
Two weeks bed-rest minimum, but it would be closer to three or four before Angela would sign him off as mission-ready. Hanzo hadn’t tried to hide his discontent when she told him, nor when his friend McCree had decided to leave in a hurry, just before the doctor had come in to check his vitals in the first place.
The others on base had visited him in the meantime; some comforting like Ana and the newer agents like Hana and Lúcio, while others were slightly pleasant at best. Mei was still shaken from the whole ordeal.
During his visit, Reinhardt had left a copy on the nightstand of Reelin’, some fishing magazine he probably borrowed from Fareeha. “Enjoy the light reading!” read the sticky note on the front page, right over a picture of a scantily clad woman in ill-fitted fishing equipment.
The bed-ridden archer had been halfway through the section on big water walleyes when he heard his door creak open, and a shadowy, but familiar figure stepped inside the room and tipped his hat at him.
“Evenin’.”
Hanzo was big enough to admit he was shocked to see McCree again. When he had left earlier, the gunslinger seemed like he would rather be anywhere else, and had left with a hardened expression unlike anything Hanzo had seen on him before.
...No, actually, that was not true. He had seen it. Back when fighting Reyes - Reaper. He’d seen this strangely tense look wash over McCree, but still had no idea what it truly meant. Whatever emotion it was behind those sad eyes, that dour frown made him look too old, and too worn. Hanzo felt something tug at his heart in a lonely way. He didn’t like that look on McCree at all.
“I thought visiting hours were over.” It was a terrible response, one that came out before he thought too much about it. He blamed the painkillers still in his system.
“They are. Angie’d probably kick my ass outta here herself if she found me sneakin’ ‘round.” He grinned a toothy smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and made a gesture towards the magazine, “You get to the good part yet?”
For all his worries, Hanzo couldn’t help but laugh. “I imagine Fareeha doesn’t read this for the fishing tips, does she?”
“Whaaat, of course she does." McCree sat in the small recliner by the bed, resting the hat on the tableside before taking up the magazine. “I mean, it’s got all ya need to know ‘bout…” he paused to look at the current page, “...’jigging cadences for icing crappies’.” Another pause. “The hell did I even just say?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. I used to receive this sort of magazine every once in a while during my youth, when Genji still thought I was straight.” Hanzo took the magazine back from McCree and thumbed through a few more pages blankly. “How nostalgic”
That got a snort from his bedside companion. “Well, you’re clearly feelin’ better.”
“Somewhat, yes.” He allowed himself a small smile at that, though it didn’t last long. McCree seemed to notice it too, and the conversation fell. The room became that conscious type of quiet, where silence turns palpable and the urge to break it becomes the strongest. The kind of quiet that no one in the room wanted, but neither could figure out how to start again, how to start talking and speak freely as they had before.
Hanzo stared at McCree, who kept his eyes glued to the railing of the hospital bed. The skin around his eyes was tired, dark, and spoke of his lack of sleep, as did the way his hair looked disheveled from more than just wearing a hat all day. Overall, he just looked exhausted. According to Dr. Ziegler, McCree would be considered fit for duty by the end of the week, if he showed no more signs of his previous concussion. And perhaps, Hanzo wondered, that was all this was: a leftover of McCree’s previous head injury that was leaving him far less lively than usual.
And perhaps, there was something else.
“You came to see me.” McCree’s shoulders stiffened at the comment, and he nodded. Hanzo decided to press further. “Why?”
He paused. “I wanted to see you.”
“Then why not during the day?”
The next pause was longer and more intense. He didn’t say anything, but McCree looked up at him with an emotion he couldn’t place, and that put Hanzo on edge more than anything.
“What happened during the mission? Even before the fight, you were…off.” Hanzo stared down at his hands on the sheets. “We have fought together several times before, and it is strange to say, but I have come to predict you to some degree. I’m sure you’ve felt it, too. But in Rialto, you…” He looked up. “What happened to you?”
McCree stared at him for some time. It almost didn’t seem like McCree was staring at him, but through him. Then the man lowered his head and sighed.
“I… I had a lot on my mind that day. Aside from Rialto… and Reaper.” He grit his teeth. “Don’t get me wrong: I’m still a bit shook up about seein’ him again, if I’m bein’ perfectly honest. I mean, you saw me out there. The moment I saw his face, I just… froze.”
“I understand.” Hanzo felt a pit in his stomach form. Of course he understood that feeling of the dead coming back. Of course.
“Mei told me the important parts after I came to. Reaper knocked me out, she held ‘em off. You came in, told us to flee. You know the rest.” McCree gripped the bed rail with his right hand and finally looked back up at Hanzo. “Let him get the better of me. ‘M sorry.”
It had been only a handful of days since the botched mission in Rialto, yet Hanzo could still see the aftermath of the battle on McCree’s face even in the dim light of the room. The darkened, bruised skin around McCree’s right eye was only just beginning to heal along with the scrape along the bridge of his nose, whereas he still wore the one bandage above his eyebrow.
Most troubling was that his serious face was back, and all Hanzo could think was that he’d rather see McCree smile again.
“Do not apologize. We did what we could. All that matters is that you and everyone else is safe” With a heavy huff, Hanzo sat back in his bed, reminded of his own healing injuries and weary bones as a tired grin curled upon his lips. “Now, will you finally tell me how much of a fool I was when we were drinking the night before the mission?”
McCree gave a small smile, and Hanzo considered an equally small victory at the least. “Haven’t decided yet. Think I’m gonna have to make you wait just a lil’ longer.” He gestured up to Hanzo’s face. “‘Sides, you can barely keep your eyes open as is.”
“But...” He tried to protest, but as if by magic, a sudden wave of exhaustion washed over him and he let out a jaw-cracking yawn.
“Sleep tight, partner.” McCree stood up with a grunt and made his way to the door, turning back to whisper, “I’ll come and talk tomorrow.”
True to his word, McCree came by to chat the next evening after visiting hours. The night spent drinking wasn’t brought up, however; instead they stuck to talking of lighter things, the gunslinger updating Hanzo on the things that happened throughout the day that he missed, conversations, arguments, the newest go-ons.
The morale all over base was low since the mission. The civilians they had saved may have vouched for the team’s efforts, but the rest of the world saw the endeavor as a failure: Talon was still at large, and the newly-reinstated Overwatch was being criticized for how they handled the situation. Whenever Hanzo turned on the news, it seemed every channel was attacking Overwatch’s involvement at Rialto (or Rialto 2.0, as McCree had dubbed it).
Even from in the med-bay, Hanzo could feel a gloomy shroud cast over the rest of the Watchpoint like a rolling storm cloud. But at the very least, having someone to laugh with about a dumb joke made it all a bit better.
Around day five, Dr. Ziegler approved Hanzo for semi-solid foods once the nanobiotics had healed most of his internal organ damage, which seemed to be McCree’s greenlight to start sneaking in bowls of homemade chile verde for the recovering archer. It wasn’t long before the spicy stew became one of Hanzo’s all time favorites, and he had found he had yet another reason to look forward to McCree’s visits.
“Whoa, easy there, Han,” McCree laughed, “I appreciate you likin’ my cooking, but don’t choke now. You just got your stomach back!”
Hanzo grumbled, setting the empty bowl and spoon on the side-table. “For your information, I only damaged part of my stomach.” Quickly, he added, “But the compliment to your cooking still stands nevertheless.”
McCree waved. “Aw, this ain’t that special, just a dump-all really-”
“The several empty bowls you’ve carried out of this room would beg to differ.”
That got him to laugh. “I meant that it ain’t my best. Can’t get too many fresh Hatch chiles 'round these parts, but I’ll be damned if that’s gonna stop me.”
Hanzo grinned at McCree, feeling the warmth from the stew and McCree’s smile spread throughout his body. “I look forward to your best, then.”
Of course, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses between them. McCree gave him much more space than before, and if someone else was there to visit Hanzo, the cowboy would say his piece and duck out as soon as he could. Hanzo had initially thought perhaps it was due to not overcrowding the small hospital room or even just to give Hanzo space due to his injuries.
His theory, sadly, was dispproven when Genji visited him for the first time since he woke up.
Hanzo had gotten somewhat used to the new stoic and calm Genj, the one who kept his emotions in check before doing anything too reckless. Yet all the same, this new version of his brother Genji had all but tackled him in his bed in a tight hug that was a bit too familiar for Hanzo’s liking. It also made him stifle a pained groan as his oh-so-loving brother’s embrace nearly reopened a wound on his stomach, but that was neither here nor there.
“It is good to see you awake, Hanzo!” Genji pulled away with a wide smile. “I’m sorry it has taken me so long to come see you.”
“It is good to see you, too.” Hanzo did his best to reciprocate that same smile. If Genji noticed that it didn’t reach his eyes, he said nothing of it as he asked all the same questions everyone else had.
“How are you feeling?” Terrible, in complete pain and misery, but he lied and said, “Fine”.
“How long til you are released?” “Not soon enough.”
“What hurts?” Again, he lied and said, “Just my leg.” There was no use giving him more things to worry about, after all.
When all the pleasantries and niceties were through though, Hanzo heard Genji let out a long sigh as he stood to leave.
“You know what I will say.” Hanzo did, and said nothing in turn. “The dragons are wild and selfish beasts, Hanzo. You were the one who taught me that. You were lucky they were satisfied with only a morsel of your body.”
“My duty was to protect our team,” Hanzo said firmly. “I did what I had to do for them.”
For him.
He anticipated a sharp retort and an argument about his recklessness. But instead, Genji let out another hollow sigh and gave a sullen headshake. “Your duty is not worth your life, Hanzo. And I am not the only one here who believes that so.”
Genji had left shortly after, and in the moment before he left and the medic Baptiste entered, Hanzo swore he had seen a flash of red beside the doorframe, almost completely out of view from his line of sight.
He was positive it had been a trick of the light, until he noticed a bowl of food with a tin-foil lid in Baptistes hands and knew he wouldn’t be getting a visit from McCree that night.
And he knew that something had definitely changed between them.
“You do not have to sit in that chair every time you come to visit me, McCree.”
McCree looked up from his book. “What’dya mean?”
Rolling his eyes, Hanzo wordlessly set aside the holo-pad puzzle game he had been playing for the past hour and scooted over on the bed, careful not to jostle the IV drip that was still in his arm.
“Oh.” His companion scratched his head. “I, uh…”
“I’ve sat in those chairs before; they’re hardly the definition of comfortable.” Hanzo exited out of the puzzle app and began to scroll through movies to watch. “Besides, it will make watching easier.”
“Watchin’... Oh. Right. Movies, an’ such.” After a palpable, pregnant pause, Hanzo felt the bed dip as the gunslinger settled beside him, though still somehow far enough on the tiny hospital bed to where only their elbows were touching.
It was odd, to say the least. The two of them had done this sort of watch-party together so many times in the rec room or in the privacy of their own rooms before, side by side as they shared the single small holo-pad screen in the quiet of night when neither could sleep and the only cure were old classic movies from decades ago.
But something was different now. McCree was acting so distant and stilted, like he had other things on his mind.
Neither one of them were the prying type. They had their skeletons in the closet, their can of worms they’d rather leave unopened; the only time they aired their problems out for the world to see was when their lips were loosened with hard liquor and booze. Talking came about easily enough with McCree but even so, there were some things that just went unsaid and troubles that remained buried and locked far, far away.
Hanzo used to take solace in the fact, but now, as he hit the play button on Drunken Angel, all he could think was how he missed talking with his best friend like before.
Best friend . That phrase plagued the haggard archer all throughout the movie, even as his eyes began to sag shut and his head began to dip to the side. He felt his head rest up against McCree’s shoulder at some point, but found himself too tired to bother to move.Then he was too tired to open his eyes when they shut. And then, too tired to fight off sleep.
When he did wake, it was only barely morning, about 5 AM if the clock on the wall was to be believed. The room was silent and McCree was gone.
Hanzo sat up in bed, feeling the tension in his neck from sleeping on it wrong, and saw the holo-pad on the bedside table with a note scribbled hastily in pen on top that read:
“I’ll let you focus on healing up. Come find me when you get out. Need to talk. -- J.M.”