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McCree's hands are too rough for the delicate paper; his fingers are too wide. He can shoot a diving bird between the eyes at forty paces, but dexterity slips through his grip like smoke. His metal fingers tear a clumsy hole into yet another sheet of paper, and he makes a frustrated sound in his throat.
"Patience," Hanzo tells him again, and hands him another square piece.
"I'm no good at this," McCree mutters. But he lines up the diagonal fold and makes the same motion yet again.
"It simply takes practice and discipline," Hanzo responds. He holds up another perfect crane, identical to all its brethren before it. Instead of placing it along its row, he places it next to McCree's single lopsided crane that he actually managed to finish (though it has a small tear in its tail, and one one wing is twice the size of the other.)
Hanzo's not trying to mock him. McCree knows him well enough to understand it's encouragement by example, but he can't help but feel ashamed at his efforts anyway.
"I'm bored," McCree grumbles. “Can we do something else?”
Hanzo frowns. “You’re the one who asked me to teach you origami,” he says, voice accusing. And that’s true, but when he asked, McCree hadn’t expected to be this BAD at it.
“I know, but that was half an hour ago, and I’m slower at this than molasses running uphill.”
With a sigh, Hanzo begins folding another crane. “You Americans are so obsessed with instant results,” he chides. “Some things simply take time.”
McCree gives up arguing and just folds his arms on the table, head resting on his forearms as he watches Hanzo’s deft fingers move instead. Honestly, it’s a privilege just to observe; Hanzo’s fingers are fast but precise, making the same exact creases and folds into every sheet. Under his practiced deliberation, the paper rises into an attentive crane, neck and tail raised in attention, wings perfectly symmetrical.
McCree has seen Hanzo fold the cranes to relax. Later, they’ll pop up around the base, next to people’s doors or in the medical bay. A few have found their way into the corners of bookshelves or tucked away beside workstation consoles. McCree’s pretty sure nobody knows where the cranes come from - just that they appear sometimes, little beacons of color to brighten up someone’s day.
When McCree’s eyes begin to droop, he tucks his head into the crook of his elbow and simply listens to the sound of paper folding; before he falls asleep, he thinks that it sounds like the rustling of wings.
<><><>
“Jesse!”
McCree looks up, only slightly sheepish at Angela’s tone. She’s glaring with disapproval, and now everyone around the table is staring at him.
“Sorry,” he mutters, unfolding his notes and smoothing them out, which is a mistake because it reveals to her a page of scribbly sketches and absolutely nothing useful or relevant. He instantly crumples it into a ball and hides it under the table.
Angela sighs. “I know it isn’t the MOST exciting thing, but at least PRETEND to pay attention to protocol updates.”
“Won’t happen again,” McCree responded, looking up at her like a child that’s been scolded.
“Thank you,” she says, and turns back to the board. McCree tries to pay attention, he really does, but his mind has a habit of wandering and he can’t help replaying in his mind the way thin paper folded under Hanzo’s fingers.
Most of the room has turned their attention back to Angela, but Hanzo is still looking at him from across the table or, more precisely, Hanzo is looking at his hands. He knows what McCree was doing - there’s no way he doesn’t. But as usual, his expression is unreadable. McCree wonders how long they’ll have to date before he can actually guess what’s going on in Hanzo’s mind.
“Hey!” Hana whispers, poking her fingernail straight into his ribs. McCree jumps and his knee cracks against the underside of the table. Angela glares at him again as he barks a curse, but he apologizes again, straightens his back and stares straight at the board until she starts talking once more.
“Hey!” Hana says again, but this time McCree looks at her before she can stab him.
“What.”
“What are you making?” She asks.
McCree looks back at the board. “Nothin,” he says. “Just foldin’ paper.”
Hana sounds impatient. “Liar. What were you making?”
If she keeps this up, Angela will yell at him again. “Paper crane,” he tells her, just to get her off his back.
“Dismissed,” Angela says, finally, and McCree jumps again because it was almost aimed directly at him.
“You were doing it the hard way! Here, let me show you.”
Before he can protest, she’s torn out a piece of notebook paper. She folds cranes a little differently than Hanzo does, though McCree couldn’t point out the exact moment where they diverged. Hana’s crane stands taller, head and tail held higher. McCree thinks it looks prouder by comparison, a little arrogant (much like Hana herself, but he knows better than to tell her that.) But he prefers the longer elegance of the Japanese cranes - they perched on their own better.
“Looks good, kid,” he tells her. The room is empty except the two of them, but McCree can see Hanzo lingering outside the door. He’s about to leave but stares for a moment at the crane in Hana’s hands with that same unreadable expression.
“Before you make one, you have to make a wish on a paper crane.” Hana says. “Otherwise it doesn’t turn out right.” McCree just shakes his head and stands up.
“Don’t have any wishes a bird could bring me though,” he replies.
Hana almost looks offended. She’s definitely lost her patience with him. “It’s superstition! You’ve gotta believe in it a LITTLE bit if you want it to work.”
“Yeah,” he tells her, because disagreeing will only continue the argument. “Guess I just gotta find something to wish on first, then.”
Hana tracks where he’s looking and sees the tail end of a golden hair ribbon flutter out of sight. She leans back in her chair so far that it’s a wonder she hasn’t toppled over.
“Humph. You think it’d be obvious,” she says, and for once, refuses to elaborate when McCree turns around and asks for an explanation.
<><><>
“You know, there are many superstitions about paper cranes,” Genji says, plopping down next to McCree on the couch.
The bouncing motion of the ninja landing next to him makes him jerk, and McCree ends up tearing the fragile paper in his metal fingers, yet again. He crumples it up into a ball, starting again with a fresh sheet.
“That so?” he says, if only to be polite.
Genji nods. “It is said that a gift of a thousand cranes - senbazuru - can cure any illness and grant any wish. It is very common to make senbazuru for a loved one when they are sick.”
McCree grunts in acknowledgement as he squints at the crane in his palm. It’s not standing up properly, keeps falling over to the left, like one of its wings is too heavy.
Genji looks at the crane. “When I was very young, I became very ill. For two weeks, my brother folded paper cranes for me. He folded for hours every night, despite numerous papercuts on his hands. I was… four. He was seven. Our father did not stop him, I think because he believed it encouraged discipline and work. But before my brother could give me the cranes, our father destroyed his work.”
McCree stops folding, the sound of rustling paper too distracting from the story. “Why?” He asks.
“Our father was a very superstitious man. He wanted me to recover with my own strength, without help from the senbazuru . He used his dragon’s fire to burn the cranes. All one thousand of them.” There’s bitterness in Genji’s voice, like he’s chewing on lemon peels.
“Damn,” McCree responds, biting down on his cigar. He’s not surprised; he’s heard stories of the Shimada patriarch’s cruelty. But what a tragic loss, he thinks, cringing at the thought of a thousand of Hanzo’s beautiful, perfect cranes going up in flames.
“But my brother would not be deterred,” Genji says. His tone changes again. McCree can sense a hint of a smile in his voice, even through the visor. “While the cranes were burning, he reached his arm into the fire and pulled one out of the flames. Our father did not stop him, but the dragon fire did not burn my brother... Instead, he became the youngest in Shimada history to learn to control the dragons.”
“Damn,” McCree says again, this time in awe. “And the crane?”
“Crumpled. A little burnt. Asymmetrical. One of his earlier ones, I think, but still enough. I lived through that illness, and the crane remained on my bedside table for many years.”
McCree is silent, unsure where this conversation will go. He focuses instead on trying to fold another crane, distracting himself from his unease by trying to remember exactly where Hanzo had creased the paper to make balanced wings and a non-drooping neck.
A white and grey metal hand reaches over and plucks the half-finished crane from his fingers. “Do you understand what I am saying, Jesse?” Genji asks. He finishes the crane, which at least stands upright, even if the edges are a little crumpled from where McCree was fiddling at the edges of the paper. And now McCree is convinced literally everyone is better at folding cranes than he is.
“Uh,” he responds, “You gotta take risks for the things you’ve worked hard for?”
Genji chuckles, but not in a mocking way. He places the crane on the table, using it to help prop up McCree’s lopsided one. “Close. That it is not about how perfect, or how many. All that matters when you want to help someone you love, is that you are willing to reach into the fire.”
<><><>
McCree uses both hands, outstretched, to present the crane to Hanzo’s critical eyes. Hanzo considers it for a second before lifting it delicately, one hand cupped under each wing, as if it was made out of sand and might crumble at any moment.
Now that it’s being scrutinized, McCree can see a thousand flaws. One of the wings is higher than the other. The end of the beak is crumpled. The tail is crooked. There’s the tiniest half-moon burnt into the neck where McCree had accidentally dropped a small piece of cigar ash onto the edge of the paper. That’s just the start.
After a short pause, Hanzo considers his words carefully and says, “Interpreting origami is as much intention as it is creation.”
“Okay,” McCree says. “I don’t totally understand what you mean by that, but I get that you probably think this is a pretty crappy crane. But the point is -”
“That is not what I meant.” Hanzo says, voice flat. McCree almost wishes he was a mind reader, just so he could get a clue what Hanzo might be thinking right now. Does he hate it? Does he think this is a mockery of origami? Is he mad about McCree thinking he hated it?
McCree continues anyway. “But the point is, I see ya folding these things, and you’re always givin’ ‘em to everyone else, so I thought, maybe you’d like to get one for once. And, uh, I know it ain’t perfect, like yours are, but uh, it’s probably not gonna get much better than that, so-”
“Thank you,” Hanzo says, and McCree’s train of thought derails as he sees the tiniest, faintest, maybe-est hint of a smile on Hanzo’s usually-stern face as he looks at the crane. Oh this is good, this only happens once every month, like the full moon. “For thinking of me.” Hanzo pauses, and then looks up with curiosity. “Did you make a wish?”
McCree goes red as his serape instantly. “It… It ain’t no thing.” He sputters. “And ain’t it supposed to be private anyway?”
The smile is gone. “Tell me,” Hanzo demands.
“W-W-Well, I mostly just did it t’ make… t’ make ya happy, ‘cause you brighten up everyone else’s day when you leave those cranes around, but, I guess if you really want to know-”
Hanzo leans upward and cuts off McCree’s rambling with a kiss, a quick press of their lips together, and even though he pulls away quickly it feels to McCree like time has stopped. No matter how many times they’ve kissed now, or how many mornings they’ve woken up together, kissing Hanzo is still a happy tingle up his spine, a fluttering thrill in his stomach.
“Was that it?” Hanzo asks, and McCree, still red, can only nod. Hanzo does really smile this time (twice in one day! Holy shit it’s a blue moon!) and leans into McCree’s shoulder, giving him the closest approximation he can to a hug without crushing the crane.
“You rambling oaf,” Hanzo says, but without the usual cold snap of his insults. “Spending so many days folding cranes, when all you had to do was ask.”
“Weren’t you complaining a while ago about Americans expecting ‘instant results?’ I assumed I had to work for it.”
Hanzo doesn’t respond, but McCree wasn’t really expecting him to. It’s enough when, later, he finds the crane on Hanzo’s sparse bookshelf, one crooked wing resting against a traditional incense burner, the other just barely brushing the edge of a single sparrow feather.