Work Text:
Hanzo is glad to see Genji again, happy and as healthy as he can be. He is genuinely glad to see his brother. He. Is. So. Glad. Genji forgives him, and that feels so wonderful, feels like flying. Genji forgives him for his mortal sin against him. There are plenty of talks in the evening; about who they have become and who they want to be. About what they want from each other. The idea that they could ever be better then they were utterly intoxicates him, mesmerizing the senses. When they ask him to join, he does because Genji asks him to with pleading tones. How can he deny the one man he owes the most?
It's easy to get along, and drink his tea with his brother in the morning. It's easy to read in silence, shying away from shallow attempts from strangers to engage him. It's easy to lay side by side on the roof like little children, and attempt to number the stars. So very easy to give them ridiculous names, and laugh when Genji points out vulgar shapes. It's easy. So easy. Hanzo is an excellent liar. He is an outsider here, known only as kin-slayer to everyone but Genji. A monster in their midst, wearing pretty dress and practiced mask, playing at being a hero. A murderer, unpunished and acquitted of the worst crime one could commit.
He is Cain made flesh once more, the murderer of his brother who he struck down in cold blood, and in their eyes he sees that glimmer of doubt. The shine of distaste and disgust. And Hanzo does not defend himself against the truth. He is a wretch, a broken, empty man. But the damage has been done to the one who least deserved it. To a boy he should have protected fiercely, but scorned instead. He is horror tale for children, whispered in the dark under bedsheets. A cautionary tale. A shadowy figure looming above the heads of the innocent. A warning.
As though one as broken as him could ever be anything but a monster. While he dwells in the halls of true heroes and dines at their tables, he can never be one of them. He is a faithful dog trotting by their side, starving for the barest semblance of filial affection. None other matters to him, truly. All of this for Genji, to repay a debt his brother won't claim. Because he has always been selfish. Because he could never deserve Genji in a million years' hard efforts, but he indulges that straining want with the promise that all of it is for Genji's sake. That everything he does is to make his brother happy again.
He is Cain. Genji's blood does not cry out from the soil, but from his hands. It sounds like stifled laughter under blankets, late at night. It sounds like the hustle and bustle of the arcade in Hanamura, shouting and cheering. It sounds like dodging guards and being free. It sounds like childhood, and it rings in his ears as a constant reminder. Hanzo cannot forget it. He is a betrayer, a monster, a murderer. With steady hands, he stole away everything that his brother had once been like a thief in the night. Genji forgives me; this he repeats as a mantra to stave off his demons, to fight off the nightmares that taunt and torment. It doesn't work. Hanzo is an excellent liar.
Genji forgives him, but Hanzo can never forgive himself. Can never forgive that ultimate sin. It's not just here, Genji living as something he had no choice in. It's not just that his brother deserves more then Hanzo could ever offer him. It's because he remembers Genji as he was- a pink, wrinkled thing in an ugly hospital blanket. Hanzo remembers the little, tottering boy waddling after him calling his name like a prayer. He remembers playing games in the garden, laughing and joking as they wrestled each other, rolling in the dirt like the boys they were.
What he remembers is the price. The build up, those sweet lies whispered in his ear in the small hours. What he cost Genji, in the end. Hanzo remembers being close, being thick as thieves, being so happy with each other that they never saw the Fall coming. Never saw the snake in the grass until it had wound itself around him so tightly that it would never come loose- not even after Hanzo cut its head off himself. He is a monster, a pitiable monster, clinging to his brother's coattails like a tiny child. "I am fine," he promises, he vows, he prays, he swears. He is perfectly fine, for Genji. Hanzo is an excellent liar.
The rice wine tastes like nothing after all of these years. Like so much ash in his mouth, a low burn in his throat. More and more of it each time, as the sweet numbing effect lessens daily. He begins to carry it with him everywhere he goes, sipping and swigging whenever he starts to feel the bite of betrayal. Whenever he feels the tacky blood on his hands, or smells iron in the air. It becomes a necessity. He needs it like he needs air. Just a bit more, just a little bit more. To take the edge off, to help him get through the day. His hands shake when he doesn't drink. He needs it now, really and truly. Just enough to mask the taste of rust and regret in his mouth.
Just enough to keep the tiny smile on his face, just enough so that it reaches his eyes. Enough so that he doesn't shake, or run screaming like he wants to. A bit of wine keeps me fine, he murmurs to himself like a shallow joke. Some play on an idiom he has forgotten. He feels like a wind-up toy, kept around for the amusement of others, and he loves it. Loves that he can make Genji happy by making his friends happy. By breaking his fangs and letting them forget the wolf among the lambs, letting them call him 'friend' when he has never truly been one. Hanzo can never deserve them, not the monster, the murderer.
Hanzo is an excellent liar. He smiles and laughs, and plays at being a hero. They open up to him, and he knows what they really want is this fake face he's built just for them, just for Genji. Hanzo lets them have it, because he's an excellent liar. He gives them the mask for love of Genji, and pretends he isn't hurting. Because Hanzo is selfish. Selfish and self-centered, just as he's always been. For whatever reason, Genji has found it in himself to forgive the greatest sin of mankind, and Hanzo is selfish enough to take him up on the offer to stay. Selfish enough to want to be near his beloved brother despite his ugly faults and flaws.
Genji might forgive him, but Hanzo can never forgive himself. That's the simple truth of the matter. Hanzo cannot and will not ever forgive himself for his greatest failing, cannot and will not forgive himself for the Fall. Genji is kinder then Hanzo has any right to expect, and he selfishly relishes the closeness Genji gives him. All of these people here are true heroes. He sits and drinks with them, and they laugh and slap his back. They joke with him, because they don't know that he's broken. They allow a monster into their midst, and call him a friend, and Hanzo. Is. Selfish.
And so he swallows down that tasteless, ashy rice wine, hoping to swallow the tang of iron and fear long with it. Hoping to steady his hand and bolster his façade. For Genji's sake. He lets the empty feeling fill up with liquor and sorrow, and plasters on a secret smile just for his brother. This is another thing he can never forgive himself for. A monster using his brother for just a little bit of a reprieve. This is a battle he knows he has to fight alone, and a war he knows that he's losing. But Genji loves him anyway, for some unknown reason, and it's not Hanzo's place to tell him not to.
In the quiet of the small hours, Hanzo tries to drown himself with water from the river Lethe, and wishes he could wash away the memory of Cain and Abel.