Chapter Text
Whenever Hanzo looks out the window of his room, he can still see the dark ink still burnt into his vision. He squints out far, to the faintest docks and bays of Hanamura, slowly being eclipsed by the city growing around it. There's the misty form of the nearest mountain- the only thing that stands higher than the Royal Shimada Castle perched on top of the hill.
The prince blinks, rubs his eyes as the remnants of his schoolwork still come and go. A glance downwards to the cherry trees around the estate give him no break, with their bare branches just as complicated as the characters on his school work’s pages. Hanzo closes his eyes now, and sighs to himself, going over the text in his head.
Hell, seventeen years of his life and he thought science was easy. Local history, easy. Culture? He was the symbol of it.
But ever since the trade was opened up to the outside, ever since new technology and foreigners started pouring in, he had found himself cooped up in in his room more often and satisfying the needs of his private tutors.
It left him with too much time on his own, time he spends thinking .
It was the best education in all of Hanamura
, his parents insisted. Times were changing, and though they were immensely proud of their culture, they had a lot to gain from the others.
You are the heir to the throne, and this is a necessary part of your upbringing. You’ll have to keep up with the world.
If Hanzo had his way, he would have gone off to see the docks, the grand steam ships, and
hell
, he would have gladly set off on a trip to see the world for himself.
But---
You have to remain here, as the heir. Think of your family, think of your brother. Travelling far is dangerous, and by being tutored here, you stay close to your culture.
Hanzo turns back to his book, flips the pages.
That decision was made long ago, you never would have been able to join him.
-------
It’s been six months since Jesse McCree left. He was encouraged to come along with one of the foreign consultants- Mr. Reyes . Hanzo recalls the name, along with the small welcoming ceremony the young prince attended a few years back, when the man was first appointed to discuss relations and policies. He’s some American who was once part of military defense in an age now behind them. Now, he helped lead a peacekeeping organization in Switzerland, and as such he regularly met up with political figures.
He never really talked to Reyes much, and the man always comes and goes, but he knows Jesse looked up to him, even became sort of an apprentice to Reyes. It didn’t surprise him when he appealed for Jesse to join the trip.
They had plenty of things to get done- Reyes had far-reaching name, taking news of negotiation developments along with him. Jesse managed to convince the court that he’d learn from it, from Reyes, and perhaps put his charisma into practice for a future of making deals. To be able to contribute as a member of the Hanamura court, he claimed, though Hanzo knows the truth: It’s mostly, if not entirely, a personal journey.
Hanzo glosses over the rest of the details in his head, and his face slumps into his palms when he remembers the wait ahead. Two years, two years of not seeing him.
At least a quarter of that was done… But he then rubs his temples when he thinks of the very real possibility of it being extended. Another few months looking at the ships making it to port.
Another spring blossoming without Jesse at his side.
Hanzo closes the book, Global Economy, and then opens it to the back, showing a map of the world. His finger traces the outlined ship route, from their island by the Pacific ring and then past a couple continents to the Americas at the other end.
He’s that far away, while here from his window, Hanzo can barely even see the bay.
He never saw Jesse hopping unto the ship with his own eyes, but he remembers the night before. The glowing forms of the trees and writings in his visual memory still blink over the map and the expanse of the ocean.
The courtyard, with its sakura-bordered pond. Hanzo himself joins the imagery- and then, more clearly- Jesse's calm smirking face from six months ago.
Jesse was sitting down, uncharacteristically well-dressed in a deep navy. He had taken off the belt of the uniform, though, and his slump into the stone bench had his belly bulging out- as if it wasn’t already obvious with the massive farewell dinner he just had.
Hanzo was sat beside Jesse, and he looked up at the branches of the cherry tree above them, not even blooming yet. Then he scanned over the reflections of lanterns on the dark pond water. He looked anywhere, everywhere.
To remember the moment perfectly? To distract himself from his friend’s seemingly blissful reaction to a coming goodbye?
Jesse had always made sure not to touch the prince, or even sit too close. He was respectful of his royalty, even if they had been friends all their life.
But even now, sat in his room, reliving a mere memory months later, Hanzo’s nose wrinkles at the phantom scent of his hair. Like the dust kicked up by the horses in the stables, like the leather of his crumbling hat.
Like the mud and rain that often stained his old serape, a gift from his mother.
----------------[6 months ago]----------------
“Did you visit her yet?” Hanzo asks him, after having stared at the lanterns in the water for too long.
“I did, earlier- ruh-” Jesse slurs towards the end and he scratches his head. “Didn’t feel like enough. Thought I’d go to the grave again before I leave tomorrow. It's on the way to the docks, anyway.” He then looks to Hanzo for his reply.
He smiles back, “Well, make sure you wake up early. Wouldn’t want to miss the ship.”
“Knowing Reyes, that’ll be no problem- I’ll be awake whether I like it or not.” Jesse laughs, his voice cutting through the night’s calm. Hanzo’s chest flutters and though he resists at first, a chuckle gets past him anyway, his eyes pinched shut.
Jesse was staring at him oddly when his gaze met Hanzo’s again- “Why did you laugh?”
“N-nothing.” Hanzo’s quick to revert to a more neutral expression, though there remains the curl at the corner of his lips. “It’s just you.”
Always had the best damn laugh , Hanzo thinks as Jesse’s voice echoes in his mind.
He then raises a hand before Jesse can speak again, “You should probably get some rest for tomorrow.”
He lowers his palm. Jesse flattens his lips and doesn't protest initially. “Right… ” He then gnaws on his lower lip, and takes a breath, “Well- I’ve got one last thing, before I leave tomorrow.”
Jesse rises from the bench, and nods at the other to follow along. Hanzo’s halfway to standing from his seat, jaw dropped open in silent question, when Jesse answers him ahead, “I got a gift for you.”
“Oh... What is it?” Hanzo walks to his side, and as the prince approaches, Jesse can’t help but look back and watch the way his dark robes and hair sway.
“Well uhh, not really a gift, more of a favor for ya. Or m-maybe both?”
“Just hurry up, Jesse.” Hanzo says with a smirk.
“Hey, is that how a prince is supposed to say farewell?” Jesse stuck a tongue out at him.
Hanzo sighs, overdramatic. “I’m curious , just show me, and then... I’ll give you something. I have a gift for you, too.”
-------
Jesse was gone by the time Hanzo awakened, off to sea with Reyes. The servants informed Hanzo as such, (exchanged knowing glances when the heir’s shoulders fell and they had gone on their way, ) and a little after Genji confirmed seeing him set off, alongside Reyes’s troupe of guards and a few people from the Hanamura court.
Hanzo would have pried his brother for more- ask what supplies they were bringing, how Jesse looked- but Genji had already made the bad decision of staying up. He was half-asleep when Hanzo passed by him, and no doubt was fast in slumber now.
Hanzo on the other hand rubs the circles under his eyes and wills himself to ready for the day, getting properly dressed and preparing his things. As he’s checking himself in the mirror, he runs his fingers over the simple box Jesse had left him the night before, left there where he can’t miss it.
He wonders how far away Jesse is now. There’s the flash of his grinning face in his mind, and his fingertips press down harder on the box’s edge for a moment.
Hanzo breathes, heads for the door, and soon heads out of the estate with the guards.
-------
He isn’t surprised to come to the grave site and find a large candle still flickering in a bowl-like container. Flowers- mostly yellow- adorn the top of the marker, some dewy and a little droopy after a night but still radiant.
Hanzo’s heard the customs from Jesse, but as he approaches his chest bubbles up with uncertainty. He doesn’t know all the details on how he’d honor her; Jesse’s mother carried her homeland along but took a liking to some of the local traditions in her short time in Hanamura, even had some strange interpretations to them. He hopes his respects would be to her liking, incense sticks and some prayer.
Mrs. McCree died well over a decade ago. She went by her maiden name- Ms. García- more often than not, and knew that she wouldn’t look back to the world of the living if she was buried and called by that other name. Her request was honored, as was right for a honored royal guard.
García came to Hanamura with little, her most precious material possession being a shining gun. More precious still were things no amount of money could match, like her own zealous personality and, most of all, her young son. Jesse was about three.
Originally, the court took interest in her on account of her having such a smart grasp of Spanish, a whole arsenal of expressions and metaphors and idioms and know-how, but then she showed her skill with a gun.
Hanzo would have been dead if it weren’t for her feat, him and the other court officials, possibly even the King. He was pushed out of sight as soon as the alarm was sounded though, the assailants spotted, gunfire ringing fresh in his ears after leaving a hole in the screen behind them- a single missed shot. But before Hanzo was brought to the blind spot, before the other guards hurried him away to safety, he happened to look outside and caught that split second of her. Standing proud, the sparse fringe over her eyes flapping in the breeze, her right eye seeming to flash and focus at attackers moving like blurs.
He jolted when three shots rang in quick succession, thought for a moment that his very soul was leaving him, but then young Hanzo found his body completely unharmed. He heard a muffled sound, like something tumbling down from a rooftop, and that was that.
Over the years, Hanzo gleamed other details from those who did see it, who took care of the bodies afterward. The strange daze Ms. García was in afterwards, and not to mention, the perfect aim she had on all three.
All headshots. One in the forehead, one to the temple, one to the bridge of the nose. Death quick and painless with no dying scream, the life of the royal family spared with seemingly no one to report back to the enemy. Little damage to the buildings.
García took up the mantle of a sharpshooter rather than a teacher, “Never liked sitting around, anyway.” The graciousness from the royal family and the payment offer that followed was astronomical, and they were willing to discuss the risks, the trade-offs for it.
She took the job with two deathly stipulations. “If I die, I want to be buried and honored in a certain way different from your own.”
Done and done.
Number two, “If I die, take the best damn care of my son for me, will you?”
And they did. Jesse lived a rather lovely life for a commoner, with the potential to get positions in the court later on. García often said she did it for him.
So whenever Hanzo visits the grave now, he can’t help but wonder if she was prepared , like death constantly chased her.
Ms. García retired unexpectedly early though, less than two years after her arrival, when she was injured following another otherwise successful defense. The doctors said her sniping eye swelled red, and from then on she was half-blind.
The Shimada court found new bodyguards and snipers- it took more than a couple to match her in her power- but García remained safe, living close by, right outside the walls of the royal estate. The dangerous political climate settled down as well.
Sickness beat her where assassins couldn’t.
The air was simply too different this far from home. She had a good eye, good instincts, but her health must have taken a hit when they first fled America, and she had lost too much when she finally had the Shimada providing for her.
Hanzo had trouble processing it too, the way she just seemed to disappear from everyone’s lives. The overly lanky woman with the strange Japanese and even stranger sense of fashion. She who walked with beat to her step and strange sway, since she always had her gun holstered at the hip even far past her injury and retirement. Now many of his memories of her are supplemented by Jesse talking about missing her smile.
When Hanzo attended the funeral, he didn’t even realize it was one first, with it having been so different from local ones. It would almost have been joyous like the person it was for- with the bright flowers and the upbeat music- if not for five-year-old Jesse at the center, face red, crying hard and wiping snot under his nose.
It was definitely not something Ms. García would have wanted. Jesse, with his face streaked from tears, led along by other people from the court. He didn’t even know them. He had no father beside him, he’d left before Jesse could even remember his face.
-----
[Hanzo once asked him why he chose that name, why he didn’t take his mother’s, and Jesse told him that the others in court discouraged it at first. She went by García more than anything else, and calling her name would have been like intruding on her spirit’s journey to a better place. She didn’t want to be called back. Hanzo would ask again and get a different answer. Later on when he was older, Jesse debated on changing it, but he found one last reason, one that he never could say. ]
-----
The many visions of Jesse, the smile, the yellow flowers, the candlelights, the white grave.
They jumble in his mind and play out as Hanzo blankly stares outside, to the faint bay and mountains afar. It’s a while before he realizes he’s forgotten about his schoolwork.
Hanzo stands up, shuts the screen to the window. He glances to the clock, and decides a training session with Genji would help his mind settle down.
--------------- [Many, many miles away]-----------------
Jesse McCree watches his feet and Reyes more than anything else as they step up the hill, marigolds and candlelights swimming past his sight. Tall grave markers cast shivering shadows across the breeze-swept grass, and Jesse finds his body twisting and turning to make sense of it, careful not to step even on the very borders of the mounds and especially not on the headstones. Whenever the candlelight permits it, he glances at the names and reaches into his far past to see if any of them ring familiar.
He stops in his tracks when he sees a
Reyes
engraved in stone, and he glances up to see Gabriel has halted as well. Reyes is wordless as he swings his pouch over, finds a tiny booklet, and steps closer to a much larger headstone than the one Jesse had been eyeing.
He squints past Gabe’s figure to see the names on the off-white rock, and epithets beneath in languages he can’t understand. Obviously, this is the family plot.
Gabriel looks up from the booklet, and sees McCree watching. Jesse jolts and straightens his body at first, but then softens the moment he sees a smile behind that bushy mustache.
“Sorry, sir, uh, I’m not being disrespectful, am I-”
“Relax, kid.” Reyes takes him by the shoulder and leads him to his side, patting his back once they stand together. They’re at the foot of the main grave now, and Jesse can read all the engraved letters much more easily. Another Reyes, there’s even a faded painting of them done on a separate slab of rock.
After a while, Gabriel takes a deep breath, “My grandfather. Fought for independence, wrapped himself in politics to his last breath- Great man, great legacy.”
Jesse blinks, and then turns to him, “Did you know him well?”
There’s a shrug, and then a sigh, “When I was a kid, yes, but for the rest of my life my parents and me lived north of the border.”
“Might explain why you’re a political man now, though.”
Gabe ends up raspberrying- a badly-contained laugh- and cups his hand over his mouth. “No, no. That was all me. Besides, my job’s very different from what it must have been like back then-”
“-And when I was a kid, I just wanted to be some artist, a musician maybe. I’m good with a guitar...”
McCree goes wide-eyed, making a wild gasp before Reyes can ramble more, “ You? An artistic type?”
“I made the clothes off your back by myself. ” Gabe rolls his eyes. Jesse pouts in reply... and then looks down at the patterned clothes, giving it a pat. “W-wait, you did?”
“Did you think I was joking?” Gabe raises his brow, “It’s a little hobby. You know, sitting down and talking strategy with people who barely understand you can get stressful, they’ve got high expectations, sometimes you’re helping recreate a whole system and-” He pauses when he notices Jesse’s face go blank again, “- err, s-sometimes I just need to sit down and make something else. McCree?”
No answer.
“ McCree- “
Jesse yelps and his eyes widen, realizing he had not absorbed any of that. Instead, he had recalled calling his shirt dumb in front of Genji, when he first got it.
“What’s gotten into you-“
“P-Prince Genji called this shirt dumb-“ Jesse blurts out.
“-What?!?” Gabe leans back and inhales sharply at first, rising on his toes along with the breath, but he then slumps back onto his heels, sighs out before speaking again, calm and matter-of-fact. “Well, the Prince doesn’t know better and I don’t care what he has to say.”
“I’m going to tell him that.” Jesse smirks.
“Pssh, go ahead. Now-“ He thumps Jesse’s back, making him stand at attention once more. “We should stop embarrassing ourselves in front of my family. I was so close to swearing.”
Gabriel brings his hands together, and starts fiddling with something- the booklet, pages warped from being clutched in one hand for so long. Jesse flattens his lips when he spots something else- beads.
“Didn’t think you were religious, sir.”
“I’m not very, but my family would have wanted me to do this for them.” With that, Reyes’ voice trails off, and he starts reciting from the pages.
Usually Jesse lingers and observes the other, picking up on phrases, but the words are too quiet, too sacred. He looks on, solemn, the chirps of nighttime now filling his ears where their voices have faded.
He turns around after a while, a practiced swivel of his boot, and leaves Gabriel be. Jesse instead looks out to the rest of the cemetery. The Reyes family plot is more luminous than the others nearby, which fade to black a few meters down the line, save for the dancing golden candlelights that have stood against the wind.
There’s a pang in his belly, and he doesn’t know why.
-----
Jesse thinks of his mother again, her and other hazy things warped by time. He wonders if he can even remember her face correctly- Did she have freckles? I don’t even have them, myself.
Would he have other family here, in this graveyard? Or would they all be past the border? He knows it’s foolish to scour through the place for other Garcías, not in this darkness. And even if he did find some, they might not even be closely related.
She fled across the world for a reason, carried him along and risked life and limb. She didn’t leave any names for him to pursue, only the ache of having no history.
Maybe that’s what she wanted. Sorry if you didn’t want me back here, ma.
All he had was her spirit in him, at least he hoped he did. There was her gun, too, and he entrusted that to Gabriel in the meantime, at least until he could learn how to shoot.
Just those two things, and the memory of warmth.
He left that back in Hanamura.