#and they've probably gotten all the equipment from the amount of times they've gone through the house

[nach0]

@electrozeistyking's LTN au has me in a vice grip so i had to draw her siffrin... the poor little meow meow someone get them Outta There

[thimbleswrites]

with the lights out, it’s less dangerous | the last time

Pairing: Frankie Dalton x Original Female Character

Genre: Angst / Drama

Word count: 4k

Warnings: love/hate relationship, implied smut, suicidal thoughts

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3884773/chapters/8685547

Author’s note: I wrote this a long time ago but I’m posting all my fics on my writing blog. I explain more about the Blood Donors concept in the a/n on A03 if anyone’s interested, click the link above.

Summary:

Anita, a human that Edward has been harboring in his house for years, struggles with the isolation of living as a fugitive in a world full of vampires. With the threat of being reduced to nothing but a Blood Donor looming just outside the walls of Edward's house, she must decide whether it is time to end it all or find a way to deal with the desolation.

But is the dangerous game she finds herself playing with Frankie Dalton, Edward's human-hunting brother, the best solution to her loneliness?

Set pre-Daybreakers.

Next: honesty hour

"Goddamn it, Frankie, I have until sundown to get some sleep before a shit load of work tomorrow – I'm not having this conversation again; it's done!"

A beat of silence follows the words as the dismissal rings heavy in the air and a resounding snarl tears through the tension. Anita grimaces at the sound of footsteps up the stairs and tries to press herself back against the hinged door, into nonexistence – a thin hand clawing at the threshold as she waits with bated breath.

No matter how many arguments she heedfully witnesses, how many times Edward tells her that she is safe after Frankie blows in and out of their lives over and over again, how many times she manages to make it just one more day without being caught and forced as a Blood Donor: the dread that makes her stomach clench in an almost paralyzing sort of fear is a constant reminder that she is never safe.

The comfort of safety is not a luxury she can afford – not anymore.

The years spent hiding with a decreasing amount of fellow human who had refused vampirism had not been wasted with pointless dreams of a secure future. Those days were harsh, dirty, and cruel – but in each other there was at least a small repose of normalcy. Humans living (well surviving, because what they had been doing was not actually living) with other humans.

A human living with one (sometimes two, she remembers with a tingle up her spine) vampires, though.

She wants to laugh at the thought of such an illusion as safety for someone in her position, but seeing as it's the one thing standing between her and becoming a daily juice box, she refrains. That is if she could remember how to laugh; the muscles surrounding her mouth are usually only ever exercised into a frown and she imagines that the act of straining them upwards might be foreign and difficult.

Her attempt at becoming a chameleon is at once deemed futile under the fierce gaze of Frankie Dalton as he passes in the hall. He's only just gotten back from his most recent tour of duty and as per usual he is staying at Edward's during his break, unable to afford an apartment he would scarcely ever use.

The first few days of his return are always the worst; Edward almost never remembers the day of Frankie's arrival and the latter's mood turns sour the moment he comes home to see his welcome party consists of one: a somewhat interested (and punctual; she doesn't have much to look forward to these days and even his return on the calendar is something) Anita holding a propped open book in one hand and the world's tiniest banner reading Welcome home, asshole! in her other as she lounges comfortably on a sofa in the office room, ready to leap to her crawl space at a moment's notice.

Just as she thinks that maybe, just maybe this time he will continue to his seldom-occupied bedroom and ignore her, he stops walking and looks her down as if she is a lower species; a turkey attending the Thanksgiving dinner. There is distaste clear in his eyes, rage too, and something even darker that she recognizes somewhere in the back of her mind but does not want to dwell upon.

Anita glowers bitterly up at him, willing him to feel her disgust at him, too, for him to know that this isn't exactly the ideal living situation for her either. A small part of her feels ashamed for those sort of thoughts – the last thing she wants Edward to think she is is ungrateful. She owes him her life, however useless it may be now.

Once, a couple years back, when on a supply raid with her group she had been wounded by a lone poor, starving vampire who had found them and attacked. Her party had left her there, assuming her to be dead, so it was not abandonment – not really, she would have done the same.

Self-hatred burns her insides with the knowledge that this new world – one with the rule of vampires and the hunt of humans like livestock – has charred her soul black to the core, a sense of meaningless survival (what is the point to her life?) taking control on instinct so that she has to fight every day to remember what humanity truly means.

But with an abundance of luck and patience on Edward's part, he had found her bleeding out (thankfully not infected; she'd rather die) and managed to get them both back to his place to nurse her back to health. Her constant attempts at his life or escaping had slowed things down considerably, but she eventually healed and came to the hard realization that her pack was gone. She knew by then they would be cities away and that she was alone. It was with little hesitance that Anita had accepted Edward's offer of shelter and food. Protection, too, but that was taken lightly.

She's never been one to depend on others; she likes to pull her own weight, and her current title of hidden house guest makes her restless. When she had first began living with Edward, she had offered him her blood – not straight from her veins, obviously, but with the proper equipment she would have given him enough, regularly but not nearly as much as she'd have to if she became a Blood Donor, to cushion the blow of his blood-bill. But he had refused; said he didn't drink human, and it would have been a lie to say she was too disappointed. The same offer was never given to Frankie – probably because she knows now, and knew then, that he would not have refused.

"Well, if it isn't the root of the problem." Frankie grinds out, his jaw clenched as he takes a step towards her. "Tell me – do you think Ed sees your face on the humans at his company or just dollar signs?"

She blinks indifferently, keeping her silence. They've danced to this song before, and honestly, she's grown too phlegmatic to be baited so easily.

"Probably not the money." He adds, his voice hard. "He pities you humans too much for his own good. And you in particular, doesn't he?" He chuckles darkly and points at her with his index finger. "No, you're his favorite little stray kitten – here to stay."

At his sneering words she looks back at the small opening across the small office that leads to the crawl space she spends her time in when the sun falls and darkness resumes – a pathetic excuse for living quarters but she is none the wiser, having been in worse conditions while on the streets. At least she has the sleeping bag to herself now.

She is allowed out during the day or when Edward is home and does not have company, but rarely downstairs and always, always she must be quiet (so quiet it is like she is not even there) in case the neighbors can hear. He cooks her food mostly (something she wishes she could do for herself; Edward is an appallingly bad chef) and she is permitted to have a shower every few days even though she has to use his toiletries. She does not mind much, though – things like that have not been a problem for her in a good long while.

It is not that Edward wants to keep her on a short leash so much as he is very meticulous in ensuring that she remains hidden, for his sake and hers. Every single thing is planned and routine; if he is to buy too much extra food or household necessities or if his guest notice that he seems to be housing three occupants, it might raise unwanted suspicion that would be better to avoid entirely. Paranoid, maybe, but it works. And although she will never dare to complain, living in such circumstances is taking the wear and tear out of her.

While food comes easier now than what she has been used to (having been malnourished since she was barely a teen) she is still unhealthy; her skin too pale from the lack of sunlight and the natural growth of her body stinted by the crawl space, making her appear pinched, and so much smaller than she should, too emaciated and frail to the point where she wants to avoid mirrors at all cost on some days. The perpetual dark rims under her grey eyes from many sleepless nights give her the appearance of a ghost, and her hair is almost always in a wild tangle of mousy blonde strands, but sometimes on her more vain days, she manages to run her fingers through it enough to tame the mess. Throughout every thing that has been lost to the war of vampires against humans, vanity seems to trail behind her in a race to catch up; not quite there but never too far behind either.

She looks hollow, dead in the eyes, and it's only fitting, really – she feels the same way.

Anita wishes that she could take pride in her quiet strength – she yearns to think of herself as one of the heroines from the books she reads to assuage her boredom (Edward has books everywhere, scattered in piles in all the nooks and crannies of the house and then some), biding her time before she can join the Revolution with her fellow humans, but honestly, the fear and cowardice that is still present, hidden beneath the bitter sorrow and ferocious contempt, only makes her feel weak. Weak from the tears that wet her pillow at night when she is by herself in the crawl space, holding her arms around her middle as if it will help the sickness, left with nothing but thoughts of death and blood and the unfairness of life.

She misses her family more than she ever thought she would, and it's unbearable because it leaves a gaping, festering hole in her chest that makes her want to lie still until she just stops breathing. At those times, more than usual, it stumps her how anybody could want to live forever. It's a consuming, mindless sort of grief that leaves her breathless and exhausted, hating herself for dwelling on the past when her current standing in the food chain demands all the focus she has.

Anita hates weakness.

And Frankie makes her feel weak.

Especially when he is this close to her, his head tilted down so he can meet her wide eyes, and his body so near her that she can feel the coolness of him. She hates the terror it instills in her at the thought that he can infect her with a smile on his face and her flesh in his teeth if he so desires. And he does desire it – he's told her so, after the two brother's verbal throw down matches over Edward's aiding and abetting a human criminal in his own house, a house that Frankie inhabits ("By knowing and not saying anything it makes me an accomplice, Ed!"). Edward thinks his threats of turning them in are empty ("He won't say anything . . . he owes me." Ed told her once when she had voiced her concerns) and he hasn't yet, however, Anita wouldn't put it past him. She can't turn a corner in a house that Frankie's in without having a threat to turn her thrown in her face.

Even more than that, though, she absolutely despises the other feelings he sparks in her too. The ones that make her flush with heat in her veins and an ache between her thighs from the longing to be close to someone again. Anita despises him for being a selfish monster and she despises him even more when he's not. She despises the salacious want he infixes in her when he glances up with sharp, trained eyes from whatever he is doing to watch her walk back to the office after a shower when she is in only a towel. But more than anything, anything else she despises herself for having allowed him to toy with those feelings periodically over the last four months.

As Frankie stares at her, something akin to understanding glints in his eyes and he takes a quick step in her direction, making her fall back two. After a moment she has enough sense to worry he might have recognized the look in her eyes as more than offense at his words. There is a familiar sort of triumph in his voice as he sneers, "Something bothering you, pet?"

The sound of the taunting sobriquet he had long ago christened her coming from his lips is far too palatable for her to handle so she imagines what the screams of the humans he has hunted and forced into the Blood Revenue Agents hands would sound like instead, so loud and terrible that it can banish those bad, bad feelings that surround her off to another place where things that are wrong go to.

For the moment, it works.

"Yes – you are standing too close," Anita finally murmurs, and something frightening in her roars at the covetous flash in his eyes as they narrow at her, but she silences it by biting her tongue, unable to resist the opportunity to wipe the smirk off of his face. "And I can still smell the blood of my people marring your precious honor, sir."

The corners of his mouth twist down at her mockery and he raises his chin, trying to intimidate her with his authority, but the vampire soldier card no longer makes her shrink in fear as it once did. She has had quite a bit of time in the weeks of Frankie's absence to prepare herself for his overwhelming presence that has always had a different effect on her than Edward's. She will no longer permit herself to be a distraction for him to amuse himself with whenever he likes purely because he can. She is more than his filthy little secret, and certainly better than him.

Her lips thin and she brings herself to full height, which is only a wee few inches shorter than him, but still her neck cranes up slightly to meet his gaze. She has pushed off from the door and he moves backwards to avoid physical contact. The fact that he is the one who falls back weighs heavy on him and his frown deepens in anger.

His relentless harassment over the years has been all too entertaining for him because of the easy prey she has always presented him with. His ability to read her like an open book is almost congenital – Frankie knows Anita to her very core; her thoughts, her fears, her dreams, he knows exactly what to do to provoke her. He can send her into a furious rage with a few casual words or tear her apart by a single deliberate look. But now the game has changed. She has surprised him with this sign of defiance; this charge of offensive play, and he does not know how to react to it.

A small thrill shoots through her from his falter, and the courage it gives her comes out in the smooth words she spits into his face, "Something bothering you, Frankie?"

She can almost taste victory in her mouth when his ochroid eyes flash and he quickly leans into her, a smirk curling onto his face, making her stumble back away from him and warily glance at the protruding fangs that press into his pale lower lip. He smiles widely to show her his teeth more clearly; a wolf's grin, and watches her clenched jaw tremble beneath the unspoken threat, eyes dancing and alight with the prospect of a challenge.

"Careful now, pet, wouldn't want to cross lines you can't come back from, would you?" He cautions.

The air feels weighted with the tension, as if electricity is crackling against her skin, sending sparks through her nervous system but she holds her ground and straightens. The warning is obvious in his voice; he wants her to know that he is in control. She hates that.

He is so close she can feel his breath fanning her face, and although it makes hers come in faster than she would care to admit, Anita resists the urge to swivel her head to the side. "Fuck your lines."

The curse word feels strange on her tongue, although she is pleasantly surprised at the evenness of her tone, and she enjoys his confounded look at her having taken a page from his book – he frequently uses the crude terms, and at least one adolescent innocent tendency has always made her wince when he casually refers to them – but it had sounded sharp and primitive and she is impressed by herself. She instantly realizes that she likes how fierce it makes her feel.

"Ooh, such language, Nita. Wouldn't expect it from you." He grins at her, his tongue grazing briefly over one fang, so quickly that she barely notices it with a sweeping sensation sent straight to her toes, and continues, "And while I appreciate that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, maybe you should mind your manners for now. After all, pets who misbehave must be . . . castigated."

Her knees quake, nearly giving out at his tone: almost a teasing threat, and that realization makes her stomach flutter in equal parts fright and excitement. She inhales deeply, pulling down the frayed sleeves of her sweater past her fingers.

Frankie's smile fades as his mouth contorts into a thoughtful expression and his eyes size her up. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up, but she is not sure if it is because of the dread in her stomach or the heat that flames in her cheeks and along her ears when he steps forward with his arms extended out on either side of her head, efficiently trapping her between the door and his body. He pushes a strand of hair from her darting eyes with a gentle motion; a mocked sign of affection, and lets the tip of his finger rest on her temple.

He is pushing her, stretching their interaction like a rubber band, testing to see how far he can go before she breaks. He doesn't have to push far this time – a simple movement; he bites gently and deliberately into his lower lip and his eyes drop to her mouth – and then she is shoving his arms away scathingly, hitting him with her fist as she turns to her crawl space.

Frankie catches her readily around her waist and flings her back against a wall, grabbing her wrists in his hands when she tries to struggle and pinning them above her head. His face is close enough to hers that she can clearly see the smile lines in his right cheek when the corner of his lip quirks up in that crooked grin that makes her loathe these moments with him as much as she secretly looks forward to them, although, she will never admit the hold he has on her; a strong fist around her rotting heart, forcing it to pulsate when the beats begin to degenerate.

Sometimes she wishes he would just let her die.

He thrusts a knee between her legs, pressing his body onto hers, and she can't breathe – she can't even muster the energy to ignore the way her body responds to the familiar feeling of him against her; the way her hips cant upwards into him, all but unwillingly.

And sometimes she wants nothing more than this.

"Fuck you." Anita seethes, because he looks so smug, like such a smug bastard that her blood practically boils and she feels alive.

"Hm, fuck me?" Frankie muses. "You're being rather straightforward today."

"Well, you know what they say." She returns with a sharp grin on her face that she saves just for him. "Bold is beautif – oh!"

He had ducked down into her neck, his mouth opened wide, and for only a moment she considers that he is finally making good on his threat to tear into her jugular vein, but it's not his teeth. It's his tongue, and she thinks that might be worse. He's kissing the base of her throat, ravaging the skin there (because Anita will shit a brick if she ever sees Frankie being tentative in his actions), and it almost hurts; she knows there will be a bruise there in a few hours.

There always is.

"Wait." She protests wearily, her heart beating a tattoo of his name onto her rib cage. "You said it was the last time. We agreed – we agreed the last time was it."

"I changed my mind." He says easily, his mouth trailing up to her jaw. "God, you're so fucking warm."

And the low, guttural sound of his voice makes her knees actually give out this time. He only tightens his fingers around her wrists, though, and his thigh between her legs keeps her upright, but oh – his thigh between her legs. She trembles.

Her eyes fall closed with a pleased, drawn out sigh and he lets out a breathy laugh.

"You want this just as much as I do, don't you, pet?" He taunts, scraping his fangs lightly over her skin.

Anita growls but before she can retort he presses his lips to hers and kisses her in a way that only he's ever done; hard, deep, angry. He releases her right hand and she presses her palm to the nape of his neck, holding him in place as she responds to his jabbing remark by nipping at his bottom lip. She makes a noise at the back of her throat when his tongue invades her mouth.

He's cold – all vampires are. But Anita doesn't see it like they do in the old YA novels about the then-mythical vampire, it is not just some side effect of being a dashing creature of the night like the young heroines think it is; it's one of the things she hates the most when she's with Frankie like this, because it reminds her that he is dead. He has no pulse, no heartbeat. Frankie is cold like a corpse, a walking disease.

This thought gives her resolve a burst of renewed strength and she tugs her other hand free from his grasp, holding tightly to his shirt as she pants, "We can't keep doing this." But even as the words leave her, she allows her hand to drift down towards his stomach, feeling the taut muscles of his abdomen beneath her exploring fingers.

Jesus, help me, Anita thinks desperately, he's my Kryptonite.

He's undeterred – his mouth hovering over hers, golden eyes watching her intently as his hands go to her hips and he hooks his thumbs into the waistband of her pants. "Why not?" He asks, softly, the words drifting over her lips.

She pauses, distracted by the way his fingers stroke circles onto her skin.

He smiles at her hesitancy, touching his lips lightly to hers.

The tenderness throws her into momentary surprise, but he suddenly grips the back of her thighs and lifts her up, propping her against the wall as her legs lock instinctively around his waist, and there's nothing tender about what's digging into the inside of her thigh. She gasps when his hands slide up her sweater, one at the small of her back and the other on her breast.

She kisses him fervidly, nearly slicing open her tongue on his fang, and cradles his jaw in her hands – he grins into her mouth, apparently satisfied by her response, and her body screams this is the last time, just once more.

"I'm not into necrophilia – you son of a bitch," Anita murmurs, short of breath, but even she hears the fond way the words are spoken.

"Shut up," Frankie groans as his mouth goes to her collarbone, his hand tugging one of her legs higher over his hip while his groin steadily rocks into the apex of her thighs as if to prove his next words, "D'you think I want to want this? I've taken playing with my food to an all new level."

And she doesn't even try to stop the morbid laugh that leaves her as he carries her to his bedroom.

It's the last time, after all.

-

[mataglap]

Possible prompt: McCree has kept something of Hanzo's--arrow fletching, a weird rock that reminds him of Hanzo's resting bitch face, a bottlecap he tossed at McCree's head in annoyance, etc.--and Hanzo finds it right before or shortly after they've gotten together.

Here’s my part of the deal. :)

Genji wants him to socialize, so Hanzo honestly tries his best — which, considering he’s got his brother’s blood on his hands and everyone knows it, doesn’t amount to much in the end.

Nobody shows him any outright hostility, but the old guard treats him with cool politeness that speaks of mistrust louder than any words. The only ones that talk to him outside the necessary team communications and greetings exchanged in passing are D.Va and Lúcio, but they are both from a different world and a different generation, too loud, too careless, and he doesn’t avoid them as such, but their interests don’t overlap enough for there to be opportunities for social interaction apart from work and an occasional meal.

He’s obviously not invited to any of the little social gatherings held at the Watchpoint, few of them as there is.

He’s long been used to loneliness at this point, so it doesn’t bother him much. He doesn’t mind being thought of as a villain, either, because all things considered, he is one. The boredom, though: that gets to him. There isn’t much to do at the Watchpoint. It’s first and foremost a research facility, and there isn’t really any recreation to be had other than a holovision set in the small living room. There is no shooting range either, not even training equipment of any sort, and while everyone agrees that the Watchpoint needs to be converted into a passable approximation of an HQ, things like gym equipment rank fairly low on the list.

So Hanzo improvises. He sets up a makeshift archery range on the old shuttle launchpad, near the cliffs, far enough from the main building complex that there is no risk of anyone wandering into a stray shot. He drags two low benches out of one of the unused, dusty rooms and buys a pull-up bar to fix inside a tall doorframe. He exercises with what he has: his own body and the environment around him. He practices katas, challenges himself to hit difficult shots, sometimes he goes for a pure endurance training, landing shot after shot in the targets until he’s drenched in sweat and his muscles burn, and after the first few weeks he settles into a rhythm: sleep, eat, work, train, meditate, repeat.

In the second month, he finds himself watched.

It’s the smell that alerts Hanzo to someone else’s presence. He’s out at the targets, gathering his arrows, when he catches a whiff of sweet tobacco smoke. The man sits on the stairs leading to the gallery, hidden in the shadow of the laboratory, a cigar between his teeth; he tips his hat when he sees he’s been noticed.

Hanzo nods at him and goes back to practicing. The self-consciousness fades quickly under the strain and the comforting rhythm of the routine, and the next time he remembers to check, the stranger is gone. Hanzo all but forgets about him until he takes a break and sits in the shadow for a moment, wiping his face with his shirt, and hears loud footsteps descending the stairs.

Everything about the man’s appearance screams ‘American’, so Hanzo isn’t surprised to hear his accent.

“Howdy. Name’s McCree,” he says. He’s holding two bottles of water, wet with condensation, and he tosses one towards Hanzo; Hanzo catches it automatically. “Hot day.”

Hanzo has his own water tucked away under the stairs, hidden from the sun, but this one is icy cold, and he holds the bottle against the back of his neck for a blissful moment before unscrewing the cap. “Thank you,” he says, voice hoarse with disuse, and clears his throat. “Shimada Hanzo. Pleased to meet you.”

There is no hostility or wariness in the man’s gaze at the sound of the name. Hanzo gets another hat tip. “Pleasure’s mine.”

McCree sits on the stairs again; Hanzo leans against the pillar. They both drink in silence.

“Saw you got a nice training setup goin’.” McCree inclines his head towards Hanzo’s makeshift outdoor gym. “Mind if I use it when you’re done?”

“Everything here belongs to Overwatch. Help yourself.”

Hanzo drains the rest of the bottle and goes back to his exercises. McCree doesn’t linger; Hanzo is left alone for the rest of his training.

In the evening, he goes to the gallery out of pure curiosity, and when he looks out of the window, he sees a shirtless, tall figure jump up onto the pull-up bar.

Hanzo learns about the newcomer in the following days. He’s a veteran as well, and Hanzo is surprised at the difference in attitude right until he finds out about Blackwatch and McCree’s gang affiliation of before. That also explains why, despite being one of the old guard, McCree doesn’t seem to hang around the rest of them much.

He does, however, return to watch Hanzo practice three days later, and the day after that. The third time Hanzo spots McCree hiding in the shadows, he finishes a kata and turns towards him.

“You can do your exercises while I train,” he says offhandedly. “As long as you don’t walk into my field of view when I shoot.”

“Much obliged.” McCree nudges the brim of his hat up and smiles. It’s the first time Hanzo’s seen it happen. The smile is bright and boyish, and it transforms McCree’s rugged, weathered face in such an unexpectedly disarming way that Hanzo catches himself smiling in return.

He turns away quickly and begins another kata. His ears feel too warm, but at least he can blame it on the Mediterranean sun.

One day, out of the blue, McCree asks him for an archery lesson. Hanzo surprises himself by agreeing to it, and even more by the fact that he doesn’t mind letting McCree use his bow.

They go through the basics: rules of the range, handling the bow, stringing and de-stringing, calibrating sights. McCree’s a good pupil, Hanzo doesn’t have to repeat himself and hears no complaints, even after he ruthlessly criticizes McCree’s posture — well, at least until he finally deems McCree ready to actually try and shoot.

“Aw, why do I get fake arrows?” McCree whines when presented with a quiver of training arrows, and casts a longing look at Hanzo’s own quiver resting safely against the nearby wall. “Was hopin’ to try one of your fancy, shiny ones.”

“The ‘shiny ones’ are three-state reconfigurable hardlight, McCree. They aren’t cheap or easy to come by, and they are not toys.” Hanzo pushes the quiver into McCree’s hands. “I had these made specifically for you. They’re perfectly suitable for the purpose.”

McCree blinks and smiles. It’s that damnable smile again, the one that never fails to make Hanzo flustered in a way he can only blame on prolonged lack of social interaction. “You made these for me?”

“Torbjörn made them, not me,” Hanzo grumbles and busies himself with stringing the bow, face burning.

McCree’s smile stays on for at least a couple of minutes. Hanzo can’t stop glancing at it instead of paying attention to his pupil’s form. It’s a terrible lesson and he’s a terrible teacher, and it’s only after McCree’s third arrow misses the target completely, hits the concrete wall and shatters, that Hanzo finally gets himself together.

“See, this is why you require special arrows,” he points out while McCree gathers the remaining arrows and hunts down the pieces of the broken one.

“Special arrows for a special archer,” drawls McCree, grinning.

“Your aim is certainly special,” says Hanzo loftily, and McCree starts laughing.

It’s that soft, warm laughter that ultimately dooms him, even though he doesn’t realize it yet.

McCree’s a good pupil, but he’s not a good archer. His instincts are wrong, his posture is wrong, he lacks patience and he wants results too quickly. Despite all that, and despite Hanzo’s ruthless criticism, he comes back for more lessons with determination that is nothing short of admirable.

After McCree hits his first bullseye, he insists that they should go out and celebrate. Hanzo refuses, claims it’s pure luck, orders him to repeat the feat first. Before he knows it, they’re squabbling playfully; McCree punches him in the arm, Hanzo smacks him in the ass with the stringer. Something warm and glowing lodges itself under Hanzo’s ribs and refuses to budge.

McCree hits two more bullseyes during the next session, and gloats so much that even Hanzo’s threat of refusing to give further lessons doesn’t stop him.

They do go out as promised, to a little pub not far from the Rock, and eat and drink and talk until the place closes and the staff politely requests them to leave. McCree insists on escorting Hanzo to the door of his room, as if he’s a gentleman and Hanzo is his date. It’s ridiculous, but Hanzo’s tipsy and the evening has been enjoyable, and after a few token protests he leaves it be. There’s no harm in it, and they’re not done yet, anyway — they’re discussing old movies they’ve both seen as children, and only after they’d been stood in front of Hanzo’s open door for a good couple of minutes Hanzo realizes he should probably stop talking.

McCree bids him goodnight and abruptly pulls him into a brief embrace before leaving.

Hanzo’s left standing in front of the door, shocked speechless, heart hammering in his chest.

The next time they go out, the walk back to the base takes them two hours of meandering around Gibraltar. McCree talks about Deadlock and Blackwatch and, half amused and half deprecating, about the trouble his brash younger self got into over the years. There are more similarities in their life experiences that Hanzo would have expected, but he can only think of the differences.

“You do know about Genji, right?” he blurts out, stopping halfway up the winding road to the reserve.

They have never talked about it. Hanzo doesn’t know why, but he suddenly needs to.

McCree stops, too, hands in his pockets. He doesn’t look at Hanzo; he’s watching the lights of Gibraltar below. “Yeah, I do,” he says slowly. “I also know all the shit I’ve done when I was younger. Only in my case, there are no witnesses left. No one’s gonna come back from the grave to call me out. I’m the only one who remembers or gives a damn.”

Hanzo has no idea what to say to that. He watches McCree’s profile against the dark sky, instead, and waits. Wildlife hums softly around them.

McCree reaches into his pocket, fishes out a cigarillo, lights up, puffs and sighs. “So what I’m tryin’ to say is, I used to be awful quick to judge people,” he says, resuming the walk and motioning for Hanzo to follow. “Still am, to be honest with you. But some things I just ain’t qualified to judge anymore. Especially when it comes to obeying shitty orders.”

Hanzo wants to argue against this unexpected and undeserved leniency, but the memory of McCree’s smile is still fresh in his mind, and for the first time in ages, the righteous anger quietly slips away, leaving behind a strange, warm emptiness.

McCree stops after a dozen steps, turns toward him. “You comin’? Do I need to call you a few names to make you feel better?”

He snorts despite himself and follows, and doesn’t even mind answering McCree’s questions about the Shimada-gumi as they climb.

When they get to his room, Hanzo tenses up, not even knowing whether it’s out of fear or hope or something else. McCree eyes him before silently reaching out. Hanzo swallows and willingly takes two steps forward, walks right into the outstretched arms.

The hug is longer than before. Hanzo gets to breathe against McCree’s collarbone for a good couple of seconds before it becomes too much. He gives McCree an awkward pat on the back, extricates himself from the embrace, mumbles a goodbye without meeting McCree’s eyes and retreats to the safety of his room.

Almost two months after the first lesson, Hanzo declares that he’s taught McCree everything he could, and only regular practice with his own bow can bring further improvement. McCree laughs that even if he wanted one, he can’t afford a proper bow; Hanzo silently decides to find out when his birthday is.

They go out to celebrate. They get drunk, just a little. They sit in the marina and watch the sunset and take their usual long walk before getting back to the base. McCree starts telling terrible jokes, each worse than the previous one; Hanzo laughs so much he has to sit down on the sidewalk and wait for the hiccups to pass.

This time, the embrace outside Hanzo’s room feels different, charged. McCree doesn’t let go, and Hanzo doesn’t pull away. It goes on for entirely too long for Hanzo not to realize certain harsh truths; he reaches up without looking, slides his fingers into the soft hair on McCree’s nape, and the unsteady breath McCree takes is enough of a reply to the unspoken question that it sends Hanzo’s heart hammering.

The kiss is hungrier than he meant it to be. McCree doesn’t seem to mind, he just makes a small sound, backs Hanzo slowly into his own door and kisses him until they’re both out of breath.

Hanzo lets go of McCree’s hair with some regret, slides fingers along his jaw instead, touches his neck. He resists the thought of divesting McCree of his shirt right here in the corridor and limits himself to just two buttons, to lean in and plant a single kiss against a tempting collarbone. There’s a delicate ball chain around McCree’s neck, like he’s wearing old-school military dog tags, and Hanzo reaches for them out of curiosity.

McCree startles and grabs his hand, but it’s too late. It’s not a pair of dog tags. It’s an arrowhead, blunted, smooth, polished, one of the ten Hanzo asked Torbjörn to make two months ago.

McCree lets go of Hanzo’s wrist and chuckles awkwardly, avoiding his eyes. “I can explain?” he offers, sheepish.

Hanzo’s heart soars. “I think you should explain inside,” he says firmly, turns to punch in the door code, grabs McCree by the arm and drags him into the room.