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solivar · 2 months ago

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Ghost Stories On Route 66

Chapter 15

At some point after he fell asleep, Jesse had turned to face him and now they lay entangled in a mass of cloak and covers and intertwined limbs, with his ranger’s head just beneath his chin, nestled against his chest, as though seeking comfort in the warmth of his body. And it was both comfortable and warm, cocooned in sheets and blankets that smelled of them both and the subtler scents of home, fresh tatami and free-flowing water and the perfume of the trees on the wind that swept down the sides of the mountain. Drowsily he opened his eyes and drowsily he looked out over his grandmother’s water garden through the half-open shoji, wisps of mist rising from the spring-fed pond, the trees ringing it a riot of scarlet and crimson, golden and copper, the autumn-cool breeze on his face and hands a delicious contrast to the ranger’s warm breath on his throat. One of his hands lazily found its way into Jesse’s hair and he stirred in response, shifted slightly, erased the last of the space between them, and it was all he could do not to bend down and kiss him awake, to spend the rest of the morning and the day after giving him whatever comfort he might desire. Their lips had just brushed for the first time when the sound of the shoji sliding still further drew his attention and he realized that they were not alone.

“About time you got here.” The ranger who was not his ranger drawled from his place on the verandah, beast-golden eyes glinting in the early morning light. “Took you long enough.”

Hanzo stiffened and, next to him, Jesse murmured indistinctly and half-opened dark eyes dazed with interrupted sleep and uncured fatigue.

“Shhhhh,” Hanzo whispered to him and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Go back to sleep, koishii. You’re safe here.”

He waited until Jesse drifted back down, only then sliding out of his arms and drawing the covers back over him to keep away the chill. He stepped into the shoes waiting for him, slid the shoji completely closed, and stood there for a moment with his back to the ranger-who-was-not-his-ranger, breathing the cool air of the mountains, of the shrine, until he was certain he could control himself. When he turned around, he found that the not-ranger had abandoned the verandah for the mossy stones ringing the pond, crouched in the shadow a scarlet maple watching the bright-scaled fish rising from the depths of the dark water to feed off the surface. For a moment, he did as well, and tried to permit the peace of doing so to fully infuse his spirit, forced his hands to sit open on his thighs as he knelt and breathed and finally said, “Was it you?”

“Hmmm?” The not-ranger looked up, head tilted quizzically, eyes wide and disingenuously innocent and Hanzo found his hands curling into his fists and he swore he felt the teeth lengthening in his mouth.

“Was it you,” He bit off each word sharply and precisely, “who brought him into this world? Who abandoned him to pain and loneliness and self-doubt? And, if it was not you, who was it? ”

The not-ranger stared at him, wordlessly, for several seconds, his eyes growing gradually rounder and the corners of his mouth sliding into an unnaturally wide smile and finally he threw his head back and laughed . Hanzo felt a rumble begin low in his chest, one that clawed its way up his throat and emerged as a wordless sound of fury functionally indistinguishable from a growl, and the only reason he didn’t lunge across the space separating them was because he saw the not-ranger waiting for him to do so and knew where that would end for both of them. He could not, however, force his hands to unclench.

“Ah, cousin.” The not-ranger wiped his eyes with the back of one hand as his burst good humor ran its course. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised -- of course defending your mate it what it takes to make you show your fangs.”

Hanzo bristled and only barely resisted to urge to actually bare his teeth. “Is that a no ?”

“Peace, cousin.” The tips of two clawed fingers came to rest in the center of his forehead, and suddenly there was no distance between them, and he felt calm pouring through him from that point of contact, peeling the tension out of his shoulders and his spine, almost against his will. “I am not your enemy. And, no, I am not the one who made him.” A sharp-toothed smile. “In fact, historically speaking, I’m more likely to be found killing his kind, not fathering them. Or, to be pedantic about it, tricking the powerful but not too smart ones into accidentally killing themselves.”

“But you were there the night his grandparents found him.” He opened his hands and found himself fighting the urge to rest his head against the not-ranger’s shoulder.

“I was. I carried him away, you see.” Hanzo looked up quickly, and found the not-ranger’s face inches from his own, sorrow in his golden eyes. “It’s good he never went searching for his mother. There wouldn’t be much left to find.”

Hanzo shivered convulsively. “You saved him.”

“I helped. It seemed the thing to do.” The not-ranger settled down cross-legged a handspan away. “That meddlesome old woman who lives in a hole in the ground might have had something to do with it.”

“We have spoken.” Hanzo said dryly. “Did she send you to me, as well?”

“ Maybe .” Those golden eyes flicked away, and then back. “ Maybe not. ”

“Oh for fuck’s sake .” Hanzo snapped. “Are you serious ? This is my life at stake here, a straight answer would be wildly appreciated.”

“Unfortunately, those are rarely in my repertoire and the lack is a sorry side-effect of being related to me.” A sharp-toothed grin, completely undisturbed by Hanzo’s tone, and he found himself wrestling with the urge to throw the not-ranger in the pond again. “But, for the record? You are choosing wisely. And growing stronger by the moment. That’s why we’re all here. Well, one of the reasons.”

“Shared dreams.” Hanzo grabbed his frustration and forced it back down. “This is my dream, and I brought him into it?”

The not-ranger planted his chin on his fist and rolled his eyes heavenward. “I think we just had a conversation about straight answers.”

“So, yes. ” His reward was the world’s fangiest grin of encouragement. “Because even though I was only here once...and terrible things happened to me here...it still feels safe to me? Because this was the last place I was wholly and completely myself before…” His eyes stung. “This is the last place I was whole and safe, and it will keep him whole and safe, as well. And...if I took him to Hanamura...the Lady might not see him as I do.”

“A not-irrational chain of suppositions.” The not-ranger murmured encouragingly.

“And the other reason?” Hanzo asked, rhetorically, and allowed his gaze to finally drift across the garden, and the trees beyond it that almost but not entirely screened the highest point of the gabled shrine roof from view. “I am going to have to go back.”

The not-ranger was silent but regarded him steadily with something like compassion in his unnaturally bright eyes. Hanzo took a deep, ragged breath that had no peace in it and released it in a shuddering sigh that took none of the emotion churning in his gut with it. “What would it cost me,” He asked carefully, “to receive one true answer from your lips?”

“Only one?” The not-ranger replied, tone musing. “A task of my choosing, to be performed when I ask it, without hesitation.”

“Did you know her -- the Shimada warrior who came to fight the Serpent-Wolf all those years ago?” Hanzo asked, almost before he realized that was the question he most wanted answered.

“Yes, I knew her -- then and now. We are kin, after all.” He reached out again, and the tip of one clawed finger rested in the center of his chest. “You need to wake up.”

Hanzo jerked unceremoniously awake and, for an instant, he had no idea where he was, head swimming with disorientation, with the sudden change in time and place and he was looking up at something looming over him in the warm mostly-darkness, something with enormous glowing green eyes set in an angularly misshapen face that bore only a passing resemblance to humanity. The sound that escaped him wasn’t the loudest shriek he’d ever uttered, but the decibel level caused the looming monstrosity to recoil and emit a high-pitched sound of its own and that allowed him to roll across the bed and snatch up one of the fireplace tools to act as a makeshift weapon as he scrambled to his feet. Jesse, still lying curled on his side almost on the edge of the bed, didn’t so much as stir at the commotion.

“ Get away from him! ” Hanzo hefted the ash shovel into a first strike position that his long-ago sword instructor would definitely not have approved of and made ready to charge.

“ Hanzo, wait!” The monster yelped in reply, gesticulating frantically. “ It’s me! ”

He recognized the voice at once, even muffled as it was, and he lowered his weapon slightly. “Hana?”

“ Yes. ” She advanced a step into the wan shaft of light falling through the partially opened bedroom door.

“What in the name of all the gods and all of our ancestors do you have on your head?” Hanzo asked and lowered the ash shovel still further, though he held onto it in case this was some sort of fiendish trap of an unexpected nature.

“....Oh. Oh, crap. I didn’t think what it’d look like -- just a second.” She reached up and undid the straps wrapped under her chin and over her mouth and lifted the whole horrifically misshapen contraption off her head, her hair tumbling out of it in a mass of greasy tangles. A significant quantity of grease also adhered to her cheeks, her forehead, and around her eyes, giving her the aspect of an adorably contrite racoon. “I’m sorry?”

“Forgiven.” Hanzo sighed and replaced the ash shovel in the rack next to the fireplace. “And I’m sorry, too. What is that thing?”

“It’s okay. I did sort of sneak up on you unawares. And they’re aetheric perception goggles.” Hana replied and handed the object to him which did, legitimately, appear to be a set of goggles made up of a half-dozen overlapping lenses inscribed around the edges and across some of the surfaces with arcane markings, mounted in a durable setting of similarly inscribed metal and leather on what was clearly intended to be an adjustable-to-size head covering. He could see no pragmatic use for the amount of lubricant slathered across the various interior and exterior surfaces, but he assumed it had some purpose existing outside his spotty and incomplete knowledge of esoteric and possibly magical engineering.

“It lets you see...spirits? Spiritual energies?” He handed it back.

“According to Jamie, both.” And, so saying, she plopped it back in place, redid the straps, and adjusted the lenses slightly. “Admittedly, I haven’t actually seen any spirits yet, which is allegedly a good sign, because it means that nothing that isn’t supposed to be here is wandering through the border wards at will which means that the fixes they made earlier are probably working. But, just in case, Jamie’s also planting some variable phase localized aetheric field generators around the cabin and the hacienda since that’s where we’re all going to be staying tonight.”

“Some who the what now?” Hanzo asked and settled down on the edge of the bed to check on his ranger, who still hadn’t stirred.

“They look like those little solar-powered garden stake lights but, uhm, they’re not? Well, okay, they might be technically solar-powered -- we were charging them all day in the garden of that one abandoned house near the hacienda. The way I understand it is the produce a sort of spirit-repellent field. Mostly they use it to keep places temporarily safe from intrusion and they’re pretty sure it’ll at least help block anything if the Serpent-Wolf tries to get at you again.” A pause. “Honestly, a lot of this still sounds like the magical version of Star Trek technobabble, I mean I keep waiting for him to suggest bouncing a graviton beam off the main deflector dish, but it also kinda makes sense? I mean, there are some rules here, apparently. I just have to figure them out. And speaking of figuring things out, wow , you look like three thousand percent better? All the stuff inside you that was loose or frayed or broken is almost totally back together again. Ooooh, I wonder if you put this on and looked at yourself in the mirror if you could see it?”

“Maybe later.” Hanzo looked up and smiled wryly. “Can you see Ranger McCree, as well?”

“Yeah. He...looks kinda beat, actually? Drained almost?” Hana reached up and flipped the actual goggle parts of the headgear up and latched them in place on her forehead. “I understand things got a little hairy last night.”

“Yes, they did. And he didn’t get all the rest he needed then, or for most of the day today.” He rose and pulled the blankets higher, tucked them into place around his ranger’s body. “We should let him sleep.”

“Not even going to argue. We brought some dinner, if you’re hungry?” She held the door open for him and he closed it gently behind them, consulting the relevant parts of his anatomy and finding them entirely open to the idea of eating.

Terrifying Smoke Gabe was already at work in the kitchen and handed him one of the ranger’s heavy ceramic plates loaded down with grilled chicken and rice, a ramekin of pickled vegetables, and an enormous serving of corn cake oozing with melted butter and honey. “Jess still asleep?”

“At the moment, yes.” Hanzo settled down on one of the prep island stools and accepted the silverware Hana handed to him. “We barely made it back here before he went down. Genji told you?”

“He did.” Gabe tilted his head and regarded him steadily for a moment through four pairs of coolly glowing crimson eyes. “Thank you for looking after him. I was sure he wasn’t right when he left the house but…” He trailed off and glanced down the hall. “Ana said it might have been a side effect of shaking off the medicine so early.”

“He didn’t seem entirely himself when I found him.” Hanzo admitted carefully, intensely aware of Hana pouring herself a glass of lemonade at the other end of the kitchen.

“I’m going to check on him if you two don’t mind.” And, so saying and without waiting for their reply, he disappeared down the hall and into the bedroom.

“ Come with me. ” Hana dragged him away from the prep island, only barely granting him time to gather up his plate, and into the living room. “I thought he was going to watch you eat every bite. Sit down for a second, have I got something to show you…”

Both their bags were stacked side-by-side on the coffee table and, to his surprise, Hana began rooting around in his bag, drawing out his tablet and pushing it toward him. “I sent you the links in an email but, well, while you guys were out this afternoon and I was babysitting solar stakes, I started poking around to see what I could see about this place and --” She paused, listened intensely for a moment, continued. “The people. Because I’m nosy like that and I’d rather not be axe murdered and buried in a shallow grave in the desert in the event of a sudden but inevitable betrayal.”

“ Really , Hana?” Hanzo asked, exasperated, but thumbed open the screen. “They’ve been nothing but --”

Staring up at him was a grainy photograph, obviously a still lifted from the camera roll of a news drone suffering from substandard imaging equipment, of a much, much younger Jesse McCree, strapped to a hover-gurney and surrounded by EMTs under the headline MASSACRE IN DEADLOCK GORGE which Hana had helpfully saved as the device’s wallpaper.

“...Oh.” Hanzo said and had, at that moment, absolutely no idea what else to say.

“You are going to want to read that.” Hana’s expression was uncharacteristically sober. “It’s a ten-year retrospective on...whatever it was that went down, it not entirely clear even ten years later, but I think it can be accurately assessed as some serious shit. ”

“I will do that.” He hurriedly opened his email app before anyone could come in behind him and look over his shoulder . “What even made you --”

“Like I said, better slightly paranoid and prepared than hacked into undergraduate bits and stuffed in an abandoned mineshaft.” Hana replied. “And you better check your email because my professors have everything rescheduled already. Oh, and speaking of professors? Your boyfriend occasionally guest lectures at UNM and he’s a doctoral candidate in cultural anthropology with a specialist concentration in folklore. Jamie gave me that one.”

“Jamie.” He tried to place a face with the name but couldn’t quite do as, with with slowly dawning horror, he watched the number of messages tagged with bright red exclamation points proliferate in a manner not unlike hormonal rodents in the spring.

“The tall one? Aussie, looks like his hair’s on fire, likes to claim that the layer of grease is actually a protective unguent that drives off demons?” She plopped down next to him and stole bites from his plate while he sorted messages. “He and Roadie are staying here tonight, too. Outside. In Matilda.”

Hanzo looked up from a frankly alarming email that suggested his thesis advisor intended to call on him at home in the next day or two, delivered that morning. “Matilda?”

“He also likes to claim that’s an acronym but, frankly, I think he’s kinda full of it.” Hana swallowed a stolen mouthful and gestured toward the front windows. “It’s a mobile supernatural entity self-defense shelter and while I’m sure all the letters for MATILDA are in that collection of words...” She shrugged eloquently. “He seems to think that this is the perfect opportunity for a field test.”

Hanzo stood up, crossed to the windows, and peered out. Parked in the middle of the street, clearly illuminated by the porch light, was the result of a mescaline-fueled liaison between a cigar tube, a 50s-style sci fi flick UFO, and a classic Winnebago, boxy in a vaguely organically rounded sort of way, at least two storeys tall, and chrome plated right down to the awnings jutting off the back and side, over the disgorged boarding platform and the pair of nylon camp chairs planted next to it. One of them was occupied by a giant shadow, as wide across the shoulders as he was tall, and which raised a hand that could use a hollowed out half of a watermelon as a shotglass and offered a friendly wave. Hanzo waved back and let the curtains fall shut, acknowledging at least to himself that that wasn’t even the strangest thing he’d seen that day. “...Do you think that’s going to work?”

“The goggles do!” Hana replied cheerfully. “Speaking of which, do you mind if I hit the shower first? I really need to get this crap out of my hair before it solidifies.”

“Go. Use the ranger’s shampoo. It’s wonderful.” He followed her as far as the linen cabinet, the better to fetch her a fresh pillow.

“You’re the best.” She tossed her overnight bag into the bathroom and paused at the door. “Don’t think I didn’t notice, Hanzo.”

“Notice what?” He asked, sensing a trap.

“That you didn’t argue when I called him your boyfriend. I’m so proud of you. ” She pressed a kiss to his cheek and slammed the bathroom door in his face before he could either resist or argue the point.

Hanzo stood for a moment, staring at the closed bathroom door, hand resting on his cheek, an expression of half-crazed emotion slowly growing across his face that he knew in his bones would result in any normal human backing slowly away from him while looking desperately around for something to use as a weapon. Even a few days ago, it would have made him back slowly away looking for a weapon. Now, it felt reasonably natural even as his assorted inner voices of reason and if not madness at least something close to it argued in the back of his mind at nearly-audible-to-others volume and he drifted down the hall in the direction of the ranger’s bedroom door.

Your mate. The words cycled through his mind, spoken in the not-ranger’s raspy drawl, and there was nothing in him that could even pretend to deny it, not reason and not something much nearer to madness. Your mate. Just thinking those words made strange things happen inside his chest, painful, wonderful things that made him want to kick the bedroom door open, shake his ranger awake, and demand to know what he thought, what he felt, what he wanted.

Instead, he stopped just outside, hand poised to knock and held by the sound of Terrifying Smoke Gabe’s voice, quiet and low and oh so very gentle, and then the ranger’s, softer and deeper and something in it tightened his throat and made his eyes sting, even though he couldn’t quite understand the actual words they were speaking. The intimacy of it, perhaps, the sort of closeness that came of two people who knew and loved one another well, who knew that there were no words that they could not speak, no comfort that they could not ask. And he could not bring himself to intrude on that, no matter how fiercely he desired words and comfort of his own.

He stepped away and padded softly back down the hall, retrieving another blanket for Hana, and made up her bed on the world’s most comfortable couch. It seemed the best use of his time and another good use came to him as voices drifted in from outside and he became aware of the flicker of firelight through the curtains. He poked his head out the door and found both the nylon camp chairs now occupied, the extinct gourd firepit relocated to the road next to MATILDA, casting its light over one man so enormously tall and lanky the only possible explanation for it was a tragic accident involving an industrial taffy puller and another who was very simply a mountain given human form, wearing what looked like a heavily modified antique gas mask. “Good evening, gentlemen.”

“‘Ello, mate!” The victim of cruel and unusual taffy pulling grinned cheerfully at him, smile wide and bright and slightly snaggletoothed, in a face that did in fact appear to be covered in some form of deliberately applied soot/grease combination. “Yer lookin’ a fair sight better than you were the last time we saw ya. How goes?”

“I’ve been worse.” Hanzo admitted, and opened the door enough to step out onto the porch. “Can I get you anything? Blankets? Something to drink, or eat?”

“We’ve got alla that squared away in MATILDA here but I think I speak for both of us when I say a nice warm cuppa would be welcome. Right, Roadie?” Jamie -- it had to be Jamie -- cast a sidelong look at the mountain, who nodded mountainously in response. “Tea, if we could? Jess usually has some in his pantry. And thank ya kindly for the offer.”

“Of course. You are entirely welcome.”

A brief perusal of the ranger’s cabinets yielded both a proper teapot -- heavy earthenware to hold the heat -- and, to his vast amusement, a selection of knitted tea cozies to go around it, with its own inset metal strainer. A second provided mugs, likewise earthenware, and large enough to serve even the giants outside. He found a pleasantly fragrant canister of loose-leaf tea blended through with herbs and bits of dried orange peel and flower blossoms labeled FOR JAMIE in the pantry. While the tea was steeping he put together a selection of additives -- sugar, a jar of honey, lemon slices, a creamer for the milk, a plate of iced biscuits. Hana drifted through the kitchen during the course of his preparations and he poured her a cup and adulterated it to her preferences, delivering it to her nest of blankets before carrying the rest outside.

“Ahhhh, yer a scholar and a gentleman.” Jamie sighed as Hanzo set the tea caddy down on the somewhat rickety camp table that had materialized between the chairs. “Join us?”

“I believe I will.” Hanzo ducked inside just long enough to retrieve his jacket, a mug, and his tablet and, by the time he returned, a third chair had appeared beside the firepit.

Jamie poured for him as he settled down and for a moment they sat in companionable silence while they passed honey and lemon wedges, stirred and sipped.

“I gotta admit, I’m glad we’re having a chance for a sit-down -- I was a little worried about alla ya after everything that happened t’other night.” Jamie set his cup down and leaned over to scrutinize him in the firelight. “Jess was all kinds of worried and he doesn’t worry easy.”

“I’m grateful for all of your help.” Hanzo replied, honestly. “And also sorry that I dragged you all into this.”

“Nah, nothing t’be sorry for, mate. We’re all in this t’gether and we take care of our own out here.” Jamie reached out and patted him companionably on the shoulder.

“If it is not too intrusive a question, how did you meet him? Ranger McCree?” Hanzo asked.

“That’s not too much t’ask at all. In fact, it’s quite the story, innit, Roadie?” Jamie grinned across the fire at his companion, who made a sound not entirely like a concordant avalanche sliding down a slope of general agreement in response. “We moved here...oh, almost eight years ago now -- climate here is better for Roadie’s health, his lungs’re bad, need the drier, cleaner air -- but before we did we went scopin’ about for properties in the area where we could set up a workshop and junkyard and a house and suchlike all right and close t’gether. Found a place almost straightaway that’d suit just up the road from here, solid in the middle of nowhere, dirt cheap -- bein’ auctioned off for back taxes according to the real estate website. Didn’t realize until we got here that was a load’a hooey because all the properties south of the Red Line had their property tax liens vacated years ago but, well, we were here and we’d taken possession.”

“Things were weird almost from the start.” Roadie rumbled seismically, an effort at speech that seemed to extract a tremendous cost from him -- he adjusted the filters on his mask and inhaled deeply several times.

“Yeah, yeah it was. Noises in the night -- right up close to the house, so that we were worried to go outside much after dark, sometimes during the day while we were cleaning out the mess left in the salvage yard.” Jamie sipped his tea again. “It got so bad we took to barricading the doors and boarding up the windows from the inside ‘cause we were sure there was a whole pack of coyotes out there itchin’ to gnaw our bones.”

All the hairs on the back of Hanzo’s scalp stood up and saluted simultaneously. “ Naayéé .”

“Ayep. A whole bunch of ‘em. We had no idea, of course, nor what t’do or where t’go for help but one day while I was pickin’ up supplies I mentioned in passin’ to the shopkeep what was going on and she gave me his card.” A little grin. “I remember thinkin’ what good is this gonna do and then I called him and, well, you know how it is, when he talks t’you and it’s like how it’s from his lips to God’s ear and nothing ever is going to go or be wrong again and then he comes and kicks everything’s ass and makes you breakfast in the morning?”

“Intimately.” Hanzo replied, dryly.

“So, yeah, he came and sorted our problem in a trice and then called Rein over and introduced us and we got the whole place properly secured and I started studyin’ with him in the craft and here we are.” He sighed. “Best years of our lives, mate. Good place and better people.”

Hanzo smiled at the surface of his tea. “I’m inclined to agree.”

The silence lapsed into companionable again. Hanzo turned his attention, reluctantly, to the massive backlog of email he had accumulated, disposing of the most pressing items, adjusting his calendar for the next weeks in accord with the updated post-crisis class schedule, and responding to Dr. Saddind-Maas’ assorted missives, entreating her forcefully not to go anywhere near the condo since he wasn’t home and wouldn’t be until Tuesday morning at the earliest. Then he called her cell and left a message on her voicemail reiterating that information and suggesting they meet instead at her office at some point in the next week. Then he penciled himself in on her open access meeting schedule to further underscore the point. It was, ultimately, all he could do.

Toshokan-in had not yet replied to his query of the family genealogical databases or the historical archive, a fact he found somewhere in the precise junction between irritating and mildly alarming. Of course, it was already a business day in Japan and, if system maintenance ran late, it was entirely likely his admittedly non-emergency task had been shunted into the lowest possible priority queue. He summoned all his patience, resisted the urge to query her again, and turned his attention to the last thing he wished to deal with.

The link Hana sent him contained a brief precis of the article in question. It was, as Hana said, a ten year retrospective on events that had occurred in a place called Deadlock Gorge, written by a local true crime author who had spent years of her life researching both the circumstances of the “massacre” and the history of the location. Hana’s notes suggested that he read it in stages because some of the crime scene photos were a lot. Hanzo, staring down at the picture of Jesse -- pale, unconscious, strapped to a gurney beneath a mass of medical tubing and oxygen delivery equipment -- had absolutely no desire to read it at all. Hana had saved the picture to the tablet’s gallery and he pulled it up, almost against his will, fiddled with the resolution until it was almost uncomfortably sharp.

Jesse looked awful, unnaturally pale and drawn, eyes sunken deep in their sockets, so much so it was impossible to tell if he was awake or unconscious. His cheekbones, collarbones, the visible bits of his arms and hands, were all too sharply drawn, flesh and skin drawn tight, wasted, almost starved. His wrists were ringed in dark splotches that could be nothing but bruises, and he was entirely sure the stains welling up through the blankets covering his chest and abdomen were blood. The expression graven on his face was one of utter desolation.

He wished, with a fierce desire, for the power to reach through that image and comfort the child he had been all those years ago, to somehow let him know that he would be safe and well again. To go inside and offer that same comfort to the man he was now.

“Gentlemen, thank you for your company tonight.” Hanzo rose and offered a proper bow before he could think of a reason to stop himself. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Nah, we’re all right. Leave the tea things, we’ll take care of the clean up -- MATILDA’s got a kitchenette that needs testin’. If you hear screams, don’t be too worried.” Jamie grinned and waved him off.

“I will try not to be.” Hanzo replied wryly. “Good night.”

Most of the lights were already out as he stepped inside -- a little LED lamp came on in the entranceway as it registered his existence and amidst the burrito-shaped roll of blankets on the couch he caught a glimpse of artificial light from one of Hana’s devices. He paused at her side for a moment and found her deeply asleep, earbuds in place and snoring softly and, as he straightened up, he managed not to scream like a twelve year old when the dim and flaring light from the fire caught on the rapidly moving knitting needles of the man-shaped shadow sitting next to it.

Terrifying Smoke Gabe regarded him with unconcealed amusement as he controlled the urge to leap backwards and start throwing things in self-defense. “Keep your skin on, kid. I told you we’d talk more later -- it’s later and it’s even technically still today for a little longer. Have a seat.”

There was, in fact, another chair next to the fire, facing his own a safe double arm length away and with baskets full of firewood and neatly bound skeins of wool between them to act as an at least a theoretical buffer. Hanzo settled down and found it comfortably cushioned, draped with a blanket, pleasantly warmed and perfumed with the incense-rich smoke. He glanced at Hana, sleeping a bare handful of feet away.

A low chuckle. “Don’t worry -- she’s down for the count. I made sure of that and, wow, that sounded terrible. Not in a bad way, but she needed the rest and she was fighting it for some reason.”

“I suspect that this has been more difficult for her than she’s let on.” Hanzo admitted and resisted the urge to fetch her another pillow. “She’s…”

“Very structural-rationalist. Yeah, I know. Got a mind like a steel trap. Doesn’t believe more than half of what’s she’s seeing around here at any given time, and that’s got to be rough, not being able to trust the evidence of your own eyes.” The shadows shimmered gently and collapsed in on themselves and abruptly became more than just man-shaped, Terrifying Smoke Gabe more human than Hanzo had ever seen him before, one pair of nearly black eyes under heavy brows, a strong nose and high cheeks and a full mouth framed in a beard sharing some common stylistic antecedents with Jesse’s own, fine scars on dark skin. “But, honestly, I’m not here to talk about Hana. I’d rather know what’s eating you. ”

“I --” Hanzo stopped, considered, started again. “I am as well as can be expected. I --”

“Kid, don’t try to bullshit a bullshitter.” Terrifying no longer smoky Gabe snorted. “For one thing, I spent literal decades of my life lying professionally to people who’d do worse than kill me if they caught me. For another, you’re awful at it.”

“What if it was telling the truth?” Hanzo whispered, before he could think of a reason not to say it. “What if I am its bondmate? What if this is what Minamikaze saw inside me and that’s why he cut away my gift? Because me saw me becoming something terrible if I was permitted to keep it?”

Silence prevailed in the wake of that, and Hanzo buried his head in his hands and concentrated on his breathing and convincing his heart to crawl back out of his duodenum. At a distance, from around the sound of blood panicking in his ears, he heard footsteps crossing the room once, twice, and then a hand came to rest on his shoulder. He looked up and found Gabe holding out a tall glass of something glacially pale. “Drink that. You’ll feel a little better.”

Hanzo accepted it gingerly. “What is it?”

“Lemonade.” A little smile curled the scarred corner of his mouth as he sat down and placed the pitcher down on the mosaicked fireplace curb. “Drink.”

He sipped, and it was cool and sweet-tart and refreshingly herbaceous and, perversely, it did make him feel a little better. “What’s -- this isn’t just --”

“Lavender essence and certain other helpful healing additives. Gives it a little more kick.” Gabe picked up his knitting needles again, a length of something electric pink and powder blue and creamy white already hanging off them. “Let’s do a little thought experiment, shall we?”

Hanzo sipped again, let the cold trickle down his throat, and nodded.

“You said that, when you were traveling through the forest, you saw the remains of others who had come before you -- who had grown tired, or lost, or just wandered off the path and died there, never having reached their goal.” The needles flashed in the firelight and Hanzo found himself watching them, their motion weirdly soothing, nearly hypnotic.

“Yes, that is true.” He replied, after a moment, not quite wanting to touch those memories, not quite needing to as the images flashed across the inside of his eyes whether he wanted them or not.

“You also said, when you were climbing the mountain, that you sensed others had reached that high only to be flung away into nothingness when they failed to meet the challenges it offered.” The needles flickered and in their reflected light he saw again the lightning leaping from cloud to cloud, felt the cold biting into his flesh, and shivered convulsively.

“That is also true.” He admitted, and finished his drink, set aside the glass before his shaking hands could drop it.

“And then you came to the palace, and refused all the temptations, and brought your granddragon the proof of all that he demanded…” Gently. “What makes you think he’s done making demands? Or setting tests?”

“What do you mean?” Hanzo asked tightly. “He -- he accepted that the task was done. That the clan had redeemed itself. That I -- that I was -- that I am not --”

“Not a dragon.” Even more gently. “But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think you’re still something. Do you really think, if he’d seen the day coming when you’d become one with that thing, that he’d only cut out your gift? When he left the bones of the unworthy before you strewed all over the foot of his mountain? When there was chance that you’d become something horrible and predatory and that you could come home bearing it? Why would he let anything of you come back if that was the case -- if he could end the threat you’d become right then and there?” Yet more gently still. “What if you’re still being tested, Hanzo?”

“ Why? ” His eyes prickled and he clenched them shut, not wanting to cry before that man, not more than he had already. “For what? ”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” A fire-cast shadow detached itself from the mass dancing across the floor between them, lifted the pitcher, and poured him another glass of lemonade. “At the risk of sounding profoundly cheesy, that’s something your heart needs to tell you. Maybe even literally, given what Ana and Dr. Tekhartha found inside you.”

Hanzo’s hand drifted to his chest. “You sound...sure.”

“Sure is a relative term. Let’s just say...I’ve seen similar. Similar enough to make me think there’s more going on here than we know just yet.” His eyes narrowed and went slightly redder. “Drink your lemonade.”

He picked up the glass and sipped obediently. “I...have not told anyone else this yet. I have been having...dreams. Nearly visions. The ranger -- Jesse -- is in them but he is not himself. The first one happened after he drove the Serpent-Wolf out of my body.” He closed his eyes, called back all the details he could remember, recited them. “At the foot of the mountain I found him -- he had golden eyes and claws but Jesse’s face. I have seen him since then, and every time I have, he has called me his cousin.”

Gabe was silent for several moments. Then: “Mą’ii.” A pause. “Coyote. I’ve...seen him, too, wearing another face. And his cousin? That’s interesting. Very interesting.” His eyes narrowed and visibly brightened, like embers blown back to life. “Coyote’s cousin is Great Wolf, a powerful protector of humans and beasts, spirits and gods, of the world itself.”

“A protector? ” The bitterness was so thick in his own voice he could nearly taste it. “I’m not a protector -- I can’t even defend myself.”

“Not yet. But you will.” Another set of eyes blossomed, glittering redly. “You’re judging yourself too harshly, like another young man of my acquaintance.”

“Jesse.” His own gaze flicked involuntarily in the direction of the ranger’s bedroom. “I --”

“You know. He told me.” Calm and even, and the edge of sorrow in it snapped Hanzo’s attention back to him at once and his grief was etched in lines of firelight and shadow on the planes of his face. “For the record? You’re not the first to find out and run. You are the first to turn around and come back, which gives you a significant leg up, as far as I’m concerned.”

Hanzo released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “If I could take anything of the last days back -- anything at all -- the running would be it.”

“Which recommends you even more, considering the circumstances.” The corner of his mouth twitched back again, not quite a smile. “This is going to sound like post facto justification but...we did the best we could. We all did. But we never had the luxury of comforting lies where he was concerned -- not as powerful, as dangerous, as he was, and so young. So we told him the truth and taught him control and tried our best to impress on him that human is as human does, and that he didn’t have to be a monster if he didn’t want to be one. The difference between monsters and men and gods is so...thin around here, anyway, as thin as the borders between worlds. And for fourteen years he believed us.” All of his eyes flicked closed at once. “Since then...well. Not so much.”

Hanzo, greatly daring and risking a horrible knit-purl accident, rose and touched his hand gently. “He loves you, that much I know, from how he speaks of you.”

The corners of Gabe’s mouth twitched again and his eyes opened, glittering. “The thing is, I don’t doubt that at all. He’s never blamed Jack or I for anything, and I sometimes wish he would, because that would at least mean he’s not entirely blaming himself. But he hasn’t, and he does, and he’s gotten his heart broken enough times that he’s afraid to risk the pieces.” All those eyes locked on his own. “I’ve waited for someone like you for decades .”

“And now I’m here and I won’t go again.” He felt the resolution settle into place as he spoke the words, felt it thrum his nerves and ring in his heart and knew it for truth. “I give my word, to you and to him.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Gabe finally looked away, and at least half his mouth managed to smile. “Get some rest, kid. It’s tomorrow already.”

“I believe that I shall.” He finished the last of his drink and carried what was left back into the kitchen with him, paid court to the shower, and slipped into the ranger’s bedroom.

His father had, at least, managed to get him out of his day clothing and into actual pyjamas: an impossibly faded tee-shirt and a pair of red flannel pants covered in little yellow rubber ducks and Hanzo only barely kept his squealing down out of dog-annoying frequencies. As it was, Binky lifted his head from where he lay stretched in front of the fireplace and gave him a deeply reproachful look.

“My apologies,” Hanzo whispered, and dispensed a thorough belly-rub in recompense. “Thank you for standing watch, my friend.”

Binky whuffed quietly and kissed his forehead and he turned to his own bag, retrieving his nightclothes and a fresh pair of socks, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed to dress himself. Behind him Jesse, no longer on the edge of the bed himself but spread out in the middle, half-covered and half-not, stirred at the shift of the mattress, half opened his eyes. Hanzo reached out and stroked his leg gently. “Easy, beloved. It’s only me.”

He blinked several times, eyes true black in the dim light of the half-dead fire, and let his head fall back into the nest of pillows. Moving with care, Hanzo scooted up next to him, easing the covers more fully over them both, resting for a moment on his side, tracing the ranger’s resting face with his eyes, one hand spread wide on his chest.

“I am falling in love with you.” He finally whispered, and rested his head on Jesse’s shoulder.

#gsor66 #repost #written before the cowboy's name change #oh look it's spooky season

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