#really enjoyed writing this imagery and giving hanzo a good time

[thepayloadisgay]

Since you say requests are open... May i request something relating to Hanzo self-care, nsfw or not? Whatever you're in the mood for, just some soft Hanzo. Thank you <33

Some self-care, solo Hanzo.

Starts off a little melancholy, but gets better I promise. Ship(s) alluded to slightly, but no-one named. Fill in the gaps yourself if you want and enjoy :3

NSFW 1700 words

----

Hanzo plucked his arrows from yet another body. Two. Unusable. Snapping what he couldn't remove, stuck too deep.

It was more a ritual, than anything else. One close look and they'd immediately know death by arrow, head of one sunk so hard it peeked through one of the assassin's throats.

Sometimes he kept what wood he could salvage, scraps repurposed into other things. Feathers a new arrow, even if bloodied.

Knees to stone, he shifted the bodies to rest. Closing eyes if needed. Then sat in shadow, tucked in a corner of an open tower, bow in hand. Arrow loose, but ready.

He breathed deep, the sea air of Esperança had settled too long in his lungs, and this had been the price. For a while, he listened.

Rattling of the trams, their tracks. People staggering after a late night, walking to work after an early morning. Shouts from the bakery a street over. The coffee shop shutters four doors along. A bicycle bell. Bird wings.

He tucked away his arrow. Collapsed his bow, stowing it in his bag. And stared again at the bodies by his feet.

No matter who he killed, when, how many, the same face always looked back up.

----

He tried to avoid habit, but it always happened.

The same stand for coffee. The same shop for fruit. This time though, a different route up the hill to the trees. The east side, through the winding streets. Wonky cobbles beneath, tall, colourful stone buildings above. Splits of the rising sun blooming through the gaps as he ascended, turning sharp corners, ducking through shortcuts he'd learned -a broken iron gate, a hole in an ancient wall, push aside the overgrown ivy- and he'd almost left the throng of the city to where he wanted to be.

The path was nature, now. Worn, not made. Desire, not direction. Hanzo enjoyed the feel of the large, uneven stones beneath his feet. The weight of the woods underneath. Around, the further he walked. Heavier, the deeper he breathed.

Sound changed. Metal dissolved, morphing to creaks of wood. No language to speak, here. Only for you to listen. Air that tasted sweet, at first. Flora, fauna.

Decay, the longer you cared.

Esperança was surrounded by water. The sea yawning at its edges, kissing the rocks, bubbling where you touched. But up, up, deep within the woods, its wilds, miles from the edges and stone, there's a small waterfall rolling to a lake, clear and beautiful, edged in rock and bloom.

A last sip of his coffee, and he tucks away his cup in his bag. Europe did coffee well, and he'd grown, well he wasn't sure if the world was like, maybe accustomed, attached to it.

Late nights, early mornings, sleep a luxury. There were few things that were a comfort anymore, but just necessity.

Except this.

This place wasn't a secret. Many steps had walked back, forth here. But so early, barely dawn, no-one else cared but Hanzo.

Bag, arrows down, his jacket follows. He rolls his shoulders, stiff from waiting for earlier's company. His t-shirt, tight, rolls with him, stuck to muscles too tight. But there's no-one to touch them anymore.

(your hands moved like art, shaping my body into a vision that was yours, and yours alone. if you only asked, i would have bent. if you only asked, i would have broke)

T-shirt off. Shoes kicked to the side.

And a stretch. Tall and on his toes, dawn sighs over Hanzo's skin, dipping in, out, over his muscles as he breathes in-

-out.

His fingers brush the tip of a branch, dusting in pollen, pulling gentle at a leaf, but not enough to pluck.

He stares at his hands, stretched to the flowers, dusted in pollen, eyes following the dragon on his arm. And he tries to remember the last time he felt its roar; the brush of its scales; its fangs, ready to bear.

Hanzo wonders if he left it behind, fangs sunk in Genji, a killing blow, goodbye and apology, all for you.

There's little ceremony with the rest of his clothes. But he pulls out a small hairbrush as he lets his hair down. And naked, knees to grass, the water's edge his reflection, he starts to brush.

More grey than before. His sidecut grown out too long. He tugs at a knot that hurts, unwinding it with fingers, patience. Another he just cuts off. It's gotten so long, almost at the dip of his back. He knows its impractical-

(i've let two people brush my hair like this. i never told you, just let you, like it was nothing. because you're fleeting. you don't even call me my name. i decided to not cut my hair after that night. i never saw you again)

Eyes closed, to open. One hand brushes his hair, the other stretches over his thigh, a reach away from his half-hard cock.

But he pulls away. Brushing hair with fingers, bristles. His reflection warping when a leaf falls, petals scatter.

There's more strands in his brush than last time. He wonders if one day he'll touch his hair, and a handful will just come with it. Or if there's already a patch he can't see. It's half the reason he's shaved off the sides. Paranoia won.

He rolls his neck, relief at the loud click. At the ache as he stretches it side, to side. Another roll of his shoulders. A stretch of his arms. A dip of his head, child's pose. Fingertips skating the water as he holds.

Holds.

Breathes the earth.

Hears memory.

Sees you.

It's always cold when he first steps in. A sharp gasp. A shiver. The water covers him at its deepest, but he keeps to the sides. it skirts his waist. Sometimes his nipples, droplets turning the scales of his tattoo, diamonds.

The drone of the waterfall louder, now.

Hanzo treads the water, ends of his long hair ink beneath. They could be shadow, seeping from underneath his skin, an exposé of what he keeps below. But not today.

Today, they're just something beautiful.

He looks up, the sun still dawn, split through the canopy, leaves backlit to black. Petals sometimes fall, coating the water until lost under the roar of the waterfall.

Hanzo scoops up a handfull of water, soaking his face, rubbing his tired skin. His beard that needs trimmed. A cut, healing by his neck. A bruise on his pec. A new scar on his shoulder.

Another splash of water. He pulls the rest over his hair, before he just dips beneath the waterfall, and can't breathe.

He always likes to stay beneath for as long as possible, before that last minute where he needs to inhale. When he's dizzy.

Pushes out. Soaking. The weight of his hair, heavy. It sticks to his skin, black silk. Mimicking the shapes of his dragon tattoo; some places, just the shape of his dragon. Drops of water, constellations on his skin. Maybe gems to be plucked by someone.

But Hanzo just pulls a hand over his chest, pressing deep into muscle. Finger catching the nipple piercing (impulse). Over arms he flexes, droplets shaking off. Relaxes, kneads with his strong touch.

He's by the edge before he knows. Comfortable. Stretched back against the stones. Moss. Crown of reeds.

The sun finds him. Warm. A gentle spotlight for no-one.

He wants a reason to touch, but his hand is already there.

He sighs. Back against the edge, watching the way the water laps his chest, his hand, hard cock, distorted beneath the way the water moves, here. Rippled from the waterfall; from the way his hand moves under the water.

Over thigh, first.

That thick scar, where skin is thinner. Sensitive. A peek into death that when he touches, a quiver.

A dip in the break between pelvis and thigh.

(everyone found that spot. magnetised. i didn't have to tell you, you just touched and I succumbed. you'd made some sweet quip about the way I looked beneath. do you know how you looked, beneath)

The last time he'd touched himself had been here, too. It was a ritual, of sorts. Sacred ground where he was allowed to be.

Other people had touched him in the city, he'd touched others outside its walls. But hand to self was different. With someone else, it could be anything else.

There was nothing else but you, here.

He missed it more everytime.

So he came back more.

Touched more.

Loved, more.

He moves slow, at first. Hand feeling the thickness of his cock, warm in the cool water. A soft moan, lost in the roar of the waterfall.

So, a louder moan. Vibrato against his throat; a throat lined in the wet ink of his hair, bleeding to the water at his shoulders, a dance as he moves. Breathes. Snaps another moan.

He knew, often, that he was restrained. Love, contained. But here, he moves.

Legs stretch. Toes drag along the bottom of the lake. Catch reeds, flora. Kicking up stones. He drags a hand over his chest, leaving behind a dragon's claw.

Faster, now. Thumb pressing over his thick tip, and down. Repeat. Repeat.

Over chest again, catching the bar in his nipple, and he tugs. Enough that he bites his lip, moaning something he almost wishes he hadn't heard. But it doesn't stop him.

He feels how fast his heartbeats, the way he breaths as he wraps his hand around his throat. The sound of his moans, the way they shape against his fingers, mark his palm.

Faster. Louder.

Hanzo arches off the bank, eyes half lidded, half desperate to watch himself wet with bliss as he pulls his cock harder.

There's no-one to hear when he cums, loud and a voice that breaks, dragging fingers from lips to throat, over a chest that's almost split from the thump, thump of his heart.

His body shakes. Arm moves, hand rolling over his cock again as he sinks in the last waves of his orgasm. Dizzy. Dewey.

Head back, the moss is a pillow as he stretches out, a leg out of the water, foot dripping diamonds in the sun.

Hanzo reaches out to his bag, pulling out a small punnet of strawberries, and lies back, punnet balancing on his pecs as he begins to eat.

A leaf falls, lazy, landing on his chest. A petal, his cheek.

[vaguely-concerned]

RANDOM OVERWATCH/MCHANZO HEADCANONS

My headcanons are usually global, so to say, so once established they mainly hold true for anything I write in that fandom until canon actively overwrites it (and sometimes even after that if I think the real answer is dumb ha ha). Most of what I’ve already done is the ‘Scoundrels and Thieves’ AU series. 

- Shimadamom died during the omnic crisis, since I feel like she would come up a lot more if she was actually around when her sons literally tried to murder each other. (It would also explain why Hanzo shoots the omnic in ‘Dragons’ even as he goes to some lengths to only incapacitate the other guards and why he thinks Numbani sucks, as well as adding a layer of ouch to Genji’s... robo-dysphoria.) Hanzo remembers her better than Genji does, since Genji would have been pretty young at that point.

- Hanzo is a dog person (oh hello there entire alternate wardrobe made up of wolf imagery) and Jesse is a cat person. (Both because of That Scene in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly with the kitten and the hat (!!!!!) and because really he himself is kind of a very affable yet still half-feral tomcat kind of a man)

- In ‘Scoundrels and Thieves’, at least, Jesse started out smoking cigarettes and graduated to cigars as he got older/had more cash, for that Authentic Man With No Name Look. He still goes for cigarettes sometimes when he’s on edge because he finds the little rituals of rolling them comforting. (Hanzo also has a very private Pavlovian reaction to the smell of a certain brand Jesse smoked around the time they started sleeping together. I’ll let you fill in the embarrassing details in your own time.)

- Hanzo usually cuts his own hair - just chops a bit off with a knife or something when it gets too annoying. The first time it was the dramatic symbolic gesture of dishonor ™, but these days it’s just because he can’t be bothered with anything fancier, in the same vein as ‘why even put my shirt on all the way btw did I mention I KILLED MY BROTHER’. (Yes, I know it’s a real traditional archery technique thing, just… let me have this.) Probably also why he wears it up most of the time so you can’t really tell it’s a bit of a catastrophe.

- Jesse taught himself how to play the guitar as a kid and has a wonderful voice for everyday life - it doesn’t belong on a stage but it is perfect for crooning in the background while making dinner or doing chores, stuff like that.  

- Jesse is quite ticklish, a fact Hanzo ‘Innate Talent for Strategy and Tactics’ Shimada uses without compunctions when it suits his goals. (His goals usually being a Jesse pink-faced and loose-limbed with laughter)

- Hanzo looks A LOT like his dad but takes after his mum personality-wise - more cynical and closed off except for with their loved ones - while Genji looks more like their mum.

- Jesse’s parents died during the war, quite early on. (tbh this is mostly b/c it breaks my heart to imagine his family would be okay with him having become a notorious killer by the age of seventeen. Like. Bro. I’d rather have someone love and protect him unflinchingly and then having no choice in leaving him. Though if the Deadlock gang had some element of a family business that would mean ANOTHER parallel between them, so if that’s how canon eventually lands I can work with that too ha ha)

- Do you ever think about Jesse at fourteen, coming back from a fight victorious but with new constellations of scars and bruises, curling up somewhere no one’ll find him to watch that scene in For A Fistful of Dollars where the man with no name gets beat up to hell and back and still gets out of it through sheer tenacity and being a tricksy fuck

Because I think about that every day and that’s why I’m constantly on the verge of tears

Anyway not so much a headcanon there as a window into the dark aching corners of my soul let’s carry on

- Jesse is demisexual, Hanzo is gay.

- At first I had settled for Hanzo being bi (what better orientation for a ninja than one that makes you invisible, after all? Who’s bitter you’re bitter) but then there were the White Day lines between Hanzo and Genji and now I’m 100% convinced that he’s gay, if only because it’s so much funnier to me. Let me show my work a bit here:

So as far as I understand, on Valentine’s day in Japan it’s women who give the ~*special men*~ in their life chocolates/gifts. (There’s also an uh ‘tier’ of chocolate that’s completely platonic and is given to friends and coworkers, but from the tone of Genji’s voice I doubt that’s what he’s talking about lol) White day is a month later, and it’s when the men reciprocate the gifts they were given. So essentially what Genji is doing with that line is going “SO… any special GIRLS in your life bro?? *I know you can’t see my face through the visor but you can feel the wink wink nudge nudge through the air*” and Hanzo’s answer is a sort of long-suffering reference to young Genji’s playboy lifestyle as well as a callback to a previous voice line between them, not a slight aimed at any cocoa beans.

Now I like to imagine bb!Genji as a bit of a hilarious dick - like basically sweet and well-meaning, but also hugely spoiled, self-absorbed and easily distracted. It would lend Hanzo’s annoyance so many levels of hilarity if his little brother just… hadn’t realized that the reason he wasn’t dating girls wasn’t just a) he’s been riding a wave of shame, guilt, grief, depression & light alcoholism these last ten years and it’s hard to date with a tight schedule like that, b) he is kind of weird and socially awkward at the best of times, c) his eventual anachronistic weirdo soulmate was running around on the other side of the world doing crazy shit for Overwatch

The reason he’s never dated any girls is that he’s FUCKING GAY

Like it was not as though it was secret, Genji, all you’d have to do was fucking pay attention or hey, ask at any point in the last closing-in-on-forty-years and it would have been EASILY AVAILABLE INFORMATION

FATHER KNEW AND HE NEVER NEEDED TO ASK,GENJI

Anyway I thrive on Hanzo Shimada’s annoyance and consternation because he takes everything so damn seriously and I love him very much

(Obviously in the ‘Scoundrels and Thieves’ ‘verse Genji does know. He’s not THAT massively oblivious.)

- Jesse is mostly ambidextrous but prefers to shoot with his right hand. I think there was some kerfuffle about his holster being put on both sides in official art that prompted this one? I’m not above going ‘*shrug* why have continuity errors when you can have headcanon’

- Shimadadad, intent on his sons not turning into Useless Rich Ninja Kids, made sure they were taught some essential life skills, like cooking and laundry and shit - meaning Hanzo knows how to make a handful of dishes to, like, double Michelin Star levels. He doesn’t actually enjoy it very much, though, so mostly he won’t. Meanwhile Jesse has no outside training whatsoever beyond at one point being shown how to turn on a microwave but figured things out on his own and has pretty good instincts. Hanzo prefers Jesse’s cooking and will happily just do chopping duty (which he’s still proficient at to the point that Jesse’s not sure whether to be unsettled or turned on).

- Jesse learned about horses from an older lady who semi-adopted him after finding him feverish and bleeding in her back garden when he was in his early teens. He stayed on her ranch for a couple of years and then left because he was worried some of the people he’d pissed off would be able to track him down there and burn it all down.

- Hanzo doesn’t like - or really get - giving and receiving gifts as a way to express affection. I’m pretty sure his line of association would go something like gifts ----> money ------> business -----> bribe -----> obligation -------> duty -------> faMILY OH GOD EVERYTHING JUST GOT REAL MESSED UP AND COMPLICATED IN MY HEAD I NEED A DRINK

- Another one where I’ll accept either outcome: I can’t decide from the in-game dialogue if Genji and McCree’s relationship is more bro-like ribbing or if they’re actually a little uh. Adversarial. (“You’re not quicker than a bullet”: a Schröedinger’s playful banter/death threat lol) If they’re mostly friendly that’s great! They can form a harmonious ‘Save Hanzo From Himself’ support group. If they’re more antagonistic? Pure. Fucking. Hilarity. Can you imagine Genji being SO FUCKING MAD because as it turns out the one thing in this world that has ever made his sadsack brother happy is that cocky jingle-jangle bizarro Western cosplay jackass. Like naturally I would prefer it if they were bros but I never turn down comedic potential like that.

- Jesse’s greatest fear has to do with being seen and with leaving. He’s very clearly set up a theatrical, elaborate part of his identity between himself and the world - I don’t think any psychologically unscarred person goes ‘well I’ll just wrap myself in this loner/vigilante archetype until it works for me’ lol. It’s a very smart ‘people are going to look at me so let’s make sure they can’t actually see me’ move. Also it makes me sad that me must have, like, reverse abandonment issues: every time he belongs to something - to the Deadlock gang, to Overwatch, to Hanzo in ‘Scoundrels and Thieves’ - he’s inevitably forced to leave it behind. (I guess this is part of why I love the pairing so much; they’re both wanderers now, they can go together ;____;)

Hanzo’s greatest fear is to really hurt someone he loves again. (Remember that time in Junkenstein’s Revenge where Jack looks at Reaper and goes ‘what could turn a man into this’ and Hanzo immediately answers “To be tested, and to fail”? Because I remember that all the time.)