Too Young
A comfortable breeze drifted through the pink blossoms of the cherry trees, sending flurries of petals raining down onto the rooftops in Hanamura. Moonlight filmed through wavering branches, dancing over the castle like patches of liquid silver in the calm night. However, the serenity here did nothing to calm the storm that raged within Hanzo Shimada, lightning and thunder fighting for dominance in his chest. He stood rigid on the shingles, firing arrows into the weather dial on the roof opposite his. White hot breath ravaged his lungs as he tried desperately to regain his sense of self control, but beneath his skin, dragons clawed and snarled for a release- one they almost got when the shingles clacked behind him and he whirled around, arrow nocked and lungs heaving.
Genji stared down the shaft into his eyes and he dropped his aim, looking to the courtyard below as he placed the arrow back in its quiver. Genji hadn’t been invited when their father had demanded to speak to Hanzo, but by the knowing look he gave, he must have found somewhere to eavesdrop. Hanzo liked to tease him for being lazy, but even he couldn’t deny that his younger brother had a talent for stealth. Hanzo turned away, suddenly unwilling to meet his younger brother’s gaze in case it held judgement.
“Otosan is being a douchebag.” There was a scowl in Genji’s voice.
“He’s doing what is best for our family,” Hanzo defended fiercely, jerking back up to look at his brother. Hanzo didn’t honestly believe himself, and clearly Genji didn’t either.
“Is misery what is best for his family?” Genji countered, green hair swept back like the parody of a movie star. Hanzo felt his mouth begin to dry as he forced some wisdom out of his own stubborn, childish defiance.
“Father is right. It is- I am disgusting. This is something that needs to be… suppressed. It is not natural.”
“No, he is not,” Genji grunted, earning him a pointed look that he ignored. “Aniki, no matter what you do, you will always be my big brother. Don’t ever let Father whip you into something you are not.”
Hanzo hummed noncommittally and Genji stood up to lay a hand on the taller boy’s shoulder.
“You deserve happiness. It does not matter where it comes from.”
The hand lifted off his shoulder, and Genji’s presence faded a bit.
“Tell Jiyu-san I said Hello.”
A small disturbance in the air told Hanzo that his brother was gone, leaving his face burning with the lewd implication that he would be visiting Jiyu-chan that night. The idea cut loose a string on his mind that had kept it from wandering.
“I love him, father.”
Hanzo heard the smack before he felt it, spreading crackling pain across his cheek and sending him to his knees. He sucked the epicenter of pain in his lip, drawing a salty taste onto his tongue, effectively silenced. He dared look at his father through his eyelashes, vaguely aware of the bite of tears threatening to emerge. He knew better. The rush of tears was forced down his throat to be dealt with another time.
Thin but strong fingers tightened around his jaw and lifted his face so he had nowhere to look but Otosan’s eyes. They were filled with disgust, dark pits gnarled with years of wisdom and shame and fury. Hanzo felt guilt like poison leak into his veins and make him desperate not to have to look into those eyes anymore.
“I will never hear the market boy’s name again,” Otosan said, his voice like ice, “You will come to enjoy women. You are young, but next year when you are eighteen, you will marry one and bear grandchildren. You are the eldest, the heir of the Shimada legacy, and I will not have any son of mine indulge these disgusting fantasies.”
Otosan released his chin and Hanzo dropped his head, fire prickling beneath his skin in shame.
Happiness. He deserved that much, didn’t he? Hadn’t he been an obedient, honorable son? Didn’t he get something out of it? Anything?
The knuckles on his right hand braced around his bow while his fingers on the left danced over the string. He thought of Jiyusuke from the market and his coy grin and how easily their fingers had laced together in the privacy of the market boy’s bedroom. He thought how his eyes would light up when Hanzo would visit and share intimate jokes over the safety of the market stand, seemingly just like any other respectable man buying groceries.
His father said it was disgusting and wrong and unnatural, but he remembered that night in Jiyusuke’s bed when it had felt anything but. Under the covers, it was nothing if not beautiful and pure and right for their bodies to be sliding together, every touch like an electric shock between the two of them. He remembered how beautiful Jiyusuke had been in the pale light of the next morning, his face illuminated and his gorgeous lips bent in a frown because they both knew Hanzo had to be back before the rest of Hanamura awoke.
He could imagine the look on his face when the messengers arrived and issued the warning that they were not to be seen together again.
Something relentless and warm squeezed in his chest and warmed his heart until he thought it might pop like a bubble. Even if Genji was wrong, and Hanzo hadn’t done anything in his life deserving of happiness, Jiyusuke had. Jiyusuke deserved his affection the same way he deserved the world and everything good in it.
Hanzo sent a half-smile towards the window of Genji’s room, knowing that there was no one to see it, and plunged over the fence into the streets below, tucking and rolling to land smoothly. His legs carried him swiftly through the alleyways, everything in his body still ablaze, but it was less like fire now, and much more like fireworks popping through his nerves. His heart raced and impulse got the best of him. For once, he didn’t care. Jiyusuke was worth every risk, every childish word, every senseless act of defiance towards his father. Hanzo knew that if he could wake up to Jiyusuke’s smile every morning, his father could never touch him. He would kill millions, die a thousand times, fight the army of every nation between here and the Atlantic ocean just for the opportunity.
He came up on Jiyusuke’s street and slowed to a jog. His house was identified by the thick window sills that were almost completely submerged in dark, spindly trumpet vines that bloomed in periwinkle. Hanzo hoisted himself onto one and tapped on the glass, heart skipping beats. A moment later, the curtains drew back and it opened to reveal Jiyusuke. Hanzo smiled weakly- He hadn’t thought this far ahead, but the market boy seemed happy to see him.
“Hanzo!” he whispered, and hauled him through the window by the collar on his night robe. “I’m so glad! I thought you didn’t want to see me!”
Hanzo pressed his thumb to Jiyusuke’s chin and moved his face into the moonlight, frowning at the puffy redness around his eyes and the dampness of his cheeks.
“Jiyu-chan…”
Jiyusuke squeezed his hand in reassurance, and Hanzo smiled sadly.
“You got their message then,” he said.
“Yes. But you came anyway. It does not matter what they said.”
Hanzo felt his heart spark and he pulled Jiyusuke into an intense hug. The market boy laughed good-naturedly.
“We must be more secretive,” Hanzo murmured sadly in his ear. Jiyusuke hummed in disagreement.
“You must be more secretive,” he corrected crossly, and Hanzo grunted, leaving an affectionate kiss on his ear. “Leave through the back.”
Hanzo huffed, and pressed his face into Jiyusuke’s neck, content to just stay there and breathe until his father came and dragged him away by the scruff of his neck, but he knew he would be allowed to come back if he kept it brief. He pulled away, brushing his hand under Jiyu-chan’s jaw before he stepped towards the back window.
“I’ll miss you,” Jiyusuke teased, and Hanzo smirked lightly, lifting himself up.
“I love you.”
There was no teasing there. Hanzo swallowed, deftly aware of the sound of his heart thrumming in his ribs like a caged bird, fluttering frantically and singing like it might never sing again. He felt his smile break into a full grin, and he looked over his shoulder into a pair of tawny eyes when he replied,
“I love you too.” And then he jumped out of the window.
Hanzo woke again to Genji violently shaking him. He opened his mouth to complain, but Genji spoke first, urgent and quiet.
“Hanzo. Hanzo, Otosan is going to kill him! Wake up, Aniki!” Hanzo jerked up, disoriented, confused, and annoyed, but those feelings quickly waned as he realized what Genji was talking about. His stomach exploded with horror, his eyes snapping open to see that his room was just beginning to lighten with the light of dawn.
“The courtroom,” he heard his brother’s voice distantly tell him.
He practically sprung from his bed, night robe streaming behind him as he flew for the doorway. His feet barely touched the ground with each pounding step he took away from his room.
Otosan could not touch Jiyusuke. Jiyusuke was far, far beyond his reach. This was another elaborate joke by Genji, and oh god he would pay for it in his chores today after Hanzo made sure that he was lying.
Jiyusuke was home, safe in his bed, still asleep, cheek smashed gracelessly against his pillow. Hanzo slid clumsily as he turned a corner last second into a hallway that led to the courtyard, and then through the massive doors that opened up into the courtroom, where he stopped.
His skin was ice and his blood was cold. His bones turned into lead where he stood, bare feet planted to the woodwork like a statue. Jiyusuke was on his knees in the middle of the courtroom, hands bound behind his back. His head was bowed, beautiful black locks falling over his face like a dark waterfall.
Hanzo felt his heart stop in his chest, and he would later wonder how he hadn’t fallen over dead from heart failure. Those beautiful eyes glimmered with tears, just as they had last night, but so much more feral now that they had to look up in terror through the strands of hair at his lover, full of sorrow and fear and hate. He was going to cry out. Hanzo did it first.
“FATHER, NO!”
The string loosed, the arrow sang and Jiyusuke fell to the floor and Hanzo, to his knees. Otosan held the bow, eyes cold as he glared at his son. There were others, all of the elders who were there for security no doubt, but really, there were only three people in that room.
His father, who had released that arrow into the back of the market boy’s head. Whose dark eyes slashed at his heart and sang of disgust that churned his stomach and set every inch of his skin into a sub zero freeze.
Hanzo, his dragons shrieking and swirling within. His tattoo shimmered with electric blue and his vision faded in and out and he wondered if he might have been screaming, but he had no idea. Everything within him was wrenching and writhing and every muscle strained with the urge to avenge.
And Jiyusuke, eyes cold and pale and sickly, hair cascading onto the marble floors of the courtroom. A small trickle of blood dripped onto the white from the back of his neck, but all Hanzo could see was his face. His beautiful face illuminated by the pale light of morning when they were alone in his bed.
The one sound in the universe was his father’s voice.
“I warned you.”
~
Jesse McCree threw the pistol down onto the table, his head swirling. Something small clawed and twisted his stomach and he was sure he was going to puke, but he forced himself to glower through his piercing headache at the slim woman in front of him. Her blue eyes raked down his body, clawing out details until her mouth twisted into a wicked grin that curled from her blood red lizard lips.
His serape, given by his mother, was perfectly clean, but the gun barrel was still hot. His mission was simple- demonstrate his talent to the second-in-command in the Deadlock gang. That didn’t necessarily involve putting a bullet through his father’s head, but Jesse knew that if there was anyone he wanted dead, it was him.
Regardless, the spurt of blood weighed on him like an anvil. He had only ever used his deadly seizure thing twice- once on accident when he shot his dog for scaring him (he would never forgive himself) and the last time when he had shot a Deadlock member straight through the forehead. He had expected to be hunted down and shot like a dog, have his Ma and his siblings threatened, his home ransacked. Instead, they wanted to recruit him. Wanted to know if he could do it again.
Jesse balled his hands into fists although they trembled at his sides and straightened his back bravely in the presence of Vixen, the Deadlock leader. She took her boots off of the table and looked to Grover, who was sent to supervise him. Jesse saw him give a nod from the corner of his eye.
Vixen’s grin grew and she stood up, holding her hand out to Jesse, who was frozen in place, and although much younger than her with more growing to come, he was a few inches above her. He hesitated, tugging at his collar. He had always been a gambling man in one way or another.
“So… What’s in this for me?”
Vixen narrowed her eyes at him, but didn’t seem all too upset.
“‘Sides yer head?”
He grinned sheepishly and shrugged.
“If there is anythin’.”
She snickered quietly.
“I like you, Deadeye.” That wasn’t his name, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. “You got a good head. Tell ya what.” Vixen slung her arm over his shoulder, pulling him down to her level. “I'm feelin’ generous, so I'll give ye somethin fer yer pretty little self t’ take home. Keep yer family nice an’ cozy. Keep their bellies full an’ their faces nice an’ bullet free. Sound good?”
Jesse swallowed, but at the mention of food, his mind went to little Isabelle, and his hesitation evaporated. He nodded fervently and Vixen released him.
“Good,” she replied. “Welcome to th’ family, Deadeye.”