You Keep My Head Above Water

A short McHanzo one-shot for mataglap, who prompted me with a humorous take on the "oh god we're gonna die" confession. Rated Teen+, definitely has that "oh no, we're gonna die" scenario, but certainly no actual character death. They'll be fiiiiine. 

Read it below, or in the Google doc here.

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The water kept rising. The only real comfort was that it wasn’t as cold as it could’ve been.

They shouldn’t have come down here. 

The water kept rising, and they shouldn’t have come down here, and now they were going to die, and Jesse’d long ago come to terms with the inevitability of his own early death, but Hanzo wasn’t ever supposed to go out with him. 

Hanzo stopped feeling around the twisted metal sealing off their exit. He snapped his fingers in Jesse’s face. 

“Rude as hell,” Jesse snapped right back in his own way. 

“Look at me.” It was stern, commanding in that way that forced Jesse’s spine straighter and chin higher. The reaction was pure reflex, and it brought with it a swirl of conflicting feelings. Some funny mix of years of conditioning to take Reyes’ orders, stubborn offense that anyone would speak to him that way, and sometimes desire, at least when the tone came from Hanzo. All of the above felt better than the fear clawing at his throat. “They know where we are. And if they do not make it in time, I don’t want the last thing I see to be you having a panic attack.”

“I’m not made to go out this way.” He’d always pictured he’d go down with a bullet. But he’d be doing something when it happened, and he’d have his gun in hand, and if he was lucky he’d have a wide open sky over his head too. This was pretty much the opposite. 

It was just a routine check of the underground facility before the whole crew came in to scavenge any supplies they could take back to Gibraltar. Nothing big or important. Nobody’s lives were gonna be saved here. 

And the conditions. Well. He wouldn’t have called himself claustrophobic exactly, but he didn’t much enjoy the walls all around, the occasional sense that he could feel every foot of dirt and riverbed pressing down on their heads. Add to that standing in nearly three feet of water and watching it pour in through the seams along the ceiling, and it was a miserable way to go out.

No amount of fear brought on by the situation could top the fear he felt that Hanzo was gonna die too. Hanzo deserved better. Jesse’d prefer Hanzo never die at all, but if he was going to, he ought to get a chance to believe in the better version of himself before it happened.

Jesse focused on his breathing — in through the nose, out through the mouth, slow and steady and in counts of three — until he got control of himself. “Sorry,” he said. 

“Don’t be. But stay with me.” Hanzo sloshed closer, wide eyes searching his face. “Please?”

Jesse nodded and breathed carefully again. “You know I love you, right?”

“Yes.” Hanzo smiled wryly. 

“You scared?”

“Yes. I should not be. I have already gotten better than I deserve.” He looked at Jesse fondly. “But I’m selfish. I want more.” Wet fingers touched Jesse’s cheek, and he forced himself not to flinch at the surprising chill. “They know where we are,” Hanzo said again, but this time he sounded less certain. He turned to prod at their closed off exit once more. 

“Any chance your blue friends could help us out here?” 

“They are not exactly precision instruments.” Hanzo looked at where the water was leaking in, and Jesse got the gist: what if they flew straight up and brought the whole river onto their heads? What if they twisted up the corridors they’d come through, just made the problem worse farther down the line somewhere? And that was assuming they’d be willing to attack the structure at all. From all he’d seen, they seemed a lot keener on attacking living things. 

Jesse joined Hanzo at searching for some way past the collapse, but he had as much luck as he’d had the last three times he’d tried it. There were limits even to his prosthetic arm’s strength. 

Eventually he had to give up on it again, and they moved to the sturdiest wall. His feet were still on the floor, but he wasn’t sure how much longer that would last. The shelving bolted into the wall might at least keep their heads above water a little longer. 

The panic was trying to return, but one look at Hanzo made him determined not to let it take root again. “Anything you wanna get off your chest, just in case?” He tried a smile. 

Hanzo humored him, although he did not seem to find it especially funny. “Nothing I can think of.” Then he eyed Jesse suspiciously. “Why? Do you?”

“You remember that time I told you Genji ate the last of your little red bean cakes?”

“No.”

“Oh. Uh, yeah, it was a few months back. Guess it’s not a big deal, but it was me, actually.”

“This is your great confession?”

Jesse laughed. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “It’s the only time I ever lied to you. Didn’t want that between us any more.”

“You are a ridiculous man.” Hanzo’s face was fond though, at odds with the vehemence in his tone. 

“Yeah? I got a few lies by omission I need to confess too.” Hanzo’s mouth curved up, amused. “Your snoring is fuckin’ awful. Can’t stand it.”

Hanzo looked surprised, lips parted in a way that was especially distracting for a second, but more importantly, his attention was now fully on Jesse instead of their impending demise. “Why haven’t you ever mentioned this?”

“Maybe I didn’t want you takin’ it as a sign to quit sleepin’ in my bed.” 

“The lengths you go to for our happiness,” Hanzo said with a smile. “So noble, to sacrifice⁠—” He cleared his throat and drew in a shuddering breath, and he looked apologetic, of all things. 

“Sacrifice a good night’s sleep, night after night, to stay next to you? I know. Heroism takes a lotta different forms.”

Hanzo laughed, and he didn’t seem quite so shaken now. Good. “I do have something to confess. I bought cowboy boots.”

“For me?” 

“No. Well. I intended to wear them for you.” He met Jesse’s eye again, this time with a smile that was somehow both sheepish and teasing. “I had to return them. They looked even stupider on me than they do on you.”

“Hey.”

There was a squealing metallic sound, and Jesse flinched, sure this was the moment that the ceiling would finally collapse. 

“Agents?” called Winston’s deep voice, and Jesse locked eyes with Hanzo, relieved laughter bubbling out of him even as the water began to brush his chin.

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Later, in the blessedly dry warmth of Jesse’s bed, he pulled Hanzo close, dragged his fingers over every part of his body to remind himself that Hanzo was here and solid and alive. 

The reminder quickly became superfluous; Hanzo’s snores were more than enough to convince everyone within a half mile radius. Jesse sighed, dug out his new earplugs, then held him closely anyway.