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Where Are You Now
🕑 Added 2022-07-25 20:14:24 +0000 UTCI'M BACK WITH FIC. Yeehan, jealous Cole, toxic behaviour, break ups. Rated: Teen.
Hanzo's new boyfriend hit pretty hard. That was a surprise. Unsurprisingly, he didn't hit as hard as Hanzo.
Cole stared up at the fluorescent lights of the medbay, gauze stuffed halfway to his brain via his left nostril. Angela was disappointed in him, Hanzo was furious, and Cole…well, Cole had it coming.
He gingerly repositioned himself where he sat on the edge of a cot, ribs smarting, to fully face the bio-emitter that Angela had resentfully placed for him before leaving. His jaw still felt tender where it had connected with Hanzo's fist, and he was sure it was fractured but hadn't dared mention it to Angela for fear of another lecture.
"People like you, and your moronic actions, tempt me into violating the Hippocratic Oath," she had said as she had none-too-gently cleaned the bloody knuckles of his flesh hand.
Cole was hurting badly, inside and out. He found himself blinking unexpected tears from his eyes, the lights above him wavering.
What had hurt more than the punch, though, was the white-hot fury he had seen in Hanzo's eyes, the cruelty in his voice. Hours later, it still stung.
Cole flexed his damaged hand. At least the other guy would be sporting some nice bruises too.
Angela came back about an hour later when the bio-emitter had run out of juice. She sniffed disapprovingly as she removed the blood-soaked gauze from his nose and promptly dismissed him with a handful of painkillers and instructions to refrain from indulging in any more idiotic impulses that would jeopardise his recovery. Cole made no promises and slunk off to his dorm, clutching his side that a few more minutes with another bio-emitter would have helped.
It was three in the morning when he finally lay down in bed, his roiling emotions settling. He was certain that after tonight Hanzo would never forgive him because the way Cole had behaved was unforgivable. The least he could do was request a transfer to a different base and get himself as far away from Hanzo as he could, no matter how much it tore at his heart to think about it. While his mind idled away into unconsciousness, he wondered if he could get over Hanzo as easily as Hanzo seemed to have gotten over him.
___________
Two months earlier.
"So, that's it, huh? You're breaking up with me?"
Hanzo's silence was stony as he packed the last of his things, intending to leave Cole's dorm immediately. His hurry was another stab in the heart.
'Han, please," Cole tried again, desperation entering his voice, "we can fix this—"
"No. You can't."
There was nothing Cole could have done to stop Hanzo from walking out for good except stare at the space where he had been for a long time.
The days that followed the breakup were agonising. Hanzo's absence tormented Cole every time he returned to an empty dorm devoid of a single piece of evidence that Hanzo had ever shared it.
Cole drank more, worked harder—did anything that would distract him from missing the smell of Hanzo's skin and the warmth of Hanzo’s body in his bed at night.
He dreaded meeting up with the team, being on the receiving end of their pitying glances and hushed tones. Meals with them were so awkward that he preferred to take food to his dorm to eat in solitude, no matter how pathetic it felt. Cole was aware that his friends in Overwatch were greater in number than Hanzo's—thus allowing him to benefit from the extra emotional support—but he didn't need a shoulder to cry on. He just wanted his sweetheart back.
Where had he gone wrong? Now that he possessed the luxury of time, he dedicated it to rehashing every interaction, every conversation, every exchange between Hanzo and himself. He bore sunset after sunset alone on the roof, drinking the plum wine he had been saving for Hanzo's birthday, thinking he should have listened better.
__________
Present time.
London wasn't so bad.
It had taken begging to get himself transferred there temporarily, persuading Lena and Mei to convince Winston that they needed Cole for whatever their mission was.
(Cole’s recollection of events leading up to his trip to London were a blur, his only priority being escaping the Watchpoint as soon as possible and at any cost. The mission could have been anything ranging from obtaining samples from seagull droppings or sitting for hours in unpredictable English weather measuring the temperature. Still, he insisted the girls would need an additional escort, and they—likely out of guilt or compassion—had accepted.)
Both Lena and Mei took turns in making sure he was never left alone for too long, which exasperated him, but as the days passed and the more pubs Lena dragged him to—each with themes more ridiculous than the last—he felt the tension inside him ease. He never opened up to either of them, but he let them know he appreciated their efforts with the return of his easy smiles and bad jokes. He let them think they helped him heal.
He took time to reflect, to try and work up the courage to ask about Hanzo in the wee hours of several mornings, having no recourse but Genji for any information, who gave him vague answers out of loyalty for his older brother, until Cole’s insistence had him confessing that Hanzo had also left the Watchpoint, not even a week after Cole did.
London was where Cole spent his birthday, drinking alone in his darkened room, aching deep in his soul, missing Hanzo as he'd never missed anyone in his life, and wishing desperately that he’d known he'd found his soulmate before letting him get away.
__________
One week before London.
Cole had never considered himself a jealous man. Or at least, it was never his defining trait.
He spat out a wad of blood and picked himself up off the pavement onto which Hanzo had thrown him. He hissed, grabbing his side as it throbbed from the effort of standing. He got beat up pretty good.
Cole had figured Hanzo was seeing someone else. It hurt him, noticing the signs of romantic interest in Hanzo for a person that was not him. Whenever he wasn’t on a mission roster, Hanzo would leave for entire weekends at a time and return looking like he had during the first few days of their relationship. It boiled Cole’s blood, shattered his heart, tore at his soul, and for the first time in his life, he hated someone he had never met.
Forcing his trembling legs, Cole took step after painstaking step away from the bar he had followed Hanzo to and where he had irrevocably and justifiably lost him. His ribs were agony, and the discovery that New Boyfriend had gotten a good few hits in without Cole even feeling them, was enough to sober him.
Drinking had been the only reprieve he could afford, ignoring the concerns of his friends and the little voice of his conscience that grew quieter with each downed bottle. He had been pulled tight, every molecule of his body vibrating with tension, nearing ever closer to disaster.
Still, he blamed himself more than the liquor for the decisions he’d made that led up to that night. He had taken to scrutinising Hanzo’s movements closely, at first as punishment, to feel his heart ache with longing at every beat to remind him that he was alive. But after making the mistake of a drink too many, he found himself stumbling into the city, where he knew Hanzo would be. The lights danced, and the streets swayed as he walked them, everything taking on a dream-like quality under the sheen of distortion brought on by alcohol.
He barely remembered how he made it inside the bar, much less the events that happened between that moment and the present one, but his memory of seeing his Hanzo laugh for another man, let himself be kissed by him, was as clear and sharp as the bullet Cole felt must have pierced his heart. His vision had turned red, the voice of his conscience vanishing completely, and he was overcome with a burning jealousy that felt powered by a thousand suns.
The only thing that had stopped him from outright killing the other man was Hanzo’s beautiful right hook to the face.
Cole winced as Athena asked if he required medical attention when he eventually dragged himself to the Watchpoint. He must have looked a damned fine sight.
“Yes ma’am,” he rasped, “but I’ll go wake up Angie myself.”
__________
Present time.
With Hanzo gone and no notion as to where he was or when he’d return, Cole was summoned back to Gibraltar to pick up his slack in missions. It was sooner than he wanted to leave London—even with its miserable November climes—but he considered he’d been allowed to lick his wounds for long enough.
He dropped his duffel on the foot of his bed and gazed around his room, untouched since he’d last slept there before transferring almost two months earlier. His bed was still unmade, bottles collected around it, food wrappers and dirty dishes piled up in the corners, lending to the unpleasant odour permeating the dorm. Cole wrinkled his nose in disgust and snatched up a trash bag to shove all the evidence of his sorrow into.
Done in just under an hour, he lit a cigarillo and pondered what he should do next. Even though most of the team was here, the base possessed a yawning emptiness that was owed to Hanzo’s absence, and Cole shook his head aggressively as if his yearning could tumble out of one ear and disappear forever like he wished it would.
"Where are you, darlin'..." he sighed in the silence of his dorm, and the volume of his words surpassed only that of the beat of his broken heart.
__________
In the following months, Cole put his life back on track. He bore the holidays with the same resolve as he would a trip to the dentist, but the sickening cheer, the forced merriment, and the transparent attempts of the team to include him in every activity were no less painful than getting several teeth pulled. The New Year he welcomed alone, toasting at thin air to the man who probably wasn’t giving him a second thought.
He patched things up with Genji—who had previously answered his calls and texts with a begrudging courtesy imposed by his beliefs—and further helped things along by suffering a humiliating defeat on the mats of the training area after five intense minutes of combat. Genji had dropped down onto the floor beside Cole and placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, and that single gesture brought a lump to his throat, threatening to undo all of his hard work of forgetting.
One morning at team breakfast, Cole was laughing at something stupid that Lúcio had shown him on his comm, feeling as close to whole as he could ever be when Hanzo walked in. Cole’s heart tripped in his chest, his smile froze on his face, his mind blank yet buzzing. Genji had an arm slung around Hanzo’s shoulders, and the rest of the team greeted him like he’d just returned from an errand while their gazes flickered towards Cole, confirming his suspicions that strict instructions had been left to never relay Hanzo’s whereabouts to him specifically.
And hell, Cole wasn’t made of stone. He stood, catching Hanzo’s eye, gave him a curt nod and strode out without a backwards glance.
His hands were shaking when he reached his dorm, and made several attempts to enter his access code before he gave up and hauled himself to the cliffs overlooking the ocean instead. He needed fresh air more than a swig from the whiskey bottle under his bed anyway. He continued with the rest of his day, attended briefings, and defended his top score at the shooting gallery, all the while dreading the moment he would have to run into Hanzo, unable to shake off the unnerving sensation of having Hanzo’s hot, burning gaze on him at all times. But he seemed to be keeping his distance, and if Cole were to be honest with himself, Hanzo had no reason to willingly seek him out.
It was after a vigorous workout and halfway through rinsing the shampoo out of his eyes that Cole—sorting through the tumult of emotions from the day—realised he had never apologised to Hanzo. He had tried to escape his problems in a way that was consistent with his character and with cowards, removing himself immediately from Hanzo’s environment and making decisions for him. It was like a light flickered on inside his head, and he quickly shut off the water, dried and dressed in minutes with the intention of finding Hanzo and prostrating himself at his feet to beg for forgiveness.
As though summoned, Hanzo stood on the other side of Cole’s door, startled at it suddenly whooshing open and looking very much like he had been gathering the courage to knock. The sight of him stopped Cole in his tracks.
“Hello,” Hanzo said, and Cole ached at hearing his voice again.
Cole tried to swallow, but his mouth was impossibly dry. “Howdy,” he croaked.
There was an awkward pause.
“May I come in?” Hanzo asked.
It was challenging to get a read on him, to figure out what he was thinking, but Cole stepped aside to let him enter. Hanzo stood in the middle of the room, surveying its interior and noting the changes. In a fit of frustration a few weeks earlier, Cole had rearranged his furniture and thrown out belongings that either reminded him of Hanzo because he'd worn them when they were together—or that no longer served him. The result was a little spartan, but it was better than piles of trash and memories.
Hanzo sat on the edge of Cole’s bed, the only place to sit in the room since Cole had rid himself of his chairs.
“I wanted to talk—”
“Hanzo, before you rip me a new one, I gotta tell you that I’m sorry,” Cole interrupted, his legs taking him closer to the bed and to Hanzo, whose expression had hardened. “I’m so goddamn sorry. I was a fuckin’ fool, a selfish sonovabitch who didn’t give you what you deserved when we were together and went berserk when you found it someplace else.”
“I humiliated you,” Cole continued when Hanzo opened his mouth to interject, “I made an ass of myself, and I wish I could blame being drunk out of my mind for the stupid shit I did at the bar, but I’m grown enough to take some goddamn responsibility for it. I just wish I could’ve done that growin’ sooner.”
Cole knelt on the floor to put himself at Hanzo’s eye level more than anything, keeping a respectable distance between them. “I love you, Hanzo. I love you, and I’m sorry I fucked everything up, that my way of loving hurt you and chased you off. And goddamnit, I’m trying to stop loving you, but you’re like a bullet to the heart that got grown over, bleedin’ me deep inside but a part of me that I can’t just cut out.”
Somewhere in the back of Cole’s mind spoke a voice, warning him that this was too much, but Cole had opened the floodgates, and it was too late to close them now.
“I’m telling you this now because today is the last time I’ll ever talk about it, about us, my feelings. I won’t ever get in your way again, ‘cause I can remember to be a fuckin’ professional once in a while. I swear on my life that I’ll never behave the way I did. I had no right, and you deserve better.”
Cole was out of breath, the thundering of his heart so deafening that he was sure Hanzo could hear it. Hanzo himself sat like a statue, immovable and silent.
“You never said,” Hanzo began, in a hoarse whisper, “that you loved me. Before.”
Cole frowned in thought, flicking back through his memories of their time together and discovering that Hanzo was right. Hanzo had said it to him first and continued to until the week leading up to their rupture.
“I guess I always took for granted that you’d wait for me to say it back someday,” Cole admitted, a little sadly.
“You made me so angry,” Hanzo said, closing his eyes and clenching his fists where he had placed them upon his thighs, “I was furious with you—that you forced me to resort to violence to stop you…I felt I was a danger to myself and others.”
He took a deep breath. “And when you left for London, I was angrier still that you refused to face me. My leave of absence was necessary for my wellbeing, as I could not control my emotions.”
“You don’t gotta explain yourself, Han. You did what you had to do.” Cole was more than aware that Hanzo losing his temper had fatal consequences.
Hanzo shook his head and released a harsh breath. “You…the Cole Cassidy I was with was the same Cole Cassidy others saw. I felt like I was being lied to constantly. You preferred to keep your secrets and wear your masks, and that is what I could no longer tolerate. That is why I had to stop. I could not be with someone with whom I shared so much of my truth and who could not grant me the same courtesy.”
“I know, Hanzo, I know. It took you leaving for me to figure it out, and I’m sorry.”
“I accept your apology.”
The burden that had weighed Cole down for months lifted with those words, and he found himself surrendering to the fact that the conversation was now over. He'd said what he'd needed to say, and Hanzo had listened—which was more than Cole expected of him, considering the circumstances. However, the need to prolong this moment before willingly letting Hanzo go was much more significant than he cared to admit.
“I, uh,” he said, stalling, “I’d also like to apologise to your…your new—”
“We are no longer together.”
“Oh. Sorry. Was it 'cause of…?”
“Mm. He left that same night. I did not pursue.”
"Shit."
Cole’s knees began to ache, and he sat back on his heels to relieve the pressure he was putting on them.
Hanzo made an exasperated sound and stood, ready to be on his way. “Sit here on the bed before you grind your joints into dust.”
Instead of doing that, Cole got to his feet, too, intending to walk Hanzo out. Beg him for a second chance, his mind insisted, but he ignored it.
Just before opening the door, Hanzo turned and levelled him a deep, searching look. “You are different. Changed.”
Cole gave him a smile tinged with regret. “When your ex breaks your jaw, that can be a mighty persuasive sign for you to start mendin’ your ways.”
“I broke it?”
“Hairline fracture.”
“I apologise.”
“Nah. I had it comin’. Appreciate it, in fact.”
They stood for a while in silence, gazes locked and waiting. Cole’s heart drummed so fast and hard that he thought it would burst from his chest. He swallowed the lump that had risen in his throat and threw caution to the wind.
"Sweetheart…"
Hanzo's expression crumbled at the break in Cole's voice. He reached out blindly, grabbing the front of Cole’s shirt, and Cole’s hands hovered, unsure what he was allowed to do.
“I miss you,” Hanzo hissed, as if in physical pain. Cole wrapped his arms around him, finally, burying his face in Hanzo’s hair, breathing in his scent.
“I miss you too,” he said thickly, only now registering the tears that had started to fall, “I thought I’d die from missin’ you.”
Hanzo’s voice was low and muffled when he next spoke. “And I still love you.”
Cole’s knees almost gave way from happiness and relief, and he struggled to control the surge of emotion he felt from hearing those words. “Darlin’...Hanzo…I—”
He never got the chance to finish his sentence because Hanzo had pulled back to look at him with a suspicious sheen to his eyes, and Cole could not stop himself from lowering his head and gently pressing their mouths together. It was a kiss so soft and tender, chaste and so unlike their previous ones that Cole surprised himself for being capable of it. He cradled Hanzo’s face in his hands, sighing into his mouth. Hanzo kissed him back, his hand tightening the fabric of Cole’s shirt as if afraid to let go.
“Stay awhile, please,” Cole begged as they broke apart for air, “we can talk, or just sit, whatever you want.” He pressed his forehead against Hanzo’s. “Just don’t go yet.”
He felt Hanzo nod. “Yes,” Hanzo said, his voice husky and low, “I will stay.”
__________
"Thinkin’ back, when you threw me out on my ass, that was pretty hot."
“It does not surprise me that you found it arousing.”
Cole chuckled and gratefully received the bottle of plum wine that Hanzo was offering. They sat on the rocky cliff’s edge of the Watchpoint, enjoying the sunset over the ocean, serenaded by gulls and other seabirds that were making the most of the day’s light before heading off to roost. Cole brushed his thumb across their interlaced fingers, deciding he wouldn’t ever let go unless absolutely necessary.
“Just so we’re clear,” Cole said slowly, “we’re back together?”
He shook their joined hands vigorously when Hanzo rolled his eyes. “Gonna need to hear you say it, partner.”
“Yes, you fool. If you ask again, I will throw you off this cliff in a way that won't be sexually satisfying for you.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Cole said, raising Hanzo’s hand to his lips and smiling, “sounds like a challenge to me.”
Fin.
