A/N:
Kill me to death, boys and girls. The Life of Hana Song is finally back online!

And I have a feeling you guys will enjoy this chapter because… just kidding, I'm not an absolute wanker who spoils shit, so just kick back, relax, and see you in the chapter-concluding Author's Note! (Where the hell I was and the future of this fic is elaborated upon there.)

The sky is a steady gradient of deep, dark purples to a clear orange by the time McCree pulls into the parking lot of the old church.

He takes a long drag from his cigarillo, having freshly replenished his supply at a little mom-and-pop convenience store manned by the oldest woman he'd ever seen. She'd hardly even looked at McCree as she handed over the musty box of smokes, mumbling something in incoherent Korean as Sujin paid her with an almost concerned look on her face, like the old woman was about to keel over and die at any moment.

Sujin.

Her.

What was he going to do with her? (He thinks, and his fingers instinctively clench from how thoughtlessly cruel it is, that he should've killed her back at the apartment complex.)

She stays buckled into the hovercar despite McCree's best efforts. "It'll get cold in that skimpy dress," he protests while Sujin glares at him with eyes like icicles.

"You shot up my men, disrupted my entire chain of command," she complains, pale legs crossing over each other. Her thickly lined eyes narrow in his direction, voice dripping with sarcasm. "And now you want to take me to my boss. How do you think that will go, Mr. McCree?"

McCree breathes out a puff of curling white smoke as he speaks.

"Y'said that, uh, that. That rival leader. Chamey-or-somethin'-or-other."

He leans against the car's window frame. His metal arm sparks orange, and he hides his wince beneath the brim of his hat. There's no Angie or Torbjorn or Bridgette to help him out with the arm… at least, not until he re-joins Overwatch.

"He might've usurped that guy, Seon. Won't you be fine then?"

Sujin pulls down the mirror, and begins smudging out her lipstick as she peers at her own dusty reflection. McCree has to admire the woman's pluck. "Then it would be even more dangerous. Why keep me as a head supplier when Chamseh has his own men that need positions? He will replace me with his own and I will end up stuffed in an oil drum halfway to the bottom of the South China Sea, or… worse. Used as a plaything, then discarded." She waves one lipstick-stained hand. "You go on your own."

She's going to run, and I don't have handcuffs or any means to keep her here.

Guilt is a funny thing. It pops up whenever it's needed least like a crude jack-in-the-box, making McCree flinch at its ugly face. He'd already ruined this woman's life, but it looked like he needed to take it a step further- and bam- guilt, screaming in his face like he hadn't already learned by heart everything it says.

But desperate times require desperate measures, and for McCree, it's… it's pretty much always desperate times.

"I'll let you choose," he says with a baleful smile. He hooks his finger around Peacekeeper and gives her a twirl, the muzzle catching the light from the glowing sunset. I'm sorry.

"One. I knock you so far the hell out that you stay unconscious fer the next four days."

Sujin looks up, and that carefully calculated air of nonchalance seems to freeze in place around her, like a mask.

"Two." He flips back the hammer with a deft thumb. "I kill you."

The sudden fear in her eyes is familiar.

"Three."

McCree points Peacekeeper between Sujin's eyes, and his smile widens like a baring of teeth. "You go with me. How 'bout it, miss?"

She's out of the sedan in seconds.

McCree turns and begins to stroll towards the church, the very picture of casual confidence. …Thank God it worked.

Gabriel Reyes, commander of Blackwatch and embittered deputy to Jack Morrison, was a very good soldier. He used to say that the reason Blackwatch (Overwatch, except with no Golden Boy Morrison) threatened and blackmailed and tortured people, even when it was so against the U.N.'s higher-than-thou code of ethics, was that nothing else ever produced results. He'd taught McCree from day one at base, always believe in your head that you'll do what you're threatening, or it'll never come out right. Even if you don't think you're capable of it. Say you're gonna blast their head off, and then imagine what that would be like- the blood and the gray mush- and think, 'Oh. That's not a big deal.'

Threaten like you mean it.

Because you do.

Gabe was a very good soldier, but maybe not the best father figure.

Still, McCree had looked up to King Reyes, as the boys used to call him. It was an odd relationship. Big, scary sonofabitch as he was, Gabe had that special something that just made a man want to follow him. Like he was hiding purple blood somewhere under that tough, scarred skin.

A big part of that special quality was that not a single member of Blackwatch, from the soldiers to the mercenaries to the murderers, had to worry about being thrown out to the wolves. The stiffs, the higher-ups. Everyone under King Reyes has a place, everyone under King Reyes has a purpose- and as long as you don't fuck up, you have nothing to worry about. Fair is fair is fair. The wolves go hungry for another night.

But Reyes best not catch you slipping, or he'll set the wolves snapping on your heels just to get you moving.

Even now, long after Gabe had blown up the Swiss Base, Old Man Morrison, and own big selfish goddamned piece-of-shit asshole bastard self, McCree finds himself relying on Gabe's advice. They pop up in his head like the lyrics of catchy songs and stick around for much longer than they have any right to.

He wishes the lyrics were more romantic than don't kill a wounded man right away, 'cos you can lure out his comrades and the medics out into the open before you toss the grenade.

McCree twitches the ash off his cigarillo. If Gabe were alive and present right now, walking in McCree's company… then Sujin… Sujin wouldn't be.

Listen, pendejo. You eat, shoot, and shit at my command. And right now I'm telling you to shoot.

He glances back at Sujin.

Well. She's out of the car, and following him more or less compliantly as he walks through the big double-doors of the abandoned church. They drift slowly closed behind them, big planks of mahogany that release a booming thud when they finally slam shut. Sujin blinks at the surroundings, owl-eyed with an almost childish curiosity.

McCree exhales. His hand relaxes from the bundle of nerves it had been just moments earlier. Sorry, Gabe. Ain't killing her today.

The interior of the church is more impressive than the drab exterior. Spread out like an array of pieces on a chessboard are many, many wooden pews, stacked over a faded red-and-black tile floor. Standing in front of the entire thing is a six-foot wooden statue of Christ himself, glaring down at McCree with worn cedar eyes as if to say You lousy bunch of squatters! Get off my lawn!

It sounds like something Commander Morrison would say. McCree chuckles to himself, low and dry. Jack Morrison, Jesus Christ… to most people, they were just about the same thing anyway. Golden Boy was sent from a distant heaven (Indiana, in some backwater hick corn-growing farm) to deliver the people from their oppressors. His words were Scripture.

Yeah, right.

He stubs out his cigarillo right between Christ's eyes, leaving a spot of black soot like a bullet hole. "Seon," he calls aloud, and it echoes impressively throughout the church- Seon, eon, eon, on.

Sujin gives him an angry shhh! as McCree continues blithely on. Ash falls from the cigarillo where it presses into Christ's forehead, trailing over blank, glaring eyes. "I wanna make a deal, y'hear? Could you-"

"Chamseh might be here." Sujin is hissing right into McCree's ear, close enough to him that he can smell the thin lavender aroma of whatever shampoo she uses. Or maybe it's perfume. "He is a hostile. Treat him as such!"

McCree raises an eyebrow down at her, voice maintaining the same booming volume. "If Chamseh's here, ma'am, we'll be meetin' up with him anyways. So might as well make our presence known, eh?"

Sujin tries her best to look down her nose at him, which fails miserably, as McCree is a full head taller. Finally, she turns away with an air of defeat.

"Let's hurry, then," she says sharply, and starts to make her way up the stairs. "I want to get this over with."

McCree is quick to follow.

The old wooden planks of the floor creak and groan beneath every one of McCree's steps, further announcing their presence, and yet once they hit the second floor there is still no answer. Getting increasingly frustrated, McCree nudges Sujin with Peacekeeper and hisses, "You call out to 'im. If it's a familiar voice, who knows, he mighta had said somethin'."

Sujin's eyes lock onto the gun like a magnet. To the gangster's everlasting credit, her voice doesn't waver in the slightest as she calls: "Seon-nim! Sujin-I ga wasuyo!"

No response.

McCree positions Sujin in front of him like a shield. They approach the first door, a dusty and antiquated thing with worn hinges, and he kicks it open from behind her. The door falls flat on the ground with a too-loud boom, opening to… nothing.

"Next door," he tells himself tiredly.

And they go down the line, opening the next three doors in rapid succession. They abandoned rooms are all devoid of activity, but filled with not-so-abandoned papers and file cabinets; according to Sujin, the church was used as a Ssang Kal record holder of sorts, though it wasn't kept very up to date. The feeling worming around in McCree's gut increases.

Seon is dead.

He's almost entirely sure of it. Here was a man on the run, someone who had fled from his old haunts ages ago and never came back. McCree tries to imagine Chamseh leering over the dead body of some muscled drug lord. If Seon would've been tough to persuade, then this Chamseh man will be even tougher.

He wonders if he can do it.

BAM! With well-practice ease, McCree kicks open another door, and this one swings open to reveal another empty room, except- and his eyes widen- aha. What's this?

Across the room, across from McCree, is a second door.

This one is different from the others. It's a domineering thing that looks to be made of some modern stuff, heavy-duty plastic fibers woven together. It was clearly installed decades after everything around it, standing several shades paler than the stained wallpaper. A smile brightens McCree's face- secret vaults are always good fun.

The smell of lavender shampoo. Sujin is right behind him, undoubtedly staring at this new development.

"You know what they say. Where there's a safe, there's something worth keepin' locked away," drawls McCree, and his hopes rise like hot steam in an unforgiving winter as he knocks on the door with a gloved knuckle.

The door is locked, so McCree shoots off the handle before busting the thing open. It leads to a desolate hall, one that is built of and smells strongly of wet cement. Dust bunnies clump at every corner, and threads of cobwebs gleam from the ceiling. Sujin follows him with an apprehensive stare, bare feet sliding quietly across the hardwood floor.

"He could be here," she says quietly. "I did not know this tunnel existed." She drags her finger across the wall, leaving a thin line in the thick layer of dust. "It does not seem to be well-used."

"Sure, sure. Come over here." McCree catches Sujin by the wrist and pulls her in front of him, again relying on her as a human shield. This time the woman flushes, begins to protest in hasty Korean, and there's something strange about how she's panicking. He stares, puzzled.

Then McCree realizes, and just scoffs at her.

"I ain't gonna lay a hand on you. Just stay in front of me where I can watch you," he says sheepishly. He positions her in front of him, prods her with Peacekeeper. "I know what you're scared of, and I swear I won't do it. Now just start walkin'."

As they continue down the tunnel, he begins to feel increasingly foolish.

Because of course Sujin is afraid. She must have been afraid for a long time, though she did make a good show of hiding it. McCree is a strange man sixty pounds heavier than her, and she is his skimpily dressed captive walking with him through a dark, abandoned tunnel.

But to be frank, McCree has never been that kind of criminal. And to think that someone else is afraid of him, afraid that he'd ever do… do something like that, makes him feel sour.

Sujin gathers herself quickly. Scowls darkly at him. Then she turns with a flip of her hair, which has totally pulled itself out of the neat updo it had been twisted into before, with an air of hurt pride.

They go on down the musty hall, their only light source being the ever-distant doorway behind them. There are lights dangling from the walls, connected with tangles of external wires, but McCree can't discern any way to turn them on. Probably somewhere at the end of the tunnel.

They walk on, and on, and on, far enough so that McCree figures that they're not in the church anymore. Probably in some adjacent building, one without any other entrances. It gets darker, more claustrophobic, but this makes McCree feel more- not less- hopeful. More excited. Unlike that dilapidated apartment complex from before, this feels like a proper place to hide something precious.

Like the leader of a gang.

"…don't…. was, I…"

McCree freezes, yanking Sujin back by the arm. She stops as well, staring wide-eyed into the dark.

The sounds echo down the hall, from the thick darkness. It's the voice of a man, too muffled and distorted to identify properly. Deep? Deep, and hoarse.

"…take... just leave me al…."

McCree steps forward cautiously, boot spurs jangling louder in his ears than ever before. For the first time in his life, he wishes he hadn't ever added them to his footwear.

As the voices get clearer, Sujin grows more nervous. McCree can make out the reflexive swallow of her throat, the twitching in her eyes with every sound from down the hall. He's nervous himself, but not nearly in the same way. Seon or Chamseh or whoever the fuck is down there- they have answers. They would know how to get to Talon.

Adrenaline begins to course slowly through his veins. He can see a door now, threads of light shining through its outline.

Yes.

They would know how to get to Talon.

He marches forward, forward, forward, forward. Sujin is left behind him, in the dark, but he knows she'll follow anyway. The answers- and possibly her boss- were right in front of them. There was no turning back.

That first voice they'd heard in the tunnel rings through the door, frantic and loud. Ragged, like they'd shouted their heads off for hours. Cracking, like they were under pressure.

And thick with a Korean accent.

Why is he speakin' in English?

"That is all, I swear, just- don't you dare hit me again!" the voice goes. "It's the lighthouse… it's the lighthouse, it-"

McCree slams through the door with his shoulder; it goes flying open and clatters against the opposite wall as he rolls on the floor- a ball of flashing red fabric- before coming up on one knee, brim of his hat pulled low, looking down the silver length of Peacekeeper at…

…at a bleeding Asian man tied to a chair that balances on three legs (the fourth one lies broken on the ground, surrounded by long wooden splinters.

The single lamp swinging slowly from the ceiling is the only movement in the room as they gape at each other.

The man looks brutish, in both his large build and heavyset face, which… McCree winces; his face has definitely seen better days- there's a big blue bruise splotching like ink across his right eye, red marks running down his chin. A bright red shirt stained with darker red blood strains to hold itself around his barrel-chested torso, with one of the silver buttons having already popped.

A dragons bares its fangs from his massive, bared arm, and McCree reaches the conclusion at the same time as Sujin.

"SEON-NIM?"

Sujin is moving forward, pale features twisted in surprise. McCree holds out his arm; she lurches to a reluctant stop.

Seon turns his battered head towards Sujin, and he seems to be equally surprised.

"Sujin? Yah, neo gijibea yugi, yugi weah-" he spits, spittle running down his mess of a mouth. His sentence ends in a gurgle as the man glances back from Sujin and McCree to the shadowed side of the room, unreached by their one slowly swinging light source.

And there it is, that glimpse of fear in his eyes that McCree is so good at spotting nowadays.

Sujin's eyes flicker as well; she glances into the darkness. McCree looks with her. They're all thinking it, a collective thought that rings silent in the room- Chamseh. The guy who took down an entire sector of a gang, apparently by himself, or with a squad of equally mysterious lackeys.

McCree lowers Peacekeeper, but keeps the tip pointing in Seon's direction. There's somewhere ther.

It's too dark to make Chamseh's shape, and he doesn't breathe hard enough for McCree to discern any movement in the shadows. But in the thick silence of the room, the total stillness, he can make out… a thrumming. The hollow sound of intaking and exhaling oxygen, as if through a tube.

Two green circles flicker on in the dark. Sujin yelps, startled.

Then a dash of the same green between the two circles flares to life.

And then multiple little light diodes light up all the way down its form, like an airport runway at night, outlining what vaguely appears to be a body.

McCree blinks, and the tip of Peacekeeper dips towards the ground. Where've I see that thing before?

All of a sudden, the lights are moving.

Sujin instinctively backs up and Seon cringes away, and suddenly he realizes.

McCree leans in, because for a moment he thinks that the alcohol he'd downed earlier is messing with his head. There was just no- there was absolutely no way- and he spits the words like he's full of contempt when he's actually just so, so fucking glad:

"Genji fuckin' Shimada. You filthy sonofagun."

Genji steps into the light, a tall and imposing figure shielded entirely in shiny white armor plates and fizzling green lights.

That strange dash of emerald from earlier runs right across his mask like a visor. McCree stares, and stares, and stares, because this Genji looks so completely different from the Genji he'd once known. The Genji with gleaming red eyes, perched from under a full head of black hair, studded with wires than ran directly into his damaged spine, replaced by this sleek, entirely-Omnic-looking-thing different in every single way- except for how he's armed with the same wakizashi and katana, the same self-confident stance, from way back when.

He'd known that Genji had changed- their phone call had said as much- but… but this much? McCree's mouth opens halfway, and he wants to say something, but no sound comes out.

Genji's echoing voice, too, is unfamiliarly warm. He strides forward, armored hand extended as if in an offer of peace. "McCree! I knew you would show up."

McCree continues to stare.

Genji never speaks first.

Sujin makes a sound like she's choking. McCree just walks up to the cyborg and they clap hands together into a solid handshake like-

-like it hadn't been over a year since McCree had least seen his murderous Japanese cyborg ninja friend-

-like McCree hadn't heard that the guy was going after his brother, to finish him off once and for all in some act of revenge. Vengeance for something he'd never clearly explained to McCree.

"Did ya do it?" he asks solemnly, studying the way Genji's new mask glistens under the lamp.

Genji understands what he's talking about immediately, and shakes his head.

"No," he replies in a lightly accented tone. "I have not seen him yet." He releases the handshake and scratches at the plating on the back of his neck- something that McCree remembers Genji had always done right after Angie removed the wires, like an obsessive tic. "I will see what I want to do when I finally meet him."

"Your choice then, bud." McCree takes a step back, appraising Genji's condition. Whoever made this new armor (he suspects Angie; she'd always had a soft spot for Genji) had done a damn good job of it.

His voice turns appreciative. "You look real fine. Like a new person."

But there's a crack in the middle of his chest plating, with fracture marks radiating from a central point on his armor. McCree's smile turns into a slight frown. It looks kinda like he got shot.

The cyborg straightens with something resembling solemn pride. "I am a new person. Under the tutelage of Master Zenyatta, I-"

"THAT'S CHAMSEH." Sujin surges forward, and McCree blinks, suddenly remembering why they were here as she jabs a finger right at Genji. Her voice is wildly accusatory, and fraught with confusion- "You, you destroyed the sect-"

"An acquaintance of yours?" Genji inquires. McCree shrugs with a roll of his shoulders- he still can't get over how calm Genji sounds, like he'd gotten over being killed by his own family- and squints in Sujin's direction.

'Acquaintance' was technically right, though not quite the word McCree would use for who Sujin was to him. But it was slightly less embarrassing to bring an 'acquaintance' to a reunion between two old friends than to bring a 'hostage'.

"Eh, more o' less."

Genji bows slightly to the stock-still Sujin, whose mouth is frozen open in a position of utter disbelief. Seon groans in pain somewhere in the background, along with a grumbled let me go, I can't, let me go.

"I am indeed Chamseh. It is," and McCree can hear the quirk of a smile in Genji's voice, "the word Sparrow in Korean, if I am not mistaken. A translation of my original moniker, nothing more."

McCree pries his gaze from the bullet(?) wound and to the flashing green slit of Genji's mask, smile back up on his face in an instant. Just another thing he'd have to ask Genji about later.

"Piece of shit. You had the same idea as me, ya bastard." McCree twirls Peacekeeper once before sticking her back into his holster, and a big, stupid smile starts to grow on his face, because it all makes sense now. It all makes sense.

Why Chamseh was a shadowy figure more myth than actual truth. Why nobody was sure of what he looked like. Why he had no people to back him up, but enough power for people to think that he just may have henchmen in the wings, secretly cleaning up his messes for him. Why someone completely unknown to South Korea's criminal scene was so suddenly trying to break one of its gangs down- conveniently, while Talon was cracking down on Busan's gangs, and also conveniently, at the same time as McCree and Hana.

"Get ahold a'Talon by goin' up the criminal ladder, right?" Laughter is coming out of McCree in bursts, like strange, childish giggling, as he thumps Genji right on the back. (Genji doesn't even budge. McCree's hand stings through its glove.) "Great minds think alike. We're damn great minds, Chamseh. Genji, you son of a bitch."

The situation probably isn't as ridiculous as McCree is making it out to be, but in the moment, this stress-relieving, burden-lifting, shoulder-lightening moment, the hilarity is all-encompassing. Sujin and Seon stare open-mouthed like a couple of drug-dealing goldfish as he thumps Genji again (which feels like punching the front of a tank) and the cigarillo drops from his mouth he's laughing so hard.

Genji's mask renders his face unreadable, but his modulated voice is so full of that same shit-eating grin that it suddenly hits McCree that Genji might've not changed as much as he'd thought.

"Great minds? Oh, McCree, I heard you didn't even finish grade school. I, on the other hand, with my great ninja education-"

McCree thwacks him on the helmet. It probably breaks his pinkie.

And something warm rises in his chest, like all the pressure of the evening and the whirl of alcohol in his head and the knowledge that he was completely alone in the middle of Talon territory and that he'd abandoned Hana, fucking abandoned her like a goddamn Overwatch stiff, was vanishing with every half-sarcastic word that dropped from Genji's mouth.

He isn't alone.

He has Genji goddamn Shimada.

Hana's gonna be okay.

Translations:

Pendejo- Fucking idiot/Motherfucker in Spanish

Reyes (as in Gabriel Reyes)- Kings/Royals/Royalty in Spanish

"Seon-nim! Sujin-I ga wasuyo!"- "Mr. Seon! Sujin came/is here!" in Korean

Chamseh- Sparrow in Korean

A/N:

To sum it up: School has kicked me into the dust and I've been doing nothing but studying, sports, and more sports (namely snowboarding). Snowboard season just ended so I finally had some time to sit down and finish some stuff.

This chapter has been sitting on my computer for over two months. It's a bit of a mess and slightly disjointed, but it gets the intended point and themes across, so I'm halfway okay with it. I would've liked to expand a bit further on the ending, like including the catch-up conversation between Genji and McCree so that I can end the chapter on a less confusing note, but the chapter was already getting super long, so. You guys finally have the McCree-Genji shenanigans to look forward to next chapter! (Among other things.)

When I checked this fic two days ago I was assuming that most of its followers had dropped out, and I'd have to rebuild its viewership base from the ground up. But you guys surprised me, because it actually gained over twenty followers (on , while the followers on AO3 remained the same) in the space that I was gone! I'm so grateful that you guys haven't given up on this story.

Reiterating on a promise made in a previous chapter: I will never abandon this story. I'll finish it or I'll die. Future updates will be bumpy, most likely once a month or so? But the chapters will be long and the story will definitely keep rolling!

Again, thank you so much- readers, followers, random guests who chance upon the story, everyone. Commenters are very much appreciated, as always, and I very much look forward to reading your guys's thoughts and notes on this chapter! (I read all of them. They are the fuel of this story.)

Manly love,

FillerText

(Comment response to AHSVelocity: Feel free to reference the fic! That goes for anyone. It's cool to see people expand on it.)