Summary: It's easy enough to say fairytales aren't real until you're living in one. (Beauty & the Beast au)
The Road To Somewhere - part 1
The house was large – two floors with a fireplace in the living room, a kitchen, and more than enough rooms for its young occupants to each have a space of their own, except Fareeha had night terrors sometimes, dreams she forgot upon waking that left tear stains on her face, and Jesse didn't want her to be alone with that if she didn't have to be, so he and Reyes had carried an extra bed into his room and Jesse had, in a round-about way, thanked her for the company.
Even after all these months as Jesse McCree-Reyes, he still wasn't quite used to living in a cottage with wood floors like something out of a Christmas postcard, still shifted in his sleep without making a sound, always trying to draw the least amount of attention to himself when any of his so-called friends could get violent in a heartbeat.
No, Jesse didn't mind not sleeping with outlaws and gangsters, or the growing warmth in his chest when he thought about how nice it was that he could breath and snore and groan as loudly as he wanted, without any fear of a fist or steel-toed boot finding him in the dark, but he did miss the open air, the chill of midnight sending rows of goosebumps racing up his arms.
In the end, he'd traded all that in for a shot at a future.
Given up the short life of a gangster for a galaxy's worth of possibilities.
A scratching at the window tore his gaze from the gray popcorn ceiling. There was a barren tree branch, spindly as a skeleton, dragging its bark against the pane. It reminded Jesse of the stories his mother used to tell him about coyotes. Back before they'd become varmints that scavenged corpses, stole supplies and tore holes in tents, they'd been wandering trickster spirits, fickle beings that could just as easily bless a house as lead it to its untimely demise.
With a single glance at the girl-shaped lump sleeping soundly beneath multiple layers of blankets, Jesse dropped his gangly, too-long legs from the mattress, rose to his feet without making so much as a rustle, then padded silently over to the window to reach out and snap off the tip of the thin branch.
He'd never had much patience for superstition.
Now that he was up, though, it was hard to ignore how dry his throat felt, so he slipped on a pair of long socks, allowing them to bunch at the ankles, and crept out on the floorboards he knew wouldn't creak so as not to wake Fareeha, since she'd probably want to get a glass of water, too, and while he'd be happy enough to get it for her, she'd never be satisfied with anything less than following him into the kitchen, like it was all some kind of adventure, which would have been fine except… she didn't know how to be quiet, yet.
It was hard to unlearn old habits, and for Jesse, every creak of the floorboards beneath her steps rang through the house like a death knell, causing him to flinch and grimace his way throughout the entire trip.
Reyes didn't seem like the kind of guy to turn on them, and Reeha seemed to trust him, even if she couldn't quite articulate why, but good guys could turn bad on a dime. Best to be prepared for the worst. Just in case.
When the teen slipped out into the hallway, however, he noticed the lights were still on in the living room, and paused, frozen at the first step on the staircase, hidden and crouched in shadow. From below, he could make out the sound of papers shuffling, and a muffled grunt that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. There was a clink of glass on wood, meaning Reyes was probably drinking, so though his throat protested at the thought of enduring without so much as a drop of water to slacken his thirst, the boy shifted, slowly, to retreat, only to hesitate.
This man had saved him from the desert, from dying a nobody with a bullet in his back.
Turning around, Jesse crept to the edge of the first step, dangerously close to where he could be spotted if Reyes only looked up from the pictures splayed across the coffee table, wrapped his hands around the banister, and peered down for a better look.
He'd been right about the drinking.
Reyes had a palm pressed against his eyes. He was sitting on the couch, still dressed in his day clothes, with a beanie on his head and glass of whiskey on a coaster. The pictures, from what Jesse could see, were of a younger Reyes standing proudly in a uniform, or ruffling Fareeha's hair in sweats. But there was something wrong. In all of the pictures, there was an odd space, as though someone standing there had been edited out. The Reyes in the photographs had his arm wrapped around empty air, a wide grin shedding years off his face. In some of the images, Fareeha stood alone, her body leaning towards nonexistent support, her adoring gaze settling on… nothing.
With a start, Jesse spotted an image of him and Reyes goofing off for the camera. Not unusual, except why would they stand off-center like that? As though they'd been making room for someone else.
Jesse didn't remember there ever being anyone else.
A strangled cry yanked him from his thoughts, and he jerked to see something that sent a bolt of shame through his core. Rivulets of silver stained Reyes' cheeks, and he tilted his head back against the window behind him. "Damn," he muttered under his breath, exhausted and sad. Trying so desperately to be quiet.
Not long after, Jesse slipped away.
A few hours more without water wouldn't kill him.
"Hey, lady!"
The jarring shout of a disgruntled customer jarred Jesse from his sleep-deprived daze, which was fortuitous because he'd very nearly nodded off into his tuna sandwich. Frowning, he scrunched his nose to make certain there weren't any condiments on the tip of it before glancing over to spot the ruckus several booths behind him.
It was a 1950's styled mom-and-pop diner, a little piece of paradise he'd stumbled onto outside of Dallas that was run by the former owner's elderly widow and staffed by kids on rollerblades. Most of them were shooting wary glances at the rowdy group complaining about their coffee, while an aging woman in a dotted apron tried to defuse the situation.
"I'm very sorry," she was saying to a mullet-sporting fella and his three friends, "what seems to be the problem, dear?"
After taking a second to wink at his friends like the dear woman wasn't staring straight at him, mullet man held up his paper cup, loudly complaining, "This here scalding beverage burned my tongue and likes the roof of my mouth, too." Jesse resisted the urge to groan. "I feel I should be compensated for the grievous injury to my person."
Shaking his head with a huff, Jesse took a large bite of his sandwich, followed by a long sip of his water, enough to nearly drain it. It was still cool, condensation beading on the side of the glass, and one had no way of knowing how long it'd before he'd get another one. It would have been nice to savor it a little more, but Jesse was a busy guy. He was used to rushing in and out of fine establishments, especially after that particular mix-up with the bank.
Not his fault that the police didn't believe a lone gunslinger could take out a gang of robbers by himself, though even he had to admit that first impressions hadn't exactly painted a favorable portrait.
Anyway, the guy apparently wanted fifty dollars worth of hush money. The current owner laughed in his face, one of her curls slipping from her bun to brush against her cheek as she did so. "I almost hate to ask," she started, her blue eyes twinkling, mirthful and canny, "but has that ever worked?"
When the man rose to his feet, blustering and red-faced, so did McCree. He laid down a few bills on the table, enough to cover the meal plus a generous tip, then sidled over with a cheerful, "Howdy! Something I can help ya'll with?"
All eyes turned to him, which was par for the course when you styled yourself after Clint Eastwood, though considerably less so in Texas. "This coffee is too hot," the patron announced haughtily, drawing even more attention to himself with the outburst. "I require reparations. For my suffering."
McCree shared an exasperated glance with the owner, drawling, "Right. Gotcha. And I completely understand where you're coming from, Mr…?" – "It's Bill." – "Excellent. So, Bill, like I said, I get where you're coming from but, you see…" And here, Jesse snatched the cup out of the man's hands, making a big show of staring at the label closely, before pointing out the warning label that plainly stated the beverage could be hot, and to drink carefully. "This all seems to be a rather silly misunderstanding." The others, Jesse was pleased to see, shifted nervously. They hadn't expected to contend with anyone feistier than an old woman, though the cowboy noted privately how high a standard that actually was.
"Sorry, ma'am," he tipped his hat to the lady with a winning smile, "I'm sure these nice folks didn't mean to inconvenience you."
The owner wasn't impressed, though. She had her arms crossed over her apron, a single brow raised in a delicate silver arch. "I can handle my own affairs, son."
McCree's grin turned sheepish.
"I've got a burn." With expressions of strained civility and evaporating tolerance, the pair turned towards the customer once more.
For a moment, McCree considered leaning over the table, letting his serape shift just enough that the guys caught a glimpse of Peacekeeper, but eventually settled with, "Is that rightly so? Well, let's see it, then."
It was expectedly satisfying when mullet-man floundered briefly, glancing at his buddies for help, though there was none to be given.
The not-smile stretching Jesse's mouth grew a fraction.
Blood's in the water, boys.
Eventually, the customer stopped stalling and parted his lips, cracking open his teeth to reveal a whitish blister on the roof of his mouth.
Jesse whistled. "That's a nasty burn, friend." And clapped him amenably on the shoulder. "Look's like it's healing nicely, though. So, either you're some kind of mutant, or that there's been on the mend for about a week." From beside him, the old woman scoffed, though it seemed to be directed at the stupidity of the aspiring con artists.
Leaning in conspiratorially, Jesse lowered his voice, "But if it's a fight you're itching for," watching with satisfaction as the blood drained from the group's faces, pooling somewhere in their boots, "I'd be more than happy to oblige, so long as ya'll kindly step outside." Judging by the angry and tight-lipped expressions which greeted the statement, a gun wasn't needed to get the point across. When the four stood up to leave, each of them wearing impotent rage like badges, Jesse quickly concealed a sigh of relief before stepping sideways to let them pass. It wasn't until the bell hanging over the exit had rung for the last time that he realized not a single one of them had paid for their meal.
Rubbing his neck awkwardly, he offered to pay off the bill, even if it meant he might have to tighten his belt for a day or two, or whenever his next bounty was, but the owner waved him off, tearing up the bill with a scowl. "Those folks were trouble if I've ever seen it." Eyeing Jesse closely, she added, "Good riddance to 'em."
Feeling suddenly self-conscious, Jesse glanced askance, trying desperately to keep his face from betraying how much the bounty on his head was worth. A moment passed and the old woman huffed grudging thanks, before bustling off to return to the kitchens, and Jesse allowed some of the tension to bleed out of him. Before he could leave and put all this behind him, however, a waitress stepped out with a phone held her grasp, "Is Jesse McCree here?"
This just wasn't his day.
Dragging his Stetson over his brow, Jesse ducked his head and reluctantly rose a hand, already stepping forward. "Present."
After giving him a once-over, from his hat to his boots, the girl handed him the phone, then disappeared into the back, leaving him to self-consciously carry the wireless device back to his upholstered seat to have a hushed conversation in a diner still somewhat full. He pressed the speaker to his ear. "Hello?"
"Jesse," Fareeha answered with urgency, making him lean backwards, pressed against the seat cushion by from the sheer force of his disbelief. And it only got better. "Gabe and Sombra are moving to Japan." She took a deep breath while Jesse tried to process that. "And I'm going with them."
"What?!"
He hadn't meant to raise to his voice. Embarrassed, he peeked over his shoulder to see the faces of several startled and annoyed patrons staring back at him, then hunched and cupped a hand around the mouthpiece.
"This is a hell of a thing to drop on someone you haven't talked to in months, sis." He could make out bellowing voices shouting orders in the background, a cacophony of keyboard tapping, phones ringing off the hook. "How'd you find me?"
She breathed out a tired sigh. "You were recognized."
His thoughts immediately flew to the troublesome customers he'd sent packing, except the timing didn't add up. Someone must have recognized him earlier, maybe in the parking lot, and if Fareeha knew about it, then the local police were going to be knocking on the door in a handful of minutes.
Plenty of time to finish a perfectly civil conversation with the sister he hadn't spoken to in months.
Massaging the bridge of his nose, McCree tried to reason, "Look, you can't just uproot yourself like this. Rookie police officers can't go traipsing around the globe after errant family members. And Sombra's still in college-"
"She finished those online courses in six months, Jesse," Fareeha interjected dryly. "Gabe's been having her hack into databases for him."
There was a sound like rocks rubbing against each other as the cowboy gritted his teeth. "He don't have the right." His hand curled into a fist, thinking of the most recent member of their family, of how much she'd struggled to adjust after her skill as a hacker had gotten her tangled up with Los Muertos, the kind of criminals that made her life so dangerous when she tried to leave that she had to abandon her own name. "She didn't leave her old life behind to be used by the guy who's supposed to be helping her get her life together."
"I get it, Jesse. And I agree. But I can't just leave them alone in this. Gabe's messed up, but he's still ours, you know?"
McCree scowled at what remained of his sandwich. "And you'd rather not leave Sombra alone with him, isn't that right?" There was a pause on the end, which was the confirmation he needed. Slumping in his seat, he muttered, "So why call me, Reeha? What do you want from me?"
She hesitated. "…I think you know what I want, Jesse."
She could have asked him for anything and he'd have done it in a heartbeat, and now that he could hear the silent plea behind her words, the quiet desperation, it was obvious that despite everything that'd happened in the interim, some things didn't change. "Yeah, I do." Not sure if the sirens he heard were his mind playing tricks on him or if he had even less time than he'd anticipated, McCree looked out the window, trying to burn the Texas horizon into his retinas. "For your information," he said with a resigned chuckle, "I'm pretty certain I'm a flight risk."
"You'll think of something."
A sudden mental image of tying himself to the plane's wing and freezing solid in the stratosphere with his lips curled back into a rictus grin popped into his head. As though reading his thoughts, Fareeha added hastily, "Actually, forget what I said. I'll think of something. Just… get out of there and give me a call when you can. I can't keep wasting resources on tracking you down without arresting you." Now he was sure the sirens weren't in his head. Fareeha could hear them, too.
"Stay safe."
There was a click when she hung up, followed by a dial tone. McCree stared blankly at the phone in his hand before carefully setting it down as the long stretch of barren road outside became crowded with flashing red and blue lights.
He glanced at the scene for moment – "Damn." – before bolting for the nearest back exit.
Reyes had found a house in a small village located on the outskirts of a forest, and was nice enough about letting Jesse and Fareeha in once they showed up at his doorstep, although they'd both tried to cut ties in some form or another. Law enforcement for Fareeha and for McCree… ostensibly also law enforcement.
There was a path of white stones that marked the trail to the entrance, a sloping tiled rooftop with uptilted corners like a shrine, a wooden porch and rice paper sliding doors, like a dwelling straight out of the feudal era. Maybe that was part of why Jesse immediately felt calmer upon walking inside. He'd always felt a kind of kinship with anachronisms.
Well, that, and the sight of Sombra eating breakfast out of a porcelain bowl at the table, sitting cross-legged in her pajamas and perfectly content. Unfazed by their appearance, she waved, and not a second after, was swallowed in a strange hybrid of embrace and chokehold by a very emotional Fareeha.
"Reeha, please," Sombra gasped, though she kept her hands raised, making no attempt to free herself. "I can't… breathe." And Fareeha let go, looking a tad sheepish before swiftly recovering her ire.
"How could you leave without telling me?" Sombra averted her eyes. "Do you have any idea how worried I've been?" Sombra muttered, "Sorry, Mom," under her breath. Fareeha ignored her, "You're lucky I keep tabs on you two or I never would have known-"
"I don't think Gabe wanted you to know, hermanita," Somba cut in gently.
"Is that true?" She spun on Reyes, hurt bright in her dark brown eyes. "You were just going to disappear?"
Reyes shifted uncomfortably. "You're adults now, living your own lives." It sounded like an excuse, and from the way he flinched, Reyes knew it. "You don't need me around to hold your hands, anymore."
McCree scoffed. "Like you ever did."
"And what's that supposed to mean, ingrate?"
The atmosphere grew tense, like a steel cord about to snap, the way it used to before Jesse left the first time. Fareeha shook her head, reaching out to lay a hand on Jesse's arm. "We're not here to fight, remember?"
Reyes frowned at the pair of them. "Then what are you here for?"
Jesse rolled his eyes. "To help you, believe it or not."
"You didn't have to come after me," Reyes said the next morning, while McCree sizzled up an omelet on the gas burner stove – a nice modern addition to the traditionally-styled cottage – and Fareeha wolfed down pancakes, washing them down with a carton of milk as Sombra looked on in horror. "In fact, it would have saved me a fortune on groceries alone if you hadn't."
"Jesse, do you hear something?" Fareeha managed after swallowing.
Scooping the omelet onto his plate, McCree laughed dryly, "You mean, something like complaining about how impulsive actions inconvenience others?" He placed the pan in the sink, turned on the water, and watched the cloud of steam rise.
"Exactly like that."
"Sounds like hypocrisy to me, but could be the wind."
Reyes crossed his arms over his chest, allowing them to see the stack of photos he was gripping. "Oh, har. When did you two become a comedy duo?" Instead of replying, they waited for him to spread the pictures out on the table, and set to work.
They had, after all, said they would help.
From what they could tell, and from what Reyes had already determined, the most recent altered photograph was dated a decade before, taken in Hanamura. It was of little teenaged Jesse and nine-year-old Fareeha, the pair throwing up peace signs with goofy grins and an arm slung around each other. Jesse had almost forgotten how small she'd been when she was a kid. Now, they were practically the same height, and once Fareeha was legal to drink in the States, she'd probably drink him under the table, too.
It was a perfectly normal, happy image of them posing in front of cherry blossoms, except their bodies took up less than half of the frame. It could have been nothing, a coincidence, a strange aesthetic choice, but… too many coincidences make a pattern, which was exactly what the collective images Reyes had gathered showed.
"Some of these pictures… There's room for more than one person in the photograph." A few were practically empty, occupied solely by blank walls or unspectacular backgrounds. "Do you think-"
"That more than one person's missing? Yeah, it's crossed my mind. And whoever they are or were, we were close, close enough for me to wear their tags around my neck." For some reason, whenever Jesse tried to focus on the name written on those tags, his mind went in different directions, skating off the surface like a pebble skimming the surface of a lake. Apparently, the same happened to Reyes, as well as to anyone else who tried to discern the tag's previous owner.
Trading dog tags in the military, though. Well, wasn't that romantic?
Unable to keep the teasing lilt at bay despite himself, Jesse asked, "So, you think you might have been sweet on some girl in your unit?" What he didn't expect was for the older man to shift awkwardly, not quite looking at him. Not quite avoiding him, either. It didn't seem like both should be tenable, but Reyes was good at that sort of thing.
Reyes coughed to clear his throat. "Whoever they were, I brought them home with me so I think sweet doesn't quite cover it. And, also… I somehow doubt it's a woman."
"Oh." Jesse paused for a beat to process that, before continuing on as though he'd never stopped, though with an added happy glint in his eyes, "Okay, so we're looking for one hell of a lucky guy," the frown Reyes wore didn't look very convincing, "and Fareeha's mom," Fareeha twisted in her seat to fix him with narrowed eyes, but Jesse had known for a while that little sisters didn't drop from the sky, and he just couldn't imagine anyone willingly giving her up, "who we think were last seen here, and who have apparently been missing for a decade. Is that about right?"
"Well," shoulders rose and fell in a shrug, Reyes splayed his hands out, "I couldn't exactly devote my attention to the search and raise you kids at the same time"
"No, you tried to multitask and failed on both accounts," Jesse snapped without thinking. He hadn't meant for the words to draw blood, to open something raw and weeping, but a sharp intake of breath from Sombra told him everything he needed to know. It was cowardly not to look at Reyes, to see the damage he'd done, but something told him it'd be better if he and Gabe didn't talk for a while.
He made a beeline for the exit, grabbing a tanned leather jacket off the back seat of his chair as he went. "I'm gonna go cool off."
Blinking hard, Reyes recomposed himself enough to holler after him, "Jesse, don't you dare slam-"
The frame shuttered on impact.
"I'm going to kill him," Reyes said calmly, watching McCree hop down from the porch and stride with a quick pace down the stone path. "Japan's a big country. Loads of places to bury a body." Without offering any kind of acknowledgement, Sombra rushed outside with McCree's wide-brimmed hat, still clad in her pajamas, whereas Fareeha headed for the porch.
Standing alone in the kitchen and feeling a monster of a headache coming on, Reyes firmly pinched the bridge of his nose, shut his eyes, and exhaled slowly through his mouth. Then he strode to the refrigerator, pulled out a beer, pried off the cap with his teeth, and carried it out to the porch.
It was as good a place as any to start.
"I'm not going to apologize on his behalf," Fareeha started the moment he'd opened the glass door to step outside, "and I can't say I blame him, either." She was staring over the dried lawn, her arms crossed over her chest while Sombra handed Jesse his hat over in the distance, close to the forest treeline and the path down to the village. There was an unhappy purse to her lips that told Reyes it would be best to tread carefully, though the warning didn't quite keep a flare of blistering annoyance from licking against the sides of his throat.
Since she wasn't using the yellow-blue stripped lawn chair, he sank down gratefully into it, still cupping his beer. He took a sip, savoring the taste. "All this time without a word and now I can't get him to shut up. Would it have killed him to give me a phone call?"
He could feel the intensity of her stare on him, knew that if he looked up, he would see tension in her jaw, a glint of gold as the circlets on her raven hair caught the sun. "Would it have killed you? Would you have even picked up if you knew it was him? If I managed to find him, then I know you could've. I'm not a better tracker than you."
"I've had Sombra keeping tabs." And if that sounded a little defensive to Gabe's own ears, he certainly wasn't going to mention it.
"Well, good," she muttered dryly, like he'd confessed to brushing his teeth everyday and expected a pat on the back for it. "I can't tell you how glad I am to hear it."
They settled into an uneasy silence, taut as a bowstring and quicker to snap. Jesse and Sombra had parted ways, the latter heading back inside while the former navigated the rocky slope down to the marketplace. Fareeha leaned against the railing, her body language stating plainly that she wasn't in the mood to be bothered, had already begun to shut him out.
He cleared his throat. "This actually reminds me of a long, boring story from back in my military days." A minute twitch was all he got from the teen, but it was enough to guess at the exasperation plain on her face. "At the start of training, they gave us all a swimming prowess test, and one of my fellow recruits was a real piece of work. See, he lied to the instructors, told them he could swim fine when, in reality, the pendejo couldn't swim his way out of a bathtub."
There was a brief lull where Reyes struggled to get his thoughts together. It was always difficult to get a clear picture of his time spent with the special forces, since so much of it seemed to have been scrubbed clean and censored from his own mind, but that didn't keep him from trying, over and over.
He forced down another long pull of his beer.
"Anyway, he jumps in the second he hears the whistle, doesn't even hesitate," Fareeha's listening, has been the whole time, "and sinks like a stone." Reyes chuckled, "Me and… this other guy jump in after him, but he swipes at the other guy, nearly catching him in the jaw, and I say, 'Screw this,' and swim to the surface, since I figure the instructors can fish lead-limbs up once he runs out of air, but the other guy?" Fareeha looked over her shoulder to see something like pride smooth out his wrinkles, shedding years from his weathered features. "He doesn't give up. He goes straight back down and drags his dead weight to the ledge, and do you know what the guy said when our superior officer asked him why he lied?"
Even now, Reyes could still smell the sharp astringent odor of chlorine, itched from the chemicals clinging to his skin, "I can hold my breathe for a long time. I thought I'd be fine."
Whatever Fareeha was looking at him with now, it wasn't pity. She turned to the side, blew out a breath, "People do dumb things when they're scared, Gabe."
"The damn fool never should have jumped in the first place."
He let that sink in, wondering what she would make of it. Even more than Jesse, Fareeha had a talent for cutting through obfuscation. It was only natural, then, that she'd join law enforcement. Reyes supposed that, statistically, it made sense that at least one of their merry band would end up working on the right side of the law.
"Knowing your mistakes, if that's what we're calling them…," and she slumped against the railing, uncomfortable, "it's not the same as learning from them."
Surprised, Reyes barked a laugh."You sound like her, sometimes."
Fareeha arched a slender brow. "Who?"
But Reyes only shrugged, pressing the bottle to his lips with a grimace.
"Hell if I know."
Jesse walked quickly, eager to put the house and its occupants behind him.
He didn't expect the door to fly open for a blast of neon purple and pink that sprinted down the stairs with his hat gripped beneath her brightly painted fingernails. Once she'd caught up, she stopped to catch her breath, wearing a cheeky grin as she met his incredulous gaze. "Sombra, what do you want?" He shook his head, frustrated. "You're barefoot. Turn around and head back inside."
"What do I want?" She blinked, taken aback. "For a brainless vaquero to come home safe, of course." Wondering if she meant to protect him from a sunburn, Jesse wordlessly took the hat and plopped it on his head, feeling more like himself as he did so. Sombra looked pleased. "It's a good luck charm, isn't it?"
A hard, icy edge in the cowboy's chest rounded out as he dredged up a grin.
"Aw, you really do care." Sombra rolled her eyes, keeping up appearances even when it was just the two of them. Jesse nudged her persistently with his elbow. "I missed you." She huffed, fighting a smile. "Did you miss me?"
And there it was.
"It looks to me like there's a little more to miss, el puerco." Flashing teeth, she poked playfully at his stomach.
Jesse jumped back with a yelp. "Rude! It's muscle and I take back what I said."
Her laughter died down, belied by a strange unhappiness in her smile, and Jesse knew its cause. Knew how scary it was to watch family leave without ever knowing if they were coming back. But he was. "What do ya want me to bring you from the market, Sombra?"
Relief seeped into her expression. "How about a new computer? My laptop's running out of storage and-"
"Absolutely not. Try again."
She snickered. "Then surprise me!"
He turned to leave, already debating his options given his rather low funds at the moment, but stopped when it occurred to him how strange it was that Fareeha, a rookie who likely didn't have full access to her station's resources, had managed to track him down in the middle of nowhere. "Hey, Sombra," she hummed to show she was listening, "you didn't have anything to do with Fareeha finding me outside of Dallas, did you?"
If he didn't know better, he'd say she looked positively delighted. No, actually,that was definitely her delighted smirk. "There may have been a helpful anonymous tip pointing her in the right direction. As well as another alerting the nearest department about a couple niños running insurance scams on local restaurant owners."
"You mean those sirens weren't for me?" She was already making her way down the trail to return to the cottage with a jaunty gait, so Jesse raised his voice, calling after her with an appropriate level of indignation, "Sombra, I almost ripped my pants slipping out the bathroom window!"
"Yeah, yeah. Big baby." He wasn't sure if he'd been meant to hear that, but knowing her, probably. "Make sure you bring me back something nice!"
The village was decorated for a holiday, it seemed. Either that, or it was naturally festive in the summer season.
Jesse walked slowly, careful to avoid the bustling shoppers and children speeding down the dirt road, his calloused fingers sometimes lingering on the wooden columns he passed. Kites danced in a clear sky, dragonflies and koi fish, round faces with pink ovals on their cheeks. And the kids squealed when a breeze swept them up, causing them to spin and twirl like paper airplanes in a gale.
Petals crushed beneath their feet, releasing a sweet scent.
Here, Jesse knew he was bearing witness to a peace that could never belong to him, but giggling children in brightly dyed kimonos and summer yukatas watched him curiously in his periphery, ducking their heads and scattering whenever he tried to get a fix on him, keeping to the shadows thrown off by his long legs as he strode through the shops, and that feeling of warmth and contentment welling up inside had to be close.
He managed to greet a couple folk without embarrassing himself, though he shook his head politely whenever one of the townspeople ventured to engage him in conversation.
Konnichiwa!
Ah, gaijin da ne? Okashii yo. Doushite koko de ikitai kara?
…konnichiwa?
Fareeha had instructed him to read a language survival guide on the flight over, but reading and flying didn't mix so he made a judgment call and took a nap, instead.
Eventually, he passed the worst of the crowd, finding himself nearing the outskirts of civilization, the border of wilderness. And on the edge was a cylindrical hut, split into two parts so that it bore more than a passing resemblance to a pale vanilla teapot. Smoke streamed in wisps from a spout at its top, a floral banister curved its side, and on its roof grew the greenest carpet of weeds and grass that Jesse had ever seen.
Inquisitive by nature, Jesse strolled over to a door with rounded edges, pressed his ear to the wood, then rapped twice with his knuckles, "Pardon me, good sir or madam! I'm not sure you're aware, but there seems to be a lawn growing on your roof."
Jesse scrambled backwards when the door opened so quickly the hinges shrieked. "Hello!" A burly German man with a lightning scar cutting through his milky right eye ducked to fit through the opening, which happened to make him look even more like a giant when he finally straightened to his full height. Staring up at the white-haired old man with biceps the size of his skull, Jesse couldn't quite manage to choke down a nervous giggle. "Come in, come in. Welcome to my humble bakery."
Feeling rather as though he were being picked up and swept away, the cowboy allowed the man to guide him into a warm, golden-lit bakery. The sweat scent of sugar saturated the shop, though it was prevented from becoming overpowering by hints of sourdough and yeast. Reinhardt, as Jesse would learn, showed it off proudly.
"Do you like it?" A pretzel made a particularly appetizing picture in the window. Jesse nodded, not trusting himself to open his mouth without drooling. "I built this place myself some years ago." Putting his fists on his hip, Reinhardt surveyed the bakery with the air of one marveling at their own creation, though his joy seemed to dim somewhat when added, "Can't recall why, mind you, but…" His massive shoulders jumped in an easy shrug. "I must be too attached to leave."
When he shifted to return to his place in the kitchen, however, the sun struck his chest where his billowy fleece shirt parted to reveal a pair of dog tags, which wouldn't have been so strange, considering the man's build, except Jesse couldn't read the name. And it wasn't that it was difficult to pronounce or too foreign to make heads or tails of. Rather, the letters slipped from his memory, faster the more he tried to grasp them.
"Mind if I ask you where you found those?" Jesse indicated the tags.
"These?" Holding them in his palm, Reinhardt frowned, thoughtful. "In the forest, perhaps?" He didn't sound sure. In fact, Jesse was postive his mind was already trying to shirk away from a topic that refused to be approached directly, that shed any attempts like water on a duck's back.
If Jesse was right (and he usually was), this could be the biggest break Reyes had gotten in a decade.
More than that, it was a lead.
"Right," Jesse offered absently, already making his way to the exit. He couldn't stop smiling. "Hey, it's kind of tough to explain, but I think you just really helped me out."
After a moment, Reinhardt's confusion melted away. "Oh," he said sunnily, "if you're heading that way, mind bringing back some wild truffles? I'm afraid I'm running out and it would save me the trip."
"No problemo, mi compadre. I'll be back with those ingredients of yours in a jiff."
He was in such a hurry to get started that when he turned to toss a cheery wave over his shoulder, he didn't think to pay attention to where he was going, and he wound up colliding with a young woman at full speed out the gate, knocking them both down.
"I am so sorry, ma'am," he apologized, immediately reaching to help her up. She shrugged him off with a scornful huff, rising to her feet on her own, and he got his first proper look at her. Now, McCree had seen his fair share of beautiful ladies in his life, but the slender woman staring down her sharp, angular nose at him had an otherworldliness about her that caused his breath to catch, his heart to squeeze uncomfortably in his chest. For an instant, he could have sworn he couldn't move, that her icy gaze alone had frozen his limbs and the lungs in his chest, but then she blinked, and the sensation evaporated.
"You should be more aware of your surroundings." There wasn't so much as a grain of dirt on her. "Such obliviousness is not conducive to the continued well-being of your person."
Oddly intimidated, Jesse swallowed. "Uh, right. Thanks?"
Her carefully shaped brows furrowed, her expression hardening further. It seemed he hadn't responded the way she'd wanted, but Jesse was getting the impression she was a hard woman to please. Hoping to settle her ire, somewhat, he offered a handshake, "So, what brings you here, if you don't mind my asking?"
She stared at the offered palm, her mouth curved at the corners with displeasure, but eventually accepted the gesture. "I'm here on business. Vishkar sent me to appraise the overall worse of the abandoned Shimada castle."
Jesse guessed she meant the recently abandoned yakuza hub further up the hill. She shook her head, throwing silky tresses over the shoulder of her light blue ao dai. "Not that one." Craning her slender neck towards the trees crowding the grounds past the town, she explained, "The ruins of their ancestral home can be found in the forest."
All at once, a chill wind blew, snapping one of the children's kites so that their dragonfly sailed high on its gust, before suddenly being dashed onto the soil. Jesse tilted his head, listening to the cries of the kid bawling over the loss of their toy before asking, "Who were they?"
The young woman seemed confused. "Who?"
"The Shimada?"
A flash of something akin to pain distorted her features, and with her lips pursed, she told him, "I am sorry. I do not believe I've heard the name before. Excuse me."
Then she brushed past him, leaving him standing on a dirt road in a strange country with more questions than clues.
True to his word, Jesse did keep an eye out for truffles.
The forest had an eclectic collection of trees, ranging anywhere from oak to bamboo, but one thing they had in common was a sense of age, and simmering animosity. If the forest were a person, Jesse would have said that they didn't like him much. Then again, it didn't seem to get many visitors outside of the local baker, so maybe the feeling wasn't personal?
Stalks stretched to block the sunlight overhead. Jesse wandered in the dark.
He didn't know what he was looking for, only that if he were ever going to find it, he was in the right place. It didn't do his mood any favors to realize that Reyes was already way ahead of him there, though.
It wasn't long before he found the ruins the woman from Vishkar had mentioned. Tiles covered in mold and mildew lay scattered throughout the soil. Toppled walls and rotted wood pillars, barren trees that might have once been beautiful – that was all that remained of the Shimada's ancestral home, their castle.
Perhaps it was better that some things had been forgotten by time.
From what he remembered, the Shimada clan hadn't exactly been the nicest group.
He stepped into what appeared to a courtyard.
The ground was covered in dried leaves that sometimes rustled and lifted where he walked, as though moving by their own will to avoid being crushed beneath his boots. In the center, coated in a healthy layer of green moss, was a large stone dragon. Its head of faded scales and weathered pupils rose over the cowboy, its cracked fangs about level with Jesse's astonished, wide-eyed gaze, because lodged perfectly in its mouth was the biggest jewel Jesse had ever seen.
Immediately, Jesse cast about for something to pry it out with. A glint of metal caught his eye, and he brushed aside some leaves to reveal a rusted and cracked katana at the dragon's base. After considering it, Jesse quickly decided that the weapon wasn't in any condition to be used as leverage, and left it where it was.
"Well," wiping sweat from his brow, he stuck his hand into the dragon's stone maw, going for the back of its throat where the azure jewel glittered prettily, "this seems like the makings of a really bad idea, but my little sister did ask for something nice…"
Just when he thought he almost had it, the jaw slammed closed on his arm.
Not hard enough to hurt but enough to trap him. A frightened whimper trickled past his lips. Heart in his mouth, he rested his head against the dragon's snout.
"That was way too close."
"Pull the lever, genius," scolded an impatient sounding voice from behind. Dreading what he would see, Jesse cracked open one eye to peek over his shoulder.
"Well?" demanded the green-edged sword, now standing with its tip embedded in the dirt.
And every perched bird took flight, filling the sky as the forest trembled with the megaton force of an ear-splitting falsetto scream.