Excerpt from Chapter 2 of "Had I Known"
TW: Internalized Homophobia, References to Past Abuse
Genji lets the silence stew for about five minutes, enough for Hanzo to put a decent dent in the cake and for Genji to roll a bit of frosting around in his mouth to enjoy the flavor, before he speaks. “Hanzo?”
His brother hums, staring out at the horizon.
What’s left of Genji’s skin prickles, a little clammy, and the vents on his shoulders pop, releasing a bit of steam and giving away his anxiety. Hanzo’s eyes glint in the fading sunlight as they cut over to him, analyzing. Genji shifts in place. Best to be direct. “I found something in the security footage we took from Shimada Castle that I want to talk to you about." He pauses, takes a steadying breath. "Hanzo I… I know about Ichiro. About what happened to him, and to you.”
Hanzo inhales too fast and chokes, dropping his fork into the box and coughing frantically. Cringing, Genji leans closer, hovering a hand over Hanzo’s back as he sputters and wheezes – maybe the direct approach wasn’t such a good idea, after all. Once the initial shock wears off, Hanzo recovers relatively quickly, but he stays hunched into himself, bringing his hands together in his lap and closing his eyes. “Say what you must.”
Genji’s brain stalls for a moment, but as he looks at his brother’s unusual posture, he realizes he recognizes that slightly-bowed head, and the tone Hanzo had used. He consciously works to keep his fists loose, to keep his muscles from tensing, despite how sick he feels – despite how wrong Hanzo looks. Genji inhales, hearing his master’s voice in the back of his head, and manages to calm himself, slowly letting the breath back out. He puts a gentle hand on Hanzo’s knee. “Father was awful to you Hanzo. He should never have said those things… done those things. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Hanzo scoffs, pinching the bridge of his nose, and his mouth contorts into an ugly, self-deprecating sneer. “Of course you would think that,” he spits.
Genji stares, mind whirring as his image of his older brother continues to shift, re-framing itself with more perspective. Hanzo had so often worn that exact sneer around Genji, had directed it at Genji, on numerous occasions, but he’d never realized the truth of it – that it was their father’s disdain all along, the elder’s disdain, channeled through Hanzo because they’d carved out holes in his psyche for just that. Hanzo had probably directed it at himself equally as much – if not more – than he had at Genji, and for Genji, that ended the day they’d fought. Hanzo’s been doing it all his life… he’s still doing it.
He hears Zenyatta’s voice again. Focus on the subject at hand. Recovery happens one step at a time.
Genji nods to himself. “Do you think being gay is wrong?” He asks quietly, leaning into Hanzo’s space.
Hanzo tilts his head, sighing through his nose.
Genji gives it a moment, but it doesn’t seem like he’s going to answer, so he tries again. “I don’t recall you having a problem with Lena and Emily. Am I wrong?”
Hanzo hesitates. “That is… different.”
Hanzo works his jaw and shifts in place, still staring at the ground, face still twisted up in that awful expression. “I do not understand why we have to talk about this.”
Genji squeezes Hanzo’s knee. “Just indulge me, Anija, please?”
Hanzo throws his head back, curses somewhat-unintelligibly at the sky, and rounds on Genji. “There is no need for them to carry on a bloodline. They do not hold the weight of their family’s reputation. They are-” Hanzo groans. “You do not understand.”
Genji nods. “You’re right, I don’t,” he concedes. “But I do know what it’s like to not be able to be true to yourself. To be caged into someone else’s ideas of who they want you to be.”
Hanzo visibly cringes, shrinking back into himself a little.
Genji barrels forwards. “But Hanzo, you… you realize those reasons don’t matter anymore, right? Father is dead, the elders are dead, the clan is gone, and you are free to be yourself here, with us.” Genji reaches over, putting a hand on Hanzo’s wrist.
Hanzo yanks his hands away from Genji’s, curling them into fists and tucking them into his sides, arms crossed. “I am a kin-slayer,” he bites out, “nothing more and nothing less. I am here to serve out the life debt I owe you, not indulge in my… habits.”
Genji flinches, a little, at the sheer disgust in Hanzo’s voice.
“Just like your filthy habits.”
How many times was something like that said to Hanzo over the years? Did Ichiro’s murder shut Hanzo down completely or were there moments beyond that? How many times had Hanzo been warned prior to it?
Genji pulls his hands back into his own lap. His heart sinks a little, not only for Hanzo and everything he’s had to endure, but also with the realization that he might not actually want to be here, with Genji. His presence at the Watchpoint might just be another expression of his self-loathing and guilt. Genji wants so much more for him than that.
“So, what, you’re just going to live out the rest of your days waiting for me to end up in some life-threatening circumstance so you can take my place and die in my stead, spending all your time miserable and alone?”
Genji sighs, staring out at the sun reflecting off the ocean’s surface in vibrant golds and oranges. “You have to know by now that’s not what I want from you, Anija.”
Hanzo goes oddly silent, and Genji turns towards him just in time to catch him picking at a loose thread at the hem of his sleeve. “I do not know anything,” he whispers.
It’s the first time Genji’s heard his voice crack since they were fourteen; it’s a quiet, vulnerable admission, and it hits Genji like a sucker punch to the gut. He knows what it feels like for someone to pick apart your body, but he can’t imagine what it must feel like for someone to pick apart your mind, for your entire identity to be broken down into pieces, sorted into piles to be discarded or honed into distorted ideas of honor and duty. To not only shatter your trust in others, but to destroy your trust in yourself and your judgement, too. Of course Hanzo doesn’t know what to do with himself.
Genji gently leans his side against Hanzo’s, fitting his head into the crook of Hanzo’s shoulder. Hanzo stiffens, back straight as a board. Genji reaches down and coaxes Hanzo’s right hand back out into his lap, interlacing their fingers and squeezing. “Well here’s what I know, Hanzo. I know you were born into a family who had plans to dehumanize and weaponize you from the moment you came into this world. I know that the parts of you that are inherently kind, and compassionate, and feeling, were beaten down and stripped away, and that you were shamed for things that are completely natural… things that make you who you are.”
Genji runs his thumb back and forth over Hanzo’s knuckles as Hanzo’s shoulders begin to tremble a little. “I know that not a single person around you, including me, saw what they were doing to you – saw that they were hurting you – and chose to intervene. I know no one came to save you. I know you were alone, and vulnerable.” A tear drips onto their conjoined hands, and Genji wipes it away. “I know that you’ve been in love, Hanzo, and I know what father did. I know he destroyed it. Destroyed Ichiro. Destroyed you.”
Hanzo’s breath hitches, and his grip tightens around Genji’s hand.
Genji lets them both breathe for a moment, then continues, “I know there’s nothing wrong with being gay – nothing wrong with you being gay.”
A yellow warning light flickers on Genji’s HUD as Hanzo’s grip tightens further, and Genji dismisses it. Genji’s vents hiss again as his heartrate picks up.
Damn it all, just say the words.
“And I know,” he starts, stops, starts again, “I know, more than anything else, that I love you, and I want you in my life, but I don’t want you in it if you’re only doing it as compensation for hurting me. I only want you here if you want to be here. If… if you don’t want to be here, you have my blessing to leave, if… if that’s what you think would be best for you.”
Hanzo shudders. “I can’t- I can’t risk losing control again. I can’t.”
Genji sits up straight and shuffles around so he and Hanzo are facing each other, placing his hands on Hanzo’s shoulders and waiting until his brother meets his eyes. “Hanzo, true or false – the only person on this base you want to hurt is you.”
Hanzo’s expression crumples a little, and he hangs his head. Genji coaxes him forward so his forehead is resting on Genji’s artificial collarbone, and he holds the back of Hanzo’s neck with one hand, running the other up and down his spine. Hanzo isn’t crying, not really... just shaking, trying to keep himself together, but comforting him still feels like the right thing to do. Genji has said everything he intended to say (and more), and he’s not sure if Hanzo will end up vocalizing any of his internal turmoil in this moment, but he’s content to sit here and be present for as long as Hanzo needs.
A few minutes pass, and Genji almost startles when Hanzo’s voice filters out into the space between them, weak in a way Genji’s never heard it before, “I have only loved two people in my life, and I have been responsible for both of their deaths… and you are still telling me it is not wrong for me to love someone?”
Genji’s grip tightens, and he leans his face against Hanzo’s perfectly-slicked-back hair. “Hanzo, Ichiro died because Father was abusive and bigoted, and I died because… well, I died at your hand, that much is true, but your hand was being driven by forces out of either of our control. I’m not excusing what you did, but I don’t think you’d ever do something like that again.”
Hanzo shakes his head in one quick, sure motion.
“Right,” Genji breathes, “I think… I think you need to learn how to trust yourself. They trained you not to trust your intuition so they could brainwash you to do what they wanted you to do, but I believe you have a good heart in there, Hanzo. I’d like to see what happens if you start leaning into what comes naturally to you, instead of shutting that part of yourself down all the time.”
Genji gently pulls away, sitting back on his heels. Hanzo’s wrung out, eyes red-rimmed and tired, but Genji can tell he’s gotten through to him at least a little bit – his mind’s whirring, and he looks more pensive than defeated. It’s probably about time for Genji to let him retreat so he can process all of what they’ve just spoken about, but there’s one last thing he has to set right, first.
Genji gingerly reaches out and pushes the sleeve of Hanzo’s t-shirt up onto his shoulder, exposing the brand seared into his skin. Hanzo flinches and his gaze snaps to Genji’s metal-plated fingers and the scar tissue beneath them. Genji loses steam for a moment as he traces the outline of the Shimada crest with his eyes, the way the skin is still a little red around the edges, like it still burns after all these years.
Fuck, that must have hurt.
The words Genji wants to say get stuck in his windpipe, and he has to work his throat around them for a long moment before he manages to get them out. “Hanzo, I was the reason they did this to you. I had no idea, at the time, how awful Father was to you, or how much that tattoo meant to you. I’m so sorry.”
Hanzo just shakes his head, lips pressed thin and white. “It was foolish.”
Another chip breaks off of Genji’s battered heart. “No, Hanzo, it was beautiful. You loved him, of course you’d want to honor him in some way.” His thumb skirts the edge of the brand. “This brand is fucking horrible.”
Hanzo shrugs, his brow furrowed like he’s not sure what to make of that, and Genji feels sick. This whole thing just makes him feel sick.
“Can I hug you?” He blurts, and the look on Hanzo’s face would be funny, in different circumstances. Genji immediately chides himself, nerves alight in his chest.
His eyes dart around Hanzo’s face, searching. Hanzo wordlessly opens his arms and Genji lurches forwards, burying his face in Hanzo’s shoulder. Tears come, slow at first, until Genji’s shoulders are shaking with quiet sobs. Hanzo puts a hand on the back of Genji’s head like he used to when Genji was really little and he’d run to Hanzo whenever he hurt himself – whether he’d just skinned his elbow or fallen out of a tree – because he knew Hanzo would take care of him, knew Hanzo was safe, and Genji cries. He cries for Hanzo, who won’t cry for himself. He cries for all of the awful things the clan did to them. And he cries for himself, and all the pain they’ve caused each other, and all the years they’ve lost.
After he’s cried himself out and detangled himself from Hanzo’s arms, reassuring the other that he’s alright, really, he’s alright, Hanzo packs up the rest of the cake – at Genji’s behest – and rigidly makes his way across the roof, right in the direction of the sniper’s nest Genji had scouted out when he chose this spot. Genji chuckles a little to himself and turns to look out over the ocean at the darkening horizon, folding his legs underneath him and settling in for some meditation.
He's so grateful for this second chance at life, and for this second chance with his brother.
You can read the full fic here (Three Chapters, 9,119 Words): https://archiveofourown.org/works/70514111/chapters/183203921
