So this song is giving me moody McCree feels -- it’s not the lyrics so much as just the sound of it, dreary and empty, realizing what you loved is gone and not really knowing where you’re going next --
And the thought chasing itself around in my head is, he left Overwatch before it was disbanded. Well before, possibly. “[A]s Overwatch's influence waned, rogue elements within Blackwatch sought to bring down the organization and turn it to their own ends. Wanting no part of the infighting, McCree set off alone and went underground.”
Where does that fit in with what we know about the decline and fall of Overwatch? If this is the same corruption that ended up turning Reyes and Morrison on each other, how early did McCree see it? Did he know what was going on, uncover some proof, or did he just know shit was getting ugly and he needed to get out before he got dragged down with it? If he uncovered something, did he let on to Gabe before he left? Did he try to take it to him and get brushed off? Hell, did he find out Gabe was part of the problem and leave feeling betrayed? (Part of me wants Ana’s death to be a contributing factor, and it might have been indirectly -- losing her could have made everything between Jack and Gabe worse.)
If Reyes did personally recruit McCree the way fanon’s taken it, if he mentored him, how did that affect him? If he was trying to hold everything together with his crew turning against him, what happens when his right-hand man, the kid he took under his wing and pulled off the highway to hell, just peaces out one night? (You KNOW Jesse’s dramatic ass didn’t formally resign and get an honorable discharge; he packed his shit and vanished overnight. They’d have thought he was kidnapped if his gun and hat weren’t gone.)
So where does that leave Gabe, already feeling like his family is falling apart? Jack’s turning on him, Ana’s dead, and now the kid who owes him everything just disappears. Hell, what does Jack think? Is Gabe really so far up his own ass that even McCree doesn’t want anything to do with him anymore?
And this poor kid -- maybe not kid, but he’s around 30 at the oldest, and that ain’t nearly as old as some of Tumblr thinks -- ends up going back to ground. His whole life has been this organization for, we don’t know, 10-15 years? And he had next to nothing before that. Whatever leads a 17-year-old kid to already be a renowned member of a major black market arms dealer probably doesn’t leave much of a home to go back to. Deadlock wants his head. Every other criminal organization in the country is willing to give it to them. And he’s got a court martial or worse waiting if pretty much any kind of real authority gets hold of him. He’s got the skills to go off the grid, obviously, but damn, after being constantly surrounded by your closest friends for over a decade, suddenly having literally no one...
And people wonder why he cracks jokes and needles people all the time? Gotdamn, he’s desperate to feel some kind of human connection. Share a smile or laugh or flirt back and forth for a couple of minutes, because that’s all he’s got. That’s the kind of life that leads to a man being passed out alone in a bar on Christmas Eve.
