McCree exists in the cities and neon of the world. Because sometimes, they expect him to.
McCree exists in the dark alleyways and undercover and in banks and hypertrains and robbing folks blind, because that’s what they’ve made him into. That’s what he’s always been, no less than a piece of him that he cannot shake, no matter how hard he struggles. Like trying to outrun your own shadow, even.
These… cities, these boundaries where he does not know the steps, he does not know the track scare him in truth, in practice -- a city by day, bright and sunny save for the buildings that rake the sky and pierce the heavens like the man made wonders they are, but they loom, they obscure, they cast those same shadows in bright daylight. Rare are the days where streets can bake and bask in the sunshine and provide. If he could, when the business suited him, he would do nothing but hide in those rooftops and soak it up.
Cities, however, are nocturnal. He has had to learn to become such a beast as well, despite his preferences. Cities are not quiet things, but they are filled to bursting with eyes and ears -- it makes the hunt difficult, unnerving. Every strip of neon and every bright light becomes an eye, and those same hiding places and cracks in the wall become a suffocating trap of concrete and wire, rebar and asphalt. The din of cars, the hum of an ever present static charge in the air, every shout and screech and squeal, it all adds up. The cumulative noise make his operating less than smooth, less than covert, and leaving the places he must hunt becomes a thing of dread and danger.
He suffocates. He hides in those microcosms of history that keep the character of the city intact, supported by all the plastic and silicone scaffolding that make them… mere facades. He cannot subsist here.
He will flee. He always does.
McCree does not last long in cities. The light does not agree with him.
Jesse comes out when the last lights of the interstate give way to interspersed streetlights, somewhere on the corner of a small downtown crossing where the buildings are lath and plaster and brick.
Jesse exists outside of the range of the lights that pollute the skyline with hazy, foggy rays of artificial sunshine. Those first few steps into blissful silence, the dark cover of a cloudless, moonless night, the dealer showing his hand -- an existence without anxiety or fear.
Trees are more of a comfort than people. Wildlife is very good at keeping secrets. Even empty, open prairie, a scorching desert, they are more forgiving than even the quietest city street.
In, and then out. Slow. Measured.
Clandestine, and private.
He makes his home in the carcasses of the old world here, where he can breathe.
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