Question 1

1.  Orphan

Accepted Answer

McCree has a “Hansel and Gretel” backstory. His family was living in the Deadlock territory but wasn’t part of the Deadlock pack and they were struggling to find enough food for the three of them. Practically, they were all starving to death. So McCree’s parents abandoned him where they knew he would be found by some deadlock hunting pack, and they left. 
McCree doesn’t remember them and wouldn’t be able to recognize them if they eventually meet again. He was around the age of 5-6 years when he was left alone. 
 
He wasn’t able to hunt on his own so he started to trail down groups of Deadlock’s hunters, scavenging for leftovers. The Pack didn’t pay attention to him because he was seen just as a burden and not as an efficient hunter.

Question 2

2. Joining the Deadlock

Accepted Answer

When he was a kid, he was always trailing off the Deadlock pack and its hunters to see if he could get some scraps of meat to eat. He always wanted to join but the pack didn’t have any interest in a stray puppy that would have been just another mouth to feed. 
Now, Jesse is pretty smart. It didn’t take long for him to understand that if he wanna join he had to prove himself to be worthy of the place. He still wasn’t a great hunter but he did his best and caught a couple of Cottontail Rabbits, determined to bring them to the Deadlock leader.
Problem was that the whole Deadlock Pack saw him as an outsider, so, when he arrived in the main camp of the pack, he was attacked by others shifter who tried to steal his prey. He ran like hell and got more than one bite, then he had an idea. He wasn’t as big as the shifters that were chasing him. He just jumps in some small natural tunnels to distract them and pop up in different locations, exactly like the cottontail rabbits does. When he arrived in front of the boss cave he was caught by the guards and pinned to the ground. Of the two rabbits that he had, he was left with barely half of one. 
He would have been good as dead if the boss wasn’t attracted by all the noise and got out to see what the fuss was all about. He was pretty surprised to see how this single stubborn kid managed to infiltrate in their camp so he accept the offer of what’s left of the rabbit and let him join in. They took him away and gave him the branded deadlock mark on his arm. It was painful, but Jesse was so proud of himself in that moment!! 
Jesse never had the chance to thank that leader him for sparing his life at let him join in… the leader was killed that very night by another alpha who saw and used Jesse strategy to get to the boss unnoticed.

Question 3

3. Time in the Deadlock

Accepted Answer

When he first joined the Deadlock Pack Jesse was really happy and proud about it because, as a puppy, he only saw them from the outside and it seemed like a really successful group, especially when it comes to hunting. But living in it was completely different thing: they have way too much members and nobody is allowed to leave, most of them are alpha an there’s a constant fight to overthrow the leader and get at the top. They’ll respect and obey to their leader until he/she show some weakness, then they’ll merciless strike. The deadlock is also the only pack that value alpha more than beta and then, at the bottom, they put the omega. This to decide privileges in the pack like who eat first and stuff like that. 
Jesse was alone when he joined the pack, so he didn’t had anyone to watch his back. The situation got pretty difficult for him even if he was an alpha, because there were a lot more biggest and strongest alpha than him and it was easy to pick on him. He kind of ended up at the bottom of the social scale, like an alpha runt, borderline with betas.
He was surrounded by violence, abuses and injustice. 
He arrived at a point of stress where he wouldn’t let anyone touch him and, if someone got near, he’ll just go and bite their legs so he gained the surname of “rabid dog”.
When he was 17-18 years old he started to try to run away, but he always got caught and brought back in the Pack (that’s when they marked him as a traitor, adding a new symbol on the brand on his arm).

So, when he first joined he was really happy and wanted to make everyone proud of him. He took his mark as an honor when they branded his arm. But in the end he hated the mark on his own arm and the violent ways of the pack. He wanted to leave at all costs.

Question 4

4. Escape from the Deadlock Pack and meeting with Gabe

Accepted Answer

Gabe was in that time when he had left the Blackwatch Clan and was wandering alone. He was actually napping behind a bush, in lion form, when Jesse literally stumbled upon him at high speed. Gabe woke up thinking he was being attacked, Jesse in the meantime got on his feet (or, to be more precise, his paws ahah) and started to run again.
The hunting group that was chasing Jesse bumped into this very angry Gabe without even realizing he was there. He, on the other hand, thought that the group was attacking him so he attacked the group himself!
Jesse stopped when he heard the fierce roaring of Gabe and saw him fight back like a true warrior. The hunting group retreated quickly with a lot of injuries. At this point Jesse wasn’t sure of what just happened. He thought that Gabe took his defenses, but couldn’t understand why because nobody have ever done that for him.He goes back thanking Gabe for saving him, seeing him as a hero but still being pretty on defensive because he’s sure that Gabe want something back from him.Gabe understand that Jesse was running away from the hunting group and offer help to heal his wounds because he feel sorry for him, and that’s how Jesse decided to stay.

Question 5

5. Time with Gabe

Accepted Answer

For the first month Jesse was constantly thinking about running away at night because he was fearing that Gabe would want something from him, like it was used in the Deadlock Pack where the strongest always win and pretend. But Gabe didn’t, and the two started to stick together :)
 
Gabe might seems rough but after accepting Jesse to the group he immediately pick up hints that Jesse was running away from a pretty bad situation. He doesn’t like to be touched and react aggressively to any kind of contact, he snatch food and eat alone far away from Gabe, he always try to appear bigger and stronger than he is but if Gabe raise his voice with him in a serious tone he immediately get a submissive stance and chase to react. 
Gabe never demand to know what happened or force him to explain anything, but he understand everything. Without telling him that they’re working to do so, Gabe help Jesse to to overcome his fears  and build his confidence again. He also teach him how to hunt alone, how to behave with others shifters/clans and how to defend himself. He also bring out the Alpha behavior that were buried and repressed deep down under a thick level of fear.
Is all Gabe merit if Jesse end up being that chill, calm and charming shifter that he grow up to be.
 
McCree over eaten a lot for a while while he was living with Gabe. 
He had just left the Deadlock pack, where he had to fight for his food and he was lucky if he could snatch up something from others bigger alpha. He was definitely underweight for its age.
Gabe instead hunted and ate with him … but Jesse didn’t completely trust him at first. So he behaved like he was still in the Deadlock. He snatched some food, run a little far and ate alone while Gabe was like “Kid. KID. YOU CAN EAT RIGHT HERE. Are you serious?!”
And since that he was used to eat as much as he could he over eaten because there was so much food available… but just ended up feeling sick. Gabe had to trade a lot of medical herbs for him at that time.
 
Jesse took a lot of feline habits from Gabe, starting from the long naps during the middle of the day xD He also learnt to prowl during his hunts and developed the famous “feline patience”, wich is opposite to the canine impetuosity.
Jesse who’s still not used to have available food everyday, so he eat raw meat at fast speed like there’s no tomorrow. It doesn’t matter how many times Gabe has told him to slow it down. 
 
Jesse grows up with the deadlock mentality of Pack in which the stronger get the more of everything. Alpha leads over betas and at the end of the chain there are omegas… so when he joins Gabe he was always talking shit about betas and omegas. Gabe couldn’t stand him anymore so brings him to meet Symmetra. The two arrange a friendly match and Symmetra completely annihilate Jesse by relying on her omega qualities = good strategy and swiftness. Jesse was stunned! From that moment he changes his view of beta and omega and starts to respect them deeply.

Question 6

6. Separation from Gabe

Accepted Answer

While Jesse was hunting, Widow try to steal Jesse’s prey and attack him, Gabe defend Jesse and the two fight. Gabe lose but they recognize that they’re both good fighters and  they settle down to talk. She’s looking for followers tho because she needs to attack Los Muertos Clan so she asks Gabe to join her, and then she’ll help with his personal revenge. Gabe accept and ask to Jesse to go with him. 
Jesse feels completely betrayed. Not only Gabe agreed to join forces with the one that actually just tried to kill him but he also chose her instead of him. The two argue and splits.
 
Jesse still cares deeply about Gabe, that’s why in the "present" he really can’t take a side against him.

Question 7

7. Loner thief, "Sparrow" and the Waterhole Flock"

Accepted Answer

Jesse arrived at the flock because he needed shelter, some food and some medicines. He always have his flirty way to approach people, even if he wasn’t really flirting, so you can imagine that he was kind of thrown off when Genji flirted back without hesitation. 
Genji on the other hand just took the opportunity to forget his worries for a little time.They had a story of one night, McCree left the day after and nobody expected something out of it. When they met again in the Flock Genji was already returned with Zenyatta, and he was way more calm and balanced than the last time they met. They still stay in good terms and quickly become good friends. When Jesse sometimes come back to rest in the waterhole flock, he and Genji always joke on how many hearts Jesse managed to break since the last time the saw each other, and how many clans he tricked to steal their goods and run away. They’re super chill.
 
- When they meet, Genji was already known as “Sparrow” so McCree doesn’t know his real name (and that he’s related to Hanzo)
- When Hanzo share his past with McCree he talk about his brother GENJI, an ORANGE tiger shifter. Now, consider that Jesse know Genji only as “Sparrow”, which is how everybody call him in the Flock, and he also saw him only when his fur was already gray. He never associate Sparrow and Genji in any way.

To the present day, Jesse still hop from one Clan to another, taking what he need and then running away with stolen stuff.

Archive: Overwatch Shapeshifter AU

BACKSTORIES

1. Orphan