Teddy bear
Feb. 3rd, 2013 02:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moonshadowsAfter a morning spent scaring the crap out of squirrels and birds in the park, Reaper walks very obediently at my side as I hit the ice cream stand and head back into the park. When we find a bench, I tie his leash to one end and sit to soak up the sun while beside the bench, Reaper starts going to town on the double scoop of Rocky Road - plus sugar cone - I've just put down for him in a cardboard hot dog tray.
"Hey!"
I look up, and the speaker is someone I vaguely remember seeing in the lunch plaza we just left. He must have followed us. White male, mid-to-late 20s, short light hair under a red baseball cap worn backwards, white running shoes and a navy track suit with red and white piping. Please tell me he's not going to try to hit on me. He jogs down the path and reaches for Reaper's collar, but wisely pulls his hand back when Papi raises his head and growls.
"Lady, control your dog!" he demands, giving me an angry look.
I'm unimpressed. "Don't run up and reach for him."
He makes another grab, and Reaper snaps at him before growling again. "Look, lady, you can't just let your dog eat people food! Chocolate is very bad for them, you're going to make him sick!"
I shrug. "You wanna take it away from him, you more than welcome to try."
"You're going to kill him!"
"Nope. He genetically altered."
Reaper goes back to eating his ice cream while the well-meaning but annoying tourist watches helplessly. The sugar cone crunches between his teeth, and then he licks up any crumbs and the last, melted smears in the tray before picking the cardboard up in his teeth and depositing it in the trash can a few feet away.
The guy scratches his head. "Okay, well, I've never seen a dog do that before. You've, ah, got him well-trained, then?"
"He still got some behavioral issues," I say, gesturing Reaper back and scratching behind his ears. "But he does know a few tricks. Sit, stay, roll over, make dead."
"You mean play dead," the guy says.
"Nope. Here, I show you." Carefully, I reach down and remove his collar. Today it's the one that says REAPER, black with silver spikes. One hand on his shoulder, I 'walk' him a few feet down the path. "Reaper? Sit."
Reaper sits obediently down, smirking with the tilt of his head.
"Stay," I tell him, and walk back to the end of the bench where his leash is tied. Reaper watches me go, but otherwise does not move. "Roll over!"
He executes a textbook flawless roll and goes back to sitting alertly.
I pick up a stick and toss it into the air, away from the path. "Make dead!"
What had been a doberman dissolves into black smoke and re-forms into Reaper, guns out and firing. The stick explodes into a shower of splinters while Papi yells, "Die! Die! Die!"
There's about ten seconds where the guy just stands there, splinters falling around him. Then he lets out a scream that would rival McCree's hung-over exclamations and runs down the path with enough speed that I have to assume his outfit wasn't for show.
"Who's a good murderdog?" I coo as he melts back into the doberman.
"Me," Reaper growls, tail wagging. "It's me."
McCree ambles up with a cone of his own as I'm putting the collar back on. "You kill someone?" he asks us both. "Heard a scream."
"Hey, I'm a good dog," Papi protests smugly, still wagging.
"Yes you are," McCree agrees, crouching to pet him.
He's so intent on the fact that Reaper's allowing the attention that he doesn't notice his cone is in danger until Papi backs away, shaking his head and pawing at his tongue.
"Ugh! Butter pecan? You still have shit taste in ice cream, McCree."
Jesse stands up and looks forlornly at his dog-licked ice cream cone. "Thanks, Gabe," he says in a defeated tone
Reaper actually looks remorseful and sits by my foot, but doesn't say anything. He knows he's done a Bad Thing, but doesn't know how to apologize, or can't bring himself to admit fault.
"I guess you can have it," the cowboy sighs, sitting on the bench and holding the cone out.
Reaper says, "I don't-" before I interrupt him.
"Eat it, Papi."
He gives me a pleading look as if to ask if he really has to. My expression says in no uncertain terms that yes, he does. Whining reluctantly, he inches close enough to stretch out his neck and eat the ice cream from the proffered cone. When McCree shoots me a curious look, I just smirk and nod at the dog who is clearly not enjoying his treat. Slowly, the cowboy smiles.
"Hey Sombra, you got any plans tonight?"
"Nothing I can't put on hold. We on, then?"
"Yeah," he says, watching Reaper pull the sugar cone out of its paper sleeve and crunch it up. "Yeah, we are."
=
"Be good," I tell Reaper firmly. He looks mournfully up at me, head on his paws, from his doggy bed. "No killing, no maiming, no picking fights. Call on the Talon channel if you need me. Got it?"
"Si," he growls.
I kneel to ruffle his fur and hug his neck. "Okay. Love you, Papi."
He licks my cheek and his tail wags once or twice, but he still watches me sadly as I leave. I'm not sure if he's still gnawing on his mis-step earlier, or if he wants to be going with me. Either one is a good sign.
McCree's waiting past the gate for me, thumbs in his belt, lit cigar clenched between his teeth. He nods as I slip out and we start walking.
"Thanks fer takin' my side earlier," he says quietly. "I thought if I got a flavor he hates, my ice cream would be safe. Guess I was wrong."
"He was being a dumbass. He needs to learn to not do that, or at least to sniff before he licks. I know he don't apologize, so I punished him instead."
That makes him chuckle. "Yeah, Gabe was never great at apologies. So what did happen earlier? I ain't heard a scream like that since I woke up droolin' on that red dress o' yours."
"Tourist tried to separate Papi from a double scoop of Rocky Road." I wave it away while Jesse laughs. "So what kind of night is it, cowboy? Looking to fire your Colt, or am I walking your drunk ass home?"
He takes a deep breath. "Actually...I thought I might return the favor and help you get some action."
Oh. I stop dead, closing subdirectories before they even open, and he turns to look at me. This is going to be....
"Sombra?" he asks, concerned by the unexpected reaction.
"Amigo...you don't have to worry about me."
McCree frowns at my hollow tone and pinches his cigar out. Behind him, the door to the bar opens and laughter spills out. "That ain't enough of an answer, missy. But let's get inside; I get the feeling this is gonna need tequila."
At the bar, he tries to order a bottle of cheap tequila, but I point to the good stuff and fan out the cash for it. Once we're in a corner, I pour him a shot and then pour the second shot, but I don't touch it.
He tosses his shot back and says grimly, "Alright. Start talking."
"You ever notice I don't eat breakfast?"
"Ain't my business if you wanna skip meals," he shrugs. "There's days I barely eat at all."
"Jesse..." I push the other shot glass over to him. He drinks it, eyebrows drawn together, but I still don't know how to break this to him. "I don't eat."
"I don't understand." It's not a denial; he really has no idea what I'm talking about.
"I don't eat. I don't drink. Technically, I don't need to breathe."
His eyebrows arch slightly. "You're a nanite zombie, then, like your Papi?"
I spread my hands on the table. They look so real. "Ten years ago, I gave up the body I was born with. What you're seeing...it's a lie. I only look organic. This is an omnic body."
There's a long pause. I'm afraid to lift my eyes. In my peripheral vision, I can see McCree reach out and take a long swig straight from the bottle.
"Does Gabe know?" he asks quietly.
I nod.
"Because he found out, or did you tell him?"
"Both," I say softly.
He takes another long drink. "Are you stuck like that forever, then?"
"I saved my DNA sequence. I could use some of Reaper's nanites to build an organic body, and my...the ones who helped me transition from organic to omnic could help transfer me back."
"But you're not going to," he says darkly, and when I look up at him, he's scowling.
"It's not my choice to make. I was given this body with the agreement that I would do certain things. Until they're done..."
"And when they are?" he asks. It's a quiet, angry question. I wasn't expecting anger.
I look down at my hands again. "I don't know."
But I do know - I know I want to, I want it more than I've ever wanted anything except to rewind time, to have my mother throw herself to the floor next to me and hold me tight as the fighting rages outside. I also know that hope is a lie, and wanting something so badly is just inviting the world to hurt you by taking it away.
A slosh, a thump. McCree taking another drink straight from the bottle.
"I'm sure you had your reasons," he says in a hard voice. "I won't ask. That's your business, unless you want to share. I just...how can you stand it?" he finishes in something between plaintive and bewildered.
That makes me look up. "It's not like Papi," I reassure him. "I can still feel and smell. I still get tired and need to sleep. It's as close to organic as possible." Because blending in is my weapon.
He grunts. "I s'ppose that's alright. Listen, I'm just gonna sit here and feel like shit that my lil' sis can't enjoy the finer things in life. You don't need to keep me company. I ain't gonna be worth a damn for conversation, so there's no reason for both of us to wallow in my misery."
Oh my god. That's why he drinks - he has no healthier methods of processing emotional turmoil. No wonder trauma didn't have an impact.
"Only way I'm leaving you to wallow in your misery by yourself is if you're in your room," I tell him firmly. "Especially if I'm causing your misery."
McCree looks at me for a long moment, searching my face like he's not sure if I'm actually serious or not. The tequila's already hitting him hard. "No," he says finally. "I don't drink alone. Too much temptation to just keep drinkin' if there's no one around t'stop me."
In other words, he's been using barkeepers and waitstaff as his safety net. Nope. I move from the chair across from him to the one beside him. "Then you're stuck with me, cowboy. Let me know when you're ready to stumble home and if you're gonna need the bathroom for anything before I put you to bed."
Again he gives me a long look. "Yer a good friend. I don't know that I deserve that."
"Too bad, Jesse. You my brother. Deal with it," I say in my best snotty sister tone.
He looks vaguely affronted. "Maybe I will," he counters. "Maybe I will."
=
It's close to midnight by the time we get back to the safehouse. Jesse is a scarily practiced drunk. He managed to get himself to the bar's bathroom without much difficulty and came back several minutes later to let me know he was ready to go, and that he'd already 'made a deposit' so I didn't need to worry about him finding a trash can or bush on the way back. He didn't even need a steadying arm, although he let me open the gate and apologized for not being a gentleman and getting it for me, but he could barely see straight enough to find the gate control.
"Want me to get you a glass of water?" I ask as I watch him navigate the stairs, ready to steady him if he needs it.
"Nah. 'S gonna be a bitch in the morning but 's what I deserve. Thankee kindly, though."
Okay, I am not letting this happen again if I can help it. "Why you do this to yourself, Jesse?" I ask, hoping he both answers and doesn't remember that he did come the morning.
He thinks about it for a few steps, then leans against the wall to look blearily at me. "Hurts less inside 'f it hurts outside."
"Why does it hurt inside?"
McCree turns and resumes his painfully careful journey up the stairs. "Thought I'd finally found a family that wouldn't leave me," he says tiredly. "But then that went to shit and I left." Another step. "Thought he cared enough to come after me. Guess I was wrong."
"Who?" I ask, afraid I know the answer.
"My dad. I mean Gabe. I mean Commander Reyes. Don't tell him I called that?" he leans against the wall again to look at me. "I...he doesn't know I call him that. Probably just me being stupid. Don't blame him fer not wantin' a stupid kid like me," he sighs before climbing the last two stairs.
Yeah. I'm not letting this slide, but now's not the time. "You need anything before we get you into bed, amigo?"
McCree hesitates, looking around the empty living room. "I guess not," he sighs.
I follow him to the door of his room and watch as he strips off hat, boots, and belt before nearly faceplanting into bed. "I'll make sure no one messes with you," I say, unsure if he's still awake to hear.
A mumble that could have been 'I appreciate it' from a sober man is the response I get, so I guess he is. I close and lock the door behind me, only to find Reaper waiting in the living room. My warning look makes him wisp from the chest and legs, but he follows when I beckon him to my room.
"Don't mess with him," I say as soon as my door is closed behind us.
The wisps double. "I wasn't going to. Sombra..." he trails uncertainly off.
"What's wrong, Papi?"
Reaper looks over at my bed. I pull the covers aside and sit, patting the mattress beside me. He melts into the doberman and climbs up, sprawling half across my lap and burying his nose in my hair. For several minutes I just hug and pet him.
"You wanna talk?" I ask gently.
He whines. "Did I fuck up? Does he hate me?"
"He don't hate you. I promise. But you made him sad, Papi."
"I know," he says in a very quiet voice. Then he whines again.
"Talk to me, Papi. I can't help if I don't know what's going on."
"Are you angry?"
"You thought- Papi, no! No," I repeat, hugging him tighter. "Not angry. You did a bad thing, but you took your punishment without arguing and you not gonna do that again, are you?"
"No."
"Then you learned your lesson. But if you want Jesse to know you regret it, you gotta do something nice to make it up to him."
"I got him a bear," Reaper says grudgingly.
That makes me stop dead. "How- Papi, do you even have any money?"
"I told the clerk you'd pay for it."
It takes a beat to sink in, and then I'm giggling. "Oh my god, Papi. Okay, where did you go?"
He tells me the name of the store, and it's easy enough to slip in and digitally pay for the purchase, particularly since the clerk rang it up with a hold.
"Almost afraid to ask if you paid for mine," I tease.
"Of course I did," he answers with an offended doggy snort. "I ate a mugger on my way there."
My laugh makes him wag his tail slightly, and he repositions himself to be curled up next to me, his head on my leg.
"So how badly did you scare-" I check the clerk's name. "-Xiang?"
"Xiang remembered me," he says dryly. "I said I needed the girliest bear they had and that payment would come later. Then I posed for a selfie and left with the bear."
Open more screens, engage image-recognition, filter to approximate timestamp, but nothing comes up on social media. A bit more looking turns up a picture stored privately, an Asian youth of indeterminate gender looking ecstatic and making a thumbs-up while Reaper holds a very pretty white bear in a satiny red dress.
"Why a selfie?"
Reaper snorts in amusement. "Something about the manager destroying security footage and wanting to have proof this time."
"I can see that. Okay, so you got McCree a bear. I promised him no one would fuck with him tonight or tomorrow morning."
"Lure him out with those buckwheat pancakes he likes," he suggests. "I'll leave it in his room while he's eating."
I scratch behind his ears. "Sounds like a good plan to me. Were you waiting for us because you wanted to talk to me?"
Reaper flinches slightly. "And to make sure that trash cowboy actually managed to drag himself back," he says with insincere derision. "I can't tell you how many times I yelled his drunk ass to bed when he finally crawled out of whatever liquor bottle he'd fallen into."
"That's why," I murmur, remembering the way McCree'd glanced around the living room in disappointment.
"Why what?"
Slowly, I say, "I think he misses it, Papi."
"Misses-" Reaper breaks off, half-sitting so he can look at me. "Misses it?"
"You cared enough to be waiting. You cared enough to yell." Reaper's head sinks down to my leg again, and I pet him slowly. "I think...with you not being there, waiting...he thinks you don't care."
"Damn it, McCree! I'd go in there right now and rip him up one side and down the other," he growls, "but you promised him no one would mess with him. I need to kill something."
Ana's in the kitchen enjoying morning tea, and she looks sharply at me when she realizes I don't have a canine shadow. "Sombra? Where is Gabriel?"
"Still sleeping," I tell her as finish messing with the coffee maker and start getting pancake ingredients out. "He was up late being angry."
That makes her eyebrow climb almost under her scarf, but all she says is, "Oh dear. And how was your outing with Jesse?"
Measuring cup in one hand, butter knife in the other, I let my head slump melodramatically back and sigh. "Informative."
"Oh dear," she says again, but with amusement rather than resignation.
"He found out I'm not organic," I say as I finish measuring things out. "And he did not take it well."
"It is a bit of a shock. I can't blame him." There's a pause as I mix the contents of the bowl together. "Nor do I blame you for keeping it quiet, although Jack has some concerns regarding the circumstances of your...transition," she says in that uniquely parental way that sounds like it's just a statement, but means 'you owe me an explanation, young lady'.
"I heard my name," Uncle Jack says from the doorway. Then he frowns. "Where's...?"
"Sleeping," Ana answers. "Sombra?"
I pour Jack a mug of coffee and set it on the table. "I wasn't murdered," I say before turning back to get the pancakes stared. "I chose to give up being organic. The gunshot wounds, I put them there. Made a political statement. A woman without legal identification who turned up dead, even a young and pretty one who was clearly murdered, would get no attention. No one cares about you unless you're legal. But leave that corpse on the steps of the Police Headquarters on the fifteenth anniversary of the New Year's Massacre, and you make the front page as a statement of silent accusation, blaming them for being complicit in that whole mess."
"That's..." Jack hesitates, searching for the right word. "...horrible. What happens to the people without legal identification?"
"That depends on who they know." I flip the first buckwheat pancakes. "Los Muertos, we looked out for each other. Stole and shared food with each other. The ones who are legal give the ones who aren't a place to sleep. Others...they not so lucky."
"No wonder you showed up," he mutters. "Thank you. I know it's not my business, but you're the one who adopted me so..." He flushes slightly as I turn around to see why he let it trail off. "You can't just call me Uncle Jack and expect me to not worry about my niece," he says sternly.
That makes me laugh. "Fair enough, Uncle Jack. Family goes both ways." The safehouse systems inform me that McCree's door is unlocked, and I pour a glass of water. "And speaking of family..."
Ana and Jack turn to look as I watch the kitchen doorway and when the hung-over cowboy turns the corner, he stumbles to an alarmed stop. "...the hell, why're you all lookin' at me like that?"
"Morning, Jesse," I say brightly. "You ready for food?"
He sidles around the table, taking the glass as he does, to sit beside Ana rather than leaving his back to the door. "Yeah. Thanks," he adds as I put the plate of pancakes and a mug of coffee down in front of him. "And...thanks fer makin' sure I didn't fall down the stairs last night."
"You remember that?" I ask lightly as I put the syrup and butter in front of him and take the last seat.
"Just that you were there." He keeps his eyes on his breakfast as it fixes it to his liking. "I probably said a bunch of crap last night, but you're not givin' me shit about it this mornin', and I appreciate that."
"Don't worry about it, amigo." I keep my voice cheerful, like nothing out of the ordinary happened. "Just invite me along again next time."
McCree gives me one of those searching looks. "You got it," he says, but I know he's not going to. He won't want to inflict his misery on me.
That's fine. I'll find him anyway. "Gonna go check on Papi," I announce, collecting two nods and a smile as I leave the kitchen.
Reaper's still asleep on my bed. I kneel and pet him, and he shifts, but he doesn't wake up.
"Papi," I say quietly. "McCree is eating, time to sneak in the bear."
One eye opens reluctantly. "Ugh. Fine."
Without even sitting up, he dissolves into smoke and flows out of the room. A minute later, he flows back in and re-forms into the doberman., already curled up.
"There. It's done. I'm going back to sleep now."
I kiss him on his doggy forehead. "Sleep well, Papi. We'll go out somewhere for lunch when you wake up."
He grumbles wordlessly, but his tail wags a few times.
=
I'm curled up in a chair in the living room when McCree finishes his breakfast, because like hell am I missing this. He gives me a suspicious look as he passes through, but I pretend to be engrossed in my screens. A minute later, he storms out and gestures me angrily out of the room. I follow him as he leads me in silence down the hall and into an unused storage room.
"I thought you weren't going to fuck with me this morning," he spits, furious.
"I didn't!"
"You expect me to believe someone else snuck into my room after you left the kitchen and put a stuffed bear in a red dress on my bedside table?"
"...okay I can see how that looks bad," I say, pulling up a screen, "but it wasn't me." Xiang's selfie comes up. "It was Papi."
McCree staggers back a few steps, hits the wall, and slides down to a sitting position with his face in his hands. "It was him. Oh my god."
I sit next to him. "You alright, amigo?"
"No. I'm an asshole. When you went to check on him, you woke him up so he could put it there?"
"You got it."
"He got me a bear. He fucking got me a bear because I was jealous that he got you one. God damn it!" he yells, flinging his head back to hit the wall.
"Would have left it for you last night, but I told him to not fuck with you."
That distracts him from his apparently furious self-recrimination. "He was waiting for us to get back?" he asks, with just the slightest hesitation on 'us'.
I nod. "Soon as I locked your door, he came out of the can. He wanted to show you he was sorry about your ice cream."
McCree covers his face with his hands, massaging his temples for a long minute before letting both hands fall to his knees. "You gonna hold anything over me from last night?" he asks quietly.
"You think I would?"
"I can't remember what I may or may not have said, and I thought you left the bear, so apparently I'm not a real good judge of your character right now," he says dryly.
"Okay, then listen." I hold his gaze, deliberately not blinking. "I will not promise that I will never act on anything you say or do when drunk. What I will promise, is that anything I do will be with the intent of being to your benefit."
"Why?" When I blink at him in confusion, he says, "Why would you go through that effort for me? And don't say because your Papi cares."
I look away and hug my knees for a minute, staring at the blank wall across from us. "I was ten when Gabriel Reyes took you under his wing," I start in a quiet voice. "Three, almost four years I'd spent wishing he'd do that for me. A lot of us did. I hated you a little, I was so jealous. When you walked away from Blackwatch, I hated you a little more."
"You don't know the things they were doing," he snarls. "No one would listen!" Then, in something close to a sob, "Gabe wouldn't listen."
"Talon was sending forged orders," I tell him gently. "I know he didn't believe you. He didn't believe me until I proved he didn't send one of the orders using timestamped door logs to show he was doing laundry at the time, and your picture is what tipped us off."
"Ana said..." he mumbles vaguely. "So...he knows? That I didn't...I wasn't..."
"He knows he was sabotaged. Jesse...wait a few days?" I turn to gauge his reaction and find him looking warily hopeful. "Right now, if you tell him you left because he wouldn't listen, it gonna break him because he gonna blame himself, and he already blaming himself hard for yesterday. I not gonna lie, he did fuck up. But you gotta give him time to recover or he just gonna decide he not worth anyone caring about him."
"Dad, no..."
It's such a quiet protest that I pretend I don't hear it. "So the reason I'm doing this...I was wrong about you. You need help, I can help you, so that's what I'm going to do."
The silence stretches for a minute, settling around us soft and comfortable like an intangible blanket.
"Alright," McCree says suddenly in his usual drawl, "my butt's going numb from sittin' on this floor. Let's get out of here."
=
McCree and I are in different chairs, playing Diablo 3 and bantering good-naturedly about whether or not my success with a witch doctor is a result of skill or cheating, when Reaper steps out of my room in his usual configuration.
"Time out," I announce, portaling back to town. McCree follows my lead. Once he's loaded, I say firmly, "Go give Papi a hug and say thank you for your bear."
Reaper shoots me what would be a startled and possibly alarmed look, but he's also wisping from the chest as the cowboy puts his gaming pad down and saunters up to wrap him in a bear hug.
"Thanks for the teddy bear," he says, then in as annoying tone as he can manage, "Daaaaad."
"Sombraaaaa!"
Jesse laughs as he lets go and picks his pad up again. "Hey, Sombra, you mind if we take a break? I'm gettin' a bit hungry."
"Not at all, amigo." I close my game down. "I promised Papi I'd take him out for lunch; you can come with us. Papi, which collar you want today?"
He thinks about it, wisps flowing from chest and biceps and a few from his legs before he melts into the doberman and says, "Red."
Two minutes later I'm leading Reaper on his leash while McCree walks on his other side. The relaxed body language both of them are displaying may only be temporary, but it's heartening.
"Hey!"
I look up, and the speaker is someone I vaguely remember seeing in the lunch plaza we just left. He must have followed us. White male, mid-to-late 20s, short light hair under a red baseball cap worn backwards, white running shoes and a navy track suit with red and white piping. Please tell me he's not going to try to hit on me. He jogs down the path and reaches for Reaper's collar, but wisely pulls his hand back when Papi raises his head and growls.
"Lady, control your dog!" he demands, giving me an angry look.
I'm unimpressed. "Don't run up and reach for him."
He makes another grab, and Reaper snaps at him before growling again. "Look, lady, you can't just let your dog eat people food! Chocolate is very bad for them, you're going to make him sick!"
I shrug. "You wanna take it away from him, you more than welcome to try."
"You're going to kill him!"
"Nope. He genetically altered."
Reaper goes back to eating his ice cream while the well-meaning but annoying tourist watches helplessly. The sugar cone crunches between his teeth, and then he licks up any crumbs and the last, melted smears in the tray before picking the cardboard up in his teeth and depositing it in the trash can a few feet away.
The guy scratches his head. "Okay, well, I've never seen a dog do that before. You've, ah, got him well-trained, then?"
"He still got some behavioral issues," I say, gesturing Reaper back and scratching behind his ears. "But he does know a few tricks. Sit, stay, roll over, make dead."
"You mean play dead," the guy says.
"Nope. Here, I show you." Carefully, I reach down and remove his collar. Today it's the one that says REAPER, black with silver spikes. One hand on his shoulder, I 'walk' him a few feet down the path. "Reaper? Sit."
Reaper sits obediently down, smirking with the tilt of his head.
"Stay," I tell him, and walk back to the end of the bench where his leash is tied. Reaper watches me go, but otherwise does not move. "Roll over!"
He executes a textbook flawless roll and goes back to sitting alertly.
I pick up a stick and toss it into the air, away from the path. "Make dead!"
What had been a doberman dissolves into black smoke and re-forms into Reaper, guns out and firing. The stick explodes into a shower of splinters while Papi yells, "Die! Die! Die!"
There's about ten seconds where the guy just stands there, splinters falling around him. Then he lets out a scream that would rival McCree's hung-over exclamations and runs down the path with enough speed that I have to assume his outfit wasn't for show.
"Who's a good murderdog?" I coo as he melts back into the doberman.
"Me," Reaper growls, tail wagging. "It's me."
McCree ambles up with a cone of his own as I'm putting the collar back on. "You kill someone?" he asks us both. "Heard a scream."
"Hey, I'm a good dog," Papi protests smugly, still wagging.
"Yes you are," McCree agrees, crouching to pet him.
He's so intent on the fact that Reaper's allowing the attention that he doesn't notice his cone is in danger until Papi backs away, shaking his head and pawing at his tongue.
"Ugh! Butter pecan? You still have shit taste in ice cream, McCree."
Jesse stands up and looks forlornly at his dog-licked ice cream cone. "Thanks, Gabe," he says in a defeated tone
Reaper actually looks remorseful and sits by my foot, but doesn't say anything. He knows he's done a Bad Thing, but doesn't know how to apologize, or can't bring himself to admit fault.
"I guess you can have it," the cowboy sighs, sitting on the bench and holding the cone out.
Reaper says, "I don't-" before I interrupt him.
"Eat it, Papi."
He gives me a pleading look as if to ask if he really has to. My expression says in no uncertain terms that yes, he does. Whining reluctantly, he inches close enough to stretch out his neck and eat the ice cream from the proffered cone. When McCree shoots me a curious look, I just smirk and nod at the dog who is clearly not enjoying his treat. Slowly, the cowboy smiles.
"Hey Sombra, you got any plans tonight?"
"Nothing I can't put on hold. We on, then?"
"Yeah," he says, watching Reaper pull the sugar cone out of its paper sleeve and crunch it up. "Yeah, we are."
=
"Be good," I tell Reaper firmly. He looks mournfully up at me, head on his paws, from his doggy bed. "No killing, no maiming, no picking fights. Call on the Talon channel if you need me. Got it?"
"Si," he growls.
I kneel to ruffle his fur and hug his neck. "Okay. Love you, Papi."
He licks my cheek and his tail wags once or twice, but he still watches me sadly as I leave. I'm not sure if he's still gnawing on his mis-step earlier, or if he wants to be going with me. Either one is a good sign.
McCree's waiting past the gate for me, thumbs in his belt, lit cigar clenched between his teeth. He nods as I slip out and we start walking.
"Thanks fer takin' my side earlier," he says quietly. "I thought if I got a flavor he hates, my ice cream would be safe. Guess I was wrong."
"He was being a dumbass. He needs to learn to not do that, or at least to sniff before he licks. I know he don't apologize, so I punished him instead."
That makes him chuckle. "Yeah, Gabe was never great at apologies. So what did happen earlier? I ain't heard a scream like that since I woke up droolin' on that red dress o' yours."
"Tourist tried to separate Papi from a double scoop of Rocky Road." I wave it away while Jesse laughs. "So what kind of night is it, cowboy? Looking to fire your Colt, or am I walking your drunk ass home?"
He takes a deep breath. "Actually...I thought I might return the favor and help you get some action."
Oh. I stop dead, closing subdirectories before they even open, and he turns to look at me. This is going to be....
"Sombra?" he asks, concerned by the unexpected reaction.
"Amigo...you don't have to worry about me."
McCree frowns at my hollow tone and pinches his cigar out. Behind him, the door to the bar opens and laughter spills out. "That ain't enough of an answer, missy. But let's get inside; I get the feeling this is gonna need tequila."
At the bar, he tries to order a bottle of cheap tequila, but I point to the good stuff and fan out the cash for it. Once we're in a corner, I pour him a shot and then pour the second shot, but I don't touch it.
He tosses his shot back and says grimly, "Alright. Start talking."
"You ever notice I don't eat breakfast?"
"Ain't my business if you wanna skip meals," he shrugs. "There's days I barely eat at all."
"Jesse..." I push the other shot glass over to him. He drinks it, eyebrows drawn together, but I still don't know how to break this to him. "I don't eat."
"I don't understand." It's not a denial; he really has no idea what I'm talking about.
"I don't eat. I don't drink. Technically, I don't need to breathe."
His eyebrows arch slightly. "You're a nanite zombie, then, like your Papi?"
I spread my hands on the table. They look so real. "Ten years ago, I gave up the body I was born with. What you're seeing...it's a lie. I only look organic. This is an omnic body."
There's a long pause. I'm afraid to lift my eyes. In my peripheral vision, I can see McCree reach out and take a long swig straight from the bottle.
"Does Gabe know?" he asks quietly.
I nod.
"Because he found out, or did you tell him?"
"Both," I say softly.
He takes another long drink. "Are you stuck like that forever, then?"
"I saved my DNA sequence. I could use some of Reaper's nanites to build an organic body, and my...the ones who helped me transition from organic to omnic could help transfer me back."
"But you're not going to," he says darkly, and when I look up at him, he's scowling.
"It's not my choice to make. I was given this body with the agreement that I would do certain things. Until they're done..."
"And when they are?" he asks. It's a quiet, angry question. I wasn't expecting anger.
I look down at my hands again. "I don't know."
But I do know - I know I want to, I want it more than I've ever wanted anything except to rewind time, to have my mother throw herself to the floor next to me and hold me tight as the fighting rages outside. I also know that hope is a lie, and wanting something so badly is just inviting the world to hurt you by taking it away.
A slosh, a thump. McCree taking another drink straight from the bottle.
"I'm sure you had your reasons," he says in a hard voice. "I won't ask. That's your business, unless you want to share. I just...how can you stand it?" he finishes in something between plaintive and bewildered.
That makes me look up. "It's not like Papi," I reassure him. "I can still feel and smell. I still get tired and need to sleep. It's as close to organic as possible." Because blending in is my weapon.
He grunts. "I s'ppose that's alright. Listen, I'm just gonna sit here and feel like shit that my lil' sis can't enjoy the finer things in life. You don't need to keep me company. I ain't gonna be worth a damn for conversation, so there's no reason for both of us to wallow in my misery."
Oh my god. That's why he drinks - he has no healthier methods of processing emotional turmoil. No wonder trauma didn't have an impact.
"Only way I'm leaving you to wallow in your misery by yourself is if you're in your room," I tell him firmly. "Especially if I'm causing your misery."
McCree looks at me for a long moment, searching my face like he's not sure if I'm actually serious or not. The tequila's already hitting him hard. "No," he says finally. "I don't drink alone. Too much temptation to just keep drinkin' if there's no one around t'stop me."
In other words, he's been using barkeepers and waitstaff as his safety net. Nope. I move from the chair across from him to the one beside him. "Then you're stuck with me, cowboy. Let me know when you're ready to stumble home and if you're gonna need the bathroom for anything before I put you to bed."
Again he gives me a long look. "Yer a good friend. I don't know that I deserve that."
"Too bad, Jesse. You my brother. Deal with it," I say in my best snotty sister tone.
He looks vaguely affronted. "Maybe I will," he counters. "Maybe I will."
=
It's close to midnight by the time we get back to the safehouse. Jesse is a scarily practiced drunk. He managed to get himself to the bar's bathroom without much difficulty and came back several minutes later to let me know he was ready to go, and that he'd already 'made a deposit' so I didn't need to worry about him finding a trash can or bush on the way back. He didn't even need a steadying arm, although he let me open the gate and apologized for not being a gentleman and getting it for me, but he could barely see straight enough to find the gate control.
"Want me to get you a glass of water?" I ask as I watch him navigate the stairs, ready to steady him if he needs it.
"Nah. 'S gonna be a bitch in the morning but 's what I deserve. Thankee kindly, though."
Okay, I am not letting this happen again if I can help it. "Why you do this to yourself, Jesse?" I ask, hoping he both answers and doesn't remember that he did come the morning.
He thinks about it for a few steps, then leans against the wall to look blearily at me. "Hurts less inside 'f it hurts outside."
"Why does it hurt inside?"
McCree turns and resumes his painfully careful journey up the stairs. "Thought I'd finally found a family that wouldn't leave me," he says tiredly. "But then that went to shit and I left." Another step. "Thought he cared enough to come after me. Guess I was wrong."
"Who?" I ask, afraid I know the answer.
"My dad. I mean Gabe. I mean Commander Reyes. Don't tell him I called that?" he leans against the wall again to look at me. "I...he doesn't know I call him that. Probably just me being stupid. Don't blame him fer not wantin' a stupid kid like me," he sighs before climbing the last two stairs.
Yeah. I'm not letting this slide, but now's not the time. "You need anything before we get you into bed, amigo?"
McCree hesitates, looking around the empty living room. "I guess not," he sighs.
I follow him to the door of his room and watch as he strips off hat, boots, and belt before nearly faceplanting into bed. "I'll make sure no one messes with you," I say, unsure if he's still awake to hear.
A mumble that could have been 'I appreciate it' from a sober man is the response I get, so I guess he is. I close and lock the door behind me, only to find Reaper waiting in the living room. My warning look makes him wisp from the chest and legs, but he follows when I beckon him to my room.
"Don't mess with him," I say as soon as my door is closed behind us.
The wisps double. "I wasn't going to. Sombra..." he trails uncertainly off.
"What's wrong, Papi?"
Reaper looks over at my bed. I pull the covers aside and sit, patting the mattress beside me. He melts into the doberman and climbs up, sprawling half across my lap and burying his nose in my hair. For several minutes I just hug and pet him.
"You wanna talk?" I ask gently.
He whines. "Did I fuck up? Does he hate me?"
"He don't hate you. I promise. But you made him sad, Papi."
"I know," he says in a very quiet voice. Then he whines again.
"Talk to me, Papi. I can't help if I don't know what's going on."
"Are you angry?"
"You thought- Papi, no! No," I repeat, hugging him tighter. "Not angry. You did a bad thing, but you took your punishment without arguing and you not gonna do that again, are you?"
"No."
"Then you learned your lesson. But if you want Jesse to know you regret it, you gotta do something nice to make it up to him."
"I got him a bear," Reaper says grudgingly.
That makes me stop dead. "How- Papi, do you even have any money?"
"I told the clerk you'd pay for it."
It takes a beat to sink in, and then I'm giggling. "Oh my god, Papi. Okay, where did you go?"
He tells me the name of the store, and it's easy enough to slip in and digitally pay for the purchase, particularly since the clerk rang it up with a hold.
"Almost afraid to ask if you paid for mine," I tease.
"Of course I did," he answers with an offended doggy snort. "I ate a mugger on my way there."
My laugh makes him wag his tail slightly, and he repositions himself to be curled up next to me, his head on my leg.
"So how badly did you scare-" I check the clerk's name. "-Xiang?"
"Xiang remembered me," he says dryly. "I said I needed the girliest bear they had and that payment would come later. Then I posed for a selfie and left with the bear."
Open more screens, engage image-recognition, filter to approximate timestamp, but nothing comes up on social media. A bit more looking turns up a picture stored privately, an Asian youth of indeterminate gender looking ecstatic and making a thumbs-up while Reaper holds a very pretty white bear in a satiny red dress.
"Why a selfie?"
Reaper snorts in amusement. "Something about the manager destroying security footage and wanting to have proof this time."
"I can see that. Okay, so you got McCree a bear. I promised him no one would fuck with him tonight or tomorrow morning."
"Lure him out with those buckwheat pancakes he likes," he suggests. "I'll leave it in his room while he's eating."
I scratch behind his ears. "Sounds like a good plan to me. Were you waiting for us because you wanted to talk to me?"
Reaper flinches slightly. "And to make sure that trash cowboy actually managed to drag himself back," he says with insincere derision. "I can't tell you how many times I yelled his drunk ass to bed when he finally crawled out of whatever liquor bottle he'd fallen into."
"That's why," I murmur, remembering the way McCree'd glanced around the living room in disappointment.
"Why what?"
Slowly, I say, "I think he misses it, Papi."
"Misses-" Reaper breaks off, half-sitting so he can look at me. "Misses it?"
"You cared enough to be waiting. You cared enough to yell." Reaper's head sinks down to my leg again, and I pet him slowly. "I think...with you not being there, waiting...he thinks you don't care."
"Damn it, McCree! I'd go in there right now and rip him up one side and down the other," he growls, "but you promised him no one would mess with him. I need to kill something."
Carefully, I slide out from under his head and fish through the box of assorted chews for the package of aged beef ribs. "Unless you want to go hunting a mugger," I tell him, sliding one out, "you gotta settle for this."
The bone has his attention, which is good because he's been very well behaved and I'm not sure I want him getting comfortable with the idea of going out unsupervised. I make a mental note to see what else I can get my hands on that would satisfy the need for murder without involving a still-living being.
"Remember-"
"No chewing in your bed," he finishes, climbing out to sit on the floor.
"You got it." I hand over the bone. "You can stay and chew on the floor, or bring your doggy bed in if you want."
"I'm fine," he growls around the bone as he settles down.
I pet him for a minute before changing and settling into bed for the night. "Have fun, Papi."
The chewing stops. Softly, he replies, "Thank you, Sombra." Then it starts again.
=
Ana's in the kitchen enjoying morning tea, and she looks sharply at me when she realizes I don't have a canine shadow. "Sombra? Where is Gabriel?"
"Still sleeping," I tell her as finish messing with the coffee maker and start getting pancake ingredients out. "He was up late being angry."
That makes her eyebrow climb almost under her scarf, but all she says is, "Oh dear. And how was your outing with Jesse?"
Measuring cup in one hand, butter knife in the other, I let my head slump melodramatically back and sigh. "Informative."
"Oh dear," she says again, but with amusement rather than resignation.
"He found out I'm not organic," I say as I finish measuring things out. "And he did not take it well."
"It is a bit of a shock. I can't blame him." There's a pause as I mix the contents of the bowl together. "Nor do I blame you for keeping it quiet, although Jack has some concerns regarding the circumstances of your...transition," she says in that uniquely parental way that sounds like it's just a statement, but means 'you owe me an explanation, young lady'.
"I heard my name," Uncle Jack says from the doorway. Then he frowns. "Where's...?"
"Sleeping," Ana answers. "Sombra?"
I pour Jack a mug of coffee and set it on the table. "I wasn't murdered," I say before turning back to get the pancakes stared. "I chose to give up being organic. The gunshot wounds, I put them there. Made a political statement. A woman without legal identification who turned up dead, even a young and pretty one who was clearly murdered, would get no attention. No one cares about you unless you're legal. But leave that corpse on the steps of the Police Headquarters on the fifteenth anniversary of the New Year's Massacre, and you make the front page as a statement of silent accusation, blaming them for being complicit in that whole mess."
"That's..." Jack hesitates, searching for the right word. "...horrible. What happens to the people without legal identification?"
"That depends on who they know." I flip the first buckwheat pancakes. "Los Muertos, we looked out for each other. Stole and shared food with each other. The ones who are legal give the ones who aren't a place to sleep. Others...they not so lucky."
"No wonder you showed up," he mutters. "Thank you. I know it's not my business, but you're the one who adopted me so..." He flushes slightly as I turn around to see why he let it trail off. "You can't just call me Uncle Jack and expect me to not worry about my niece," he says sternly.
That makes me laugh. "Fair enough, Uncle Jack. Family goes both ways." The safehouse systems inform me that McCree's door is unlocked, and I pour a glass of water. "And speaking of family..."
Ana and Jack turn to look as I watch the kitchen doorway and when the hung-over cowboy turns the corner, he stumbles to an alarmed stop. "...the hell, why're you all lookin' at me like that?"
"Morning, Jesse," I say brightly. "You ready for food?"
He sidles around the table, taking the glass as he does, to sit beside Ana rather than leaving his back to the door. "Yeah. Thanks," he adds as I put the plate of pancakes and a mug of coffee down in front of him. "And...thanks fer makin' sure I didn't fall down the stairs last night."
"You remember that?" I ask lightly as I put the syrup and butter in front of him and take the last seat.
"Just that you were there." He keeps his eyes on his breakfast as it fixes it to his liking. "I probably said a bunch of crap last night, but you're not givin' me shit about it this mornin', and I appreciate that."
"Don't worry about it, amigo." I keep my voice cheerful, like nothing out of the ordinary happened. "Just invite me along again next time."
McCree gives me one of those searching looks. "You got it," he says, but I know he's not going to. He won't want to inflict his misery on me.
That's fine. I'll find him anyway. "Gonna go check on Papi," I announce, collecting two nods and a smile as I leave the kitchen.
Reaper's still asleep on my bed. I kneel and pet him, and he shifts, but he doesn't wake up.
"Papi," I say quietly. "McCree is eating, time to sneak in the bear."
One eye opens reluctantly. "Ugh. Fine."
Without even sitting up, he dissolves into smoke and flows out of the room. A minute later, he flows back in and re-forms into the doberman., already curled up.
"There. It's done. I'm going back to sleep now."
I kiss him on his doggy forehead. "Sleep well, Papi. We'll go out somewhere for lunch when you wake up."
He grumbles wordlessly, but his tail wags a few times.
=
I'm curled up in a chair in the living room when McCree finishes his breakfast, because like hell am I missing this. He gives me a suspicious look as he passes through, but I pretend to be engrossed in my screens. A minute later, he storms out and gestures me angrily out of the room. I follow him as he leads me in silence down the hall and into an unused storage room.
"I thought you weren't going to fuck with me this morning," he spits, furious.
"I didn't!"
"You expect me to believe someone else snuck into my room after you left the kitchen and put a stuffed bear in a red dress on my bedside table?"
"...okay I can see how that looks bad," I say, pulling up a screen, "but it wasn't me." Xiang's selfie comes up. "It was Papi."
McCree staggers back a few steps, hits the wall, and slides down to a sitting position with his face in his hands. "It was him. Oh my god."
I sit next to him. "You alright, amigo?"
"No. I'm an asshole. When you went to check on him, you woke him up so he could put it there?"
"You got it."
"He got me a bear. He fucking got me a bear because I was jealous that he got you one. God damn it!" he yells, flinging his head back to hit the wall.
"Would have left it for you last night, but I told him to not fuck with you."
That distracts him from his apparently furious self-recrimination. "He was waiting for us to get back?" he asks, with just the slightest hesitation on 'us'.
I nod. "Soon as I locked your door, he came out of the can. He wanted to show you he was sorry about your ice cream."
McCree covers his face with his hands, massaging his temples for a long minute before letting both hands fall to his knees. "You gonna hold anything over me from last night?" he asks quietly.
"You think I would?"
"I can't remember what I may or may not have said, and I thought you left the bear, so apparently I'm not a real good judge of your character right now," he says dryly.
"Okay, then listen." I hold his gaze, deliberately not blinking. "I will not promise that I will never act on anything you say or do when drunk. What I will promise, is that anything I do will be with the intent of being to your benefit."
"Why?" When I blink at him in confusion, he says, "Why would you go through that effort for me? And don't say because your Papi cares."
I look away and hug my knees for a minute, staring at the blank wall across from us. "I was ten when Gabriel Reyes took you under his wing," I start in a quiet voice. "Three, almost four years I'd spent wishing he'd do that for me. A lot of us did. I hated you a little, I was so jealous. When you walked away from Blackwatch, I hated you a little more."
"You don't know the things they were doing," he snarls. "No one would listen!" Then, in something close to a sob, "Gabe wouldn't listen."
"Talon was sending forged orders," I tell him gently. "I know he didn't believe you. He didn't believe me until I proved he didn't send one of the orders using timestamped door logs to show he was doing laundry at the time, and your picture is what tipped us off."
"Ana said..." he mumbles vaguely. "So...he knows? That I didn't...I wasn't..."
"He knows he was sabotaged. Jesse...wait a few days?" I turn to gauge his reaction and find him looking warily hopeful. "Right now, if you tell him you left because he wouldn't listen, it gonna break him because he gonna blame himself, and he already blaming himself hard for yesterday. I not gonna lie, he did fuck up. But you gotta give him time to recover or he just gonna decide he not worth anyone caring about him."
"Dad, no..."
It's such a quiet protest that I pretend I don't hear it. "So the reason I'm doing this...I was wrong about you. You need help, I can help you, so that's what I'm going to do."
The silence stretches for a minute, settling around us soft and comfortable like an intangible blanket.
"Alright," McCree says suddenly in his usual drawl, "my butt's going numb from sittin' on this floor. Let's get out of here."
=
McCree and I are in different chairs, playing Diablo 3 and bantering good-naturedly about whether or not my success with a witch doctor is a result of skill or cheating, when Reaper steps out of my room in his usual configuration.
"Time out," I announce, portaling back to town. McCree follows my lead. Once he's loaded, I say firmly, "Go give Papi a hug and say thank you for your bear."
Reaper shoots me what would be a startled and possibly alarmed look, but he's also wisping from the chest as the cowboy puts his gaming pad down and saunters up to wrap him in a bear hug.
"Thanks for the teddy bear," he says, then in as annoying tone as he can manage, "Daaaaad."
"Sombraaaaa!"
Jesse laughs as he lets go and picks his pad up again. "Hey, Sombra, you mind if we take a break? I'm gettin' a bit hungry."
"Not at all, amigo." I close my game down. "I promised Papi I'd take him out for lunch; you can come with us. Papi, which collar you want today?"
He thinks about it, wisps flowing from chest and biceps and a few from his legs before he melts into the doberman and says, "Red."
Two minutes later I'm leading Reaper on his leash while McCree walks on his other side. The relaxed body language both of them are displaying may only be temporary, but it's heartening.