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moonshadowsJack comes up to me as I'm throwing the Frisbee for Reaper and just stands there in silence until Reaper comes back and I've thrown it again.
"I want to talk to you," Jack says quietly while Reaper's out of earshot. "Alone. Privately."
Reaper comes back; I hand the Frisbee to Jack, and he throws it. "Now?"
"Soon is fine," he answers.
I nod. "Once Papi's tired himself out, I'll leave him to nap with Tia Ana and we can go out. Or just find a quiet corner of the safehouse," I add as Jack shifts uncomfortably.
"I like that idea better," he says once Reaper's out of earshot again. "West wing, third floor kitchen?"
"Unless you change your mind."
Jack nods. "Alright. I'll wait for you."
The next time Papi runs up, he stops in confusion that Jack's gone.
"He wanted to talk to me," I tell him, and throw the Frisbee.
=
Jack's sitting at the kitchen table when I get up to the west wing's third floor, hands around a mug of coffee. "This was a mistake," he sighs, taking a sip.
I sit down across from him. "We don't have to talk, Uncle Jack."
He shakes his head. "Not that. The coffee. I should have at least made decaf. I'm keyed up enough about this as it is, and the caffeine isn't helping."
Carefully, I charge one hand and lay it on his wrist. The energy that discharges into him floods his nervous system with something very like the effects of a sedative, and I can see him relax.
"I want to be unnerved by that," he says slowly, "but I can't. So thanks for that, I think."
I take the coffee mug away from him and dump it in the sink before giving it back. "What did you want to talk about?"
Jack sighs. "This may be a little too much information..."
"Remember I spent years digging up people's dirty secrets."
He chuckles. "This is different. I'm not a target, I'm your uncle. I don't know if this qualifies as dirty exactly, but it might make things...awkward."
"Does it make it more or less awkward if I saw the skinny-dipping video?" I tease.
Jack flushes slightly and stares into his empty mug. "Point. Okay. I..." He frowns, takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes. "I'm in love with your father." There's a pause while he flinches, bracing for my reaction, but when I don't say anything, he continues, "Have been, on and off, for probably your entire life. I know he doesn't return my feelings. I assume he knows about them, although we've never...talked."
Hesitantly, he opens his eyes to find me grinning.
"So when we had coffee in Dorado, that was an 'off' period?"
He nods slowly.
"And when I showed you that picture..."
"Yes," he says, answering the unspoken question. He's blushing harder, toying with the mug in his hands. "That was the first time I had reason to believe that he was still Gabriel, under the mask and despite everything. I'd thought he was dead. Then I learned he was Reaper and thought that he'd become something horrible, a twisted mockery of the man he'd been, and that the Gabriel I'd loved was dead. But you gave me hope," he says quietly, looking up into my astonished face. "You showed me that he was still there, under everything, but he was very hurt. I thought I was going to die the next time we met, because I wasn't sure if I could bring myself to shoot him even if he was shooting at me, but you..." Chuckling softly, he shakes his head. "I hadn't seen anything like that in years. I don't think even Ana could have gotten away with that. I thought you'd just called me 'Uncle Jack' to fuck with me, but that day..." He shakes his head again. "That day, I adopted you."
"Aww, Uncle Jack..."
"You pulled off a miracle when you got him out of Talon, Sombra. And every day I see more and more of Gabriel in him. A softer, gentler Gabriel, one who doesn't work so hard to keep the world out, who lets people get close to him. I owe you my life twice over, and after everything that happened..." He trails off, sighing at the ghosts of the past. "I want to be one of the people he lets get close to him. I know nothing's going to happen physically, and I have no expectations that he'll suddenly reverse a lifetime of habit to develop a romantic streak. I just want to be his friend again, and I'll do whatever it takes to make that happen. Help me, Sombra," he finishes, giving me a pleading look.
Okay. Time to go to work. "Whatever it takes?" I ask crisply, leaning forward on my crossed arms.
Jack nods grimly. "I lost everything because I lost sight of what was most important to me. It wasn't just...the end. Things got strained long before that, and the gap that opened between us got used to take down Overwatch. I can't repeal the Petras Act and rebuild Overwatch single-handedly, but I can - and will - repair my half of the bridge that burned down between me and Gabriel."
"He needs to be the one in control," I say immediately. "Remember the video? The asshole fucked him up bad. He tolerates me telling him what to do because he trusts me and he knows that I'm keeping him from making things worse. I'm not in a position of complete authority over him."
"Authority," Jack repeats in horror. "Fuck. God damn it. Okay. He's in charge, I just have to let him know that he is." He gives me a wry look. "Any suggestions on how I do that? It's been a long time since he was my commanding officer."
I shrug. "Easiest way is just asking permission. Can I pet you, do you want to play tug-of-war. Let him know the choice is his, let him say no if he wants. Even if you know he's going to say yes, giving him that freedom will make him more comfortable."
"Asking. Inviting." He rubs his eyes. "I've never been good at that with Gabe. Too afraid it would come off as...something else."
"Like asking him out?"
Jack grimaces. "He doesn't do romance. Ever. Once in the SEP I overheard him chatting with a few guys and one of them asked if he'd ever had a girlfriend."
This is something I'd never found anything on. "What did he say?"
"No girlfriend or boyfriend. He said, and I quote, I don't go for any of that mushy crap. You wanna suck or fuck, I'm down for that. Just don't expect me to stick around."
"That does sound like Papi Gabriel."
"Yeah. I remember it very vividly because..." He trails off and gives me an apologetic look. "...I've never been interested in either."
"Sucking or fucking?" I ask. He nods, and I nod back. "You're asexual. So even if he would let you suck him-"
"He would," Jack interrupts. "I saw him get hit on by a pretty manly trans woman in a bar once. She told him she, ah, still had outdoor plumbing but identified as a woman and he said bitch, I don't give a fuck what you identify as, if you want to suck my dick, go for it."
"Okay," I say, trying not to laugh. "So he would let you, but that's not something you have any interest in doing."
"You're not judging?"
I arch an eyebrow at him. "Pot calling the kettle black, amigo. So. You not interested in the things that interest him. What are you interested in?"
Jack gives me a suspicious look. "You're not trying to...set us up or anything, are you?"
"No. We both know Papi don't go for anything that might make him soft." I make air quotes around the word. "But he will allow things if he can explain them away. He don't hug me, usually, but he will hug me back if I hug him. He was isolated, Uncle Jack." I hold his eyes with mine. "You don't understand what it was like. The base he and Widow were kept at, it was a storage depot. No one talked to him. No one cared about him. He and Widow, they had their own suite and pretty much the only times they interacted with people were missions. Widow, they fucked her up bad. She wasn't even a person outside of missions, really. He was so starved for social interaction that one annoying Latina being a sassy pain in his ass was a welcome distraction. He was so starved for physical contact that he started sleeping upright on the couch when he realized I'd snuggle up to him if he did."
That makes him look anguished. "Gabe...no wonder he spends so much time letting Ana pet him."
I nod. "So while he won't admit it, right now, he is very open to physical contact and emotional intimacy. If he can explain it away."
"And he needs to be in control," Jack says slowly. "So if...if I got him a...I don't know, a slice of chocolate cake. He wouldn't just accept that normally. Too mushy, too much like a romantic gesture. But if I let him beg it out of me..."
"Got a better idea," I say cheerfully. "Tell him he can have it...if he lets you pet him for, say, ten minutes."
Jack's face lights up. "Giving him a choice. And it's win-win because he wants the cake, and he wants to be petted, and on top of that, he can claim he's only allowing it because he wanted the cake."
"You got it. And don't be afraid to haggle."
"And even if he guesses that I'm still..." he breaks off, looking embarrassed. "Anyway. Even if he suspects I have ulterior motives, he's in control."
"And even if he knows you have feelings, that's still going to be a lot more welcome than it would have been before everything, because it's proof he's not a monster that everyone hates."
Groaning, Jack rests his face in his hands for a long moment. "I can finally do some of the things I've wanted to do for half my life, and it's because my best friend has been tortured extensively and is too angry, paranoid, hostile, and wanted by law enforcement to get the mental health support he really needs." The hands slip off his face, and he gives me a slight smile. "To be fair, he needed help about twenty years ago, but...well...you know Gabriel."
I sigh. "Yeah. I love my Papi, but I know he got issues. It's okay, though. He has us."
Jack gives me a speculative look. "He does...and you...you're his daughter, or may as well be. You've got emotional intimacy with him, more than I think anyone else ever managed."
"Si..."
"You've set a precedent," he breathes. "The more demonstrative he is with you, even as a dog, the more it becomes a normal thing for him. The more normal it is in his mind..."
"The more demonstrative he'll be with other people he cares about."
"Right," Jack nods. "And if he chooses to go back to being a man again...he'll miss the physical attention he got as a dog." For a minute, he just stares starry-eyed into space. Then he snaps back into the present and fixes me with an intense look. "Our mission, Sombra, is to spoil the fuck out of Gabe in every way possible, and there's no time like the present." His stomach growls. "Also, I'm hungry. I know you don't eat, but will you join me for lunch in town and help me pick a good bribe?"
I laugh. "Of course, Uncle Jack."
=
"I grew up in a small town," Jack says quietly as we look over lunch menus at a small cafe. "Very stereotypical Middle America. Ford trucks and hunting rifles, half the population had never been more than fifty miles away, and cultural diversity was something we saw on TV. Boys were boys and girls were girls and no one dared break tradition. I pushed the line enough just being good at sports and having good grades. High school was...exhausting. All that social pressure..."
The waitress comes by to take drink orders.
"It wasn't just the sports and studying," Jack continues once she's gone. "Every popular girl wanted me to be her boyfriend. Balancing a social life along with everything else..." He sighs. "They thought I was playing hard to get, only giving chaste kisses. I thought I was just going through the motions because I didn't really care about any of them, and that's why I wasn't interested in getting past first base."
"What made you realize that wasn't it?"
Jack blushes and hides behind the menu. I take the opportunity to find something that will have Papi drooling, and settle on a meat-heavy wrap. The waitress comes back, and Jack orders some sort of soup-and-sandwich combo. I order my wrap, but also request a to-go box at the same time.
"When Gabe and I were first tapped for the Overwatch Strike Force, the first other member we met was Ana. It would be another month before the governments settled on anyone else, so we spent a lot of time together. The first time he hit on her, she gave him a sort of shut up or I will stab you look. After that, he would occasionally make a suggestive comment but he wasn't serious. He was just riling her up. She got mad one day and asked if he wanted her to rip his junk off. I was minding my own business on the other side of the room." Jack braces himself. "Gabe reassured Ana that if he was going to seriously hit on one of us, it would be me."
It takes effort to keep my face blank, but it's worth it when Jack looks cautiously up and relaxes because I'm not laughing.
"That was when I realized that I didn't just admire Gabriel Reyes. I actually wanted him to...maybe not hit on me exactly, but just...be as interested in me as I was in him. For the first time, I realized what those girls in high school were feeling when they sighed over me." He gives me a resigned look. "I'd felt something similar towards a few friends back home, but it was weak and it didn't last. This was the first time I really fell in love, and I've been a sucker for that son of a bitch ever since. I think, even at the end, if he'd just smiled at me and held my hand, maybe said my name softly or..." Jack shakes his head. "I would have resigned effectively immediately if that's what he wanted."
"You've got it bad, Uncle Jack," I tease gently.
He groans. "I know. And Gabe has to know, there's no way he never suspected over the last thirty-some-odd years, but he never said anything and I never said anything. Don't want to risk what I've already got with him."
"Once he claims you as one of his people," I say slowly, "you always gonna be one of his people. Even when he thought he hated you, even when he wanted to kill you, he didn't really want you to die. If he did know, I bet he didn't say anything so he didn't have to hurt you by telling you he wasn't interested."
"Slightly humiliating, but at least he cares that much," Jack sighs. "Well, he's hurting and he needs friends, so I'm going to be there for him no matter what. Even if he hates me."
When our orders arrive, I put both halves of the wrap straight into the to-go box and offer Jack the fries. "Tell him you got it to eat later," I suggest. "It's ham, salami, and capicola with provolone and Italian dressing, lettuce, and peppers. Don't settle for less than ten minutes of petting per half."
Jack laughs. "You're one in a billion, Sombra. Helping an old man bribe his way to affection. What would your father say?"
"I'll let you know when he says it," I tell him, grinning.
=
Papi's in his bed chewing idly on a rawhide toy when Jack and I walk back in, and immediately the toy is forgotten, all his attention on the box in Jack's hands.
"That's for me, right?" he demands, standing up and taking a few steps towards his old friend.
I circle around and sit on a chair to watch.
"What, this?" Jack asks, looking at the to-go box like he'd forgotten he was holding it. "I got this to go so I wouldn't have to figure out dinner tonight."
Reaper sits down and gives him the mournful eyes, wagging hopefully once or twice.
Jack smiles slowly. "Oh, you want this?"
He doesn't get a verbal answer, but Reaper licks his chops and shifts his weight like he's considering begging.
"I don't know..." He opens the box. "It is pretty big, I guess I could just have half of it..."
Reaper licks his lips again and whines.
"It does smell good, though. Ham, salami, capicola, provolone, lettuce, peppers, and I think that's house-made Italian dressing..."
"Damn it, stop being a cocktease, Morrison. Either give it to me or put it away."
Jack closes the box. "How much do you want my meat, Gabriel?"
Reaper's ears go back. I think Ana is going to strain something not laughing.
After clearly wrestling with word choice for a minute, Papi growls, "Name your terms."
"Fifteen minutes," Jack says, opening the box and holding up half of a very generous wrap. "I let you eat this, I get to pet you for fifteen minutes."
"Twelve."
"Thirteen."
"Deal."
Reaper follows Uncle Jack into the kitchen, where hopefully he's putting the bribe on a plate and not just letting Papi eat it off the floor. A minute or two later they come back out and Jack sits in his usual chair.
"Sombra," Papi says from out of Jack's reach, "start a timer for thirteen minutes."
I open a screen that displays 13:00 and hover one finger over it. "Ready?"
Reaper positions himself next to Jack, head on his thigh while both Jack's hands are raised. "Ready."
"Start," I say, touching the screen.
The next 13 minutes pass in comfortable silence, both Papi and his old friend looking content beyond words.
=
"I didn't completely hate that," Reaper says as I'm climbing into bed. "Being bribed."
I hug his neck and lay down. "Good. Because now that Jack knows you can be bribed..."
"He's going to throw food at me to buy petting privileges?" He snorts. "I'm surprised it took him this long. He must have grown a pair since the explosion; he never would have dared to pull off such a ballsy move before. Wouldn't want to risk me rejecting him."
"I may have given him some ideas."
Reaper laughs softly. "That figures. Did he confess to you that he's still a hopeless romantic and that his brain turns to mush when he looks at me?"
"Si, also that he suspected you knew even though neither of you talked about it."
"That idiot. Sixty years old and he's still a teenage girl. Only in my experience, teenage girls want to get past first base."
"You know that, too?" I ask softly, petting him.
"There was this one time when a trans lady hit on me in a bar..."
"He mentioned that."
Reaper snorts. "Yeah, well, I bet he didn't mention that when I got done having my dick sucked, Jack had gotten himself drunk enough to confess that he would have let me fuck him years ago except that all he wanted out of it was the cuddling and he knew I didn't do that."
Poor Uncle Jack. "What did you do?"
"I told him I already knew that and bought him enough shots that he wouldn't remember it in the morning." He sighs. "I'm not going to hurt him, hija. Not then, not now, not like that. I may not reciprocate, but that doesn't mean that I don't care. And don't you breathe a word of that to anyone," he demands sharply.
"Easy, Papi, I won't tell anyone."
Reaper starts relaxing again.
"...besides, he already knows."
There's silence for a handful of minutes before Reaper says quietly, "I don't completely hate that."
"I want to talk to you," Jack says quietly while Reaper's out of earshot. "Alone. Privately."
Reaper comes back; I hand the Frisbee to Jack, and he throws it. "Now?"
"Soon is fine," he answers.
I nod. "Once Papi's tired himself out, I'll leave him to nap with Tia Ana and we can go out. Or just find a quiet corner of the safehouse," I add as Jack shifts uncomfortably.
"I like that idea better," he says once Reaper's out of earshot again. "West wing, third floor kitchen?"
"Unless you change your mind."
Jack nods. "Alright. I'll wait for you."
The next time Papi runs up, he stops in confusion that Jack's gone.
"He wanted to talk to me," I tell him, and throw the Frisbee.
=
Jack's sitting at the kitchen table when I get up to the west wing's third floor, hands around a mug of coffee. "This was a mistake," he sighs, taking a sip.
I sit down across from him. "We don't have to talk, Uncle Jack."
He shakes his head. "Not that. The coffee. I should have at least made decaf. I'm keyed up enough about this as it is, and the caffeine isn't helping."
Carefully, I charge one hand and lay it on his wrist. The energy that discharges into him floods his nervous system with something very like the effects of a sedative, and I can see him relax.
"I want to be unnerved by that," he says slowly, "but I can't. So thanks for that, I think."
I take the coffee mug away from him and dump it in the sink before giving it back. "What did you want to talk about?"
Jack sighs. "This may be a little too much information..."
"Remember I spent years digging up people's dirty secrets."
He chuckles. "This is different. I'm not a target, I'm your uncle. I don't know if this qualifies as dirty exactly, but it might make things...awkward."
"Does it make it more or less awkward if I saw the skinny-dipping video?" I tease.
Jack flushes slightly and stares into his empty mug. "Point. Okay. I..." He frowns, takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes. "I'm in love with your father." There's a pause while he flinches, bracing for my reaction, but when I don't say anything, he continues, "Have been, on and off, for probably your entire life. I know he doesn't return my feelings. I assume he knows about them, although we've never...talked."
Hesitantly, he opens his eyes to find me grinning.
"So when we had coffee in Dorado, that was an 'off' period?"
He nods slowly.
"And when I showed you that picture..."
"Yes," he says, answering the unspoken question. He's blushing harder, toying with the mug in his hands. "That was the first time I had reason to believe that he was still Gabriel, under the mask and despite everything. I'd thought he was dead. Then I learned he was Reaper and thought that he'd become something horrible, a twisted mockery of the man he'd been, and that the Gabriel I'd loved was dead. But you gave me hope," he says quietly, looking up into my astonished face. "You showed me that he was still there, under everything, but he was very hurt. I thought I was going to die the next time we met, because I wasn't sure if I could bring myself to shoot him even if he was shooting at me, but you..." Chuckling softly, he shakes his head. "I hadn't seen anything like that in years. I don't think even Ana could have gotten away with that. I thought you'd just called me 'Uncle Jack' to fuck with me, but that day..." He shakes his head again. "That day, I adopted you."
"Aww, Uncle Jack..."
"You pulled off a miracle when you got him out of Talon, Sombra. And every day I see more and more of Gabriel in him. A softer, gentler Gabriel, one who doesn't work so hard to keep the world out, who lets people get close to him. I owe you my life twice over, and after everything that happened..." He trails off, sighing at the ghosts of the past. "I want to be one of the people he lets get close to him. I know nothing's going to happen physically, and I have no expectations that he'll suddenly reverse a lifetime of habit to develop a romantic streak. I just want to be his friend again, and I'll do whatever it takes to make that happen. Help me, Sombra," he finishes, giving me a pleading look.
Okay. Time to go to work. "Whatever it takes?" I ask crisply, leaning forward on my crossed arms.
Jack nods grimly. "I lost everything because I lost sight of what was most important to me. It wasn't just...the end. Things got strained long before that, and the gap that opened between us got used to take down Overwatch. I can't repeal the Petras Act and rebuild Overwatch single-handedly, but I can - and will - repair my half of the bridge that burned down between me and Gabriel."
"He needs to be the one in control," I say immediately. "Remember the video? The asshole fucked him up bad. He tolerates me telling him what to do because he trusts me and he knows that I'm keeping him from making things worse. I'm not in a position of complete authority over him."
"Authority," Jack repeats in horror. "Fuck. God damn it. Okay. He's in charge, I just have to let him know that he is." He gives me a wry look. "Any suggestions on how I do that? It's been a long time since he was my commanding officer."
I shrug. "Easiest way is just asking permission. Can I pet you, do you want to play tug-of-war. Let him know the choice is his, let him say no if he wants. Even if you know he's going to say yes, giving him that freedom will make him more comfortable."
"Asking. Inviting." He rubs his eyes. "I've never been good at that with Gabe. Too afraid it would come off as...something else."
"Like asking him out?"
Jack grimaces. "He doesn't do romance. Ever. Once in the SEP I overheard him chatting with a few guys and one of them asked if he'd ever had a girlfriend."
This is something I'd never found anything on. "What did he say?"
"No girlfriend or boyfriend. He said, and I quote, I don't go for any of that mushy crap. You wanna suck or fuck, I'm down for that. Just don't expect me to stick around."
"That does sound like Papi Gabriel."
"Yeah. I remember it very vividly because..." He trails off and gives me an apologetic look. "...I've never been interested in either."
"Sucking or fucking?" I ask. He nods, and I nod back. "You're asexual. So even if he would let you suck him-"
"He would," Jack interrupts. "I saw him get hit on by a pretty manly trans woman in a bar once. She told him she, ah, still had outdoor plumbing but identified as a woman and he said bitch, I don't give a fuck what you identify as, if you want to suck my dick, go for it."
"Okay," I say, trying not to laugh. "So he would let you, but that's not something you have any interest in doing."
"You're not judging?"
I arch an eyebrow at him. "Pot calling the kettle black, amigo. So. You not interested in the things that interest him. What are you interested in?"
Jack gives me a suspicious look. "You're not trying to...set us up or anything, are you?"
"No. We both know Papi don't go for anything that might make him soft." I make air quotes around the word. "But he will allow things if he can explain them away. He don't hug me, usually, but he will hug me back if I hug him. He was isolated, Uncle Jack." I hold his eyes with mine. "You don't understand what it was like. The base he and Widow were kept at, it was a storage depot. No one talked to him. No one cared about him. He and Widow, they had their own suite and pretty much the only times they interacted with people were missions. Widow, they fucked her up bad. She wasn't even a person outside of missions, really. He was so starved for social interaction that one annoying Latina being a sassy pain in his ass was a welcome distraction. He was so starved for physical contact that he started sleeping upright on the couch when he realized I'd snuggle up to him if he did."
That makes him look anguished. "Gabe...no wonder he spends so much time letting Ana pet him."
I nod. "So while he won't admit it, right now, he is very open to physical contact and emotional intimacy. If he can explain it away."
"And he needs to be in control," Jack says slowly. "So if...if I got him a...I don't know, a slice of chocolate cake. He wouldn't just accept that normally. Too mushy, too much like a romantic gesture. But if I let him beg it out of me..."
"Got a better idea," I say cheerfully. "Tell him he can have it...if he lets you pet him for, say, ten minutes."
Jack's face lights up. "Giving him a choice. And it's win-win because he wants the cake, and he wants to be petted, and on top of that, he can claim he's only allowing it because he wanted the cake."
"You got it. And don't be afraid to haggle."
"And even if he guesses that I'm still..." he breaks off, looking embarrassed. "Anyway. Even if he suspects I have ulterior motives, he's in control."
"And even if he knows you have feelings, that's still going to be a lot more welcome than it would have been before everything, because it's proof he's not a monster that everyone hates."
Groaning, Jack rests his face in his hands for a long moment. "I can finally do some of the things I've wanted to do for half my life, and it's because my best friend has been tortured extensively and is too angry, paranoid, hostile, and wanted by law enforcement to get the mental health support he really needs." The hands slip off his face, and he gives me a slight smile. "To be fair, he needed help about twenty years ago, but...well...you know Gabriel."
I sigh. "Yeah. I love my Papi, but I know he got issues. It's okay, though. He has us."
Jack gives me a speculative look. "He does...and you...you're his daughter, or may as well be. You've got emotional intimacy with him, more than I think anyone else ever managed."
"Si..."
"You've set a precedent," he breathes. "The more demonstrative he is with you, even as a dog, the more it becomes a normal thing for him. The more normal it is in his mind..."
"The more demonstrative he'll be with other people he cares about."
"Right," Jack nods. "And if he chooses to go back to being a man again...he'll miss the physical attention he got as a dog." For a minute, he just stares starry-eyed into space. Then he snaps back into the present and fixes me with an intense look. "Our mission, Sombra, is to spoil the fuck out of Gabe in every way possible, and there's no time like the present." His stomach growls. "Also, I'm hungry. I know you don't eat, but will you join me for lunch in town and help me pick a good bribe?"
I laugh. "Of course, Uncle Jack."
=
"I grew up in a small town," Jack says quietly as we look over lunch menus at a small cafe. "Very stereotypical Middle America. Ford trucks and hunting rifles, half the population had never been more than fifty miles away, and cultural diversity was something we saw on TV. Boys were boys and girls were girls and no one dared break tradition. I pushed the line enough just being good at sports and having good grades. High school was...exhausting. All that social pressure..."
The waitress comes by to take drink orders.
"It wasn't just the sports and studying," Jack continues once she's gone. "Every popular girl wanted me to be her boyfriend. Balancing a social life along with everything else..." He sighs. "They thought I was playing hard to get, only giving chaste kisses. I thought I was just going through the motions because I didn't really care about any of them, and that's why I wasn't interested in getting past first base."
"What made you realize that wasn't it?"
Jack blushes and hides behind the menu. I take the opportunity to find something that will have Papi drooling, and settle on a meat-heavy wrap. The waitress comes back, and Jack orders some sort of soup-and-sandwich combo. I order my wrap, but also request a to-go box at the same time.
"When Gabe and I were first tapped for the Overwatch Strike Force, the first other member we met was Ana. It would be another month before the governments settled on anyone else, so we spent a lot of time together. The first time he hit on her, she gave him a sort of shut up or I will stab you look. After that, he would occasionally make a suggestive comment but he wasn't serious. He was just riling her up. She got mad one day and asked if he wanted her to rip his junk off. I was minding my own business on the other side of the room." Jack braces himself. "Gabe reassured Ana that if he was going to seriously hit on one of us, it would be me."
It takes effort to keep my face blank, but it's worth it when Jack looks cautiously up and relaxes because I'm not laughing.
"That was when I realized that I didn't just admire Gabriel Reyes. I actually wanted him to...maybe not hit on me exactly, but just...be as interested in me as I was in him. For the first time, I realized what those girls in high school were feeling when they sighed over me." He gives me a resigned look. "I'd felt something similar towards a few friends back home, but it was weak and it didn't last. This was the first time I really fell in love, and I've been a sucker for that son of a bitch ever since. I think, even at the end, if he'd just smiled at me and held my hand, maybe said my name softly or..." Jack shakes his head. "I would have resigned effectively immediately if that's what he wanted."
"You've got it bad, Uncle Jack," I tease gently.
He groans. "I know. And Gabe has to know, there's no way he never suspected over the last thirty-some-odd years, but he never said anything and I never said anything. Don't want to risk what I've already got with him."
"Once he claims you as one of his people," I say slowly, "you always gonna be one of his people. Even when he thought he hated you, even when he wanted to kill you, he didn't really want you to die. If he did know, I bet he didn't say anything so he didn't have to hurt you by telling you he wasn't interested."
"Slightly humiliating, but at least he cares that much," Jack sighs. "Well, he's hurting and he needs friends, so I'm going to be there for him no matter what. Even if he hates me."
When our orders arrive, I put both halves of the wrap straight into the to-go box and offer Jack the fries. "Tell him you got it to eat later," I suggest. "It's ham, salami, and capicola with provolone and Italian dressing, lettuce, and peppers. Don't settle for less than ten minutes of petting per half."
Jack laughs. "You're one in a billion, Sombra. Helping an old man bribe his way to affection. What would your father say?"
"I'll let you know when he says it," I tell him, grinning.
=
Papi's in his bed chewing idly on a rawhide toy when Jack and I walk back in, and immediately the toy is forgotten, all his attention on the box in Jack's hands.
"That's for me, right?" he demands, standing up and taking a few steps towards his old friend.
I circle around and sit on a chair to watch.
"What, this?" Jack asks, looking at the to-go box like he'd forgotten he was holding it. "I got this to go so I wouldn't have to figure out dinner tonight."
Reaper sits down and gives him the mournful eyes, wagging hopefully once or twice.
Jack smiles slowly. "Oh, you want this?"
He doesn't get a verbal answer, but Reaper licks his chops and shifts his weight like he's considering begging.
"I don't know..." He opens the box. "It is pretty big, I guess I could just have half of it..."
Reaper licks his lips again and whines.
"It does smell good, though. Ham, salami, capicola, provolone, lettuce, peppers, and I think that's house-made Italian dressing..."
"Damn it, stop being a cocktease, Morrison. Either give it to me or put it away."
Jack closes the box. "How much do you want my meat, Gabriel?"
Reaper's ears go back. I think Ana is going to strain something not laughing.
After clearly wrestling with word choice for a minute, Papi growls, "Name your terms."
"Fifteen minutes," Jack says, opening the box and holding up half of a very generous wrap. "I let you eat this, I get to pet you for fifteen minutes."
"Twelve."
"Thirteen."
"Deal."
Reaper follows Uncle Jack into the kitchen, where hopefully he's putting the bribe on a plate and not just letting Papi eat it off the floor. A minute or two later they come back out and Jack sits in his usual chair.
"Sombra," Papi says from out of Jack's reach, "start a timer for thirteen minutes."
I open a screen that displays 13:00 and hover one finger over it. "Ready?"
Reaper positions himself next to Jack, head on his thigh while both Jack's hands are raised. "Ready."
"Start," I say, touching the screen.
The next 13 minutes pass in comfortable silence, both Papi and his old friend looking content beyond words.
=
"I didn't completely hate that," Reaper says as I'm climbing into bed. "Being bribed."
I hug his neck and lay down. "Good. Because now that Jack knows you can be bribed..."
"He's going to throw food at me to buy petting privileges?" He snorts. "I'm surprised it took him this long. He must have grown a pair since the explosion; he never would have dared to pull off such a ballsy move before. Wouldn't want to risk me rejecting him."
"I may have given him some ideas."
Reaper laughs softly. "That figures. Did he confess to you that he's still a hopeless romantic and that his brain turns to mush when he looks at me?"
"Si, also that he suspected you knew even though neither of you talked about it."
"That idiot. Sixty years old and he's still a teenage girl. Only in my experience, teenage girls want to get past first base."
"You know that, too?" I ask softly, petting him.
"There was this one time when a trans lady hit on me in a bar..."
"He mentioned that."
Reaper snorts. "Yeah, well, I bet he didn't mention that when I got done having my dick sucked, Jack had gotten himself drunk enough to confess that he would have let me fuck him years ago except that all he wanted out of it was the cuddling and he knew I didn't do that."
Poor Uncle Jack. "What did you do?"
"I told him I already knew that and bought him enough shots that he wouldn't remember it in the morning." He sighs. "I'm not going to hurt him, hija. Not then, not now, not like that. I may not reciprocate, but that doesn't mean that I don't care. And don't you breathe a word of that to anyone," he demands sharply.
"Easy, Papi, I won't tell anyone."
Reaper starts relaxing again.
"...besides, he already knows."
There's silence for a handful of minutes before Reaper says quietly, "I don't completely hate that."