Gabriel Knows Too Much (part 4)

[moonshadows]

Waking up to being cuddled by a griffin, Gabriel thought sleepily, had to be one of life's greatest pleasures.

"Morning, Jack," he murmured. Then he smiled. "I love you."

The warm bulk he was leaning against stiffened, then relaxed with a low rumbling vibration.

"You love me, too?"

The purring got louder. Gabriel reached up and scratched the griffin behind one leonine ear.

"I suppose we should go back. Breakfast's better at the castle than at your hoard."

Jack made a grumbly, whiny sort of noise.

"Hey, if you want squirrel for breakfast, you're more than welcome to go hunting."

The griffin shank back down to human. "That's not it," he grumbled, nuzzling Gabriel's neck. "I don't want to have to move."

"We can cuddle a bit longer...champion."

He got a nip on the back of his neck for that. He wasn't sure if that was a protest at being teased, or a come-on.

"It was neat, watching you fight," he said softly. "You're really good." Gabriel snorted. "Unlike Stephen. And if anything ever threatened Louise's cubs, I'd be more afraid of her than her husband."

Jack chuckled at that. "I hate to say it, but you have a point about protectors versus supporters. Now that you've met my father..."

Gabriel rolled over to hug Jack to his sweater-covered chest. "No wonder you got into so many fights." He held his mate in silence for a minute before saying quietly, "Your great-grandmother knows I'm the Reaper."

"She does?"

"Said she knew three of my predecessors, including her brother. Gave me some advice. Told me to protect you."

Jack relaxed in his arms. "I'll trust you to protect me, as long as you trust me to protect you."

Part of Gabriel hated how soft and emotional that made him feel. He shoved that part aside and dipped his head to lip at Jack's hair. "Deal," he murmured.

"Mm." Jack raised his head to kiss his mate. "Breakfast?"

=

The harpies weren't at breakfast. When they finally straggled down for lunch, they looked distinctly worse for the wear.

"Celebrated a bit too much?" Gabriel asked with false innocence. He got two glares for his comment. "Good talk. I'm going to go practice my Reaper powers. Have a good lunch."

He spent that afternoon mastering the art of teleporting his right hand, to Jack's squeamish amusement. He found that with a bit of effort, he could keep the weird pre-arrival teleportation omniscience focused on his hand and actually see where it was. Then, a whimsical comment about his hand scuttling about on its own led to them cuddling in bed, watching both Addams Family movies as a reward for having mastered a Reaper power. He may have taken advantage of Jack's attention being focused on the movie to teleport his hand elsewhere in the keep and make it run around, hoping to find one of the harpies. He did not, which he realized belatedly was probably a good thing, considering the wicked heels Amelie liked wearing.

The week progressed roughly the same as the week before had, with the exceptions of more kisses and Gabriel integrating Reaper powers into his sparring matches with Jack. He experimented briefly with throwing teleporting punches, but they lacked the power to really make them effective. It was like tossing his fisted hand at Jack, and while it was useful as a distraction tactic, that was about it. Somewhere in the middle of the week, he called Ana and they chatted about their Christmases. She raised the possibility of Jack and Gabriel visiting for New Year's, an idea Jack liked a lot, so the next morning Gabriel brought it up with Angela.

Angela, somewhat unsurprisingly, was not keen on going back to Ana's after having been effectively caught kidnapping Gabriel to deliver him to the Reaper. But as reluctant as she was, it was nothing compared to the amount of NOPE she had at the concept of Amelie getting within 200 yards of Ana. In the end, the harpy agreed to celebrate alone with her lover (again) while Jack and Gabriel socialized with their friends.

It was a lot more fun than Christmas with the Morrisons, as far as Gabriel was concerned. Fewer people, all of which knew he was the Reaper and weren't treating him like a living trophy of Jack's. Since they planned to stay the night anyway, he allowed himself a couple of drinks. Someone gave Jamison a thimble full of wine, and he spent half of the night holding a glowing berry of some kind to his rear and flying unsteadily around claiming he was a firefly. Reinhardt got startled by Gabriel's teleporting hand trick when he used it to steal snacks off of the half-giant's plate, but then he thought it was hilarious and Gabriel wound up showing off all his Reaper tricks.

Ana was nearly in tears of joy at seeing her old friend Jack again, and Jack was nearly in tears at seeing her and Fareeha again. Gabriel and Hanzo had a slightly-tipsy but satisfactory talk about sexuality and what it was like being in a committed relationship wherein neither party had any desire to get their genitals involved. As a vampire, Hanzo found asexuality fascinating. He was also relieved to hear that Genji and Zenyatta had resumed their old relationship. Jesse and Reinhardt challenged Jack to wrestling matches - individually, and as a team - which led to the hilarious spectacle of the half-giant carrying a griffin on his back while the werewolf balanced on Jack's furry shoulders.

Hanzo was initially enraged to discover that Angela had, indeed, been deceiving them for years, and that she'd drugged and kidnapped Gabriel. It took several minutes of heated argument before he conceded that having a good man as the Reaper was better for everyone, and that although Angela's actions had been underhanded, the ends justified the means on that front. Ana and Fareeha were less inclined to forgive on the grounds of her betraying Overwatch, which Gabriel didn't even try to defend because he agreed that was a really shitty thing to do. Given that whole situation, though, Ana offered Jack and Gabriel the use of Angela's room for the night.

The party broke up shortly after midnight, with the variously-inebriated couples sharing a collective New Year's kiss at midnight and Fareeha laughing quietly at the sulking pixie in her hands complaining drunkenly about his boyfriend not being there. Jack and Gabriel followed Hanzo and Jesse up the stairs, bidding them goodnight before curling up somewhat guiltily in Angela's nestlike bed.

"Gabe?" Jack murmured after several comfortably quiet minutes. "You awake?"

"I am now," he grumbled.

"I wanna ask you something. I think," he added.

That was confusing enough that Gabriel rolled over to face his mate in the dark. "Jack?"

"You said the Reaper started out as someone's stolen magic," Jack began slowly.

Gabriel's pulse was suddenly very loud in his ears.

"I never could figure out what Liao was. She had a scent I'd never smelled before. But I smelled it on Amelie, and after you became the Mantle, I smelled it on you."

Fuck, Gabriel thought eloquently.

"How did Amelie survive giving you the Reaper?"

"Angela resurrected her," Gabriel whispered. "She can do that, if someone dies by their own hand or hers."

"Then..." Jack trembled slightly. "How did Liao survive?"

Fuck, fuck, fuck. He had no excuse for knowing this, not yet. Wait - maybe Mondatta? Mondatta would own up to it eventually anyway.

"You're a history buff, right, Jack?"

"Yeah...?"

"How did the Construct War end?"

Jack pulled him closer as he thought. "No one really knows," he said finally. "Just one day the fighting stopped and the constructs retreated."

"That..." Gabriel swallowed. "That was the day a dying djinn ripped the magic out of Liao, the magic that had made her a living anti-construct weapon. She was calling herself the Reaper."

The arms around Gabriel went slack, then tightened as the griffin struggled to process that information. Gabriel reached awkwardly up with one hand to stroke Jack's hair, trying to give his mate some comfort as his view of the world warped and twisted into something ominous and horrifying.

It was a long time before either of them fell asleep.

===

Neither of them mentioned to anyone else what they'd learned. They had a quiet breakfast with the others and then teleported back to the Reaper's mansion, where they had a more hearty breakfast. Neither harpy asked about their New Year's, and Gabriel threw himself into the final two weeks of his grace period wholeheartedly. Or, at least, he tried to. His body decided to spend a week and a half trying to reject the Reaper again, resulting in bouts of coughing up bloody chunks, or vomiting black goo, or tele-sneezing, or the horrific day he spent unable to fully coalesce no matter how hard he concentrated. Angela was particularly fascinated by him being partially smoke, and it did result in him being able to 'block' an attack by dimply dissolving into smoke at the site of impact, but it was a thoroughly uncomfortable day.

The days were mostly rainy, but he and Jack went out into the forest several times anyway. Some trips, Gabriel teleported them to Jack's hoard and they cuddled in his nest, watching the rain fall. When the weather was too nasty to go out, or Gabriel was suffering from Reaper-sickness and needed distraction, they bundled up in bed and spent hours on end watching various old TV shows. They chatted with Ana, or the various people living in her house, every few days. Gabriel spent many quiet hours 'talking' to the Reaper: thinking things over, weighing emotional responses and reasoning with them. It was like a child, or maybe a dog, and it felt things very strongly but with enough patience Gabriel could make it understand what was going on. He was getting better at communing with the Reaper, he thought. He could tap the Reaper's strength and agility almost at will, even for sparring with Jack and sometimes, gained it without even asking when they play-fought together. He guessed the Reaper had been dreadfully lonely and bored, but now that it had someone to explain things and someone to play with, it was learning to behave better.

Halfway through January, Angela declared his body had stopped fighting. He was a fully-fledged Reaper, she announced, and a more formidable one than she had expected him to be when the Reaper had made its choice clear. He could go anywhere he chose, even if that was 'far away from the mansion and never coming back', and she seemed pleasantly surprised when he declared his intent to stay there. Amelie was less pleased by this, but the reminder that the Reaper had chosen Gabriel and despised her still rankled.

Gabriel paid close attention as he opened the door to the Reaper's quarters, which Amelie had never used and which were still untouched from ten years ago when the harpies had murdered the previous Reaper. He thought he detected a flicker of intent from the Reaper just before the featureless door opened, and hid a smirk at the thought that maybe Amelie had never used it because the Reaper had never unlocked the door for her. Amelie still threw the verbal hissy fit Gabriel remembered, trying to convince him or Jack or both that Jack was not allowed in the room. It didn't work.

The room was just as impressive as he remembered, and something in him relaxed at the sight. He couldn't tell if it was him, leaning on memories of having lived here, or the Reaper. The dead guy was still on the bed, and Gabriel announced that he wanted the bed removed and a new one brought in, big enough for Jack to sleep on in griffin form. Then he changed his mind and declared that he wanted a new bed designed so that Jack could sleep comfortably on it in griffin form if he chose, with a soft bit for a human to sleep on, and a regular king bed for when they were both human. He almost let Angela loose on the books and assorted ingredients - after all, they were pretty much useless to him - but kept his mouth shut at the last second. Ana was an alchemist, too, and he did kind of want to have her visit.

It took a little over a week to get the beds settled and the room cleaned enough that he and Jack felt comfortable sleeping there. The first night was...unnerving, with him and Jack both being on edge, thinking they saw things in the shadows. But then Gabriel called on the Reaper to feel the room out with shadow tendrils, and discovered they were already there. That's what they had been seeing.

"At least it's quiet," Jack sighed. "And doesn't stick sharp little claws in your leg when it stretches."

Now that he was the Reaper, free to do whatever he wanted, he assured Angela and Amelie that they were more than welcome to stay. Invaluable resources, he called them, pointing out that his body having adjusted to the Reaper's presence did not mean he actually knew everything about being the Reaper. He did discuss finances with them, though, and although he was really not familiar with supernatural pay rates, Jack was and they had advisor's salaries hammered out in fairly short order. He also had access to the Reaper's bank accounts, both mundane and supernatural, which he thought was an improvement over the way things went in his future memories. Belatedly, he remembered his keys and wallet and spent an afternoon catching up with Lucio and inventing a story about being kidnapped and then working for the kidnappers because they paid really well so he was going to pay last month's rent and move all his stuff out. Or, at least, the stuff he cared about. The next hour was spent teleporting from his apartment to his Reaper quarters, shadow tendrils wrapped around various possessions.

According to his direct deposit history, Liao had put him on paid leave until his vacation days ran out, then on suspension without pay. He debated cleaning the account out and putting his money in another one, but figured that would look too suspicious. He did go to his favorite pizza place and order three large pies to go: one with his favorite toppings, a meat lover's for Jack, and a chicken supreme for Angela and Amelie. Then he teleported one last time and spent the evening on his couch, binging on pizza and Netflix with Jack.

Two days after he'd cleaned out his apartment, Liao started calling Gabriel's phone. He didn't pick up, and he didn't listen to the voicemails she left. Angela informed him that Overwatch had been notified of the case against them, and that they had two weeks to set a time and place to meet with the Reaper and present their side before formal mediation. She was still looking for someone willing to host that meeting.

Valentine's Day was fun. He and Jack went to Paris, where the griffin called in a favor from the owner of a ritzy little diner and they had a quiet, romantic lunch together. They wandered around a little after lunch, Gabriel half hoping to run into the pinstripe-suit vampire again, but he didn't show. After that he teleported them into the back of a theater showing Hamilton, to Jack's delight. They shared a box of chocolates and a bottle of wine in Jack's hoard, watching the sunset bleed across the sky, Jack reverting to feathers and fur when it got chilly and Gabriel using his wing as a blanket.

When they wandered back, late in the afternoon, Angela informed him that Overwatch had decided on a time and place for presenting their side, and that a date had been set for the formal mediation. April 25th he would be expected to make a decision, giving him just over two months to prepare himself for everything he knew already but wasn't telling anyone.

===

The giant tree that overshadowed Amelie's training yard was actually really decent to sit in...assuming you could climb up into it. Jack, of course, had no problem and Gabriel greatly enjoyed watching the play of his muscles as he did. The current Reaper had never climbed a tree in his life, but he was able to use a combination of shadow-whip-arms pulling and shadow tendrils lifting to brute-force his way up the tree like that. He and Jack sat in the tree, side by side, the silence heavy with the knowledge that they'd have to confront Liao sooner rather than later: she'd specified a location in Grand Park, and only three days away.

"Do you think she knows it's you?" Jack asked quietly.

Gabriel grimaced. "Probably. When I was tele-sneezing, I dropped in on someone I'm pretty sure was part of Overwatch and introduced myself so she and her giant, terrifyingly strong girlfriend didn't attack me before I sneezed away. I'm pretty sure she's put that together with the fact that the Reaper's wanted me for three years and come to the obvious conclusion that the Reaper got what it wanted."

"Do you think she'll try to attack you?"

"Probably not, actually." It wasn't as comforting as Gabriel wanted it to be. "She'll be sizing me up to see how much of a threat I am."

Jack lipped at his hair. "So what's the plan? Double-team her, united front?"

"I'm thinking sullen, angry, and isolated. She doesn't need to know the truth."

"So I'm not going with you, then."

Gabriel could hear the unhappy tone in Jack's voice. He leaned against the griffin. "I don't like it any more than you do, but I don't want her to know how important to me you are. I don't want her targeting you to get to me."

Jack sighed into Gabriel's hair. "I can't argue with that."

=

The day before Gabriel's meeting with Liao, Angela summoned him and Jack to the front hall where she, Amelie, Sombra, and Torbjörn were waiting and dressed for combat. Internally, he sighed. The bullshit with the golems. He waited in impatient silence as Angela went through the obviously fake story about three golems turning on their creator, nodding to acknowledge their weakness and that he'd talk with the dwarf later. They split into land and air teams, and he mounted Jack's griffin form to act as his eyes.

He didn't say much, scouring the forest instead. On the one hand, he appreciated the opportunity to test himself in battle. On the other hand, he still thought this was a waste of time and wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.

It was several minutes before he saw one of the golems, but he pointed Jack to it and down they dove. Gabriel flung himself into mist as Jack backwinged, and re-formed with both his arms as scythes. "Find water," he snapped.

The griffin made an uncertain sound, but Gabriel whipped a scythe through the golem's legs, and he whuffled Gabriel's hair once before bounding off. The wounded golem clawed its way towards Gabriel, and he sliced off its arms, then its head. The glow of its enchantment dulled, and it fell apart.

Running half on instinct and half on paranoia, Gabriel went to mist and felt the second golem's arm swipe through his substance. A roar in the distance - Jack! Had he found water? Was he hurt? Didn't matter. Gabriel shot along the ground as a stream of black smoke, feeling more than hearing the golem chase him.

"Ruh!"

Okay. That didn't sound injured. Good. Gabriel shot across - okay, that was the stream - and re-formed next to the griffin. The other two golems crashed out of the undergrowth and one of them plowed helpfully into the water. Shadow tendrils leaped up at Gabriel's command, pulling the thing down and extinguishing it. The last golem hesitated, and Gabriel flipped it off.

"Come and get some, assface," he snarled, making a 'bring it' gesture with one hand while waving Jack away with the other.

The golem fucking picked up pieces of the other golem and started chucking them at Gabriel. He went to mist and scooted to the side, re-formed and tied the thing's legs together with a shadow tendril. Jack slammed into it from behind, knocking it off balance, and Gabriel wrapped both whip arms around its head, slamming it violently into the water.

The enchantments went out.

"Jack, you okay?"

The griffin bounded up and licked his hair. He allowed himself a moment to bury his face in that silky mane, remembering the bloom of dark red on white fur.

"Excellently done, Gabriel!" Angela exclaimed from behind him.

Jack shrunk back to human as the other three came out of hiding, arms protectively around Gabriel. "The hell?"

"It was a test," Gabriel said shortly.

"Yes! And you passed with flying colors!" Angela beamed proudly.

Jack...growled. Actual growling. Under the circumstances, it was kind of...endearing.

Amelie crossed her arms. "We knew you would not fight as hard if you were aware that it was a training exercise."

"Joke's on you, then," Gabriel said shortly, "because it was painfully obvious that the story about golems going rogue was fake."

Sombra snickered.

"So now that we've passed your little test, Torbjörn, what did you want to talk to me about?" Gabriel asked, knowing full well what it was.

The dwarf grunted. "Come down to my workshop and I'll tell you. I'll send a golem to guide you," he added before Gabriel could ask.

"Fine," Gabriel sighed, leaning into Jack's embrace. "Race you back."

The trendril wrapped around Jack; Gabriel reached and they were gone.

===

"You okay?" Jack asked when the reappeared. "You seem...unhappy."

"You mean I'm pissed and I'm making you nervous," Gabriel corrected dryly.

The griffin hugged him tighter. "Not nervous for me, but I half expected you to attack Amelie."

Gabriel sighed and tried to relax. "I hate surprises. I hate being kept in the dark or talked down to. I especially hate having surprise we don't believe you can really kick someone's ass tests passed off as emergencies sprung on me the day before I'm meeting with someone I thought was my friend but is really going to kill me if I give her half a chance."

"I can't blame you there," Jack said softly. "You were amazing, though. How do you feel?"

"Well, the Reaper's happy. It was created to destroy constructs, so this was like taking a bird dog to the lake and letting it chase ducks. I'm a little hungry."

Jack nuzzled his hair. "Then let's go get you something to eat."

Gabriel was in the dining room with Jack, snacking on little pretzel-wrapped franks with hot mustard for dipping, when a golem trundled in and chirped apologetically at him.

"Torbjörn wants to see you, and only you," Jack translated.

"Of course he does." He leaned over to give Jack a quick kiss. "No idea how long this is going to take."

"No worries, Gabe. I'll just start watching season three without you."

Laughing, Gabriel kissed him again and then followed the golem out of the room.

They stopped in front of an iron door Gabriel had never seen, but remembered seeing once before. The golem knocked in a specific rhythm, the doors groaned as they opened, and there was Torbjörn, who greeted him brusquely and led him into the circular stone room with the forge and the golems-in-progress. He gave most of it a cursory glance, but did take a good look at the photographs on the desk. Torbjörn's wife and kids, the dwarf himself with the bright red fish, and Reinhardt.

The dwarf handed him an empty glass and ordered him to spit it in it. He complied, wondering what it was about alchemy that required human saliva and at the same time, being grateful it wasn't blood or semen or something more disgusting. Torbjörn seemed slightly mollified by the fact that Gabriel wasn't giving him lip, but honestly he just wanted to get this over with and get back to brooding about his meeting with Liao.

"Do you know why I'm here?"

Guess he wasn't going to be that lucky.

"I'm going to guess that whatever the reason, it's important enough to you that you're here instead of with your wife and kids." Gabriel nodded at the photographs.

Torbjörn grunted. "Perceptive. But you're right. I'm here because the djinn are not to be trusted. I was a part of Overwatch," he said, watching Gabriel intently. "I've known Liao longer than Jack. I got closer to her. I know what she's thinking, and I know why she's thinking it."

Oh, fuck. How much did Torbjörn know?

"I've seen what she has. And once you see it...you'll know what choice you have to make."

So he'd probably used that alchemy recipe on himself. But he'd probably not wound up in Ojal's memories. Which means he was probably in Liao's. Fuck, no wonder he was so rabidly anti-construct.

Gabriel knew he should just keep his mouth shut and drink the damn potion, but he still found himself saying, "My job is to hear both sides before making a decision."

"I let my children grow up without a father because I knew Liao and those Shambali were going to take this to the Reaper, and I wanted to be there for it. So here I am. The whole reason I'm here." He turned to the desk, mixing things into the glass, and then swung back around to shove it at Gabriel. "This. Drink it."

Finally. Gabriel grabbed the glass and downed the muddy mauve potion in one swallow, remembering at the last second to sit before he passed out.

Here we go...

===

It was still weird being Ojal, the familiarity of remembering these events offset by the bizarreness of remembering them while experiencing them. It acted like an insulator, letting him keep his mind and his thoughts separate from the djinn's. This wasn't like the rest of his future-memories - this was the past, something immutable, events on rails he was helpless to do anything with but endure. Ojal's gaze lingered on her lover, and Gabriel was forced to look with her.

The glint of metal among the stone of the atronach's body caught his attention, and something about the shape plucked at his memory. He'd seen that bit of ornamentation before, but not in that shape.

As Ojal told futures to her troops, Gabriel screamed in silent horror. He remembered holding a twisted bit of metal, sharp enough to be a weapon, and plunging it into Liao's throat. That - that was a piece of -

Gabriel held both metaphoric hands over his nonexistent mouth as the battle began. That fateful piece of metal, what Ojal would see killing Liao in so many futures, was a piece of her atronach fiance's body. Ironic. Fitting. And somewhat stomach-turning, now that he knew what it was.

Choice or destiny. The gun or the shard. But he'd been shown all of this for a reason - was there a third way?

"You can stop this," Liao said, startling both Gabriel and Ojal.

I know you.

The thought resonated, but it did not originate with Gabriel. No, this was Ojal seeing the darkest future, the one she had tried so hard to ignore, suddenly raise its head and look at her with glowing red eyes.

"You are the...the thing that has been cutting through our troops."

"The Reaper," Liao said softly.

Gabriel winced as Ojal and Liao argued briefly about seeing the woman's future, as the threat of final death was voiced. Then the djinn held out her hand and the Reaper clasped it, and Gabriel paid closer attention. Not to the visions of Liao's deaths, no - he focused behind the visions, searching for a glimpse of the unknowable.

I see you.

The words resonated silently as a hand plunged the twisted metal repeatedly into Liao's throat. Gabriel licked his mental lips and gestured to the visions with a thought. Was there another way?

The shard of metal used to cut Liao's throat, letting her bleed out in peace while she spent her final moments hating her murderer with every fiber of her being. Suddenly, he understood.

That understanding gave him the strength to close his mental eyes and ears to the vision Jack's grief. Not going to happen, he promised the griffin silently. Not this time. I'll make sure of it.

The visions ended, and Ojal recoiled. Gabriel watched as Liao scythed the djinn's legs off, voicing the reasons for her hatred, feeling nothing but pity for the thing that had once been a woman but was now a vessel of rage and vengeance, spreading just as much pain and grief as the djinn had. Yeah, he knew what had to be done. The trick was going to be making it happen. Dispassionately, he watched as Ojal prayed to the Iris, as the Reaper was torn free of its host. I've got you now, he promised the entity. I'll keep you safe. Just trust me.

Gabriel listened as the Prophet - Mondatta - called an end to the Construct War, and promised Ojal privately that she would be reincarnated and play an integral role in the "true defeat" of the Reaper.

As Ojal breathed her last, he could feel a spark of distant rage towards the one who had caused all this rage and pain, yet held himself aloof as if the blood were not on his hands...

===

His eyes shot open, heart pounding and lungs heaving. A golem was holding him down, and he was in Torbjörn's workshop.

"You saw it?" the dwarf grunted. "If it worked, you should've seen the massacre the djinn committed."

"I saw more than enough," Gabriel assured him, feeling the Reaper's distant rage burn in his heart. "I know what I have to do."

===

Gabriel was grateful, as he followed the golem back up to more familiar areas of the mansion, that he had the future memories to help him sort everything out because fuck that had been confusing the first time. He was also grateful that his darkly emphatic declaration had convinced Torbjörn that he now shared the dwarf's anti-construct sentiments, because he was fairly sure his actual decision wouldn't make anyone happy. Jack took one look at him as he stepped back into his (their?) room and put the laptop aside.

"You okay?" he asked quietly as he wrapped his arms around Gabriel, somewhat alarmed by the tired slump of the other man's body.

"I drank a potion that put me in the mind of a djinn commander during the Construct War," Gabriel sighed. "The one who ended the war by separating the Reaper from Liao. Torbjörn's got a real hateboner for djinn," he added in attempts to not sound completely emotionally exhausted. "Probably second only to Liao's."

Jack kissed his forehead. "Grab the laptop, Gabe. I can still watch TV shows with a lion's head, and you need cuddles."

"I love you, Jack. Have I mentioned that?"

"Maybe a few times," the griffin chuckled. "But it's okay, because I love you, too."

They spent the evening in the griffin's nest-box, watching the second half of season three. When Gabriel started nodding off, Jack extended one paw and very carefully shut the laptop down before lowering his head and joining his mate in sleep.

===

Liao had specified the meeting would start at three in the afternoon. Fifteen minutes before that, Gabriel teleported close to the park and walked around, scoping the place out. He'd gone with a slightly-ratty tee and broken-in jeans over beat-up sneakers, attempting to cultivate an image of either needing the comfort of familiar clothes, mild neglect, or both. Cheap sunglasses bought from a convenience store hid his eyes. The sharp, distrustful looks he was getting as he slouched around finished the job of putting him on edge, and secretly, he was pretty pleased with the effect.

Three sharp, he walked up to the base of the specified statue and leaned against it, hands in his pockets, looking (and feeling) like he'd rather be anywhere but there. Liao walked up seconds later, dark jeans and a maroon turtleneck sweater, brown leather boots that hugged her shins and two cardboard cups of coffee.

"Your usual," she said casually, offering Gabriel one of the cups.

He grimaced and took the sunglasses off, shoving them in his pocket. "I'm too wound up already, I don't need more caffeine."

She shrugged and set it on the ground between them before leaning against the base of the statue and sipping hers.

"So the Reaper finally got you, huh?" she asked, and damn it, that sounded like actual sympathy in her voice.

Gabriel's stomach churned. "Yeah. Damn harpy drugged me and carried me off in the middle of the night." Remembering how things went in his future memories, he added, "I've got golems watching me day and night making sure I don't make a break for it, and every minute of my fucking day is accounted for. This is the first time I've been outside on my own in..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "It sucks."

Liao reached out and squeezed his shoulder reassuringly, but he flinched at her touch. It was the Reaper, he realized. The Reaper was wound up tighter than a watch spring, and it was bleeding over to him.

"I guess the djinn already made their pitch to you," she said. When he nodded, her eyes lit up. "Let's work together."

Warily, he asked, "How so?"

"You don't want the Reaper. I don't want the djinn's leader. We can make a deal. You give me the Reaper, I kill their leader and leave the rest of them alone."

But you wouldn't, Gabriel thought uneasily.

"How do I give you the Reaper without dying?" he asked instead.

"Convince the djinn leader, Mondatta, to take the Reaper out of you. That's how they took it out of its original host, you know. Mondatta rips the Reaper out of you, I assume it, I kill Mondatta, and we both go our merry ways."

She made it sound so simple, so innocent.

"No Reaper bothering you, no harpies controlling you, you and Jack can live together in peace, and I promise not to touch the other djinn." Liao smiled at him, like they were back in the station and she'd just cracked a decent joke.

Gabriel didn't smile back. "How do you know about Jack?" he asked, his blood feeling like ice in his veins.

The smile flickered out. "I visited his parents," she said slowly. "They told me you two had been there for Christmas, and that you were mates. I'm happy for you, Gabe. I want you to be happy. I've known Jack for a long time. He's a good man, and I'm glad you've found each other."

Damn it, it sounded genuine. There had to be some flaw in her facade, some thread he could tug to get it to unravel.

"There's no pressure, Gabe," Liao said in the same tone she used when she was urging him to take a personal day and cool off, the 'I'm your friend and I care about your dumb ass' tone. "We've got two months before the formal mediation. And I know I haven't been completely honest with you, but I was trying to protect you. I fought tooth and nail to keep the Reaper from taking you, so you wouldn't have to suffer all of this."

Gabriel closed his eyes, breathing deeply, trying to calm himself and the Reaper. The memory of a Burger King he'd never been to came to mind.

"Do you know what the Sight is?" he asked quietly, watching her through his eyelashes.

Liao shook her head.

"It's a power humans develop when they've been around supernatural creatures for too long. Sort of a self-defense mechanism. Lets them sense what things are. I've got it." Gabriel opened his eyes fully and locked gazes with Liao. "Wanna tell me why you're covered in the Reaper's taint?"

Her eyes narrowed, and her lips pressed together into the hard line he'd seen so many times when she was aggravated with him. "Gabriel, trust me when I say you don't want to know."

"Jack's mom said we both smelled like death," he pressed. "Why?"

"You don't want to know the answer to that question, Gabriel."

"How old are you, Liao?"

"Reyes, I'm warning you-"

"You're going to die," he said softly.

The angry protest Liao had been about to voice dried up and, for just a moment, she looked uncertain.

"The djinn whose legs you cut off. She showed you your future. You die, Liao. Is that really what you want?"

Her dark eyes burned with hatred he'd only seen in Ojal's memories. "If Mondatta dies first, then I'll be satisfied."

"If you get the Reaper back, you're going to slaughter all the djinn." The words were cold, even, a statement of fact. Liao nodded, just the slightest motion. "I can't let you do that."

"You can't kill me either, Gabe."

"I know."

"Then what are you going to do?"

Gabriel fixed his quarters firmly in his mind's eye. "You'll find out in two months," he said, and reached.

The last thing he saw as he teleported was hatred burning in Liao's eyes.

===

"So what are you going to do in two months?" Jack asked when Gabriel finished relaying the conversation, fingers combing through his mate's hair as they lay in bed with the griffin as the big spoon.

Gabriel groaned before saying, "That depends on Mondatta. I'm going to have to talk to him sooner or later, and I'm trying to convince myself that it should be sooner."

"Can we drop in on my parents first?" Jack's voice was quiet. "Liao said she visited. I'm...a little concerned, now that we know what she is, that she might have...done something."

That was both an excellent point and a good distraction. "Okay, but what do we tell them? That Liao was the original Reaper? That I'm the Reaper?"

"Ma already knows, but maybe it's time we tell Pa."

Gabriel rolled over to give his mate a teasing look. "You don't sound very sure about that, Jack."

The griffin shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't like drawing things out."

"Okay, we'll tell him." Gabriel leaned in to kiss the tip of Jack's nose. "Should we bring some sort of a gift? A hey-sorry-your-son-is-dating-the-Reaper gift?"

Jack thought about that for a bit. "Pa loves a good cherry pie," he said slowly, "but cherry season doesn't start for weeks. That might soften him up."

"Then let's go down to the dining room," Gabriel suggested, feeling better about his half-assed impromptu idea.

===

Mary ushered them inside, cheerfully calling to her husband that their son and his mate had dropped in with a cherry pie. The instant John entered the room, however, his expression made Gabriel freeze like a rabbit seeing a hawk.

"I recognize that scent now," the older male growled. "Jack, what evil have you brought into my house?"

"Gabriel's the Reaper, Pa," Jack answered softly. "That doesn't make him evil."

Gabriel closed his eyes and winced away as John argued loudly that it did, in fact, make him the scum of the Earth.

"Pa. Pa! PA! Listen to me!" Silence finally greeted Jack's demand, and warily, Gabriel opened his eyes again. "Being the Mantle doesn't make someone evil if they weren't already! There have been good Reapers!"

"Name one," John spat.

"Great-Uncle Alfred," Jack said evenly. "Saw his portrait in the Reaper's mansion. Went looking after Grandma told Gabriel that her brother had been a Mantle."

The silence stretched again, and apparently Great-Uncle Alfred had been a family favorite, because John visibly de-ruffled and averted his eyes.

"I guess he's okay," the older griffin muttered, accepting a plate of hot cherry pie from his wife. "Alright, sit down, tell me why you're here."

Jack waited for his father to settle on the couch before sitting in a chair and Gabriel, painfully aware of how thin his welcome was, sat on the floor with his arms loosely around Jack's leg. John eyed him with distrust, but said nothing as Jack explained the truth about Liao.

"We just wanted to make sure you both were safe," Jack finished, looking apologetically at his parents.

John grunted. "You. Reaper. Why are you sitting on the floor and letting my son do all the talking?"

Gabriel shrugged. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do, right? I know you don't like me, just because I'm human and male and mated to your son, so I figured the least I could do is follow griffin traditions and make things that much easier on Jack by acting in a way that would piss you off the least."

Silence stretched before John looked away and muttered, "Eh, you're aright."

Mary beamed at all three of them.

===

"I still need to talk to Mondatta," Gabriel sighed as Jack lipped at his hair.

"Want me to come with you?"

Gabriel leaned into the griffin's embrace. "Nah. I'm gonna aim straight for his room, and if I miss, Genji's hanging around the monastery. I don't want to subject you to him."

Jack chuckled. "Alright. I'll be waiting for you." He bent his head to lip at Gabriel's ear and murmur, "Shirtless."

"Ooh. I'll be as quick as I can." Gabriel turned in Jack's arms to hug him back and lavish a few slow, tender kisses on various parts of the griffin's anatomy. "Jack? I know I can be an asshole sometimes, but I'm really trying to keep that in check, especially around you. Thanks for putting up with me."

"You're doing fine, Gabe," Jack murmured. "I know it's not easy to open up, especially with all the things life has piled on you, but you're doing great at dealing with as much of it as you can and letting me support you for the rest."

Gabriel thought of himself in his future-memories, being a dick and keeping Jack in the dark, fighting and lying, and hugged his mate tighter. "Don't let me take you for granted," he said quietly. "We're equals. Remind me of that if I ever start acting like a dick."

"I promise." Jack lipped at his hair a bit more before letting go. "Hurry up and go talk to Mondatta, Gabe, and then come back so we can cuddle shirtless."

"I'll be as fast as I can," he promised.

The fireplace in Mondatta's room. Gabriel reached-

Mondatta was sitting on a straw mat on the floor, a cup of tea in his hands. "I expect you have questions," he said calmly. "Sit down, and I will explain everything."

Fat chance of that, Gabriel thought, but he sat warily down.

"You're going to ask if I was the Prophet." Before Gabriel could do more than bite back his reaction, Mondatta continued, "Don't look surprised, Reaper. I can see this conversation exactly as it's going to happen. I know what I'm going to say, I know what you're going to say. I have known since before you were even born. For djinn, future-seeing only gets more accurate with age. And I am very, very old."

Yeah, except that the Reaper was created to be the anti-djinn weapon, and it fucks with seeing the future, Gabriel thought. This was all a huge bluff; it had to be. It had worked on him the first time,but the Iris had showed him this future for a reason. He kept his expression neutral, but internally, his mind was going into overdrive. It's on now, fucker. Show me what you've got.

"A mystery you have long since been waiting to solve - who placed you there at Ana's doorstep? It was me." Mondatta sipped his tea. "Oftentimes a person needs a push to embrace their destiny. It needed to proceed this way. You needed Ana and the others. You needed Jack. If Angela had been able to take you before you met them...you died. Horribly. Before your time."

Because you killed me? Gabriel thought accusingly, remembering how easily the djinn had threatened to rip the Reaper out of him. The first time, he had demanded answers. Reasons. But there was no reason to ask that this time, and Mondatta's assertion that he knew how this conversation went tripped his 'no one tells me what to do' knee-jerk stubbornness.

Gabriel kept his mouth shut.

"I am the Prophet," Mondatta announced when he realized the Reaper wasn't going to ask. "Yes, I started the Construct War. It was the way things had to proceed."

Again, Gabriel said nothing, although he did quirk a skeptical eyebrow at the djinn. In silence, he listened to Mondatta's prepared speech.

Slavery. Slaughtering Liao's village. The way the uprising spread, with more wholesale slaughter. How he saw the creation of the Reaper in a vision, the catch-22 he was put in, and the vision of Ojal ripping the Reaper out of Liao. But one bit caught Gabriel's attention - "The Iris swore she would remove the danger of the Reaper" if Mondatta gave up his reincarnation and chose its next vessel.

Not kill. Not destroy. Not end. Remove the danger. Hadn't Mondatta said that when he took the Reaper and then died, the Iris would take the Reaper along with his soul? Was that what she had intended Mondatta to do - to accept responsibility for his actions, to clean up the mess he caused by declaring himself the vessel and end everything almost before it got started?

"I had no choice, Gabriel," Mondatta was saying mournfully. "It was genocide of humankind, or genocide of the djinn. I was protecting my own."

This was going to turn into the 'you need to die for the good of the world if I have to kill you myself' talk, and Gabriel was not in the mood to hear it.

When the realized the Reaper was still not going to cooperate, Mondatta asked gently, "Do you know what Liao has planned for you?"

"She's gonna kill me, take the Reaper back, and wipe the djinn out completely," Gabriel answered matter-of-factly. "But that's not what I came here to ask you about."

All nine of the djinn's eyes blinked in shock. "It's not?"

"Nope. Nice confession, though. I only came to ask you what the fuck is going on with the second uprising in Russia."

"The what?"

"I thought you said you knew what I was going to say," Gabriel said innocently. "In any case, the formal mediation will be in about two months. I suggest you look into the Russia situation if you want me to rule against Overwatch, because as things stand, that's a perfectly valid reason for them to not be helping you." He stood and stretched. "Good talk. I'll be in touch."

And before Mondatta could respond, he teleported back to his quarters.

===

At breakfast the next day, Amelie offered the sharp suggestion that Gabriel start training with the goal of being able to fight and kill the members of Overwatch, should the mediation go bad.

"I'm not a murderer," Gabriel replied in a tone of forced neutrality. "There's better ways to handle that possibility. Angela, any luck on finding a host yet?"

The harpy shook her head.

"Put out the word that the new Reaper wants a bloodless mediation and is hoping for a site where violence is not allowed. Jack, who do you still have contact with from Overwatch?"

The griffin blinked. "Uhh...Fareeha quit about when I did, but Tracer runs the ranger station close to my hoard and Ana's house and I'm still friends with her..."

"Perfect. I think you ought to let your friend know that you're okay, and also that you have a mate. Invite her to drop by your hoard to meet me, or we can give her a tour of the mansion-"

"No!" Angela interjected.

"-or we can meet at a cafe somewhere or something," Gabriel finished as if he hadn't heard he harpy at all. "I'll ask Ana if we can join them for Easter and bring a side dish or a bag of O-positive for Hanzo or something. And I think I should apologize to the women whose make-out session I interrupted the day I was sneeze-teleporting all over." He shot Amelie a smug look. "If the members of Overwatch that are most likely to be there know me as a person, and especially if they like me, they're much less likely to attack me out of the blue."

"Good idea," Jack said warmly.

Across the table, Amelie glared daggers at both of them. "The Reaper is not supposed to be a pacifist."

"Never said I was trying to be," Gabriel retorted. "I'm just not going into every situation expecting to have to fight my way out and kill everyone who disagrees with me."

"The Reaper will-"

"My experience is not like yours," Gabriel growled, feeling the Reaper's attention surge up, ready to fight and kill. Silently, he reminded both of them that he was not going to attack Amelie at the breakfast table. "Stop making assumptions that things will be the same for me. You treated the Reaper like a weapon, and it doesn't like that. You want to know why? Because that's how Liao treated it. Like a slave, subject to her will, with no choice in its actions. That's the exact reason the Construct War started. If you treat a thinking entity like shit, of course it's going to act like a shithead towards you. So just stop, okay? You're blaming an abused dog for biting when you're the one smacking it around. What, Angela?"

The white-feathered harpy who had been making unsure sounds and trying to get a word in edgewise flinched and took a deep breath. "How does Liao factor into the Reaper's history?"

Gabriel covered his face with both hands and uttered a quiet but emphatic fuck.

===

The explanations, arguments, and yelling continued for what felt like forever. This was absolutely not the way Gabriel had wanted to broach the subject and start planning for his temporary demise, but what was done was done and the metaphoric genie could not be put back into the bottle. 

"Does anyone disagree that Liao has to be dealt with?" Gabriel asked, glancing around. Heads shaking 'no' were the only answers he got. "Okay. Now, the way I see it, Liao is a separate issue from the case. I can't rule impartially with her involved. If we take care of her first, either by killing her or by Overwatch disowning her, then I can make a decision without being used as a pawn in a grudge match spanning thousands of years."

Angela grimaced. "The idea that the Reaper could have potentially been manipulated like that..."

"I don't care about that," Jack said gruffly. "You're sure you can bring him back?"

"As long as he dies by my hand or his own. We can discuss the details of that later."

Jack shuddered and buried his face in Gabriel's shoulder.

"Will you trust me to be a part of your plan?" Amelie asked, her gold eyes fixed piercingly on Gabriel's.

"Absolutely," he replied, meeting that gaze without wavering.

She blinked and muttered something in French that he loosely translated as her being surprised.

Gabriel gave her a wry smile. "Remember the day I became the Reaper, and I told you that I'd probably care a lot more later about how you cheated death?" The harpies smothered giggles. Tension broken, he smiled. "Okay, we can work out details later. Right now, I want to get started on befriending Overwatch people and maybe see if Ana will let me and Jack spend Easter with her."

===

Ana sounded thrilled with the idea of Jack and Gabriel coming to her house for Easter, particularly since Jesse and Hanzo were in the process of finding a place of their own, something that jogged loose a future memory. 

"Will they be at Easter?" Gabriel asked. "And should we bring wedding presents as well as a side dish?"

Ana verbally foundered for a moment before sighing. "Please don't tell anyone. I did not mean to let that slip. Yes, they will be celebrating with us and yes, wedding presents would be appropriate."

"I won't say a word," Gabriel promised. "Do you want to come see the mansion sometime? There's a bunch of really old books in the Reaper's quarters..."

"We can discuss it in two weeks," she assured him. "I'm afraid we will not be home in the meantime, and that I am unable to tell you more than that."

"No problem. Tell the ha- tell Hanzo and Jesse I said hi."

They said their goodbyes and hung up, and Jack promptly arched an eyebrow at his mate. "Wedding presents?"

"Yeah. Got any ideas? Because I'm pretty sure all of mine are bad."

Jack pulled him into a hug and lipped at his hair. "Let me hear your ideas first."

"You're going to laugh at them," Gabriel said, unsure if he was warning Jack or complaining.

"I want to hear them anyway."

Gabriel sighed. "Okay. Blood for Hanzo, human blood, medical blood. Maybe some of mine. Kept warm by my body heat. Also doubles as a side dish for Easter."

"Not a bad idea," Jack said, kissing the side of Gabriel's neck. "And for Jesse?"

"Uhhh...a case of fancy dog biscuits. The biggest bone chew-toy ever. A haunch of something. A really fancy collar. I'm so bad at this," he whined, turning to press his face into Jack's shoulder. "There are probably all really offensive ideas, help."

"A brush," Jack chuckled, hugging his mate. "Number one gift idea for most transhumans is grooming tools."

"I don't know how to pick a brush for a werewolf. Wait..." Gabriel lifted his head. "There's some kind of fancy boutique for this sort of thing somewhere, isn't there? Tell me there is."

Jack grinned. "There is. It's expensive, but the craftsmanship and materials are top-notch."

"Oh, thank god." Gabriel slumped against him in relief. "Where is it, and when should we go?"

"Let's talk to Lena first and see if she wants to join us for shopping and dinner in Paris."

Gabriel grinned. "Let me get my credit cards, and then let's go."

=

Lena was just as bubbly and enthusiastic as Gabriel remembered, unbothered by the fact that Gabriel was the Reaper and thrilled that Jack had found someone special.

"Of course I'll go with you!" she declared, hugging them both. "You don't have to twist my arm, luv!"

Can we do three? Gabriel thought at the entity coiled in the back of his mind, and felt the liquid-steel grace of the Reaper fill him. Apparently they could. Shadow tendrils wrapped around both of his passengers, and with the usual lurch of dislocation their surroundings blurred into Paris.

"You can teleport, too!" Lena chirped. "That's brilliant!"

"It does come in handy," he said, buffing his fingernails against his shirt. "Jack, where's the boutique?"

It took less time to get there than Gabriel had been afraid it would, and when they arrived, it looked like a really fancy jewelry store from the outside. And from the inside. But the saleswoman who approached them had to be a transhuman, because she kept shooting little glances at him although most of her attention was focused on Jack.

"It would be my pleasure to serve you," she purred. "What may we help you find today?"

"We're in search of a unique gift for a special friend," Jack answered.

The saleswoman snapped two manicured fingers and a second woman came out of the back room to stand behind the counter. "If you would follow me," she said in a tone of subservient command, and led the way through a door that Gabriel hadn't noticed.

When they crossed the doorway, they found themselves in what looked like a cross between an art gallery and a cave, with various pieces of jewelry on stone plinths carved to represent the shapes they were meant to be worn on and shelves carved out of the walls holding a dizzying array of brushes, combs, and things Gabriel had no names for. The saleswoman shook herself and flowed into something roughly the shape of a lion with elongated front legs, making her body slope downwards while her head remained exactly where it was. Golden-brown bird wings stretched up towards the ceiling before folding neatly against her back.

"Welcome, madame and messieurs. It is truly an honor to have you visit our humble shop," she purred at Jack. "Is this to be the day one of our unworthy creations graces your majestic body, Strike-Commander?"

Jack coughed and blushed as both Gabriel and Lena looked at him. "I'm...retired," he choked out.

"This does not mean your body is any less majestic," the - what was she, a sphinx? - insisted, eyelashes fluttering.

"It is pretty majestic," Gabriel chimed in, amused. "What did you have in mind?"

"Gabe!" Jack shot him a slightly-desperate pleading look while Lena giggled.

The salessphinx gave him a warily appraising look. "It is so rare to see a lion-headed griffin," she began demurely, "but the challenge is worth the effort..." Gracefully, she padded over to a plinth and sat on her haunches, reaching up with delicate forepaws to both beckon them forward and gesture to the jewelry on it. 

If not for the carvings, Gabriel would have no idea what he was looking at, but it seemed to be a set of claw-tips and rings connected by fine chains. The equivalent of really fancy footwear, he guessed. There were also a set of bracer-like bangles and ornate ear cuffs for rounded leonine ears. Lena oohed and aahed over them, and Gabriel made thoughtfully appreciative noises, but Jack stayed where he was and refused to even look in their direction.

Gabriel gestured for the sphinx to lean closer. "Hey, uh...I'm still new to the supernatural world. Is this a purely masculine design, or would it be appropriate for a female lion-headed griffin as well?"

"Not all species have binary gender," she informed him primly. "Our designs are for all." A moment later, though, she coughed delicately. "The bangles were designed specifically with the Strike-Commander in mind," she admitted.

"They look good," Gabriel said encouragingly, and they did - silver, or maybe white gold or something more exotic, with a stylized reverse-griffin on each one, like tiny medieval shields. The eyes of the griffins were some blue stone that actually matched the color of Jack's eyes, and they were bordered in vibrant blue. The other pieces were traditional yellow gold. "Hey, do you have a comb or brush meant for a lion-headed griffin's mane?"

The sphinx colored lightly. "We do. This way, please..."

Gabriel followed her to a shelf and admired a comb the size of his hand that had teeth like a hair pick and a handle that was undeniably modeled after Jack's griffin body. After a quick glance to make sure his mate wasn't looking, he told the sphinx in a low tone to box it up secretly.

"And, uh, while we're on brushes and combs," he said in a more normal voice, "what would you recommend for a werewolf?"

"We have an entire selection," she answered, the griffin-mane comb having vanished somewhere. "This way, please..."

She led Gabriel to another shelf, this one matched sets of brush and comb, and he gestured for Jack to join them. Casually, he slid his arm around Jack's waist as he pointed to a set that looked like they were made from polished wood. They pored over brush-and-comb sets for several minutes before settling on the one Gabriel had initially pointed out, which turned out to be fossilized wood. Lena expressed approval, although Gabriel would have sworn she hadn't been there a moment ago, and the sphinx took the set off to be boxed.

"Been here before?" Gabriel teased, making Jack blush.

"Melina has been a...vocal admirer for about four or five decades," he muttered. "She's at least five hundred, and her type is lion-headed griffins. I know for a fact that she's had three of them as lovers in the last century and has one currently. I'm just on her radar because completely white lion-headed griffins that aren't albino are extremely rare."

Gabriel leaned in for a brief kiss. "At least she knows a handsome man when she sees one."

Jack chuckled. "I don't know about that. After all, she hasn't come on to you."

"Well played," Gabriel mock-growled, trying to pretend he wasn't blushing at the compliment.

The sphinx came back with a drawstring bag of deep blue velvet, which she removed from under one wing and offered to Gabriel. He peeked inside and saw a pair of elegant boxes, one polished wood and the other covered in white silk, before closing it again.

"And now the price," she announced. "Before I name it, as is our policy, you have the option to pay partially in secrets. These must be truths that are not common knowledge and which you do not intend to announce publicly."

"I'm terrified that I'm not good enough for Jack," Gabriel said without hesitation.

Melina blinked. "You are..."

"The Reaper," Gabriel acknowledged. "And before that, a normal human. Jack's got no reason to have picked me to be his mate, but he did and I'm terrified that I'm an unworthy mate because boy, I do not feel like I deserve him."

From the side, Lena clutched a velvet drawstring bag to her chest and cooed, "Awwwwwww!"

Jack smiled. "I want you to design wedding rings for us, so that when my mate realizes that he's not unworthy, he'll have something to propose with."

The sphinx gaped at them for a long minute before shaking her head ruefully. "I cannot regret having lost this battle," she said, the first words Gabriel had heard her utter that hadn't been a purr. "It will be an honor to have designed your wedding rings."

The price she named for the comb(s) and brush was lower than Gabriel was expecting, but he handed over his supernatural card without protest and soon enough, they were all back out on the street looking for a good restaurant. They traded stories over dinner, things from Overwatch days and stories of Gabriel adjusting to being the Reaper, and Lena insisted on giving Gabriel her phone number before he teleported them all back to California.

"That was fun," Gabriel said after he teleported himself and Jack back to his room.

Jack hugged him. "It was. I forgot how much fun just being around friends could be."

Gabriel kissed him. "I'm sorry you're cooped up in here because of me," he started, but Jack shook his head and silenced him with another kiss.

"After I retired, I started my own farm. I barely saw Ma and Pa, and I avoided my friends. It hurt too much."

But he had the extra-strong pride instinct, Gabriel remembered.

"Get on the couch and grab the laptop," Gabriel growled. "I'm gonna be the big spoon while we start the next season, and no arguments."

Jack froze, mouth open, argument unvoiced. After a moment he ducked his head and nuzzled Gabriel's shoulder in a gesture of submission.

"We're gonna socialize with everyone I can think of," Gabriel threatened while mock-preening his mate's hair. "Because you're my mate and I love you."

"I love you too," Jack breathed. "Thank you."