Suspicions and confirmation

[moonshadows]

Cairo. Reaper was pleased with his goons. When Soldier 76 showed up, one of the local thugs on the walls took a shot at him and Reaper’s troops not only knocked the thug out for Reaper to deal with, but warned the other locals that S76 was off-limits unless they wanted to die.

Of course, no one warned the men in the courtyard, and S76 was putting on a good show beating them unconscious. Then one of the locals tossed his gun down to his friends in the courtyard and got pistolwhipped for his trouble, but Reaper was already flowing down the wall and past S76 to form in front of him and take the burst of gunfire before shooting the local.

“Did…you just shoot your own man?” S76 asked incredulously.

Reaper dismissed his weapons. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You did! You just killed the guy who took a shot at me.”

A cloud of smoke, Reaper misted over to the body and devoured it entirely before standing back up. “What guy? There’s no guy.”

“He was on your side!”

“He took a shot at you.”

Before S76 could formulate a reply to that, something impacted against Reaper’s shoulder. A dart, he saw as he pulled it out.

Ana had used darts like that.

Reaper scanned the area the dart had come from. There! A bit of movement. He dissolved and flowed up the wall, re-forming next to a slender figure in a hooded mask that did nothing to hide the way her body moved, or the familiar sound of her voice as she gasped. He hugged her tightly, pinning her arms with his.

“I’m glad you’re not dead,” he said with as much warmth as his damaged voice could muster.

Then he dissolved again and flowed down from her perch to the cluster of loyal goons and the unconscious local. He had an example – a pair of examples – to set for the others, and it would distract them neatly from both of his oldest and closest friends making their escapes.

===
===

He was in Rio, making sure none of the villa’s defenders were still hanging around, when one of his men announced over the com that S76 was on his way in. Reaper acknowledged the heads-up and turned to look for the welcome intruder, but a pulse shot to the face made it hard to see anything. He dissolved and reformed with a sigh, absently drifting towards the nearest body in hopes of scavenging something useful from it.

"Who pissed in your Cheerios this morning?" he growled to S76 without looking.

“I want to know who you are. Your name,” he added.

The brain cells were toast, but there was still some marrow. “I’m Reaper. Did you hit your head, or are you just feeling particularly senile today?”

“That’s not your name, and don’t you even dare argue semantics with me again!”

The next body was fresher – the defender had been wounded and only expired a minute ago. Reaper dissolved completely and spent a good thirty seconds taking everything he could get from it.

“Look,” he said when he re-formed. “Right now, that’s all the identity I have. Okay?”

Not okay, apparently. He knew that stubborn posture.

“Well then, what was your identity before?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Reaper snapped. “I’m dead.”

“So if it doesn’t matter, why not tell me?”

“Because you won’t like it,” he shot back.

“If I won’t like it, that means it matters,” S76 proclaimed smugly.

Reaper whirled on him, fists clenched. “Damn it, Jack!”

The rest of the protest died on his tongue. Shit. He’d just repaired his vocal cords, that actually sounded like his voice and it was something S76 had heard countless times over the years. Fuck.

Reaper dissolved and flowed away before S76 could possibly say anything. His men were just waiting for him to return before they left; Reaper flowed onto the ship and it took off leaving S76 to stand in the courtyard and hopefully – not likely, but he could hope – hopefully not have any more of an idea of who Reaper was than he’d had when he’d arrived.

===
===

For the rest of the month, S76 was there for every mission. Talon had put a price on the old man’s head, but that didn’t actually change anything. His goons knew that they’d all be dead without his insistence on going in first and protecting them, and they repaid that by warning new recruits that shooting at S76 – even if the shot missed – would only get them killed. Of course, inevitably one of them didn’t listen, but the veterans knocked him out and shook him back awake when Reaper came by wisping in fury. Here you go, sir, Kowalski’d said, hefting Johnson by the back of his uniform. I warned him, but he didn’t listen.

Just to make the point – and to get some live cells for things that were pretty dead – Reaper ate him alive. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, and he was glad the mask hid his nauseated expression, but such was his life now. Eating people to prevent his own decay and avoiding the man he loved, because that’s what he was doing: avoiding S76. Whenever the man showed up and got close enough to yell, Reaper would dissolve and run some defender down, or re-form a dozen yards away to shoot someone. Up stairs. Through windows. Across roofs. S76 did everything he could think of to get Reaper to stay still for more than two words, but he was so sure he didn’t want to hear them that he kept the old man constantly on the move, chasing after Reaper until he’d completed the mission and could flee. Reaper didn’t pause, didn’t react when he got shot, didn’t answer, didn’t even look at S76. His goons didn’t say anything, but he noticed them shooting defenders who had been aiming at his white-haired shadow, and Reaper thanked them quietly for that.

Of course, it had to be taking its toll on the old man, and eventually the inevitable happened. While chasing Reaper through a half-constructed building, S76 misjudged a jump and barely caught the beam with his fingertips before falling. Reaper dissolved and dove after him, getting a hold of one leg while his own legs caught the beam three floors down enough to swing them into the rough floor, Reaper cushioning S76 with his own body. He was close to a full minute into chewing the man out for not paying attention and being reckless on a battlefield before the adrenaline burned off enough for him to realize what he was doing, and he flowed off almost mid-word.

He’d just finished stealing the blueprints when security arrived, but they ran…right past the trailer that served as the construction office?

Fuck, S76 must still be there.

Reaper flowed out and was busily shooting at the security squad from behind when they opened fire on a startled S76. At least three shots hit within a handspan of each other, dead in the center of his torso. Luckily, the surviving half of the squad was distracted at that point by the other half of the squad on the ground, bleeding and cursing. Reaper dashed to where S76 was laying on the ground, doing some bleeding and cursing of his own.

“Oh, fuck,” Reaper breathed when he saw how bad it was. He had to act fast if he wanted the man alive. “Okay. Jack. Listen to me. You’re going to be okay.”

S76 – Jack ­– coughed. “No one’s okay when the first thing someone says is oh fuck,” he countered.

“Shut up.” Reaper scooped the man into a bridal carry and ran for the closest cover – behind a construction dumpster. “Stay with me, Jack,” he said as he sat the man down, propped against the metal container. “You’re going to be fine. I promise. Just stay here, don’t move, and don’t die. I’ll be right back.”

He flowed off, back to the squad, and dispatched the survivors and the wounded both. Then he went to mist and devoured everything he could hold, feeling his body knitting itself back together. Yes…yes…there. The uncomfortable sensation of leather armor rubbing against his cock and balls. He dashed back behind the container to discover that S76 had taken off the visor and-

“Jesus Christ, Jack, what happened to your face?” he demanded, even as he dissolved the armor over his groin and started stroking himself.

“You…tell me…what…happened…to yours…first,” Jack panted. Then he opened his eyes to see Reaper masturbating frantically. “What the fuck?”

Seeing Jack’s face again after all this time, even with worrying scars across it, combined with months and years of built-up frustration and Reaper ejaculated directly into Jack’s gunshot wounds. He’d barely had time to sigh in relief before the pain started, a dry headache and prickling pins-and-needles sensation over his entire body that would last for the next hour. This was one of the reasons he rarely bothered to rebuild his skin. He sighed again, resignation this time, and re-formed his armor – but the wound was visibly closing. Jack would be okay.

Jack’s expression was half pain, half being dumbfounded with a dash of indignation that grew as the pain faded. He was putting things together, Reaper knew it, but he couldn’t look away. He couldn’t flee. He was drinking in Jack’s face, memorizing the scars and the new wrinkles, reveling in seeing expression instead of that goddamned visor. Jack’s mouth started moving, as if he just couldn’t settle on any particular thing to say, and then suddenly he blurted out, “Were you fucking feeding me your cum?”

“It’s not cum if there’s no semen in it,” Reaper retorted automatically.

They both froze. That was an exchange they’d had once, when he was drunk and Jack had caught him re-assimilating the nanites in his ejaculate. He’d just confirmed Jack’s suspicions.

“Damn it, Gabe!”

Reaper dissolved and wisped off, flowing as fast as he could and not stopping until he was in the getaway vehicle.

“Mission success,” he growled.

The driver stepped on the gas. Once they were in traffic, he said, “Message from Sombra came in. Spring is about to spring.”

This was the last thing he needed with the SEP’s punishment for orgasm still dancing over his skin. “Fine,” he sighed. “Patch her through.”

Akande – Doomfist – was about to break out of prison. Things were moving to the next stage.

Well. On the bright side, if things were moving to the next stage, he’d be far too busy to go on missions and avoid his old friend.

Reaper leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes, silently apologizing to Jack.