Two steps forward

[moonshadows]

 

They were cuddling on the couch after breakfast, Gabriel trying to work himself up to going back to Talon, when someone knocked emphatically on the front door.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Jack murmured, hugging Gabriel tighter. “I’ll see who it is. You stay here.”

He nodded, but also pulled the blanket over himself and lay down, peering out from under a flap of cloth, ready to flee if need be. Jack stood and went to the door, peering through the peephole before turning back towards the couch.

“Sweetie? Reinhardt’s here. Do you want to see him?”

It had been hard to track the big Crusader down and do nice things for him. Caches of supplies on his likely routes had been the best he could do.

“Yeah.”

Jack opened the door a crack and talked quietly to the big man on the other side while Gabriel sat up, blanket still draped around him like a shroud. After something Jack said got a rumble of agreement, he stepped back and Reinhardt’s massive frame filled the doorway.

“My friend!” he boomed as Jack closed the door behind him. “You are alive!”

“Despite Moira’s best efforts,” Gabriel agreed. “It was touch and go for a few years, but…I’m alive.”

Reinhardt sat on the edge of the recliner. “And I am glad to see that Jack was telling the truth. So. What is it that you have been doing?”

“He’s been making the world a better place,” Jack announced as he took his seat next to Gabriel again. “And doing a better job of it than I managed.”

“I’m not being strangled in red tape the way you were.”

Jack leaned over to kiss his cheek. “You’re still doing better than me, sweetie.”

Gabriel opted to not argue when he could be kissing Jack. When the kiss ended, he looked up to see that Reinhardt was watching them with a sly smile.

“So, after holding yourself above affairs of the heart for all these years, you have finally succumbed to Cupid’s arrow?”

“Actually,” Jack said evenly, “he’s felt this way for a long time.”

Reinhardt scowled. “And you hid your feelings, like a coward, instead of acting on them? You let the one you love think you did not return his feelings for thirty years? Shame on you, my friend. Jack deserved better.”

It was bad enough being called a coward from a man who had only learned restraint with the death of his commander and mentor, a man who did not know the sacrifices Gabriel had made or how earnestly he had been working to make it up to Jack, but to hear those last three words of condemnation confirming the whispers that undermined his efforts from the darkness of his own mind…

He was out from under the blanket, out of the house, through the hedges and into the neighbor’s garage in a heartbeat, solidifying into Reaper’s armor minus the mask and settling the motorcycle helmet in place as he kicked his hovercycle to life. His consolation, as he began the drive back to Talon, was that Jack knew he had to go back this morning anyway and wouldn’t be standing in the back yard calling fruitlessly for him. But it was cold comfort when he knew he would be spending the next week and a half fighting the creeping conviction that he shouldn’t bother Jack because Jack deserved better.

===

“But-”

Sombra placed one finger against his lips. “No buts. You love him, papi, and he loves you. It has been a week, and you are a wreck. Hey! Kowalski!”

Agent Kowalski, Reaper’s usual driver on the occasions when he wasn’t taking the hoverbike, peeked in from outside the room. “Yes, Miss Sombra?”

“Reaper needs to go see his boyfriend. I’ll call ahead for pizza and booze. He’ll need a pickup at eight tomorrow morning.” She gave Reaper – who had re-manifested the mask to hide behind – a critical look. “Make that ten.”

“Sombra…”

“You’ll forgive me when you get kissed into submission,” she countered, fingers flicking dismissively. “Go. Get kissed.”

Sighing, Reaper followed his agent down the hall towards the garage.

=

Two pizzas balanced on his arms and two bottles of whiskey in a paper bag, Kowalski rang the doorbell as Reaper misted around to the back door. He solidified in the doorway between living room and kitchen and stood, watching, as Jack accepted the food and alcohol with a nod of thanks. He set both the pizzas and the bottles on the coffee table and then – eyes closed – turned towards the kitchen with both arms spread for a hug. Reaper forced himself across the room step by step, watching for Jack’s eyes to open, but they didn’t. Finally he hugged Jack gingerly, relaxing a tiny bit when Jack’s arms curled around him.

“I missed you, sweetie,” Jack murmured, his cheek pressed against the side of Reaper’s hood.

Reaper shuddered.

“Mmm. I love it when you hold me. I like feeling your fingers against my muscles.”

But Reaper had pointy gauntlets, not fingers. Guiltily, he dissolved them and spread his bare hands over the muscles of Jack’s back.

“Mmm. That’s good. It’s easier to kiss you when the hood’s not in the way,” he said, nosing at the thick material covering Reaper’s head. “And I love it when you kiss my neck.”

He owed it to Jack. Reaper dissolved the armor and the mask and worshipped Jack’s neck with his lips. Jack’s embrace tightened and he kissed Gabriel’s neck in return.

“Thank you for coming back,” he murmured. “I know Reinhardt upset you, but he’s wrong. I always knew you cared. I knew you wanted more with me but couldn’t let yourself have it. The best nights I had were the ones where you were drunk in my bed. I knew, sweetie. Neither of us said anything and I respected your reasons even if I didn’t know them. Reinhardt doesn’t get to decide what’s good enough for me. Only I get to decide that, and love? It’s you.”

That lanced the emotional boil Gabriel had been carrying, and he cried into Jack’s shoulder for a minute or two before soft kisses lured him into lifting his head to have Jack’s lips cover his face, chasing away doubt and despair until his knees were weak and all he wanted to do was curl into a ball and be held.

“Let’s move to the couch,” Jack murmured, low and inviting.

When they were settled, with the coffee table close enough to reach easily, they fed each other hot pizza and passed the whiskey back and forth until Jack was tipsy and most of the bottle was in Gabriel, making him tipsy as well.

“Now I know how you can drink so much,” Jack teased, kissing up Gabriel’s jaw. “I missed your drunk ass.”

Gabriel held Jack, feeling flushed inside and out. “You weren’t just tolerating me?”

“Mmm. Idiot. That was the real you, the you that you were when you didn’t have to be anyone, and I love you. All cuddly and soft. You should drink the other bottle too, now that you don’t have to hide anything. Let me have drunk Gabe for an evening.”

Hearing his name in the context of being drunk, being his true self, being wanted, didn’t feel so bad. “Okay,” he murmured, smiling against Jack’s hair. “But I’m probably gonna wind up dry-humping you or sucking your dick.”

Jack lifted his head for a proper kiss. “Mmm. Too bad I can’t get you off.”

“Oh, I need at least two bottles of hard booze inside me before that starts looking like a good idea.”

“Damn SEP.”

“Yeah.”

“Sweetie?”

“Mmm?”

“I stopped drinking when you sent me the book, but there’s still a stash in the pantry. If it starts looking like a good idea, will you fuck me?”

Gabriel leaned back to frown at Jack, but although those blue eyes were slightly unfocused, the determined look on his scarred face said he knew exactly what he was asking.

“I haven’t been with anyone since high school,” Jack said softly. “I’ve wanted to be with you for half my life.”

“Jack…” Gabriel swallowed. “I can’t risk my undiluted ejaculate touching you without a wound to heal right there. I can’t dry-orgasm when I’m drunk. And I’m…not confident I can manage it sober, not with a partner. I haven’t fucked anyone since SEP. I don’t want to hurt you, Jackie,” he whispered, his throat dry. “But that doesn’t mean I’m saying no. Just…not tonight.”

Jack’s expression melted into a blinding smile. “Alright. Then what are we doing tonight?”

Slowly, Gabriel smiled back. “Let me get drunk,” he said between kisses, “and we’ll figure it out.”

===

“You look…” Sombra paused. “Energized and determined.”

Reaper grinned at her from under the hood. “Not what you were expecting, huh?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy! I just…” She crossed her arms. “You look like a guy who’s discovered sex for the first time and you’re trying to figure out how to have more of it.”

“Well, you’re not completely wrong.” One spiked finger tapped the screen of a pad gently. “I want you to coordinate with Angela Ziegler on something for me.”

The look of blank surprise on the hacker’s face was gratifying.

“You’re going to be analyzing a specific function of my nanite swarm. I want it disabled.”

She was looking suspicious now. “And you need Ziegler for the medical aspects, but you haven’t mentioned it before now, which means it’s…personal.”

Reaper crossed his arms. “Experiencing an orgasm triggers a punishment routine which is extremely successful as a deterrent.”

The amusement and vague distaste that had been lurking in Sombra’s expression drained away. “Oh my god papi, no wonder you were always so grim and stuck up. You let me know when you need me, I got a few ideas I wanna poke at.” She leaned across the desk she was sitting on the corner of and hugged him. “The world owes you this.”

She was gone before he could hug her back. Moments later, the pad lit up with Zieger’s response.

YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT?

Reaper chuckled.

===

“Years, I begged you to let me help you,” Angela Ziegler said as Reaper led her down the hallways to the medical wing. “But you said you had it under control.”

“I did. Everything but this.”

“And I understand why you did not seek assistance for this issue,” she said dryly. “But did you have to put it that way in your message to me?”

Reaper kept his voice bland. “I didn’t want you coming out here on false pretenses.”

“Gabriel Reyes, you are incorrigible.”

Smugness from having sent Angela the message I want you to scan my brain while I masturbate insulated him from the emotional impact of being called by name.

“Oh look, we’re here.” Reaper waved her into the equipment-filled room where Sombra was already perched on a counter, surrounded by self-generated screens. “I’ve positioned the examination chair to face away from the diagnostic equipment,” he said as the door closed behind him. “If either of you choose to watch the show, that’s on you.”

“I’ve seen worse,” Sombra declared in a jaded tone.

Angela pulled the rolling stool out and sat, familiarizing herself with the equipment while Reaper settled himself in the chair and let the diagnostic peripherals orient on him. Then he placed both hands over his groin and dismissed his armor.

“Are we ready to start?” he growled.

Ziegler’s cool, professional voice answered him. “You may proceed.”

This wouldn’t be the first time in thirty years that he’d jerked it sober, not even discounting the times he’d extracted a portion of his nanites to mix into a “home recipe” salve for Jack’s wounds or a mug of tea when Jack was sick. After all, it had taken him years to master non-ejaculatory orgasm. But the fresh memory of how much it hurt afterwards put a distinct damper on the experience. Resolutely, he brought up the memories of Jack’s face as Gabriel had slowly settled onto his well-lubed cock and the awed, adoring, pleading sounds that had accompanied those delicious expressions. That did the trick; he stroked himself as those memories replayed, working himself closer as he remembered riding Jack and clenching tightly at the cry of Oh god, Gabe! that had brought him over the edge last night and did the same thing now. The prolonged glory of orgasm washed over him, erasing all other thoughts until he came down from that glorious high. As always, he had enough time to take a few breaths and think, maybe it won’t happen this time before the pins and needles started and the migraine sunk its claws just behind his eyes.

Sombra and Angela were comparing notes quietly; Reaper kept himself covered and tried to just breathe through the pain without thinking. He had no idea – without asking the swarm – how much time had passed before Sombra caught his attention.

“What?”

“Angela wants to know how badly this incapacitates you.”

“Do you have any idea how many times Jack almost died during the Crisis? I can fight rampaging omnics through the backlash if I have to. I can spoon-feed him chicken noodle soup with nanites mixed in and be soothing through the backlash. But I’d rather get drunk enough to pass out and avoid it entirely.”

More quiet discussion.

“We are going to try a few things,” Angela informed him crisply. “Please let us know if any of them alleviate your discomfort in a significant way.”

“Jawohl,” he muttered.

He didn’t know – and at the moment, didn’t care – what they tried. None of it worked, and at the end of the hour, both the headache and the skin discomfort vanished right on schedule. Reaper summoned his armor with relief and climbed out of the diagnostic chair.

“Well?”

Angela looked disgruntled and almost personally offended. “There is nothing that I can do,” she informed him apologetically. “The nanites are causing your discomfort with no medical base to the sensations.”

“I still have a few ideas,” Sombra said, every bit as determined as he’d ever seen her. “But I’ll need time to go over the data.”

“Fine.”

“If it gives you any comfort…” Angela offered him a small smile. “You are completely vindicated in your decision to not ask for my assistance in this matter. I would not have been able to help in any concrete way.”

Reaper laughed. “Well, that’s something.”

===

After having put himself on display and suffering through backlash twice in eighteen hours, Reaper was looking forward to an evening of just existing near Jack. But when he checked the living-room window to make sure Jack wasn’t needing an evening to himself, he discovered Ana Amari sitting in the recliner with a cup of tea and a post-it note reading SHE WANTS TO SEE YOU stuck in the window.

He almost turned around and went back to Talon.

He almost hid under the covers in the bedroom, surrounded by the comforting scents of Jack.

But the blanket – his blanket, the one Jack had bought for him specifically – was bunched up on the couch as if he’d just wisped out from under it. Jack knew he would need the comfort and was saying it was okay. Slowly, Reaper misted in through the back door and crept in a thin stream, hugging the baseboards, from the kitchen to under the couch. Once he had collected himself there, he misted up under the blanket and solidified, already curled into a ball with his head on Jack’s leg, facing the back of the couch. The quiet conversation continued without interruption. Gabriel relaxed and let it wash over him.

Six and a half minutes later, a gasp brought his attention back to the world around him. Jack’s hand was on his hair, softly stroking it in his usual reassuring way.

“When did he…?” Ana trailed off, and he imagined her gesturing uncertainly.

“Huh? Oh.” The hand paused, and Gabriel imagined Jack smiling fondly at him. “I didn’t notice.” To Gabriel’s trained ear, it was a lie. “How long have you been there, sweetie?”

“Seven minutes,” he answered softly.

“Rough day?” Jack asked in a sympathetic voice.

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m glad you decided to brave the couch instead of hiding. Hard to stroke your hair when you’re in another room or under the couch.”

Gabriel pulled his knees in a bit tighter. “Yeah.”

“Jack?”

“Like I told you,” Jack said firmly. “I mostly expected him to not come in, even with the warning and welcoming measures. But he had a rough day and he needs comfort, so I’m not expecting more than the occasional one-word comments from him. It’s okay to talk over him, just remember that he is listening.”

“Of course,” Ana murmured. “It is…distressing to see my old friend this quiet and withdrawn, even with what you have told me. However, I am glad that he trusts you enough for this.”

“I’m just glad he didn’t hold any grudges for all the times I shot Reaper,” Jack said jokingly.

Gabriel let the conversation wash over him again.

“Sweetie?” Jack said nearly two hours later, waking him gently.

It took a minute to orient himself. “Mmm?”

“Ana’s heading out. Do you want to say anything before she goes, maybe give her a hug?”

Gabriel reviewed the conversation he’d slept through. She had reacted with sympathetic horror when Jack told the story of seeing behind Reaper’s mask and how he knew now that Reaper had built even that much of a face specifically using cells from the guards he’d just killed.

“Yeah.”

He misted out from under the blanket and formed, wearing sweats and a tee, on the other side of the coffee table. Fighting irrational terror that urged him to hide, he looked at Ana and saw sympathy in her eye. When he opened his arms mutely, she stepped forward and hugged him.

“You have been through horrors I could not have imagined,” she murmured into his shoulder, “but you are still Gabriel Reyes and you are still my friend. I hope that the next time I visit, you will be more comfortable with me.”

“I make no promises,” he murmured back. “I’m still a fucking wreck. Thank you for understanding.”

Ana pulled away enough to take Gabriel’s head between her hands and kiss his forehead. “You are doing the best you can. I will take my leave now, and let you spend the rest of the evening with Jack. Goodnight, old friend.”

Gabriel hugged her again, tightly, before dissolving and hiding under the blanket.

“It was good seeing you again,” Jack said from where Gabriel had been, no doubt taking his turn hugging Ana. “Keep in touch.”

“I will, Jack. Goodnight to you, too, old friend.”

The front door opened and closed. Jack sat on the couch, and Gabriel promptly curled up against him. They cuddled for a handful of minutes, then kissed until Gabriel melted like a contented cat and cuddled for a handful more.

“I don’t feel like letting go of you long enough to cook,” Jack murmured. “Chinese?”

“Sounds good,” Gabriel murmured back.

“What would you like, sweetie?”

“Mm. A little bit of everything?”

Jack laughed. “You just want to hear me order the pu-pu platter.”

Gabriel smiled into Jack’s neck. “Maybe.”

“And the garlic beef extra hot, I’m guessing. Are you going to make fun of me for ordering the orange chicken extra mild?”

“Nah. We all know you’re as white as they come, Jack. Besides,” he teased, kissing up Jack’s jaw, “I think I’ve proven that I like having a little vanilla in my…life.”

Jack hugged him tighter. “Anytime you want it, sweetie. And I look forward to the day I can see what it’s like having a little spice in my…life.”