Give Him The Cookie 1

[moonshadows]

Zurich, 2064

Gabriel

 

 “It’s designed to scan the whole body,” Winston said, “and…uh…Commander Reyes, may I use you to demonstrate?”

Gabriel crossed his arms and grinned over at his husband the Strike-Commander and the cowboy he’d made his second-in-command. “Sure.”

“Ah. Thank you. You see, once the body is scanned…” The equipment made a series of odd, beeping sounds, causing the gorilla to look puzzled. “Uh…that’s not…hold on…oh dear,” he finished in an alarming way.

He had enough time to think oh, cra- before the world went…weird. Sounds distorted into incomprehensibility, sight went fractal, and his brain gave up trying to make sense of anything.

When the world made sense again, Gabriel Reyes found himself buck naked in the ‘public’ room of the suite he shared with his husband. The round wooden table they typically ate at held a shoebox that had been turned into a bed for Jack’s commemorative Mini-Jack figure and a serving platter with what appeared to be a foot-tall doll house built out of chocolate chip cookie bars cut into bricks, complete with a door and two windows and a chocolate-chip-shingle roof.

What the hell happened?

He looked around, only mildly relieved to see his husband sitting at the table. The man looked like he’d gone a week without sleeping.

“Jack?” Gabriel held one hand out, almost afraid to touch at the realization that his sunshine was holding a ring and that his ring finger seemed awfully naked. “Are you okay?”

“I was worried,” he answered quietly, taking his husband’s hand and gripping it tightly. Then he slid the ring back onto that dreadfully naked finger.

Before Gabriel could ask what was going on, Jack stood and hugged him. Fiercely, desperately, trembling, distressing enough that he just hugged back for a long minute. Then, when Jack seemed to be falling asleep on his feet, he swung his exhausted husband into a bridal carry and put him to bed. The first order of business was to check Jack’s vitals, and then once he was sure his husband was okay, he put on some clothes and called up Jesse McCree.

“Oh good, it worked,” the cowboy said cheerfully once he picked up and the video cut on.

“What worked?” Gabriel demanded, adrenaline surging through his body.

Jesse’s smile drained away. “Wait…you mean you don’t remember?”

“Don’t remember what?” He knew it was the dumbest, most cliché thing to ask, but the words just fell out of his mouth while his heart dropped into his stomach. “Jesse…”

“Now, just keep calm, jefe.” McCree held one hand up in a ‘settle down’ motion. “Let me mosey on over with something to drink and I’ll tell you the whole story. I assume the Strike-Commander’s sleeping?”

Gabriel glanced at the open door to the bedroom. “Yeah.”

“Good. He needs it. Alright, I’ll be over in a jiffy. Just hang tight, boss.”

The connection closed, and Gabriel sighed. “I don’t see that I have much choice,” he grumbled to the empty room.

Less than three minutes later, the door to the suite opened and McCree slipped inside brandishing a six-pack of bottled beer and a plastic bag holding what looked to be one of Jack’s home-made chocolate chip cookies, but the size of a dinner plate. With a nod, he indicated the cluster of comfortable lounging chairs over in the corner, and once they were settled with a beer and a chunk of cookie each, he cleared his throat.

“So, uh, it’s been one hell of a week and a half,” McCree began, clearly skirting around the promised whole story. “I know you’re not gonna believe half of this without proof, so I brought some video…”

“Jesse…” The word was nearly a growl.

“Okay, okay!” The cowboy took a pull at his bottle and swallowed. “So we were standing there, waiting to see what would happen after Winston scanned you, when that gizmo of his started beeping. Then, suddenly…you were gone.”

---

 

Jesse

 

“Oh dear,” Winston said in a way that sounded like something was about to hit the fan.

Commander Reyes’s eyes widened the way Jesse had seen so many times right before his CO started yelling, but before he could open his mouth, he vanished and his armor collapsed into an empty pile. Jesse stared in numb horror at the place where his boss used to be, dimly aware that the Strike-Commander had charged Winston and was yelling something about making him regret leaving the moon if he didn’t bring his husband back this instant.

Winston babbled that he didn’t know what had gone wrong, but Jesse wasn’t paying attention. He knelt by the pile of clothing and armor with thoughts of gathering it up, or checking for a clue as to what had happened to his boss, while behind him Morrison bellowed Where is Gabriel?

Something in the pile moved. A head no bigger than his fist, wearing a tiny frown of concentration, emerged from underneath a fold of cloth.

Jesse’s breath caught in his throat. “Boss?” he breathed.

The head – round and smooth, like a baby’s but more so – turned to him. Tiny, chubby hands pushed at the folds of cloth in irritation, and slowly, Jesse reached out to pull it away from the little figure.

The little figure who was naked, although Jesse couldn’t help but see the soft, rounded body as being like a baby doll.

“I don’t want answers!” yelled the Strike-Commander, sounding on the verge of tears. “I want Gabe!”

“I am Gabe,” the little figure said in a piping little voice. Then, imperiously, he held his hands out as though commanding Jesse to pick him up.

“O-okay, just hold on a sec.” He fumbled in various pockets until he found a red bandana, which he then tied awkwardly into a sort of toga or sarong or something around that little body because doll-like or not, that was still his boss – apparently – and he didn’t think the Strike-Commander would appreciate anyone ogling his husband’s bits. “Alright, gonna pick you up now. Lemme know if it’s uncomfortable.”

Gingerly, he wrapped one hand around Gabriel’s torso and lifted. Although the little figure didn’t seem uncomfortable, he brought his other hand around to give those little feet something to rest on. Hey, that’s what cats like, and he was the size of a kitten so…it made sense, right?

Winston, perhaps unsurprisingly considering how thoroughly he was trying to avoid the Strike-Commander’s eyes, was the first to notice the little figure as Jesse walked over.  “What is that?” he blurted, one thick finger pointing at the small figure.

“I am Gabe!”

“Found him in the Commander’s clothes an’ armor,” Jesse said almost apologetically as his boss’s husband turned to fix him with an incredulous glare.

The small figure held out his tiny, chubby hands. “Jack!”

‘Jack’ looked like he needed to sit down before he fell.

“What’s he doing?” Winston asked as the figure inspected his hands.

“I don’t have the foggiest idea,” Jesse answered.

The figure – it was getting harder to not think of it as being Gabriel – turned to Jesse and made unhappy sounds while waving his left arm around.

“What do you need, boss?”

More intensely unhappy sounds, more waving, and then the figure reached over to pinch the skin on the back of-

-on the back of his ring finger.

“Oh! Uh…hold on a sec. Here,” he said, handing the figure to the stunned Strike-Commander before diving for the pile of clothed and armor and rooting around. It took a few seconds before he located Gabriel’s wedding ring and leaped to his feet to offer it to his tiny boss. “There y’go, jefe.”

Gabriel(?) gave a tiny grunt of satisfaction as he grabbed the ring and shoved it onto his left arm like an oversized bracelet, then pushed it up onto his bicep and flexed with a pleased expression on his little…on his tiny…darn it, those words didn’t capture how uncomfortably cute his state was. On his smol face, that was better.

His boss was smol.

Jesse sighed. This was going to be interesting.

---

 

Jack

 

Although Angela Ziegler had joined Overwatch just recently, she was not an unfamiliar face and Jack Morrison needed no convincing to bring his smol husband to her while Winston checked over the data from his device. Once he, McCree, and Dr. Ziegler had all crowded into an examination room, however, the need for convincing spiked. Jack knew that the young doctor needed to hold Gabriel in order to effectively examine him – or at least, needed Jack to not be holding him – but convincing himself to let go of his husband’s little body was easier said than done. To make matters worse, on top of his own protective reluctance, Gabriel didn’t want to leave the dubious safety of Jack’s hands.

Every time Ziegler approached him, either with her gloved fingers or with a medical instrument, he lashed out with his tiny hands and growled “No!” in what was, quite frankly, an adorable little voice. Jack was torn between trying to reason with his smol husband, and agreeing with him. Both Gabriel and Dr. Ziegler grew more frustrated with their stalemate, and Jack knew something had to give.

No one was prepared for Gabriel’s lower lip to tremble as his eyes filled with tears. With one final, wailed “Noooooo!” he tucked himself into a ball and did his best to hide in Jack’s hands.

Ziegler directed a pleading look at Jack, but he curled his hands around Gabriel and brought him to his chest. The tiny, muffled whimpers his little husband was making were remarkably loud in the examination room.

“Hey, Captain Amari?” McCree said suddenly, one hand raised to his earpiece. “We need your help. How do you calm down a fussy…small?” The cowboy winced at something Jack couldn’t hear. “A…small. Dr. Ziegler’s trying to check him out, and…I don’t know, far as I’m concerned you’re the expert. Yeah. Okay, I’ll be in the hall to wave you in. Thanks.” McCree turned to them with a lopsided grin. “Captain Amari’s on her way. Figured she was our best bet for expertise and discretion.”

“Good call,” Jack said tightly.

McCree nodded. “I’ll just be out in the hall so she knows what room we’re in.”

By the time Ana followed McCree into the room, Gabriel had calmed down – but he still sulkily refused to let Ziegler examine him. Ana recoiled when she saw the state Gabriel was in, but she visibly shook it off and held out…a lollipop?

“Doctor’s visits traditionally involve lollipops,” she said in calm explanation as she held it out to Gabriel. “Do you want it?”

Gabriel made a questioning sort of noise.

“You have to let Dr. Ziegler examine you,” Ana said firmly.

He debated for a few seconds before holding both hands out. “Give!”

Ana handed it over. Gabriel struggled with the wrapper before looking up at Jack with an unfairly effective pleading expression.

“I need to put you down to unwrap it,” Jack said.

Gabriel nodded.

Jack set his little husband on the table and stripped the wrapper – Dum-Dum, butterscotch – from the lollipop that was effectively the size of a two-handed mace in Gabriel’s tiny hands. The sound of delight he made as he licked it made Jack feel warm and just a little melty.

Gingerly, now that her patient was pleasantly distracted, Dr. Ziegler brought her equipment closer and examined Gabriel thoroughly. He didn’t even seem to notice, all his attention on the lollipop, even when she laid him on his back or gently pulled one arm away from his body to run a sensor over it. Once she was done, she stepped back to check the data and Gabriel smiled up at Jack, lollipop extended in an invitation to lick.

Cheeks slightly flushed, Jack leaned over and carefully licked the candy. Gabriel squealed in glee and flung himself at his husband’s face, the arm not holding the lollipop’s stick doing a good job of hugging Jack’s cheek, and tiny lips pressed themselves to the corner of his mouth.

“That was adorable,” Ana remarked to McCree.

He snorted in amusement. “Didn’t think he had it in him, what with him bustin’ our balls in Blackwatch all the time.”

Ziegler made a sound of annoyance. “I will need to confer with Winston,” she started, “but in the meantime I can tell you that he is Gabriel Reyes and he seems to be healthy. Feed him as much as he wants to eat, make sure he has plenty of water, and try to improvise some sanitary facilities. I suggest cutting squares of a sanitary wipe for him to use. I will keep you appraised of my findings, Strike-Commander.”

Jack nodded and picked up the adorable little body of his husband. “Thank you, Dr. Ziegler. McCree, Amari, if you would be so kind as to accompany me back to our quarters?”

The other two nodded, and Ana led the way out of the examination room.

---

 

Jesse

 

 “He needs clothes,” Captain Amari said as soon as they were in the commanders’ suite, a place Jesse had never been and wasn’t feeling real comfortable being in. “Aside from preserving his dignity, his smaller body will get cold much faster. He will also need shoes, both to protect his feet and to keep them warm, and I am afraid I have no suggestions for that except ones meant for dolls.”

The Strike-Commander looked up from cuddling his smol husband, and boy was that something that made Jesse feel awkward. “I’m not sure doll clothes are going to fit him, Ana. Dolls don’t usually move much.”

“I can sew him some,” Jesse said to everyone’s surprise, including his. “Just need some stretchy fabric, like a tee-shirt. Something meant to move with you. Sewing was an important skill in my youth,” he protested, although no one had said anything.

Something in the armload of clothes and armor he was carrying beeped, and the Strike-Commander started like he’d forgotten they existed in the excitement of his husband being shrunk. Jesse dug out the beeping device and silenced it.

“Commander’s got a meeting,” he said sheepishly. “Eleven to one. Uh…guess that’s my meeting now, huh?”

Morrison and Amari exchanged a look.

“Go to the meeting,” said the Strike-Commander. “Come back here afterwards; we’ll discuss how we’re going to handle Gabriel being…” He glanced down at his smol husband, who looked up at him with that damn cute little smile. “…small.”

Jesse set the pile onto one of the chairs, tossed his boss’s husband a salute, and left while juggling plans for the meeting with plans for sewing clothes.

The meeting, thankfully, was easy to get through and wrapped up early. Hinting that Commander Reyes was dealing with something big –  and would not be pleased with anything that took his attention away from it – was very effective in making people get to the point, and Jesse wound up in his quarters at twelve-thirty with half an hour to find his sewing kit and grab some cookies from the mess hall because he was starving from the breakfast he’d skipped and the lunch he hadn’t had yet, but he didn’t want to show up with food when the Strike-Commander probably hadn’t eaten, either, and that wasn’t even getting into what they were gonna feed Reyes. So he had three chocolate-chip cookies in a paper napkin to hold him over.

By the time he got to the commanders’ suite, it was one cookie.

“Enter,” growled Morrison.

Jesse entered.

The Strike-Commander was sitting at the round wooden table with his arms spread while his smol husband ran from one hand to the other, giggling. Each time he reached one of his husband’s hands, he threw himself into it and got lifted up to have a kiss planted on the top of his head. Then the Strike-Commander set him back down, where he gleefully ran to the other hand to do it all over again. It was cute as all heck, but deeply unnerving.

“According to Winston and Dr. Ziegler,” the Strike-Commander said absently, “he’s himself, just…distilled. Concentrated.”

“Then why isn’t he busting my balls?” Jesse asked warily, setting the cookie down while he pulled out a chair and sat.

“His brain’s only big enough to hold one thought at a time. He gets fixated on whatever thought’s at the top of the pile, and he won’t move on until that’s been addressed.”

There was tiredness and tension in the man’s voice, and Jesse was just thinking how horrible it had to be to have your husband reduced to…that…when the little guy noticed, and made a beeline for, his cookie.

“Hey!” Jesse snatched the cookie up, holding it out of reach.

Smol Gabriel was undeterred. “Give!” he demanded in a piping little voice, both hands stretched as far as they could reach, which wasn’t even halfway up his big ol’ babydoll head. “Give! Give!”

“Aw, c’mon jefe, I ain’t had lunch yet and you know I skipped breakfast…”

“Give!”

The demand sounded just a bit whiny now, and were those tears in his eyes?

“Giiiive!”

Aw heck, that was the lower lip trembling…

Jesse’s resolve was already crumbling when suddenly, there was a very strong hand wrapped around his wrist. Alarmed, he followed it to its owner and discovered the Strike-Commander giving him an absolutely terrifying look, like he was going to rip Jesse’s arm off.

“Give. Him. The. Cookie.”

“Alright! Alright! We cool,” he babbled, a tiny corner of his brain wondering how Mr. Noble Strike-Commander was somehow scarier than Commander Reyes at his scariest.

The fist retreated and, slowly, Jesse lowered his hand until his smol boss could grab the cookie out of it. Instantly, all the distress evaporated and he sat down to nibble the cookie that was almost as big as his head, absently making little ‘num, num’ sounds as he went to town on it while Jesse’s stomach growled mournfully.

“He needs some real food,” the Strike-Commander announced. “You haven’t had lunch yet, and neither have I. Why don’t you get us all something to eat? I’ve sent Ana out to try to find him something to keep him entertained, because as much as I’d like to tell the world to sit and spin until Gabe’s back to normal, I’ve had to reschedule a fairly important call already and my schedule doesn’t have a lot of wiggle room.”

Jesse opened his mouth.

“Before you say anything, he doesn’t have the brainpower to concentrate on any video longer than about thirty seconds.”

“…I’m thinking burgers,” he said instead of suggesting children’s cartoons.

The Strike-Commander sighed, one hand rubbing his forehead. “Sure. Sounds good. No pickles, extra onions, and whatever else comes on a cheeseburger wherever you wind up going is fine. You know how Gabe takes his, I guess.”

“Just ketchup,” Jesse confirmed. “Hey, uh…I brought my sewing kit. If you’ve got some cloth for me to work with, I’ll watch ‘im after lunch. Boss doesn’t have much going on today; I can handle it from his phone.”

“I appreciate that,” he said. “Thank you.”

The solemn, earnest look he was getting made him want to squirm. “No problem, sir. I’ll just…uh…go get lunch.”

Before his boss’s husband could say anything else, he fled.

Travel time into town meant it occurred to him that you couldn’t just cut a cheeseburger up real small and feed it to a guy less than a foot tall. Reyes…

It didn’t feel right, calling that cute little thing ‘Reyes’, but he wasn’t real comfortable calling his boss by first name, either. In fact, it was hard to remember that the lil’ fella was Gabriel Reyes. He was just so…smol.

Smol Gabe. Jesse rolled the name around in his head. Yeah, that would work. Smol Gabe would need something flat to fit into his mouth, because no one wanted to eat a cheeseburger sideways.

He went to a fast-food joint and ordered smol Gabe a cheeseburger kids’ meal, along with more adult burgers for himself and Morrison. And some coffee, because he had the feeling they were both going to need the energy.

Captain Amari was trying to distract smol Gabe with a coloring book and some little crayons, Jesse saw when Morrison called for him to enter the suite, but the little guy wasn’t interested. He was making those heartbreaking little whimpers and looked close to tears.

“Oh thank god,” the Strike-Commander breathed when Jesse held up the bag of take-out. “He’s hungry.”

Immediately, Jesse set the drink carrier on the table and opened the bag. The first fry his fingers touched was pulled out and offered to smol Gabe, whose face lit up. Jesse handed it over, smiling as the little guy sat down and started eating it like a hamster with a carrot stick. That bought him time to identify the Strike-Commander’s burger and hand it over, along with one of the fry containers and one of the coffees. Then he took the kids’ cheeseburger out and smushed it flat against the table before unwrapping it. Good thing he’d grabbed a knife, he thought as he mentally measured it against smol Gabe’s mouth, because that was way too big for his little arms to hold.

He cut it into wedges. Smol Gabe was already eating the first one before he finished.

“Have you taken care of children before?” Captain Amari asked curiously as he opened the bottle of chocolate milk that came with the kids’ meal and poured some into the little paper cup Morrison must have retrieved from the bathroom.

“No, ma’am,” he said, shaking his head. “Boss always says to not let your plans get in the way of reality, to look at what you’re working with and make plans from there. He has small hands and needs small food, so…” he shrugged and took a gulp of his coffee, then dug out the creamers and poured in three of them.

“Give!” said a small voice.

Jesse looked at Morrison, who shook his head with that terrifying look.

“Angela Ziegler was adamant that he not be given stimulants. His little body can’t handle them.”

“But there’s no chance of making him understand that, is there?” Jesse looked at smol Gabe, who was clearly not about to take no for an answer. “I’ll…make you a mocha,” he said weakly.

Carefully, he took one of the empty creamer cups and poured in a few drops of coffee, then filled it with chocolate milk. Smol Gabe took the cup and sipped happily before going back to his cheeseburger slices.

“I found some old shirts neither of us have wanted to throw out,” Morrison said after several bites of his burger. “They’re folded on the table, there. There’s a pair of sweatpants, a pair of slacks, and flannel pajama bottoms, but I want to make him a quilt out of those last two so leave me at least half the material.”

Jesse swallowed his bite of barbeque bacon cheeseburger. “You got it, sir.”

Morrison frowned at him. “You’re watching my husband for me. That makes you family. Call me Jack.”

“Yes, s….Jack.”

Morrison gave him a tired smile. “Nice catch.”

While they ate, Captain Amari calmly opened and cut up a couple of ‘moist towelettes’ – the individually wrapped type you’d get from a barbeque place – and packed the small squares in the sort of clear plastic container he’d seen agents bring dressing for their salads in. She tucked it behind a cardboard screen and smiled at his confused look.

“I was able to locate a novelty ashtray shaped like a toilet,” she informed him, amused. “It even has a tank that holds water. You will need to dump it out after it has been used, of course, but…”

“Better than taking a dump in a paper cup,” he agreed. “You- uh…where’s he going?”

Smol Gabe had eaten a third of his burger, drained the small cup of chocolate milk and the creamer cup of ‘mocha’, and was climbing onto the stack of folded clothes.

“He’s tired,” Morrison said in a soft voice. “He’s eaten, and now he needs to take a nap and digest.”

“He’s gonna need a bed,” Jesse muttered to Amari, who hummed agreement.

“Uh,” announced smol Gabe firmly, arms outstretched towards his husband.

“Uh?” Jesse repeated.

Morrison flushed slightly. “Hug,” he clarified. He stood and leaned over to lay a kiss on his husband’s head and be chin-hugged and kissed in return. “I’ve got a meeting to go to, babe,” he said quietly. “I won’t be here when you wake up, but McCree will and he’ll watch over you. Okay?”

“Uh oo,” smol Gabe said happily.

“I love you too, Gabe, and I’ll come back right after the meeting, I promise. But if I’m not here when you wake up, don’t worry.”

Smol Gabe just pulled the handkerchief toga higher up on his body and lay down, asleep instantly. The Strike-Commander sighed and tugged a fold of fabric out to serve as a blanket, worried wrinkles crinkling his forehead.

“Thanks for lunch,” he sighed, “and thanks for watching him. I’ll…be gone a couple of hours.”

“I’ll be here,” Jesse promised.

With a distinctly worried look at his smol husband, Morrison grabbed his pad and left the suite.

The silence sat for a couple of seconds.

“He needs a bed,” Jesse repeated, “and he needs silverware and a smaller cup because that was like watching him drink out of a bucket.”

“Dollhouse furnishings,” Captain Amari suggested. “Would you like me to find you some sites?”

He shook his head. “Nah. I’ll do it. Can’t work on his clothes until he wakes up anyways; he’s sleeping on the material.”

Amari stood with a thoughtful noise and went rummaging around various closets and cabinets before coming back with a shoebox that looked more than spacious for smol Gabe’s little body. With more finesse than Jesse had expected, she pulled the flannel pajama bottoms out of the pile so smoothly that the little guy didn’t stir. She folded them up into the shoebox, making a comfortably thick pad in the smaller space, and reached for the sleeping smol.

Before she touched him, however, he sat bolt upright. “Jack?” he said, half asleep.

He and Amari exchanged an alarmed look.

“Jack? Jack!” Smol Gabe patted the stack of clothes next to him, as if summoning his husband to bed.

With a sniper’s reflexive speed, Amari darted across the room and snatched the incredibly expensive one-sixth scale Strike-Commander Jack Morrison commemorative limited-edition figure with over 30 points of articulation, actual hair, and Real-Feel Synthskin™ from its stand on a shelf.

“Look,” she said a little desperately as she hurried back. “Here’s Jack. Jack’s going to bed. You want to go to sleep with him?”

“Jack,” smol Gabe chirped happily.

Amari laid the figure in the shoebox and gently picked smol Gabe up to set him down beside it. He promptly snuggled up to it, kissed it on the cheek, and fell asleep again. She took the shirt he’d been laying on and unfolded it, draping it over both him and the figure.

“Crisis averted,” she said dryly. “I teased Jack for owning a limited edition figure of himself, but it seems I owe him an apology.”

“I didn’t even know he had one of those,” Jesse admitted. “Knew they existed, yeah. But why would he…?”

“A gift for publicity,” she answered. “You’re sure you have everything under control?”

He shrugged. “He’s got his cuddle buddy, he’s got stuff to eat and drink and I’m sure I can keep him entertained when he wakes up. In the meantime, I’ll find some dollhouse stuff to order and start makin’ him something more comfy than my handkerchief to wear.”

To his surprise, Captain Amari hugged him. “If you need anything, reach out to me.”

“Will do, ma’am,” Jesse said a bit breathlessly. “Uh…thanks.”

“Thank you for doing this,” she said.

Then she left, and he shook his head.

“Right,” he muttered to himself. “Let’s start on those clothes.”

---

 

Jack

 

The meeting, to put it mildly, sucked. Jack had spent the whole thing half-distracted worrying about Gabe, wondering if Dr. Ziegler and Winston would be able to find a way to reverse whatever had been done to him, wondering if his husband would spend the rest of his life barely able to remember who he was. Afterwards, he’d squandered a precious half-hour rescheduling the rest of the day’s calls and appointments with the vague excuse that something had ‘come up’ with Commander Reyes. The walk back to their quarters passed in a daze of making plans to bake, because it was hard to be anxious while he was baking, and he’d almost forgotten that McCree would be there when he opened the door to see the cowboy sitting at the table doing something that was making Gabe laugh.

“Welcome back, boss,” McCree said as the door closed. “I know, you said to call you Jack, but with the current situation and all, I’m kinda answering directly to you, so that makes you my boss until this is all cleared up.”

The cowboy had his hands in front of him, fingers spread to form a ladder, and Gabe was climbing them. As soon as he reached the top of one hand, McCree would move the bottom hand up to form the new top while lowering the hand Gabe was clinging to. His husband was no longer wrapped in a handkerchief; his shirt had been sewn from a grey tee and he was wearing ‘sweatpants’ crafted from a navy blue one. The instant he saw Jack, he stopped climbing.

“Jack!”

Little hands stretched out towards him, forgetting to grip McCree’s fingers, and only the younger man’s quick reflexes kept him from tumbling the six or eight inches to the surface of the table. Jack collected his little husband and cuddled him to his chest.

“Report,” he half-asked while siting at the table.

“Captain Amari got him settled in that shoebox for a nap – he didn’t want to nap without you, but she put your …uh… figure in it and he cuddled right up. I made him half a dozen tee-shirts and four pairs of sweatpants, including the ones he’s wearing, and two flannel nightshirts. Also two pairs of regular pants with little drawstring belts. He woke up about half an hour ago, used the ashtray toilet, ate two more wedges of cheeseburger and drank three ounces of chocolate milk before napping for another fifteen minutes,” McCree listed off crisply. “I ordered some dollhouse silverware to be delivered tomorrow so he can eat stuff without having to pick up handfuls of mashed potatoes or somethin’ and I cut a plastic coffee stirrer in half for him to use as a straw because he’ll down the creamer cups in one go but picking up the paper cup is super awkward. He likes drinking out of my thimble, though, so I’ll leave that here.”

The scraps of tee-shirt material would be perfect for making a little quilt, Jack realized. “Good work,” he told McCree absently, half his mind lost in thoughts of quilting. Gabe’s shoebox bed would need a mattress and a pillow along with the quilt to keep him warm, and maybe he could make a quilted carry-pouch…

“Boss, you listening?”

Jack shook himself out of his thoughts. “Sorry. What were you saying?”

McCree gave him a sympathetic look. “Was thinking that if the pattern holds up, he’s not gonna sleep through the night. He’ll need to get up to pee, if nothing else, with that little bladder of his – but betcha twenty bucks he’ll wake up cryin’ because he’s hungry.”

“What do you suggest?” Jack asked, feeling the worry curl tighter in his gut.

“We cut a little door in the shoebox, for starters. Let him enter and leave at will. Put out a plate of food that’ll keep at room temperature and plenty of water.”

“Good start,” he said shortly. “Let’s add a security camera, move the whole thing to the coffee table, and I’ll sleep on the couch. Because honestly,” he said, holding one hand up before McCree could protest, “I’m not going to get much sleep otherwise.”

Gabe grumbled wordless protest at no longer having both of Jack’s hands cupping him, something that made him smile softly.

“Sorry, babe.” Once both hands were curled around his happily-humming husband, he turned his attention back to McCree. “I cleared the rest of today’s schedule and I’m going to be stress-baking for the next few hours. If you wanted to join us in the kitchen, I don’t think an extra set of eyes would be a bad thing.”

McCree gave him a solemn look, then nodded. “Still need to wrangle Commander Reyes’s stuff anyway. I’ll help you pack up shop and transport, and when we’re hungry I’ll grab us some dinner.”

With Jack carrying the shoebox containing the limited edition Strike-Commander figure Gabriel had nicknamed mini-Jack and his shrunken husband both nestled on a makeshift flannel bed, and McCree somehow carrying everything else, they made their way to the large room that was officially the Officers’ Mess but unofficially was The Officers’ Staff Lounge And Where Jack Bakes When He’s Stressed. McCree set up Gabe’s little improvised bathroom, an art station, a snack station with chocolate milk and cold cheeseburger wedges, and then borrowed a knife to cut a doorway into the shoebox. Two vertical cuts six inches apart on one long side resulted in a flap that folded down but could be pulled up and loosely tucked back into place. Gabe entertained himself by ‘opening’ and ‘closing’ the door for a few minutes, and by the time he got bored of that, Jack was well into mixing up the chocolate-chip cookie dough – with mini morsels, of course.

After that, it was an exciting period of his little husband wanting to get into everything and help, which resulted in a teaspoon of baking soda going everywhere as he tried (and failed) to measure it out, and McCree recording Gabe’s almost-successful attempts to fetch eggs out of the carton. The younger man distracted him with the chocolate chips, and then after that with crayons and a coloring book, leaving Jack to crush his anxiety with the routine of making dozens upon dozens of tiny chocolate-chip cookies – because, of course, they had to be small enough for Gabe to eat comfortably.

That didn’t stop him from making three enormous cookies out of the last batch, of course.

Somewhere after the first couple dozen cookies had come out of the oven, McCree mentioned Chinese take-out for dinner and absently, Jack had agreed. Gabe was curled up around the figure he’d joked in the past was Jack’s Mini-Me, taking a nap, and they agreed he wasn’t likely to wake until around when McCree got back. Jack was stacking tiny cookies in a storage tub while the giant cookies baked when the cowboy returned with a 2-liter bottle of orange soda and a paper bag that had been stapled shut.

“Got your chicken lo mein combo,” McCree said as he started unloading the bag, waking Gabe. “Boss’s General Tso, my beef with broccoli, here’s the egg rolls, aaaand they threw in an order of crab rangoons.”

Jack frowned. “He can’t eat that with his hands, even if it weren’t too hot. We’ll need to cut it up for him.”

The cowboy’s face fell. “Aw, heck, and the dollhouse silverware hasn’t gotten here yet. Rice…he can’t eat that with his hands, either. Egg rolls?”

Gabe was fussing at the waxed paper bag holding them, and Jack unrolled the top of it so he could pull one out, but no matter what angle he tried to get at it from, he couldn’t get it in his mouth to bite. Cutting it, Jack discovered when he grabbed one of the plastic knives, only resulted in a messy pile of shredded cabbage and torn wrapper with a tiny husband picking at it in disappointment. Jesse had cut up some chicken and broccoli, but it was still going to be less than a neat dining experience. The crab rangoons could be torn apart, but that would be only marginally less messy to eat.

“This was a mistake,” the cowboy said mournfully. “None of it is smol friendly.”

But Gabriel was too hungry to care; Jack loaded a plate with bits of General Tso’s and broccoli, mangled egg roll and eviscerated crab rangoon, a pile of fried rice and a small heap of his lo mein. A little paper cup of orange soda with a clipped coffee stirrer as a straw rounded the meal off, and the adorably little Gabriel happily went to town on it all with his bare hands. Fistfuls of rice or shredded cabbage went into his mouth, chunks of breaded chicken or broccoli that filled his hands and made his cheeks look like a chipmunk, and he used both hands to eat cream cheese-laden wonton shreds like pieces of floppy pizza. Halfway through the meal, the timer went off and Jack took the giant cookies out to cool. Thankfully, Gabe was too busy stuffing his tiny face to notice, a lo mein noodle in one hand and a thin strip of chicken in his other fist. Just as Jack was starting to wonder how much his little stomach could hold, because he was getting visibly rounder, he let out a belch louder than any of them had been expecting and promptly clapped his hands with glee at his performance. Then he held them out to Jack with an unhappy expression.

“He wants ‘em cleaned,” McCree volunteered through a mouthful of fried rice.

Jack would have cleaned his little husband even without the pleading expression, but Gabe was so miserable with his hands and face covered in oils and sauces, and he smiled so brilliantly when Jack gently cleaned him off with a damp paper towel. When he was free of the remnants of dinner, he held both arms out and made an imperious sound. Jack submitted himself to his husband’s tiny kiss, laid a gentle smooch on the top of his little head, and smiled softly as Gabe fairly waddled into the shoebox and snuggled up to Mini-Jack for a nap.

“Any idea what to feed him for breakfast?” McCree asked quietly.

“None whatsoever,” he groaned, not taking his eyes off his sleeping husband. They hadn’t even cleaned up dinner, he hadn’t finished with putting the cookies away or doing the dishes, and he hadn’t gotten further in planning than getting started on that quilt before bed. Breakfast may as well have been a week away.

“Alright,” the cowboy said easily. “I’m gonna go out shopping, then. Got some ideas for how to feed the boss while he’s too smol to eat normal food. You good getting him back to your quarters?”

“I’ll call Ana if I need help.” Jack answered. “Thank you.”

“Anything you need,” he returned in that same easy tone. “His schedule is a lot easier to rearrange than yours is. I’ll stop in later tonight, okay?”

“Fine,” Jack sighed, raising his eyes to smile tiredly at the younger man. “Thank you again.”

McCree nodded and left, throwing the trash from dinner out on his way, and Jack turned to the aftermath of his stress-baking. The kitchen wasn’t going to just clean itself…

---

 

Jesse

 

Jesse hummed as he put groceries away. Tortillas and thin-sliced lunchmeat, angel hair pasta and tiny shrimp, thin pretzel sticks and an assortment of fresh fruit. Jumbo pasta shells, the smaller ‘regular’ variety, and an icing bag with a fine tip. Cheeses and pasta sauce and lean ground beef. Hot dogs and breadsticks, baby pickles and quail eggs, the ingredients for tacos and a bag of flat, circular corn chips. A couple of plastic shot glasses and a package each of plastic tasting forks and spoons that had been fortuitous finds. And, after some intense looking, he’d found some non-alcoholic beer because smol or not, there was no way Reyes would go longer than a couple of days without a beer and he didn’t want to be between the crying smol and the enraged husband because he was pretty sure Reyes couldn’t tolerate alcohol in his smol state.

When he knocked on the door to the commanders’ quarters, Morrison called for him to enter. There were multiple tubs of little bite-sized cookies stacked up by the table, with one of them by the couch and a small pile of cookies on a plate. Smol Gabe was cheerfully drawing with crayons longer than his arm, while his husband seemed pretty content on the couch, sewing something.

“Making a little quilt,” he said when he saw Jesse watching. “The flannel will do for a mattress for now, but I want him to have something better than a shirt to keep him warm.”

“I didn’t take you for a quilter,” Jesse said, settling into a chair on the other side of the coffee table.

Morrison smiled gently. “Learned from my grandma. Insisted, really. I was six. She set me up with some scraps and taught me the stitches and we’d sit there, quilting together, while ma was at work. That first week, my fingers were all full of holes.” He laughed softly. “But I got better. Too stubborn to give up. Haven’t done any quilting in years, but it’s…soothing. And less labor-intensive than baking, which is good because I think we’re going to be eating cookies for months.”

“There’s always sharing with the rest of Overwatch,” Jesse offered. “Just leave piles in the break rooms; they’ll vanish. Or we could hold a bake sale.”

“Don’t push your luck,” Morrison said, but he was laughing. “I had Ana bring me a security camera and set it up, so between the cookies and some paper cups full of water I think Gabe’s got everything he needs for the night…and I’ve got everything that will hopefully let me sleep at least a little.”

“Then I’ll take care of breakfast,” Jesse said, standing up. “I know how early the commander starts his days…”

“Earlier than that,” was the correction. “By an hour. I’ll call you if he’s hungry. Don’t worry about me, I’ll grab a bagel or some cereal.”

“Like hell you will, sir.” Jesse’s voice was firm. “If that’s all you want, then that’s all I’ll bring you, but you know if he’s eating and you’re not, he’s gonna worry.”

The guilty expression on the Strike-Commander’s face was surprisingly gratifying.

“Alright. I’m gonna go grab some shut-eye. You two have a good night now, y’hear? Call if you need anything.”

“I’ll do that,” he promised. “Thank you.”