Give Him The Cookie 3

[moonshadows]

Jesse

 

Jesse woke early, eyes opening to the sight of smol Gabe chewing a pretzel stick mournfully.

“Mornin’, jefe,” he said quietly. “You still hungry?”

The little guy nodded, forehead wrinkled with his pleading look.

“How about we go get you some breakfast and make some for your husband at the same time?”

Little hands clapped in glee.

“Alright, you go take a leak if you gotta and we’ll sneak you out in my hat. I’ll leave a note.”

While smol Gabe used the ashtray toilet, Jesse scribbled ‘back with breakfast, J + G’ on a little piece of paper and left it in the shoebox bed. A quick change of clothes followed, and then with smol Gabe giggling softly and clinging to his hair, Jesse settled his hat carefully onto his head and strolled out as though he hadn’t a care in the world.

Once in the kitchen, he set his hat on the table and smol Gabe on the counter. Breakfast was the first order of business, and a handful of Cheerios in a saucer of milk gave him something to work on while Jesse sliced half a banana into the thinnest little circles for him to munch on.

“Happened to see that your husband’s got a meeting with Winston and Angela this morning,” he said as he cracked eggs into a skillet and added bacon. “Hopefully it’s good news, and you’ll be sinking your teeth into a celebratory steak dinner tonight.”

Smol Gabe made a noncommittal noise, which Jesse interpreted as not really understanding what he’d said.

While Jesse cooked, frying eggs big and little along with the bacon, smol Gabe chewed his way through the cereal and banana and made begging noises. He got a strip of chewy bacon and a shot glass of orange juice, and Jesse mixed up pancake batter. By the time breakfast and second smol breakfast had been assembled, the smol had curled up for a nap. Jesse carefully, carefully tucked him into his breast pocket, donned his hat, and returned to discover that the Strike-Commander was taking a shower and the note was still where he’d left it. Quickly, he laid out his and Morrison’s breakfasts and tucked smol Gabe back into bed. When Morrison emerged, damply clean and dressed and looking somewhat refreshed, Jesse was eating breakfast as though nothing had happened.

“When did you…?” Morrison pointed at the plate, then the cookie house which proudly bore the cookie-shingle roof Jesse’d glued on last night, and shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Thank you.”

He sat and dug in, and for a few minutes there was just eating.

“I’ve got a meeting with Winston and Dr. Ziegler,” he said over coffee after most of his meal was inside him. “I guess you saw.”

“Sure did. I’m thinking steak for dinner. Celebration if they have an answer, consolation if they don’t.”

Morrison grunted. “Good idea. I hear you have a way with potatoes…?”

“Potatoes it is. Anything else, boss?”

He shook his head. “I’ll make biscuits, and I know Gabe likes broccoli. If the news isn’t good, I’ll be making dessert, too.”

“Alright. Good luck.”

Morrison smiled thinly, eyes on the shoebox. “Thanks.”

 They spent a lazy morning cooperatively playing a match-three game, smol Gabe getting excited every time a match was made and the brightly-colored pieces cascaded down to fill the empty spots. When he got hungry, he feasted on fried quail eggs and tiny pancakes and then curled up with his substitute husband for his nap. Jesse used the bathroom sink to gently wash his dirty clothes and draped them carefully in the shower to dry while thinking up a physical yet entertaining activity to keep his smol boss occupied until the Strike-Commander got back.

A little poking around turned up the vintage remote-control truck he’d given Reyes for Christmas a couple years back, and he loaded it with a handful of bite-sized cookies. When smol Gabe woke up, they spent a very enjoyable hour playing a game of tag where the little guy chased the truck and got a cookie when he ‘caught’ it. Smol Gabe was starting to tire when Jack walked in, face impassive and unreadable – which meant the news was bad, because that’s what the Strike-Commander’s face always did with bad news. For a minute, he just stood there, watching his smol husband chase the truck, his expression so grave that Jesse was afraid to say anything.

“Hey, babe,” he said quietly as his shrunken husband caught the truck and removed the last cookie.

Smol Gabe turned with a happy gasp and held both arms out to be picked up. “Jack!” he chirped happily. “Jack!”

The Strike-Commander obliged, cuddling him almost desperately.

“Jack?” he asked, voice thick with concern. When his husband held him far enough away to see his face, he offered the little cookie with a worried expression.

Hesitantly, Morrison ate the cookie out of his hands and then kissed his forehead. “Thanks, babe,” he murmured. “I feel better already. I just got some news I didn’t like, that’s all, and it means I’m going to have to work extra hard for a few days. Having fun playing with McCree?”

Smol Gabe nodded. “Uck!” he announced.

“Truck,” Jesse clarified. “We were playing chase the truck, get cookies.”

“That sounds like a wonderful game,” Morrison declared. “Are you going to keep-” He broke off as his little husband yawned, and smiled softly. “I guess that answers that. Naptime?”

“Uh oo,” smol Gabe announced, arms out for his hug.

Morrison submitted to the tiny hug and kiss before laying a kiss of his own on his husband’s babydoll head and tucking him into bed. He watched smol Gabe for a minute, then turned to Jesse. “I’ve got to address some things. It’s going to take Winston and Dr. Ziegler a week to prepare and test the device they’re going to use to try to return Gabriel to normal. They said to thank you for your report, by the way.”

“Hey, anything I can do to help.” Jesse hesitated, then asked, “Do they think it’s gonna work?”

That super-scary look came back, the one somehow more frightening than Reyes at his most terrifying. “For their sakes, it had better, or Winston’s going to wish he’d never left the moon.” Then he sighed and shook his head. “I’m going to be stress-baking tonight. Can you get me a bag of apples? Something sweet, so I don’t have to use much sugar? I’m going to make little pies. And, well, a big one too. Oh, and make sure we have vanilla ice cream.”

Jesse threw him a casual salute. “You got it, boss. Gonna be okay watching him until I get back?”

Morrison looked at the shoebox. “You know what? I’m going to take him to the kitchen and just wait for you there while I argue with my schedule on my pad.”

“That’ll make it easy for me to bring you lunch,” Jesse said, more than half joking. “Alright, I’m off to requisition some apples and ice cream. I’ll meet you there.”

The freezer in the Officers’ Mess had a carton of vanilla bean ice cream tucked into the back, Jesse confirmed before heading over to the other side of the base. It was easy enough to grab a bag of apples from the main kitchen’s supplies, and he was back before Morrison had finished setting everything up.

While the Strike-Commander argued with someone over text, Jesse began peeling apples. He was about half a dozen in before Morrison looked up and noticed.

“When you’ve got a dozen peeled, could you make lunch for Gabe?” he asked quietly.

“No problem,” Jesse assured him. They could withstand a little hunger, but the commander’s tiny body wouldn’t tolerate it. He finished peeling the rest of the dozen, looked at the time, and winced. No time for anything fancy; it was going to be sandwiches.

A tortilla on a large plate, the package of thin-sliced roast beef, mayo, and mustard. Jesse arranged them on the table along with a spreading knife and a sharper knife. First, he cut the tortilla in half. One half got thinly spread with mayonnaise, and the other got spread with mustard. Slices of roast beef got arranged on both halves, and then he put them together for the flattest sandwich in history. He started cutting it into strips, intending to then cut those into squares, but motion made him look up and there was smol Gabe, sitting on the table with one end of the longest strip in his mouth, just going to town on it.

Jesse put the knife down and took a picture.

By the time he’d finished the strip, he looked ready to fall asleep sitting up, and Jesse grabbed the little quilt and folded it into a pillow for him. His little belly was visibly distended – not like it wasn’t after most of his meals, but somehow it was funnier when it had been a strip of food that he’d just devoured methodically, with barely a pause to swallow. The little fella let out a tiny belch and lay down, his stomach almost as round as his head. Jesse took another picture and finished cutting the roast beef sandwich strips into little squares, which he arranged on a smaller plate before constructing sandwiches for himself and the Strike-Commander.

Lunch was awkwardly quiet. Morrison paid almost no attention to anything outside his pad and Jesse ate quickly with only a brief pause to make sure there were ample shot glasses of water, juice, and milk for smol Gabe to drink when he woke from his food coma.

After lunch, Jesse peeled the rest of the apples and then halved and cored them. At Morrison’s direction, he minced two apples and sliced the rest thinly. It was monotonous, but somehow soothing. Smol Gabe woke near the end to drink and use the toilet before falling upon the little sandwiches with ‘num, num’ sounds of appreciation. When Jesse was done with the apples, he minced a handful of strawberries and mixed them into the minced apple.

Just as he had finished washing up, Morrison put down the pad and stretched. “Well,” he announced, “there’s a lot of people that are going to be unhappy with having their meetings and calls pushed back, but I told them that Commander Reyes needed me for something important.” His smile was thin and held very little amusement. “There’s some work I still need to do in my office, but my evening is free otherwise and I’ve pared my schedule for the next week down to the absolute minimum. How has Gabe been sleeping with you there?”

Jesse scratched at the back of his head. “I don’t want to say like a baby, because actual babies sleep more restlessly than the saying implies, but like a baby. An actual baby. He sleeps like the dead and then wakes up needing something to go in one end or come out the other, and once that’s taken care of it’s back to being dead asleep. He doesn’t even notice me when he’s awake.”

Morrison nodded. “Good. I think you can sleep in your own quarters again; the security camera wakes me when he moves, and you’ve just verified that his sleep pattern matches what I’ve observed. I’ll send you my schedule so you can arrange yours as well, but in general I won’t need you more than a couple of hours in the morning and a bit in the afternoon.”

“And meals,” Jesse added in a tone that challenged the Strike-Commander to argue.

The older man winced. “And meals. Thank you. And thank you for preparing the apples for me.”

Jesse grinned. “You’re baking pie; the least I can do to thank you is help get things ready.”

While he and smol Gabe played a fruit-themed match-three game, Morrison mixed up the dough for pie crust and rolled it out. Little circles of dough got pressed into a mini muffin tin and filled with the apple-strawberry mixture – once he’d mixed in spices, of course. Then he set that pan aside while he made the big pie. Smol Gabe got restless at that point and his husband fed him spiced slices of apple while Jesse cut up the rest of the apple from the other day and dug out a handful of pretzel sticks. Once the smol had been satisfied with snacks, he decided he wanted to paint on the tablet and his husband mixed up a crumb topping for the pies.

Jesse excused himself to grab a shower while the pies baked.

Clean and refreshed, he returned with food requisitioned from the main kitchen and trimmed a couple thin slices off of the steaks before tossing them in a marinade. The little steaks, he treated to a dry rub that had gotten enthusiastic approval from Reyes in the past. Potatoes were washed, peeled, sliced, and tossed with a mixture of spices and olive oil before being spread on a baking tray. He took a turn watching over smol Gabe after that while Morrison took the pies out and prepared some kind of cheesy biscuit he said was ‘Red Lobster’ style.

They all enjoyed a little snack of miniature pie while the biscuits baked – Morrison insisted, said they’d suffer less from being served cool than the potatoes would – and smol Gabe was beside himself to have a tiny pie just for him and an entire heaping spoonful of ice cream on top. He attacked it with two tasting spoons while Jesse and his tol boss had a couple of the tiny pies with little spoonfuls of ice cream on top. They were still warm, and Jesse expressed his ineloquent approval in muffled sounds as he chewed. Morrison looked…marginally less stressed to see his husband enjoying himself so enthusiastically.

While the potatoes baked and the steaks came out to warm up, Morrison took the biscuits out and brushed them with an herbed butter before piling them in a bowl and covering them with a towel to help keep them warm. He chopped the broccoli and put it in the microwave to steam while Jesse dug out the cast-iron grill pan and got it heating on the stove. He grilled his and Morrison’s steaks first, transferring them to plates to rest once they were done. Morrison pronounced the broccoli cooked and scooped out some of the smallest florets for his tiny husband. Jesse grilled the dry-rubbed strips for a handful of seconds on each side and put them on smol Gabe’s plate before turning off the burner and checking the potatoes. They seemed to be done, so he cut a few slices into strips and added them to the plate as well. Then he and Morrison loaded up their own plates and set the table. Jesse poured smol Gabe a shot glass of non-alcoholic beer and gave the rest to his tol boss, who was crumbling a biscuit for his shrunken husband.

It was a surreally celebratory dinner. Morrison had an aura reminiscent of a prisoner enjoying his last meal, while smol Gabe kept making ‘that’s good’ gestures in Jesse’s direction and acting for all the world like his normal self – minus being able to speak in full words, although he was certain he caught ‘good’ at least once as the little guy feasted. There was more pie for dessert, although smol Gabe put his hands on his belly and made a sound of complaint when a tiny pie was set in front of him. Morrison apologized, kissed him, and tucked him in for a nap with the promise that the pie would be there when he had room for it. He and Jesse enjoyed slices of apple pie with ice cream, and when he announced that Jesse could have the rest of the evening to himself, Jesse insisted on packing leftovers away (minus a small portion for smol Gabe to eat later) and doing the dishes.

The Strike-Commander thanked him, gathered smol Gabe’s things, and left.

---

 

Jack

 

As much as Jack tried to focus on just enjoying time with his shrunken husband, the knowledge that this week might be all they had together gnawed at him. Ziegler and Winston had assured him that they would take every precaution, that they would calibrate the device carefully, but they couldn’t give him a guarantee that it would work the way they hoped. There was a chance that restoring his mass too quickly would cause his body to – for lack of a better word – rip as muscles and organs expanded faster than their neighbors. There was also a chance that even though the restoration went correctly, his mind would never recover and the man Jack loved would be effectively erased, leaving Gabriel in this childlike state, or a blank slate, or a mindless husk.

It was heavy stuff, and although he tried to put it out of his mind, Gabriel knew something was wrong and kept trying to cheer him up every way he knew how. Jack got offered pieces of cookie, bites of miniature pie, and digitally-painted love notes, all of which he accepted with genuine pleasure. Even distilled down to his purest essence, he cared about Jack, and that was as humbling as it was sweet – but it made the possibility of losing his husband cut that much deeper.

As the evening progressed, Gabe lost interest in anything but Jack, climbing his shirt to kiss his cheek and refusing to come down. In the end, Jack lay on the couch and sewed a quilted liner for the carry-pouch with Gabe spread out on his chest, fast asleep and doing his best to hug his husband. When he caught himself dozing off, he put Gabe to bed but didn’t retreat to the bedroom. He just lay on the couch for a while, listening to the tiny sounds of his husband breathing and wondering what he would do if the restoration went…badly.

Somewhere between midnight and three in the morning, he stumbled into the bedroom and swallowed three mouthfuls of Gabriel’s scotch before falling into bed and hugging the pillow that smelled like his husband.

Jack woke up to the sounds of laughter: McCree’s hearty guffaws and little Gabe’s joyful shrieks. As much as he wanted to go out and see Gabe smile, he’d overslept and needed to look at least somewhat presentable for the video call he hadn’t been able to reschedule away. So he showered and shaved, brushed his teeth, and rubbed moisturizer and concealer into his skin to give the illusion that he wasn’t an emotional wreck.

Gabriel chirped his name as he emerged, and he couldn’t resist that tiny hug and kiss even as he told McCree that he didn’t have time to eat and thanked him for breakfast anyway. Before his resolve wavered, he assured his little husband that he’d be back soon and put him down on the table – where he promptly looked up at Jack with a pleading expression.

“I’ll be back soon,” he promised quickly, before the tears could come. “And we’ll have hamburgers and ice cream for lunch, how’s that sound?”

Thankfully, Gabe’s expression brightened. “Uh oo!” he chirped out, giggling when Jack leaned down to kiss his forehead.

Jack made his escape, worry temporarily blunted by his husband’s excitement over ice cream. Although he started his video call fighting annoyance, the need to fix things that made him so good as Strike-Commander sucked him into the issue at hand and everything else faded from his awareness. The call ended on a satisfyingly productive note, and only then did he remember his promise. He detoured to the Officers’ Mess and filled a plastic shot glass with ice cream and a drizzle of chocolate syrup before grabbing a tasting spoon and returning to their quarters.

Gabriel was thrilled to see him, abandoning some game with paper tubes he’d been playing, and Jack had to kiss him three times before he stopped chirping ‘Jack!’ and noticed the ice cream.

While his shrunken husband devoured his chilly treat, Jack devoured the remains of the breakfast McCree had made for him – apparently, Gabe had eaten part of it, which made him smile because it just wasn’t a proper meal unless his husband stole a bite or three.

“I’ll let you two eat lunch alone today,” McCree drawled, amusement thick in his voice. “Grab something in town for myself. Pick up groceries for the next week.”

Jack swallowed a bite of cold pancake. “Grab me a bottle of hard liquor? Doesn’t matter what kind,” he added as McCree opened his mouth. “I’m just using it to help me sleep.”

Somberly, the cowboy nodded. “You got it, boss,” he said. “We both know that ain’t healthy, and the commander won’t like it when he gets back to himself, but he’ll understand and I got no high horse to lecture you from. I’ll leave it on your bed if you’re not in when I get back.”

“Thanks.” Jack gave him a tired smile. “When this is all over, I’m giving you three weeks of vacation time and a free pass on your next big mess.”

McCree chuckled. “I appreciate that. You two have a good lunch,” he said, tipping his hat before sauntering out.

Gabriel eating ice cream reminded him of a board game he used to play as a child, and as he finished his breakfast Jack went poking through the tablet until – yes! – he found Candy Land. The digital version was even easier than the physical game: touch the card button and watch as your piece moves to the color (or candy) the digital card shows. Just looking at the colorful board got Gabe’s attention, and moments later they were watching their pieces – red for Gabe, blue for Jack – move down the trail. Gabe won, due to an unlucky draw sending Jack back to the candy cane forest, and he generously peppered Jack’s cheek with kisses as a consolation prize.

It was very effective.

With Gabe in the cozy, quilted carry-pouch, Jack gathered his things and went to the Officers’ Mess to make lunch. McCree had stuck some ground hamburger in the fridge on his way out, which Jack made a note to thank him for, and once his little husband was occupied with coloring he mixed in seasonings and shaped eight tiny, tiny patties and two regular ones. Normally, he was irritated with his husband’s refusal to eat the heels of any loaf of bread, but today the joke was on him because they were going to be the buns for his little burgers. While the burgers were frying, Jack quartered them and cut slices of cheddar to fit onto the miniature buns, ketchup carefully spread on each one, then realized that he could have saved time by preparing the heels and then cutting it into quarters. Oh well.

Gabe’s burgers were done first, of course, so he put four sliders on a little plate and poured his husband a shot of ‘safe’ beer. He contemplated some sort of side dish, but wound up just slicing a pair of strawberries and halving some cherries. Gabriel smiled up at him as he sat down with his own burgers and a glass of Coke, and he smiled back, but he couldn’t help wonder if he would ever see his husband’s real face smiling at him again.

As promised, there was more ice cream after they’d eaten, and although Gabe had his own, Jack kept offering him little bits of his on the tip of his spoon. His little husband smiled with delight every time, and offered Jack tiny tastes on his tasting spoon in return.

“You two are adorable,” Ana said from the doorway, arms crossed and grinning.

Jack smiled. “Ana. Come in and join us.”

She snorted. “I came to see if either of you have been outside in the last few days.”

That made him wince. “Not as such, no.”

“That’s what I thought. And let me guess, you don’t want anyone seeing him.”

“Well…”

Ana rolled her eyes. “Jack. You had a private courtyard put in specifically so you could go outside, lean against a tree, and breathe fresh air without leaving the base or worrying about random agents seeing you.”

He blinked. Somehow, he’d completely forgotten that the courtyard was an option.

“Come on, I’ll help you pack up. Oh, where-”

The tiny sound of the ashtray toilet ‘flushing’ interrupted her, followed by the subtle snap of the container holding squares of sanitary wipe. Gabriel came out from behind the screen moments later, yawning. Jack kissed him, they said ‘uh oo’ and ‘love you too’, and he tucked his little husband into bed with Mini-Jack.

“If you could chop some fruit and grab a bottle of water,” Jack said quietly, “I’ll pack up his other hamburgers and deal with the toilet. No reason he can’t have his second lunch outside.”

Ana smiled and, when he stood to fetch the burgers, intercepted him for a hug.

The courtyard was quiet and cool under the tree. Jack settled himself and Gabe’s things and leaned against the trunk, letting his mind go blank. Within minutes he was out cold, napping with his little husband. He woke up half an hour later to Gabe attempting to climb him, face alight with excitement. Everything was new and thrilling: grass, leaves, breeze, dirt. Gabriel played until his little stomach growled, and then Jack spread a cloth napkin on the grass and his shrunken husband had a delightful picnic. He refused to go back into the shoebox after, despite being half asleep, even after kisses. It took Jack a minute to realize that Gabe wanted to nap on his chest, in the carry-pouch.

Husband securely tucked into the pouch, Jack settled back against the tree and they both took another nap.

McCree found them out there, just as Jack’s half-hour warning alarm went off.

“Jack?” Gabe asked, eyes large.

“I’m sorry, babe,” he murmured, kissing his husband’s forehead and hugging him gently to his chest. “Work calls. I promise I’ll be back before dinner.”

“Makin’ shrimp scampi with pasta,” McCree announced with forced cheer. “It’s gonna be delicious, jefe, you just wait. But in the meantime, hey, do you see that bug?”

While Gabe was distracted by a caterpillar, Jack snuck out and was halfway back to their quarters to change when he remembered he still had the carry-pouch looped over his neck and tied around his waist. He hurried back, untying as he went, but stopped at the Officers’ Mess and left it there instead.

The meeting, unfortunately, was filled with too many politicians and officials for Jack to have been able to reschedule it. He gritted his teeth and smiled with warmth he didn’t feel and mouthed pretty phrases and was too aggravated by the whole ordeal to worry about Gabriel.

Escaping at the end and changing back into casual clothes was a relief in and of itself, but sliding into the Officers’ Mess to a heavenly cloud of garlicky shrimp smell and Gabe’s thrilled cry of “Jack!” chased the rest of the tension away.

“Good timing,” McCree said from the stove. “Dinner’s just about ready.”

Jack sat at the table, where his shrunken husband ran up to be hugged and babbled partial words that he couldn’t interpret. Whatever Gabe was trying to tell him, he was thrilled by it and Jack didn’t have the heart to tell him he didn’t understand. Luckily, kisses and encouraging sounds were all Gabriel needed and he was distracted away from his story when McCree set a plate down in front of Jack.

A mound of angel-hair pasta topped with buttery garlic sauce and scattered with little shrimp glistened on the plate, with broccoli florets scattered around the edges. A second plate sat across the table, and a smaller plate sat between them for Gabe. McCree set glasses – or shot glasses – of juice by each plate and handed out forks.

“Dig in,” he said encouragingly, following his own suggestion.

Jack set his suddenly-squirming husband down and twirled pasta onto his fork as he watched Gabe make a beeline for his plate and grab a shrimp with his bare hand – only for it to squirt out of his grasp and fly halfway across the table.

With a squeak of outrage, Gabe darted after it and picked it up – but again the buttery morsel leaped out of his grasp, and he turned to Jack with pleading eyes.

“Here you go, babe,” Jack said, picking up the shrimp and holding it out carefully.

Gabriel put his hands on Jack’s fingers, holding them still while he ate the shrimp out of them. Then he laid a tiny kiss on each fingertip in thanks.

“Try picking them up with both hands,” Jack suggested, miming one hand on either side of an imaginary object.

Nodding, Gabe returned to his plate and Jack stuck his pasta-laden fork in his mouth, humming appreciation and giving McCree a thumbs up. Carefully, cradling the shrimp in his tiny hands rather than grabbing them, Gabriel ate them all out of his dinner and then held his buttery hands out for Jack to lick clean. Blushing, he obliged his husband while McCree pretended he was neither watching nor grinning. Once Gabe’s hands had been dried on a tissue, he took up his tasting fork and began the undignified process of twirling the short strands of pasta onto it and eating them off the tines. When he got too frustrated, Jack offered him one of his shrimp, but that was only a temporary measure. After the second or third time, he gently took the little fork and loaded it carefully with pasta. Gabe’s face lit up and he sat on the table, happily letting his husband feed him until the pasta was gone and his shot glass of juice was empty.

“I’ll, uh, cut his second dinner up real fine,” McCree said as Jack tucked his little husband in for a nap. “Also, that stuff he was jabberin’ at you earlier was probably the pretend camping we did outside with a lil’ fire and everything. He might want to do it again, so I got you a regular ash tray and some twigs and wooden matches and the cloth scraps will burn pretty good. Also got some mini marshmallows and clipped a bamboo skewer down to size if you want to let him toast them to go with the little cookies.”

“Chocolate-chip cookie s’mores,” Jack said with a faint smile. “It’s a good idea. Maybe some simple camp songs. Thank you. You’re really good at this.”

The cowboy flushed. “The commander was a Boy Scout,” he protested. “He told stories about camping. I just listened.”

Jack’s mouth dropped open. “Wait – he was? He never told me! And he teases me by calling me Boy Scout? That sneaky little-” He shook his head. “Never mind. I’ll get the dishes while you get his second dinner.”

With a dish of shrimp scampi chopped fine enough that Gabriel could eat it with a spoon – even the little shrimp had been cut into pieces – and a bag of miniature campfire supplies, he and McCree transported everything back to his quarters and the cowboy bid him goodnight. Jack entertained himself by building – but not lighting – a tiny fire in the ashtray with rolled scraps of cloth for logs and twigs forming a cone. A pile of marshmallows on one side and a stack of cookies on the other with the skewer in the middle completed the setup, and Jack moved the cookie house to the coffee table in case his little husband wanted to play in it. Then he sprawled on the couch with cloth and sewing supplies to put together a little sleeping bag until Gabe woke up.

A quietly disgruntled “Jack!” alerted him that his husband was awake, and with a bit of surprise he realized it had been nearly an hour.

“Sorry, babe,” he said, putting the unfinished project aside. “You hungry?”

Enthusiastic nodding was his answer.

“Want more shrimp scampi, or do you want something sweet?”

Gabriel made a curious sound, and Jack pointed to the miniature campfire setup. Gabe shook his head and uttered, “Ah eh.”

“Not yet?”

Nodding.

“Alright, more shrimp scampi it is.”

While Gabe ate and napped again, Jack finished the fleece-lined sleeping bag and congratulated himself on having the idea of using the fly from the pants that had been used for the shell to the sleeping bag, the carry-pouch, and the mattress. He laid the sleeping bag by the mini campfire just as his little husband stretched and emerged from his shoebox bed.

“Ready to toast some marshmallows, babe?” Jack asked.

He was rewarded with an excited look, and Gabe darted over to sit on the sleeping bag and shove a marshmallow onto the clipped bamboo skewer. Jack struck a match and lit one of the cloth rolls, and within seconds the little fire was burning cheerfully to Gabriel’s tiny ‘ooooooooooo’.

Naturally, he set the marshmallow on fire, but he was able to blow it out and take a cautious nibble. Apparently it wasn’t done enough, because he held it back above the flames a little while longer before munching it straight off the stick. Excited by this flammable treat, he jammed another marshmallow onto the skewer and set it to toast. He kept toasting and eating, ignoring the cookies entirely, for as long as the little fire burned. Jack sang a couple of camp songs, but Gabriel didn’t seem inclined to so much as hum along, much less attempt to sing.

When the fire burned out, Gabe pouted for a few seconds before shoving the last marshmallow into his mouth. Then he went for the crayons and drew scribbled pictures of fire and trees and bugs.

Jack took him into the bathroom to wash him in the sink when he started looking tired, dressed him in a nightshirt, and tucked him into bed with the usual kisses. Once his little husband was asleep, he ducked back into the bedroom to investigate the bottle McCree had left him.

Tequila.

Well, it would knock him out, that was for certain. He could feel the worry gnawing at his gut now that Gabe was asleep, and he choked down a few mouthfuls before stripping and climbing into bed.

Sleep, for the first half of the night, was dark and dreamless.

The second half was full of anxiety and waking up to check on his shrunken husband, and eventually he gave up and took a long, hot shower trying to both relax and refresh himself. Clean, shaven, dressed, and mildly hungry, he emerged with the intent of watching his husband sleep and maybe getting some emails done.

When he peeked into the shoebox, however, Gabe wasn’t there.

For a single, heart-stopping moment, he panicked. Then he realized one of Gabe’s crayon drawings was in the makeshift bed half-covering Mini-Jack, and a soft giggle floated out from the cookie house. Crisis averted, he sat on the couch and picked up the drawing. His name had been laboriously written in blue crayon, and below it was a very impressive heart composed of pink, red, and purple hearts inside one another, getting smaller and smaller until the center was just a tiny v of purple. His shrunken husband, distilled down to his purest form and barely able to manage words, had left him a love note.

“Aw, Gabe,” he murmured.

Another giggle came from inside the cookie house, but when he looked, the tissue curtain was still in place – the door, however, fluttered a little.

“If only Gabriel were here,” Jack intoned with mock-sorrow, trying not to grin, “I’d give him so many kisses for this gorgeous love letter!”

One of the tissue curtains lifted enough for big, brown eyes to peek out. Gabriel giggled and vanished again.

“Wherever could he be? He’s not in his bed!” …and the sleeping bag was gone, he realized. “Is he in…”

Gabriel burst out of the cookie house, arms spread. “Peek!”

“Peek-a-boo! There he is!”

Jack scooped his tiny husband up for kisses and giggles, ‘falling’ back dramatically onto the couch, with Gabe standing on his chest trying to hug his chin and peppering his face with tiny kisses – which is how McCree found them when he came in with breakfast.

---

 

Jesse

 

Jesse was only partially surprised that smol Gabe didn’t want breakfast yet. Apparently, Jack had not only left a stack of little cookies for him, but also the bag of mini marshmallows had been where he could reach them and that explained everything. Smol Gabe was more wired than he’d ever seen Reyes, demanding the cookie house be moved back to the table (“Oww! Oww!”) so he could play peek-a-boo with Jesse while his husband stuffed pancakes and eggs into his face. Once the Strike-Commander had finished eating, he took a turn entertaining his smol husband while Jesse scarfed down his own breakfast.

Adorably, smol Gabe got so excited about peek-a-boo that he charged out of the cookie house to throw himself at Morrison’s face, laughing and kissing. Morrison, going a step further, ducked his head to kiss his smol husband’s belly, which caused him to throw himself down onto his back and kick his little legs, giggling. The Strike-Commander lifted the hem of his shirt to blow a real raspberry into that plump little belly, and smol Gabe shriek-giggled and flailed at him. Jesse grinned as those tiny hands got a grip on Morrison’s nose, but then the Strike-Commander raised his head and smol Gabe was dangling from his nose and Jesse nearly snorted orange juice out his nose trying not to laugh. Morrison winced, head jerking back, both hands coming up to catch the smol as his grip slipped. Then they were apologizing to each other, Morrison murmuring ‘I’m sorry, babe, I’m sorry’ and smol Gabe chirping ‘Jack!’ in an anxious voice. Many kisses were exchanged, Morrison kissing his smol husband’s forehead and the smol laying tiny kisses on the tip of Morrison’s nose.

It was so cute it almost hurt to watch, and Jesse absolutely took pictures and maybe a short video.

Once they’d calmed down, smol Gabe expressed interest in his breakfast (Jesse had chopped the sausages into little slices so he could stab them with his little fork) and Morrison was able to escape for his video call with a distracted ‘Uh oo’ and one last kiss. The little fella stuffed himself until he was more round than Jesse had seen him and then held his arms up in a demand to be tucked in. Naturally, Jesse obliged.

It was going to be a long day, he realized half an hour later when Morrison shot him a text saying that the video call had snowballed into three other things he had to address right now and he was going to be working through lunch and half of the afternoon. That wasn’t going to over well with the smol boss, he thought. He was able to delay things with second breakfast and the accompanying nap, but the little guy was going to know something was up come lunchtime.

When smol Gabe awoke and changed into clean clothes, ready to start the day, Jesse had an idea.

“Hey, jefe,” he started, keeping his voice light, “I was thinking maybe we could do something special for your husband for lunch. Y’know, since he’s gotta work so hard.”

Smol Gabe looked up at him, frowning. After a moment of solemn consideration, he nodded. “Ay-ee,” he declared. “Eesh.”

Jesse blinked. “Uh…run that by me again, boss?”

“Eesh.” Smol Gabe scowled and pointed at Jesse’s hip. “Own.”

Warily, the cowboy held out his phone and waited while the smol poked at it. When he peeked at the screen, he’d sent a text to Morrison that just read KEESH.

“Keesh?” he asked rhetorically. Then realization made his puzzled expression evaporate. “Oh, quiche! Hey, that’s a good idea.” The phone in his hand chimed, and he looked down to see that Morrison had responded with praising his husband – at least, he hoped the Strike-Commander wasn’t calling him ‘babe’ – and requesting the spinach quiche from a specific place in town.

He had just pulled the place up on the map when smol Gabe tapped his fingers, and he turned the phone obediently. The little guy poked at the map and then repeated ‘Ay-ee’ in a satisfied tone. When Jesse checked, he’d highlighted a pastry shop close to the quiche place.

“Oh, pastries. Y’know, jefe, that’s a good idea, too. I don’t know what the Strike-Commander would like, though…”

“Me,” smol Gabe declared stoutly.

Jesse closed his eyes and took three deep breaths, telling himself firmly that his smol boss hadn’t meant it that way, he was simply asserting that he could point out what pastries his husband likes. “Alright,” he said, opening his eyes. “So we’ve got our lunch adventure and a side trip for pastries, but the question is…how am I gonna carry you around safely without just…carrying you?”

Smol Gabe pointed to a tangle of cloth hanging from one chair, and Jesse discovered that it was a sort of front-pack, a pouch that went over his head and tied around his waist with a quilted lining for the smol’s warmth and comfort.

Okay then.

He slipped it over his head and tied it securely before picking up his smol boss and settling him into the pouch.

“Right. Let’s go get quiche and pastries.”

Sneaking the tiny commander out of the base turned out to be as easy as tossing on a light jacket, buttoning it, and pretending to read a pad as he walked so that the bulge on his chest was hidden. Of course, their first stop was the Officers’ Mess for fork, spoon, shot glass, and stirrer-straw, which Jesse dumped into a baggie and shoved into the pocket of his jacket. He unbuttoned the jacket once they got outside, and smol Gabe stood up excitedly to look around as Jesse checked out a hoverscooter, his chin just barely clearing the top of the pouch. They began their journey with a relaxing ride across the base grounds, the scooter’s nav system charting a path to their destinations along pedestrian routes and avoiding vehicular traffic as much as possible. For the most part, no one paid any particular attention to them and the few that gave smol Gabe a second look gave up as the little guy ducked out of sight and Jesse cruised past.

Reasoning that the quiche would cool and the restaurant was closer to the base, they went to the pastry shop first. Jesse explained his passenger as being a prototype remotely-controlled android, and took smol Gabe out of the pouch to more easily let him point to the pastries. He had no idea what half of them were called, but they soon had a box full of delicious-looking things for the Strike-Commander. With how smol Gabe had been eyeing some of them, though, Jesse took the initiative and bought him a small fruit tart of some kind as well as something flaky that involved chocolate and a big, soft pretzel.

With the boxes in the scooter’s basket and smol Gabe in the pouch munching on a piece of pretzel, Jesse made his way to the restaurant Morrison had indicated. He got the quiche for Morrison, but also one for his smol boss – Quiche Lorraine – and a sandwich for himself. A couple bottles of fancy juice, and with lunch obtained they were off back to the base. When Jesse checked the scooter back in and retrieved his purchases, he discovered that the motion had lulled smol Gabe to sleep. This time, there was no need for the subterfuge with the pad: the box of pastries in his hands with containers of quiche and fruit tart balanced on top blocked his chest nicely, and the bag with juice and sandwich and his flaky chocolate thing dangling from one wrist obscured the side view. They reached Morrison’s office without incident and slipped inside, but the man didn’t even look up from whatever was causing his forehead to wrinkle in frustrated stress.

“Brought lunch,” Jesse said after a moment.

Morrison only grunted in a distracted way.

“And your husband, and his lunch.”

Another distracted sound.

“Oh yeah, and I took him into town-”

“You did what?” Morrison demanded, on his feet and looming furiously in a heartbeat.

“He, uh, wanted some kind of pastry but couldn't tell me what...” Jesse lifted the pastry box slightly, feeling smol Gabe stir in the pouch. “...turns out...he wanted pastries for you.”

The fury melted away, leaving the Strike-Commander looking old and tired, but also filled with love for his little husband. Jesse lowered the box, revealing the carry-pouch with a sleepy smol poking his head up and blinking.

“Jack,” he breathed happily.

Morrison gently lifted his smol husband out and cuddled him. “You got me pastries, babe?”

“Eh!”

“That’s so sweet of you, thank you. Just what I needed to get me through this afternoon. Are you going to eat lunch with me?”

“Eh!”

Jesse set the box down out of the way and began unpacking lunch, using the Strike-Commander’s fork to break the crust on smol Gabe’s quiche and pouring him a shot glass of juice. Then he took his juice and sandwich and sat back, watching Morrison and smol Gabe eat their lunch together, carefully feeding each other bites. The Strike-Commander distracted his husband before he could get too full, and then he held the smol in one arm and fed him bits of pastry while taking bites of them himself until smol Gabe gave a little belch and held his arms out for a pre-nap hug and kiss.

“Thank you for this,” Morrison said quietly as he tucked the sleeping smol into the pouch.

Jesse gave him an encouraging smile. “He knows how stressed you are and wants to help.”

“This did help. We- well, you don’t need to hear the details of our relationship, I’m sure, but pastries from that shop have been present at every milestone and this was an incredibly romantic gesture.”

Jesse wasn’t sure what to say to that.

“I’ll take good care of him,” he said after a moment, gathering the smaller box with the fruit tart, his chocolate pastry, and the remnants of the pretzel. “See you for dinner?”

“You will, even if I have to kill someone,” vowed Morrison.

Jesse retreated with smol Gabe, the rest of his quiche, and dessert.

When the smol woke from his nap, he demanded the tart (“Ay-ee! Ay-ee!”) and demolished it for his second lunch instead of the quiche. After his second nap, he seemed…restless. Jesse tried to get him interested in Frogger, or Pac-Man, or painting, but he fussed and got grumpy, scowling and grumbling and eventually hiding in the cookie house, refusing to come out or even talk to Jesse. The cowboy made a valiant attempt to get smol Gabe to tell him what was bothering him, or what he wanted, but eventually he remembered Morrison saying he could only focus on one thing at a time and realized that being unhappy was what he was focusing on. It wasn’t that he wanted something or that there was something causing his unhappiness, he’d just somehow gotten into a loop of being unhappy.

Warily, he texted Captain Amari.

What do I do when the smol is so focused on being unhappy that he doesn’t remember why he’s unhappy anymore?

A minute later, she texted back.

If nothing is causing the unhappiness, you need a distraction. Something new and different enough to get his attention.

New and different. Jesse cast his mind back, way back, all the way to his earliest memories. What did he like doing when he was a bitty thing?

Playing in mud.

Well, the courtyard didn’t have much in the way of sandy bits or exposed dirt, but he remembered the dessert called ‘dirt and worms’. Damned if he knew how to make it; chocolate pudding and crushed Oreos and gummi worms were in it, that’s all he knew. But they did have some Oreos, and he knew he’d seen a package of chocolate pudding in the cupboard…

Jesse packed up the shoebox, the toilet, the carry-pouch, and a fluffy hand towel from the bathroom. With the rest of the quiche packed up as well, he carefully picked up the cookie house platter and made his way to the Officers’ Mess where Amari, as it turned out, was having tea and a snack.

“What are you doing?” she asked as he carried everything in, taking the platter and setting it on the table so he could unpack everything.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “It’s a surprise.”

“Oh dear,” she murmured, grinning. “A surprise. How mysterious.”

Jesse went to the cabinet and pulled out the Oreos, then turned to Amari and pantomimed bashing them; she nodded and found the rolling pin. He handed the cookies over at her gesture and went looking for the pudding. While she crushed cookies, he whisked together pudding mix and milk, and in mere minutes they had a large, shallow bowl with pudding on the bottom and a layer of cookie-crumb ‘dirt’ on the top. As Jesse placed the bowl on the table, he saw one of the tissue curtains flutter as if a smol hand had been holding it up but dropped it.

“I better go clean up,” he announced. “I sure hope no one gets into my afternoon snack while my back is turned.”

Amari smothered a laugh and silently sidestepped around the table until she couldn’t be seen from inside the cookie house, and Jesse retreated to the sink to clatter dishes around. Only after he heard the first surprised shriek-giggle did he rinse his hands and come back to the table. As he’d hoped, smol Gabe had stripped naked and was playing in the bowl of edible mud and dirt. He watched as the little guy sucked a fist clean, making noises of appreciation, but then he went back to playing. Amari gave him a nod when he met her eyes; she’d watch him while Jesse really did clean up. It was inevitable that smol Gabe would get cold, playing in pudding like that, and Jesse not only cleaned everything in the sink but also filled it with warm, soapy water as deep as his fingers.

Sure enough, within twenty minutes, the smol was shivering and his lips were blue.

“C’mon, jefe,” Jesse said cheerfully. “Time to get you warmed up and cleaned off.”

He lifted the smol out of the bowl but held him away from his body. The little guy was covered head to toe in goopy, lumpy chocolate, and he hunkered down in the sink as soon as Jesse set him in it. Gently, gently, he washed his smol boss clean with warm water, fingers working through his hair to get all the pudding and crumbs out while smol Gabe played with the suds. Once his little baby-doll body was clean, Jesse let the sink drain and gave him one last warm rinse before whisking him up to wrap him in the fluffy handtowel. The microwave went off, and he assumed it was Amari, but when he turned, she’d vanished and it was Morrison taking the leftover Quiche Lorraine out, a tasting fork in one hand.

“I’ll take him,” the Strike-Commander said as he set the plate on the table.

Smol Gabe’s cry of “Jack!” was just a bit shivery and his arms were secured by terrycloth, but Morrison smiled and cuddled him.

“I missed you, babe,” he said softly. “Did you have fun?”

“Eh,” smol Gabe said. “Uh oo.”

“I love you, too. Hungry?”

The little mouth opened and, chuckling, Morrison fed him a tiny bite of warm quiche.

“You look like you have this under control, boss,” Jesse said quietly. “I’m just gonna leave you to it. Popcorn chicken and fries for dinner tonight, and we’ve got some broccoli left over for him.”

Morrison didn’t look up from doting on his smol husband. “Sounds good, thank you.”

Jesse slipped out of the kitchen to find Angela –  or Winston, or both – and question them about the chances of successfully returning Commander Reyes to normal.

---

 

Gabriel

 

 “…the rest of the week pretty much went the same way,” Jesse said with a shrug. “Your husband bein’ all clingy and stressed and you bein’ worried about him in your own little way, me steppin’ in to smol-sit when he had meetings or calls or was just too worried about you to be able to reassure you when you were trying to cheer him up. He tried to eat healthy, because if he was eating something, you wanted a taste, but he wasn’t real good at it. Winston and Angela popped in a couple of times to take readings and calibrate the device they’d created to reverse the effects, because they wanted to do it slowly – somethin’ about not givin’ you stretch marks of doom.” The cowboy drained his beer and put the bottle on the coffee table. “So about an hour ago, we brought you back to Winston’s lab and he scanned you with his gizmo again and nothin’ happened, but he acted like that’s what was supposed to happen so the Strike-Commander brought you back here and probably took your clothes off and I guess it did work, because here you are.”

Gabriel frowned. “But I don’t remember any of it. One minute Winston’s about to scan me and the next, I’m standing over there in all my naked glory and Jack looks like he’s about to fall over and sleep for a week.”

“Well, see, that’s why I have video.” Jesse handed a memory chip over. “All the pics and video clips I took, plus a link to the security camera feed.” He pulled his own phone out and called up a file. “See? Here I am, putting you to bed with a pile of little cookies and a cup of water with a little straw so when you woke up hungry, you could feed yourself and I could sleep through the night. Or, well, you know I’m a light sleeper – I’d wake up but be able to drop back off because you didn’t need anything from me.”

“What about Jack?”

Jesse snorted. “Oh, he got up every half hour to check on you. I mean, he didn’t get out of bed, he had the security feed on his phone so all he had to do was look at the screen, but it meant he still slept like crap ‘less he was drinking.”

The frown on Gabriel’s face softened as his gaze drifted towards the bedroom. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “He would. Listen, Jesse, I’m sorry for taking my frustration out on you-”

The cowboy waved it away with a derisive noise. “Y’been angrier than that with me, jefe, and patient when I was being a little turd.”

“-and thank you for stepping up to take care of things when I needed you,” he finished firmly. “I’ll make it up to you. Right now, I need to process this and I need to dote on my husband for a bit.”

“You got it,” Jesse said easily, standing up. “Call if you need anything. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering a huge breakfast for you two, which I’ll leave on that table at nine sharp.”

Gabriel shook his head, grinning. “I taught you well, mijo.”

Once the cowboy had sauntered out, he retreated to the bedroom and cautiously climbed into their bed. Jack shifted immediately, throwing an arm over his husband’s body and grumbling before Gabriel had even settled down. It was a minute before he had arranged himself to be sprawled comfortably, propped up by pillows with his husband’s head on his chest and his arm around Jack’s shoulders. With his other hand, he queued up the first videos and hit play.

It was hours later – through the evening and after a night full of vivid, surreal dreams – that Jack stirred and let out a dry sob.

“I’m here, sunshine,” Gabriel murmured soothingly. “It’s okay. I’m okay. I love you.”

“Love you too,” Jack murmured back, relaxing. “You were adorable, and you tried your best, but I did miss hearing you say those words.”

Gabriel stroked his husband’s hair. “Then I’ll be sure to say them extra-often to make up for it. You know, when we said for better or worse, in sickness and in health, I don’t think anyone anticipated that while you’re the size of a toy would be part of that. But you were amazing, sunshine, and I know it wasn’t my fault but I’m sorry I worried you and I’m going to take the next couple of days to show you exactly how grateful I am for the excellent care you took of me.”

While Jack smiled slowly into his chest, he bent to kiss his husband’s head.

“Starting with breakfast in bed,” he continued, faint sounds from the other room indicating that Jesse was delivering breakfast. “You fussed over me, and now I’m going to fuss over you.”

Jack rolled over to smile up at him, somehow managing to light up the room despite the dark circles still under his eyes. “I think I can deal with that,” he said softly.

“Good.” Gabriel leaned in for a soft kiss. “Because I love you, and I’m not giving you a choice.” The laughter that bubbled up out of Jack’s lips made him feel like delight was a golden syrup simmering in his veins, and he smiled. “Now stay right there, and I’ll be back with breakfast, okay?”

His exhausted-looking husband reached out to cup his cheek, urging him gently in for another kiss that Gabriel was only too happy to give. “Before you start pampering me,” he said, “there’s something I need to tell you.”

“Oh yeah?” Gabriel hugged his sunshine closer. “What’s that?”

Jack grinned and pressed his lips to the corner of Gabriel’s mouth. “Uh oo,” he murmured, smirking when his husband groaned.

The only possible thing to do was to kiss the smirk off of those lips, and that’s exactly what Gabriel did.