moonshadows

As expected, Ogundimu had been so secure in himself that he’d taken Reaper following his plan as an unspoken oath of fealty, and the Masque of the Red Death reference had gone over his head entirely.

Truly, Reaper thought as he followed the man down the hall and into the meeting room, the very embodiment of hubris. The security systems had gone down according to plan, which meant someone had paid attention to his little presentation, and that meant Talon was going to have company. The thought had him grinning as he sat in the closest chair, not caring that his back was to the door. Although he knew their owners would be dead soon enough, he couldn’t help studying the faces that stared at him with flickers of fear and uncertainty when they weren’t following Ogundimu’s path around the table.

Vialli wasn’t among them. That wasn’t entirely unexpected and a little gratifying; at least Ogundimu had been good for something.

Ogundimu sat in the only other chair that had no one to either side and set his hat-and-wig headpiece on the table. “We have a war to start,” he declared ominously.

Reaper rolled his eyes.

The resulting conversation and debate was every bit as pompous and annoying as he’d expected it would be, and he sat in utter silence until the door burst open. Ogundimu’s eyes bulged in outrage beyond measure that someone dared interrupt him while he was in the middle of staging a coup, and Reaper was almost glad of the bullet that slammed him face-first into the table because it distracted him from the horrible temptation to laugh his ass off. A storm of gunfire followed, punctuated by wet sounds and aborted shouts, while the bullet wound healed itself and his swarm ate the bullet.

After silence fell, he counted to ten and said in a dry growl, “If I move, is someone going to shoot me?”

“No,” Morrison answered shortly.

Reaper stood and turned. Everyone was masked and draped in stylishly loose costume pieces, making it difficult to tell who was who. Well, except for Reinhardt. “Good,” he declared. “Then it’s time for us to get out of here. Leave this mess for the Italian government to deal with. Maximilien?”

“I have my own transport waiting, thank you. I’ll be in touch.” He sounded completely unruffled, as if the interruption had been a servant collecting coffee requests instead of armed invaders gunning everyone else down. Then again, he’d probably been expecting something like this to happen from the instant Vialli had made the mistake of trying to kill McCree.

Really, Reaper thought as he nodded to the omnic heading for a door in the back of the room, Vialli should have known better. After all, it’s not like Gabriel Reyes had never sought retribution when someone had attacked one of his friends. Then again, there was a reason for that saying about those who do not learn the lessons of history.

He turned back to the cluster of Overwatch agents once the door had closed behind Maximilien, but he really didn’t want to answer any questions they might ask. “I’ll see you back at the Watchpoint,” he said brusquely.

They parted before him, as though trying to avoid the Red Death he was dressed as, and in silence he strode back down that ostentatious hallway. Idly, he wondered how long it would take someone to find the scene of carnage he’d just left, and if he should send the Italian government an anonymous tip…or if someone in Overwatch would do that for him. He ripped the costume off bit by bit as he walked through the streets and let the torn pieces drop to the ground or flutter about in the night air. If someone saw Reaper in Venice, perhaps the government would start investigating.

No one stopped him on the way to his little ship.

Nothing interrupted his flight back to Watchpoint Gibraltar.

Athena greeted him on his arrival and informed him that McCree was resting comfortably in the same room Angela had put him in after tending his wounds. While he was gone, however, a number of parts for Sombra’s legs had arrived and she and Winston had been hard at work in the repair station for a couple of hours. Reaper made his way to the repair station and stood by the observation window. As anxious as he was to make sure his adopted daughter-in-law was repaired correctly, he knew damn well that inside that room, he would only be in the way. So he stood in the entryway, watching through the window, until a pair of footsteps approached and stopped just behind him.

“So…” The word was drawn out, trying to sound casual and failing horribly.

Morrison. He wasn’t exactly the last thing Reaper wanted to deal with right now, but he was still on the list.

“I heard a rumor you actually have a soul,” Morrison continued in a pathetic attempt to tease him.

Oh, ha ha. Very funny. Mock the man who can’t die.

“Not now, Morrison,” he growled. “I have to make sure Winston doesn’t fuck up my daughter-in-law.”

“Daughter-in-law, hmm?” Morrison stepped closer, peering through the window as well. “Our boy finally settled down? Tell me about her.”

Reaper let the our boy comment slide. “She goes by Sombra. She’s an orphan. I’m overlooking her questionable taste in men because she adopted me as a father-figure.”

Morrison made a thoughtful noise. “Think she could use a second father-figure?”

“What exactly are you implying?” he demanded, hope and fear disguised as fury swirling uncomfortably in his chest.

Blue eyes, cold and hard, pinned him and stole his breath. “Take off your mask,” Morrison commanded, “and I’ll tell you.”

It was only fair, he thought numbly. He’d seen Morrison’s face. It’s not like Morrison didn’t know who he was, and he did actually have a face again. Slowly, he reached up and undid the latches, trying to school his expression into something that wasn’t sheer nerves. With what he thought was a glare and a scowl firmly in place, he lowered the mask. His hood fell back, freeing the silver-streaked locks that now fell to his shoulders, and he held his breath while his heart hammered so loudly he was sure Morrison would hear it.

For a quiet eternity, he glared at Morrison while Morrison looked at him with frigid disdain that made his heart shrivel. Then Morrison’s lips were on his, warm and forgiving and inviting and he wanted that, he wanted to be Gabriel again, to have his husband back, to know that Jack loved him and not have to feel the pain of knowing that his other half had…

Jack was kissing him, entreating wordlessly. Gabriel kissed back, knowing how badly it would hurt when this moment ended and he lost the love of his life all over again but unable to stop himself.

When they parted, it was swift and sudden. Jack stepped away as though he’d been burned, leaving Gabriel feeling lost and off-balance.

“We need to talk,” Jack blurted. “Privately. Just you and me.”

Well…yes. He supposed they did.

“Gabe…” Jack’s voice cracked, his eyes bleeding anguish. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I fucked up, and I hurt you, and I won’t ask you to forgive me because I don’t deserve it, I…”

The words trailed off, but Gabriel just felt…numb. This wasn’t happening, it couldn’t be happening.

Jack’s fingers, warm on his cheek. “I’m sorry, Gabe. I’m camping in the commander’s quarters. I’ll be there when you’re ready to talk. If you want to talk.”

Those warm lips brushed his again, and suddenly the emotions that had been dammed up broke free all at once and he found himself clinging to Jack, claws catching on the standard-issue armor he was wearing, cheek pressed against his cheek, eyes closed, breath shuddering in and out of his aching lungs.

“It’s okay, sweetheart.” Jack’s voice was a soothing rumble. “I’m right here. I’ve got you.”

“Jack…” With how tight his throat felt, he was surprised he could even whisper. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“I deserved it, sweetheart.”

Gabriel’s hands tightened, pulling his Sunshine closer. “No. I don’t want you hurt.”

Gently but firmly, Jack pulled away until he could lay light kisses on every inch of Gabriel’s scarred face. “Come on, babe. Commander’s quarters. More comfortable than here. Don’t want anyone wandering by and seeing you, right?”

He’d forgotten that a dozen Overwatch agents, including some old friends, were also in the Watchpoint. That snapped him out of his little breakdown.

“I’ll meet you there,” he promised, earning him a little smile from Jack.

Gabriel dissolved into smoke and flashed through the halls until he got to the commander’s quarters, the small suite he and Jack had used whenever one or both of them were here. His old code still worked; the door beeped and hissed open. The couch in the front room was littered with dirty clothes, and through the doorway he could see that the covers on the wide king-sized bed were tangled. Jack always had been a restless sleeper if he didn’t have Gabriel to cling to; looked like at least one thing that hadn’t changed.

Suddenly, he didn’t want to wear Reaper’s armor a second longer. Talon had fallen, and he didn’t have to play that role anymore. Gabriel dropped the mask onto the floor and tugged the gauntlets off, then tore at the fastenings with anxious fingers and practically ripped the rest of the armor off of his body. The under-armor followed, and clad only in a pair of red boxers he pulled the blanket off the bed to wrap himself in because he’d forgotten that the default temperature in the Watchpoints was about five degrees too cool for his comfort.

When the door beeped and hissed open for Jack, he discovered Gabriel blanket-cocooned in one corner of the couch and a tired smile faded across his lips.

“I’ll be right with you,” he promised, fingers working the fastenings of his borrowed armor.

Once he was down to sweatpants and a worn tee, he turned towards the couch again and approached warily, as if Gabriel were a wild animal that might bolt at any second instead of a blanket-wrapped tangle of hope and guilt and fear. For a moment, he looked like he was going to reach out and kiss Gabriel again, but instead he sat just far enough away to not be in his personal space.

“I didn’t mean it, that day,” Jack said heavily. He didn’t look at his husband, face averted as though silently screaming, I don’t have the right. “I was angry. I had just been attacked. I reacted badly. None of that excuses what I said or what I did. You were right; the governments were strangling us and rogue elements had infiltrated us. But I was right, too. We couldn’t have done what you wanted and still kept the global goodwill that let us exist. It was a bad situation with no right answers, a game rigged against us, and if we could do it all over again I would have fought harder. Made a bigger stink. Twisted some arms. Not broken the heart of the man I carried over the threshold in Vegas all those years ago.”

“Jack…”

It was everything he’d wanted to hear, but it didn’t make him feel happy. All it did was make the ache in his chest hurt a little less.

“I thought you were dead, Gabe.” Jack’s voice was a tired rumble. “I thought you’d died with my last words to you being Get out. Spent years trying to come to terms with my guilt and my grief. Then Talon got me, and I was ready to turn it all to hate and dump it on you. But you had multiple opportunities to kill me, and you didn’t. That made me think. After Cairo, Ana and I talked. We went to see Angela. To find answers.”

Jack shuddered, hands fisting and eyes tightly shut while he struggled to take broken breaths and Gabriel wrestled with the desires to both pull Jack close until his anguish faded, and to make Jack hurt for what he’d caused his husband to suffer.

“I never wanted to find that answer.” The words were choked out, and Gabriel could see a tear making its way down Jack’s cheek. “God, Gabe, I know there’s nothing I could say that would make up for what I did, and I don’t know if my love has any value anymore, but…”

He turned to face Gabriel, one hand tugging a gold chain from around his neck, tears streaking his face and blue eyes bleeding remorse. The hand he offered his husband held a chain that dripped between his fingers, two familiar but flame-stained rings strung on it.

“It’s still yours, Gabe,” he whispered. “I’m still yours, if you want me. For whatever you want. We both promised, but I broke mine and I don’t know if I can ever make that right, but I want to try.”

He wanted…god, he wanted to take Jack in his arms and kiss him, but he was still bleeding from being told The man I married is dead.

Gabriel freed one hand from the blanket and reached for Jack’s, but he didn’t take the rings. He took Jack’s hand, held it, pressed the rings into their palms.

“I did die with your last words to me being Get out,” he rasped. “I kept my promise. You said the man you married was dead, so I killed him. I woke up as a monster. I was in hell, Jack. Jesse was the only thing that kept me going. Do you know what it feels like to know that you can’t die? I wanted to hurt you for how badly you hurt me. I wanted you to suffer. I wanted to break you, to drag you down into hell with me.”

He paused, trembling with the force of the maelstrom swirling inside him, the tangle of hope/fear/guilt that knotted in his throat.

“I just want it to stop, Sunshine,” he whispered. “The pain you put me through. The guilt for hurting you. The fear that if I let myself hope, it will be dashed. That if I let myself feel…” He swallowed. “That if I let myself feel how much I still love you, you’ll break my heart again.”

“Gabe…”

“I took my ring off. If I wasn’t yours anymore, then I no longer had your love. But I couldn’t throw them away. Couldn’t throw us away. I had them with me in the bath. How did you get them?”

Jack gave him a lopsided grin. “Your son handed them to me when I said I wanted to fix things. Told me to not fuck it up.”

Jesse. Of course, he would have found them in the ashes and he must have kept them this whole time. Gabriel’s feelings for Jack were still tangled and confused, but he trusted his cowboy son and if his son believed in Jack….

“Make it right,” he said quietly, curling Jack’s fingers over the rings.

Slowly, eyes searching Gabriel’s face, Jack pulled his hand back and fumbled with the chain. He broke eye contact long enough to make sure he had the correct ring, and then he slid the one with the inscription Forever yours – G. R. onto his finger before laying the chain with other ring on it in Gabriel’s open palm.

“I never should have taken it off, Gabe. I’m sorry. And I understand if you’re not ready to wear-”

“Put it on me,” he interrupted quietly, holding out the chain with his ring dangling from it.

Jack took it with a searching look, but when Gabriel bowed his head, got the hint. He slipped it over his husband’s head and gently pulled his hair to one side, settling the warm metal against his neck.

“I need time to adjust,” Gabriel murmured, not meeting Jack’s eyes. “But I want to fix things, too.”

“Anything you need, sweetheart,” Jack murmured back.

“My bag,” Gabriel said dryly. “Athena can tell you what room I was using. I don’t want to put the armor back on to go get it, but I don’t want to walk around with my face showing either.”

Jack ducked his head to kiss his husband’s knuckles. “I’ll get it. I need to let everyone know that ‘Reaper’ isn’t an enemy, anyway. I won’t tell them who you are, though. That’s your secret to reveal. When you’re ready for them to know, of course.”

“Thanks, Jack.” The smile Gabriel offered him was fragile hope and apology. “Okay if I spend the night on your couch?”

“You can spend the night wherever you want, babe.”

Gabriel watched as Jack left the room, one hand creeping up to finger the ring he’d worn for so long. He had his husband’s love again, and although he couldn’t bring himself to fully accept it, he wasn’t rejecting it either. For the moment, just having it was enough.

He stretched out on the couch, still wrapped in the blanket, and waited with closed eyes for his Sunshine to return.