STTA 16: Finding new equilibrium

[moonshadows]

Jack walked back towards the common area, where everyone was bound to be waiting, unable to keep either the smile off his face or his fingers still. He kept playing with his wedding ring, the shape of it achingly familiar, a reminder that he had taken that step, and even if things weren’t completely okay between them yet, they would be.

At Jesse’s door, he paused. The cowboy deserved to know, right?

“You better have a good reason for knocking!” called a disgruntled female voice when he knocked on the door.

He assumed that was Sombra. “Just came from talking to Jesse’s dad,” he called back.

The door opened. Jesse was still lounging in the bed, draped in blankets, but Sombra was curled intimately up against his side. Daughter-in-law, right. Jack stepped in and closed the door.

“How’d it go?” Sombra demanded.

Jesse grinned. “What she said,” he drawled.

Jack took a deep breath. “I kissed him. He kissed back. I apologized. He apologized. I apologized more. He told me to make it right.” He lifted his hand, showing off the ring. “He’s got his around his neck, on the chain. We’re going to fix things.”

The smile that spread across Jesse’s face was broad and warm. “Now I can rest easy and relax,” he declared. “My girl’s legs are fixed and my dad’s broken heart is mending. All that’s left is for me to finish patching up these unwanted ventilation openings.”

Sombra nuzzled his neck and smirked at Jack. “Don’t worry, I won’t let him hurt himself. I’ll do all the work until he’s healed.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Jack said hurriedly, averting his eyes from the bed. “I’m off to tell everyone that Reaper’s not going to kill them in their sleep, but not who he actually is.”

“Don’t tell ‘em who I am, either,” Jesse said with a grin. “I wanna surprise everyone when I meander out in search of coffee tomorrow morning.”

That made Jack smile. “Alright, I won’t. Good night, you two.”

“Sleep well, Jack. Tell Dad I said good night,” Jesse added softly.

“I’ll do that,” he promised as he slipped out of the room.

When he got to the common room, every eye turned to him.

“Reaper’s not a threat,” he announced, grinning slightly at the collective sigh that went up.  “The former Talon agents aren’t a threat, either. They’re both recovering nicely and they should come out to introduce themselves tomorrow. Any questions before I head to bed?”

“No, Commander,” Genji said before anyone else could answer. “There is no question so urgent that it should keep you from your well-deserved rest. Sleep well.”

A few agents, Reinhardt especially, gave Genji curious looks, but no one directly questioned him. There was a chorus of wishes for good nights and sleeping well and sweet dreams, and then Jack retreated back towards the barracks to retrieve Gabe’s bag.

---

The door hissed open; Jack stepped inside and locked it once it had closed behind him. Gabriel was laying on the couch, still wrapped in the red blanket as though protecting himself from bitter cold, and Jack took a moment to just look at him. There was more grey in his salt-and-pepper beard than Jack remembered, but not much. He’d let his hair grow out into a silvered mane that pooled around his face, and Jack’s fingers twitched at the thought of running them through those frosted locks.

“Gabe?”

Chocolate eyes opened, and softly, Gabriel smiled at him. God he was in love with that handsome bastard.

“Brought your bag,” Jack said, moving close enough to set it within arm’s reach of the couch. Jesse says good night – Sombra’s legs seem to be all repaired, and Jesse should be healed enough to leave his room by morning.”

“Thanks.” The word was quiet, but Gabriel’s soft smile said volumes. “Jack?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“I want to share the bed with you, but I don’t know if I’d be comfortable with that yet.”

Jack’s heart squeezed. It had been years since they’d shared a bed, and the years leading up to everything going to hell hadn’t been the best, either. But it wasn’t the lost intimacy that hurt, it was that his husband was being kept from what he wanted by the memory of what he’d suffered.

“I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable, babe,” he said softly. “I understand. The only reason I’m comfortable with anyone even near me when I sleep is I that was traveling with Ana.”

“I didn’t sleep until Sombra started reprogramming my swarm. Then, when I did…I had nightmares…”

That made Jack wince. “If you want to share the bed, sweetheart, you’re more than welcome and I won’t do anything but hold you unless you tell me differently. If it’s too much, there’s the couch – or you can tell me to sleep on the couch. If you have a nightmare, wake me up and I’ll hold you. I love you, Gabe. I want you to be happy.”

“I love you, too, Jack.” The words were hardly louder than a whisper. “Can I get a goodnight kiss from my husband?”

Jack nearly threw himself at the floor in front of the couch. Slowly, he bent down as Gabriel lifted his head. Gently, tenderly, he worshipped his husband’s lips.

“Good night, babe,” he breathed as they parted. “If you need anything, I’m here.”

Gabriel smiled up at him, one hand emerging from the blanket, and he nearly melted when that hand cupped his cheek. “I know, Sunshine. Thank you.”

He kissed his husband’s fingertips before forcing himself to stand and walk into the bedroom. The bed was big and empty, but Jack crawled under the sheet and rolled onto his back with a smile.

Gabriel loved him enough to call him Sunshine. He hadn’t expected that everything would be magically fixed with a kiss and an apology, but he also hadn’t expected to hear that name on his husband’s lips again or be able to call him sweetheart without complaint, and he certainly hadn’t expected that things would go well enough for them to be sleeping in the same suite with the possibility of sharing a bed.

Jack fell asleep with his left hand in a fist, quietly reveling in the wedding ring he’d thought had been lost forever and the promise of hope it carried for the future.

---

He woke up feeling very content but muddled somehow, confused, like reality wasn’t making sense. For a long minute he just lay there, listening to his husband breathe slowly and deeply in his arms, feeling the tickle of Gabriel’s hair against his face and chest. Then he woke up enough to remember how long it had been since the last time he’d started the day by cuddling the love of his life, and couldn’t stifle the dry sob that burst out of him.

Gabriel tensed in his arms.

“Sorry,” he murmured, forcing himself to relax. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

One hand covered his, squeezed gently, and tugged until Gabriel could return the fingertip kisses from last night.

“Morning,” Gabe murmured while his husband was trying not to melt into an undignified puddle. “What time is it? Can I steal some coffee and breakfast before everyone else wakes up, or is it too late for that?”

“I have no idea. Athena?”

“The time is five in the morning. No one else is awake.”

“Thanks,” Gabe said, pulling out of Jack’s arms to roll out of bed and pad over to the closet and dresser that had been reserved for him, back when the Watchpoint was in active use. “Damn, I’m good.”

“You sure are,” Jack yawned, stretching. When he sat up, Gabriel was pulling on black sweatpants and a hoodie that he must have stashed there years ago.

“I don’t care if I’m hiding in here eating protein bars for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” Gabe announced, “I’m getting my damn coffee.”

“Okay if I join you, babe?”

Gabriel flashed him a teasing grin that made his heart jump into his throat. “If you can keep up.”

And that’s how they wound up in the kitchen, sock feet and bare feet silent on the cool floors, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing.

“I always wanted a family,” Jack said quietly as they leaned side-by-side against a counter, close enough to touch. “Figured we’d need to adopt, but neither of us had the time to raise a kid. Think we’ll get grandkids out of our cowboy son and his hacker girlfriend?”

Beside him, Gabriel snorted. “She’s an omnic, Jack. They’ll have to adopt.” He paused while Jack guessed he was imagining Jesse raising kids, because that’s what he was imagining. “That may not be the best idea,” he added dryly.

Jack couldn’t help grinning. “Oh, come on, they’ll be fine. They’ll have us-” He broke off, reconsidering, and his grin slipped into a teasing smirk. “They’ll have me as a grandfather.”

When he glanced over, Gabriel was wearing a teasing smirk of his own.

“You’ve been living on the streets for years, Jack. Do you even remember how to cook or get your hands on clean clothes that haven’t been stolen?”

“You weren’t exactly doing much better, babe.”

“Touché.”

“Besides…of the two of us, I’m the one who didn’t have experience with gangs and whores before he turned sixteen.”

That earned him an insincere punch to the upper arm, and as Jack laughed he realized he and Gabe weren’t the only ones laughing.

“Don’t worry,” Sombra assured them, leaning into Jesse’s one-armed hug as they approached the counter, “I’ll make sure my adopted daughter knows where to stab a man.”

Jack grinned slyly at his husband. “Are you sure she’s not your actual daughter, Gabe?”

While Gabriel chuckled, the coffee maker beeped and Jack poured three mugs, handing the third to Jesse.

“Morning, Dad,” the cowboy said with a nod of thanks to Jack. “You’re looking better.”

Gabriel snorted. “Look who’s talking.”

“Yeah, I gotta say, I like having my blood on the inside of my body a lot better than I like being a sieve.” Jesse frowned into his mug. “How’d you know to come find us?”

Sombra flashed Jack an intense but inscrutable look. “I sent a distress call to Max…”

“…and he interrupted my meeting with Vialli to let me know,” Gabriel finished grimly. “How long had you two been plotting together?”

Although the hacker didn’t blush, she ducked her head in embarrassment. “My getting caught was a set-up. He’d been looking for a way to take Talon down – or at least mitigate some of its activities – since before the mess in Venice eight years back, and he thought you could be helpful with the right motivation, so we arranged for me to get caught hacking in and shipped to you.”

“It worked,” Gabriel said dryly.

“And that was before we found out who you were. Afterwards, of course…” Sombra shrugged. “If you were curious, I did some digging. Vialli recognized your voice after we restored your body.”

“That’s how Ogundimu knew who I was,” Gabriel growled. “Well, it doesn’t matter. They’re both dead now. All of them, really, except for Maximilien.”

Jack frowned. “And what happens now that the other heads of Talon have been cut off?”

She shrugged. “Peace and prosperity are good for business. Max has all the reins now, and he’s really invested in not having another human-omnic war happen.”

“Good enough for me.” Gabriel cast a look around the kitchen. “Where are those protein bars? I need to go back to hiding in Jack’s bedroom before anyone else sees me.”

From the doorway, Genji said, “That is not necessary. There is no need to hide,” he added as Gabe pulled the hood up over his head. “I observed that when you first arrived, Commander, you were not wearing a wedding ring. But last night, when you assured us that Reaper was not a threat, you were. I merely pointed that fact out to everyone after you left, and our consensus was that no one would ask questions should the two of you be seen together.”

“Up to you, babe,” Jack murmured.

Gabriel put his mug down and shrugged deeper into the hood while shoving both hands into the hoodie’s pockets. “Maybe for lunch. Or dinner. I need a hot shower, and I want to hear how your side of things went.” He paused for a moment, then looked at Genji from under the hood. “You can tell everyone I’m here, but the last few years were not fun for me and I’m still coming to terms with them. Direct questions at Jesse; he’s the only reason I survived with my sanity intact.”

While Genji and Jesse held a quick whispered exchange, Jack checked the contents of the kitchen cabinets until he found a pile of meal bars and an open case of water bottles. He handed two bottles to Gabriel, then tugged the hood down and piled half a dozen wrapped bars in it. That got him a mild glare, which he ignored in favor of tucking another two bottles under his arm before turning back to his husband.

“We’ve got breakfast, babe,” he said softly. “Shall we go somewhere more private?”

“Yeah.” Gabriel stuffed his two bottles into the pockets of his hoodie and picked his coffee mug up again. “Let’s go.”

Leaving the kitchen was delayed briefly as each of them collected hugs, but the rest of the walk back to the commander’s quarters was comfortably silent. They sat on the couch, blanket draped over both of them, and nibbled protein bars between sips of coffee or water. It wasn’t the most romantic meal they’d ever had, Jack thought, but it was easily the most intimate one they’d shared in a long time – even discounting the years since everything went to hell. Gabriel kept looking over at him and smiling, like he was checking to see if Jack was still there and being delighted every time when he discovered that the answer was yes.

Remembering when the last time was that Gabe had smiled like that at seeing him was harder than Jack liked to think about.

When they were both done eating, Jack reached out and took his sweetheart’s hand. “Nightmare?” he asked softly, thumb caressing Gabriel’s knuckles.

Gabriel shifted closer – not close enough to lean against his husband, but closer. “No. Thankfully. I just wanted…” He looked away. “I wanted to be held. I hadn’t let myself think about you for so long because it hurt so much, but…I missed you, Jack. I missed us. I missed what we had before politics came between us.”

Jack tugged Gabriel into his arms, blanket and all, and cuddled him to his chest. “I missed us, too,” he rumbled, heart aching as his husband melted against him. “I saw that a bunch of politicians I used to complain about had…accidents. Your work?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you for getting revenge for me,” he teased lightly.

Gabriel turned slightly so he could lay his head on Jack’s shoulder, facial hair tickling as he smiled into Jack’s neck. “I lost out on a lot of action because of them. They had it coming.”

“You killed one of them on my birthday.”

“I didn’t know what else to get you.”

“It was a wonderful gift.” Jack turned his head to lay a soft kiss on his sweetheart’s temple. “So if Maximilien has Talon under control…does this mean we can finally retire to a tropical paradise together?”

“Mmm. I think I’d like that. Did you want to flip everyone the bird and dispute our deaths, or just have Sombra make us fake IDs?”

“I think we should confer with Jesse,” Jack said. “He is your son.”

“And if he and Sombra do adopt, we’ll want to settle nearby so we can spoil our grandkids.”

“I also think that if we’re going to legally come back from the dead, we should invite Ana to that party.”

Gabriel chuckled. “I agree. Where is she, anyway? Expected her to be in the kitchen making tea.”

“Went with Angela. They stole Amélie from Talon.”

“Good.” He paused. “I want to talk to Angela about removing the nanites from my body or deactivating them somehow before we go public. I don’t want anything tying me to Reaper. I want to be normal again.” Then, softly, “I want to grow old with you, Jack.”

There was nothing Jack could say to that; every word in his brain had shriveled up and died. He just hugged Gabriel tighter, struggling to blink back tears and not finding it in himself to care that it wasn’t working.