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The prickly tension in the air is still far better than anything Gabriel could have asked for when he dragged himself to Overwatch’s doorstep, bleeding smoke and fully expecting to be shot in the head on sight.
But Jack won’t look at him, still, even after the weeks of physical therapy and screaming himself hoarse as Angela bent over him and worked. He won’t look at him even after the shouting that had turned into screaming that had turned into quiet hurt into awkward silence into whatever this is now.
He won’t look at him and he won’t talk to him. To Jack Morrison, Gabriel Reyes does not exist.
It hurts more than Gabriel wants to admit. But he’s alive – and Gabriel has to tell himself that that’s enough. Jack, Ana, McCree, Gabriel himself – they're all still breathing. Despite everything, they’re alive.
That has to count for something.
Jack is sitting in the corner of the rec room, sipping from a mug of something hot and ignoring him for the data pad in his hand. Gabriel does him the service of ignoring him right back, focusing instead on the cards in his hand and Jesse McCree sitting across from him. The cowboy is chewing on an unlit cigar, glowering at his cards, and Gabriel has to bite back on the fond smile that threatens to spread across his face. It almost hurts to smile, his face is so unused to the expression, but it’s nice to know that even twenty years later, Jesse still hasn’t developed a decent poker face.
“Your move, kid,” Gabriel rasps. His voice isn’t quite back to where it was before, and he suspects it never will be, but Angela has been working miracles on him during his daily trips to the med bay and it’s... better. He owes her more than he’ll ever be able to repay. Hers is another name on that very long list.
“’m forty years old, old man,” McCree grumbles. “Ain’t exactly a kid anymore.”
Gabriel rolls his eyes. “Then play your card sometime before your midlife crisis.”
McCree smirks. “Thinkin’ I’d look damn fine in a nice red sports car.” He throws down a card.
Gabriel throws the one he’d been saving down on top of it immediately. “Game.”
“Wha—? Ya sonofagun, shoulda known you were holdin’ onto that.”
And Jesse looks so petulant, so achingly familiar, that Gabriel feels he should be forgiven for the words that slip from his lips. “Ah, you never learn, mijo.”
He freezes a second too late, horror welling up hot in his throat. The familiar affectionate word hangs heavy in the air between them, loud in the stillness. Gabriel wishes he could snatch it back, cram it back down his throat. That isn’t their word anymore – he doesn’t deserve to use that word in reference to anyone, least of all Jesse McCree.
Gabriel chances a glance McCree’s way, steeling himself.
He’s horrified to see the cowboy’s eyes are shining wet with unshed tears.
“Fuck, Gabe,” McCree chuckles wetly and scrapes at his eyes with the back of one hand. “Sure takes me back.”
Gabriel doesn’t realize he’s crying too until the tear has already rolled down his cheek. He barely registers his own surprise – he thought he’d lost the ability to cry years ago.
“Jesse,” he begins, awkward in a way he never remembers being, but McCree silences him with a wave of his hand.
“Not a word, jefe. You take it back now and I might just lose it good and proper.”
Jefe. There’s another word Gabriel thought he’d never hear again. Jefe, along with querido and amor and a set of bright blue eyes grinning and chewing the Spanish syllables into pulp with an easy Midwestern twang.
Gabriel’s gaze skitters to the corner but Jack Morrison is gone, the cooling mug on the side table the only sign that he’d ever been there at all.
McCree’s eyes are sad when he looks back across the table, and Gabriel shrugs one shoulder. Not much he can do, is there?
“Your deal,” he rasps, and shoves the pile of cards Jesse’s way.
-
Gabriel is back. Gabe is back, has been back for months now. Gabriel Reyes had dragged himself straight to their front door, spattered in blood that wasn’t his and held up both hands in surrender, his hood thrown back and his scars on display and Jack still can’t bring himself to talk to him.
The rumor the kids are throwing around is that he’d done it. That Gabriel, as his Reaper facsimile, had tracked down everyone who’d been involved in turning Overwatch inside out and against itself and exacted revenge.
Revenge. And yet, Jack is still alive and still drawing breath. It hadn’t been like Gabriel to leave loose ends. He should have been the last person on Gabriel’s list. No one’s hands dripped more steadily with blood than Jack’s own.
Jack had eavesdropped on enough conversations between Tracer and D.Va to grasp the main picture. Gabriel had figured it out long before he himself had and, once he’d finished wiping out the people who’d destroyed everything they’d worked for, he’d dragged himself to their front door and waited to die.
And Jack hadn’t breathed so much as a single kind word in his direction.
Guilt claws its way into Jack’s throat and he takes a shaking breath, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. When he pulls them away, the room stays a blur of color and shadow. He reaches to his left, fumbling at his side table for a moment, before he locates his visor and slides it on.
The choked pain in Gabriel’s voice when he’d stumbled over the word mijo had been too much for Jack to stomach.
He sits on the edge of the bed, staring blankly at the computer-aided edges of the room, before he shoves himself to his feet and heads for the door.
Maybe a run at some of the targets with his pistols will at least exhaust him enough to fall asleep for a few hours.
It’s evening and most people are off relaxing. Jack passes the rec room on his way to the target range and hears D.Va whooping triumphantly over a low stream of what sounds like Genji cussing up a storm. Jack’s not sure – his Japanese is abysmal to the point of embarrassing.
When he gets to the range, it’s already occupied by a single lone figure shooting smooth rhythmic arrows into the target at the far end.
Damn. It isn’t the first time Jack’s run into the eldest Shimada brother down here, but he had been hoping to find the range empty tonight.
The rough grate of Gabriel’s voice won’t leave his head, the tired affection as it slipped back into old habits over a game of cards.
Jack sucks in a breath, trying to steady himself, as Hanzo lowers his bow and looks his way.
“Good evening,” he says calmly, turning completely.
Jack nods at him. “Evening, Shimada.”
Hanzo inclines his head in greeting and begins to carefully put his bow away. Jack feels awkward, rolling his shoulders back uncomfortably.
“You, uh, you don’t have to pack up. I can come back another time.”
Hanzo shrugs. “It is of no consequence. I was finished anyway. Jesse will pout if I am late to meet him.”
Jack can’t help the flash of affection that flutters to life in his chest at the sentence. Jesse and Hanzo are living breathing proof that good things can come out of even the darkest of times, and that steady flame burns bright in Jack’s chest. He clings to it, clutching at the knowledge that even if his failures and his stupidity destroyed everything, that good things can still bloom from the ashes.
It doesn’t erase his guilt, but it’s so damn good to see Jesse McCree smile wide and unabashed the way he does when he looks at Hanzo.
Hanzo gathers his things. “Enjoy the range,” he says, stepping neatly past Jack on his way to the door.
“Thanks,” Jack replies, eyeing the targets. He ignores the small pained lump in his throat – years ago, lifetimes ago, he’d coaxed small smiles from the love of his life too. Nothing had felt like a bigger victory than when the corner of Gabe’s mouth had lifted and his dark eyes had softened just before he reached out to pull Jack close.
But that Jack is dead. And Soldier: 76 doesn’t deserve to be happy.
Hanzo’s footsteps pause at the door. “Morrison,” he says quietly, and Jack turns, surprised. Hanzo typically sticks to codenames, a habit he knows Jesse is still working on breaking.
Hanzo is examining him, something strange in the expression on his face. Then he sighs, reaching up and smoothing a stray lock of hair out of his face and tucking it behind his ear. “I… forgive me if I am overstepping but… I would just like to say that I understand your current emotional state. Perhaps better than anyone else here.”
Jack opens his mouth, then snaps it shut again because of course he does. Jack knows what happened between the Shimada brothers as well as everyone else in the new Overwatch. He won’t insult Hanzo by pretending he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Hanzo looks a little uncomfortable and Jack wonders if Jesse asked him to talk to him or if Hanzo is coming to him on his own. He’s not sure which one makes him feel worse.
“It’s…” he rasps, then stops and clears his throat. “It’s… difficult.”
The corner of Hanzo’s mouth tilts in a wry smile. “I am aware.”
Jack can’t help the small puff of air that escapes him at that, something that can’t quite be called a laugh, but gets close enough. “I just. I suppose you’ve heard about what we were. From McCree. And what we became.”
A single nod from Hanzo confirms his suspicions.
“Then I don’t have to explain to you how little I deserve a second chance.”
Something dark flashes over Hanzo’s face. “If I may,” he says, his voice perfectly even. “Someone I respect very much once told me that everyone deserves a second chance. Or a third, or even a fourth. You do not get to determine the conditions of love freely given in an attempt to punish yourself, Jack Morrison. So few people are given a chance to make right the sins of their past. Do not dare to waste yours.”
Jack stares at him. “Hanzo—”
“Enough. I wasted many years, Jack Morrison. And even now—” Hanzo breaks off, taking a deep breath, eyes shut, centering himself. He opens his eyes and fixes his gaze on Jack. “You have already had so many taken from you,” he says quietly. “Do not dare to waste the ones you have left.”
Jack licks his lips. “I’ll... consider it.”
Hanzo inclines his head. “That’s all I ask.”
He leaves Jack standing there, alone in the range, head swirling. Guilt is not something that can be brushed aside so easily, but he understands Hanzo’s words. An ache blooms in his chest and he pictures walking down the hall to Gabriel’s room, pictures knocking on the door, pictures it swooshing open to reveal—
He groans, the noise loud in the empty range and turns to a target. A few rounds will clear his head.
-
As luck would have it, it’s barely twenty-four hours after Jack’s conversation with Hanzo in the range that he runs into Gabriel in the empty kitchen in the middle of the night.
He’s standing at the coffee maker, the clock barely ticking two am, his brain pounding the unique fuzzy thickness of several sleepless nights and too much caffeine when the scuff of a shoe on tile pulls Jack from his dazed staring into the coffeepot.
He turns, squinting over his shoulder, but his visor is sitting on the counter beside the coffee pot and he can’t make out who it is.
“Who’s there?” he asks. In that moment, he feels immeasurably old. Ancient, a relic of days past. “Can’t see ya. I don’t have my visor on.”
There’s a long pause before the blurry image in the doorway – a mix of blacks and grays and tans – clears his throat. “It’s me.”
Ice water breaks over Jack’s head and he turns away, fumbling for his visor.
“Don’t—” Gabriel’s voice, hoarse and broken, but still unfailingly his, is downtrodden. “Don’t. I can go.”
Jack’s fingers close on the visor and he brings it to his eyes, his fingers trembling. “No, I… It’s fine. Stay.”
Another long pause. “You sure?”
Jack swallows. “Yes.”
He stares down into the coffee, watching it drip. Gabriel hasn’t moved from the doorway and Jack sighs, turning away from the coffeepot and facing him.
It’s like being socked in the throat, the way it just cuts off every ounce of air in his lungs. Gabriel is standing there, hesitant, scarred and beaten down and broken, but alive and breathing air. He’s so much older – they both are – but it’s the way his eyes flash and his cheekbone curves, tiny inconsequential things, that bring the memories rushing back.
Jack staggers, reaching behind him to steady himself on the counter. By the way Gabriel’s hand comes up to grip the door frame, Jack suspects that Gabe had been categorizing him the same way.
They just stand there, for a long stretched out moment that could have been seconds or hours, before Jack forces himself to speak.
“You still take your coffee as black as your soul?”
The words hang in the air between them. Then, Gabriel slowly nods.
“You still bastardize yours with too much sugar?”
Jack feels muscles in his face flex – muscles he hasn’t used, forcing themselves to contract, forcing his lips to tilt in a shaky smile. “When I can get my hands on it. Drank it black for a long time. After.”
Gabriel takes a step into the kitchen. “I didn’t. Drink coffee. After.”
“Didn’t want to?”
“Didn’t need to.”
It’s stupid – they’re talking about coffee – but they’re talking. Jack reaches for the cabinet and takes down two mugs. One is plain – blue, with a chip in the rim – for him. The other is black and has a big cartoon ghost etched on one side. Jack knows for a fact that Jesse bought it for Gabriel on his last mission out, triumphantly presenting it to his former boss with a big toothy grin.
Gabriel had smiled.
Jack wants him to smile again.
He pours coffee into the ghost mug and puts it down on the counter, picking up his own mug. Gabriel steps up next to him and picks it up, a wry smile crossing his face at the sight of the ghost.
“Nice to see the kid’s still got his sense of humor,” he says, raising the mug to his lips.
Jack stares into his own mug. His hands are shaking and he can’t get them to stop. Gabriel is so close, standing right here next to him, breathing and alive and Jack’s damn hands can’t even be still long enough to make a cup of coffee.
He’d tried to strangle Gabriel with these same hands.
He was an idiot if he’d thought he could even begin to forget that.
“I have to—” he starts, putting the blue mug down on the counter with a loud clink. But Gabriel is clutching his own mug so tight his knuckles have gone white.
“Jack.”
And it’s his name, his first name, spoken in that destroyed voice that finally breaks Jack.
The first tear is a surprise, hot as it splashes on the back of his hand and Jack squeezes his eyes shut but it’s unstoppable. He hasn’t cried in years. He’d thought he’d forgotten how.
“Jack...” Gabriel sounds wrecked, stepping in and gripping his shoulder. Jack turns away. He doesn’t want Gabriel’s forgiveness. He doesn’t deserve it.
He doesn’t—
“Jack, I’m sorry.”
Jack’s head snaps up.
Gabriel chews on his bottom lip. There’s a scar there, white against his skin, and some tiny impulse buried in the back of Jack’s heart wants to press his thumb to it before he leans in and—
“I’m sorry,” Gabriel repeats. “For everything. I know that sorry doesn’t mean shit and that nothing can change but… fuck, I wanted to say it. I wanted you to hear it. I want...”
He trails off. Jack swallows against the hard lump in the hollow of his throat. “If I’d...” he begins, then takes a deep and shuddering breath. “If I’d just stopped, for one fucking second, and thought about how you must have been feeling. Then… then maybe—”
Gabriel interrupts him. “And if I’d not been such an asshole and trusted you. We both fucked up, Jack.”
The coffee mug is shaking in Gabe’s hand and he puts it down on the counter with a clatter. Coffee slops over the rim and splashes onto the countertop.
“God, Jack,” Gabriel croaks. “They used us. They managed to take the best thing in my life and make me suspect—”
Jack flinches, shoulders hunched. “I should have realized,” he mumbles, reaching up and pressing his fingers to his eyes under his visor. “I should have known. I should have… fuck. I just should have done something. Anything.”
“Me too. But we didn’t.”
“No.”
They stand in silence for a moment, their breathing too wet and too harsh to be called calm. Jack feels like he’s standing on the edge of a drop. His palms are sweaty. For some reason, he focuses on that.
“But we’re both still alive.” Gabriel breaks the silence, voice almost a whisper, hoarse and rasping and low. “Jack, we’re both fucking alive.”
Jack huffs out a puff of air, more of a wet cough than a laugh. “We are still alive.”
He thinks of the look on Hanzo’s face then, the quiet rage, the determination. A second chance, he’d said. How precious few get that opportunity.
“A second chance,” Jack whispers.
Gabriel takes a sharp breath. “Seems there’s a lot of that goin’ around these days,” he says.
The kitchen is quiet for a moment. Jack swallows and picks up his coffee mug.
“Want to...” he stops. Takes a breath. Starts again. “Want to have this outside? You can tell me what the stars look like. Can’t see ‘em much anymore but… I remember.”
The silence stretches and Jack knows they’re both lost in the same memory, of endless starry nights lying together, of Gabe’s low voice spinning stories about constellations as Jack traces patterns with the tip of his finger on warm skin.
“I remember too,” Gabe says, and picks up his own coffee mug. “I never forgot.”
The first sip of coffee Jack takes is cold, but he doesn’t care.
It tastes like the best coffee he’s ever had.
There’s still so much unsaid between them. Still so much to repair. But they have this moment, this coffee, this chance.
He drinks the whole damn mug.