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“My love?” Zenyatta leans around the corner of the wreck room, his legs folded beneath him, the soft hum of his levitating the only sound as he gets no response from the former Talon member. He’s about to leave and check Gabriel’s sleeping quarters again when he notices the dark particles floating up from behind the back of the couch, in the space between it and the steel walls of Watchpoint Gibraltar.
A gentle sigh leaves Zenyatta’s voice modulator. He may not need to exhale but the sound comes all the same as he moves around the table strewn with cards and chips, among the abandoned pot from the half-finished poker game is Junkrat’s peg leg. Zenyatta briefly thinks about returning the item to the former Junker but decides that the man will only see it as a sneak attack of some sort.
Zenyatta would be amused at the thought if he didn’t finally see over the back of the couch, where the dark particles are denser and the man they are drifting from comes into view.
“You did not call me?” It’s posed as a question, and asked in Zenyatta’s usual calm, reverberating voice, but Gabriel knows all the ways Zenyatta can pose a question. This is not a question.
“Left my earpiece in my room.” His voice is layer with a deep rumble, his arm thrown over his eyes so he doesn’t have to read the expression Zenyatta is probably making. He can almost see it through his arm, where his skin and flesh is floating off into dark bits; Zenyatta’s head minutely tilted, leaned forward with those permanently concerned eyes. He sighs heavily in the shadow of the couch while the suns shines brightly on the rest of the room.
His answer is enough. He’d become unstable, the sun had become too much and his body wanted to become shadow leaving his skin and bones aching, and his earpiece too far away to call his boyfriend to be soothed. He had planned to wait for evening.
He hears the soft whir of Zenyatta sending him a healing orb, the warm yellow glow minutely making his body flinch, before the invisible thread of it attaches to him a deep breath rumbling out of his chest as he feels the warmth spill through his itching skin and hurting guts. He stops disintegrating and feels gratefully whole again.
“Thanks.” It’s abrupt and others, who still want to see Gabriel as a villain, might call it cold.
Zenyatta simply laughs like windchimes in a mountain breeze.
Gabriel moves his arm from above his eyes, looking up to where Zenyatta is kicking out his feet and holding his stomach, as if he’s laughing from his core. Gabriel’s cheeks feel hot, lying flat as a board right there on the floor between the couch and the wall.
“You are embarrassed my love, when I have found you in far more embarrassing positions?” Zenyatta wipes at a non-existent tear and Gabriel sits up, the sun no longer able to bother him, and scratches his beard, cheeks reddening as he avoids looking at Zenyatta’s mirthful expression. Zenyatta is probably talking about the time Gabriel went to have a shower only to become unstable and have his bottom half slip through the floor.
“Yeah well, hiding behind a couch like I’m a kid who couldn’t think of a good place to hide in for Hide and Seek isn’t one of my highest moments.” It’s said with no malice, his eyes finding a scratch on the wall. Then he feels Zenyatta’s hard, soothing hand on his shoulder and the healing orb returns to be amongst the others surrounding his neck with a whirr. Without looking Gabriel reaches up and places his hand over Zenyatta’s, his lungs once again heaving a sigh, the weight of his worries slowly exhaled into the sun-dusted room.
He looks back up to Zenyatta and a smile works its way onto his face, the rough beard twitching. He then maneuvers himself back onto his feet, with help from Zenyatta’s strong steel arms.
Standing just taller than Zenyatta he leans over him and presses a kiss just above the lights on Zenyatta’s forehead, which flicker minutely at the contact.
“Thank you, Zen. You’re too good to me sometimes.” He rubs absentmindedly at the grey hairs encroaching on his temples, his index finger tracing a scar there before Zenyatta gently takes the hand in his and lays a kiss to the palm of it, a small shock coming from where Zenyatta’s ‘mouth’ seam meets Gabriel’s calloused skin.
“We will find Dr. O’Deorain. She may use Talon’s resources to hide from us, but we will find a way to her soon.” He’s looking up at Gabriel and Gabriel can read the fierce expression on his face, even without muscles to make it.
Gabriel thinks that he doesn’t deserve Zenyatta, not his love, let alone his kindness. But he’s grateful for it. He’s grateful for the soothing to his itching skin and aching body, as well as the way Zenyatta’s chiming meditation lulls Gabriel into the most restful sleep he’s had in years. He’s grateful for Zenyatta’s laugh and the way he accepts Gabriel over, and over; the way he loves him.
And Gabriel can only helplessly, inevitably and enthusiastically, love him back.