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“Gabriel,” Jack whispered, still pressed against his sleeping boyfriend’s chest.
“¿Qué está mal, mi amor?” Gabe replied sleepily, his voice still slightly rough from shouting out orders the previous day. He just sounded so…so happy. So at peace for once. Jack just couldn’t bring himself to make that go away so soon.
“Nothing,” he replied with a tiny sigh. “Just thinking about, y’know, things.”
“Things like what? You know you can’t keep staying locked up in that pretty little head of yours.” Gabe sat up slightly, resting his back on the headboard and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Jack pulled the comforter further around his shoulders and did the same, resting against his side.
“It’s nothing, really.”
“Jack,” Gabe said, looking down at him and wrapping an arm around his blanketed shoulders, pulling him even closer, “you need to tell me what’s bothering you so that I can help you.”
“I…Gabe, I really can’t,” Jack said, trying to shut the conversation down. Not a very smart move on his part, really.
“There’s almost nothing in the world that you could tell me that would bother me. Literally nothing,” Gabriel reiterated vehemently.
“It’s not important. Really, it’s not,” Jack said again, avoiding eye contact.
“Callate, chanta,” Gabe replied with a short laugh, and reaching over to mess up Jack’s hair. “If it’s bothering you then it’s bothering me. And if McCree is giving you problems again then I’ll have to-“
“I’m being named strike commander,” Jack blurted out, unable to contain the secret any longer. The guilt had been eating away at him the entire time, and he just couldn’t take it anymore. Gabriel froze right where he was, his arm slowly sinking back to his side and the smile seemingly melting off his face.
“What did you just say?” he asked, staring into the middle distance with a glazed look in his eye.
“They’re naming me strike commander of Overwatch. They’re announcing it today. I figured…god, I figured it would be better for you to hear it from me than from someone else,” Jack replied, head in his hands. “It’s not exactly something I can turn down.”
“Jack, I’ve worked my whole life for that job,” Gabe said, his voice filled with quiet rage as he threw off the covers and started pacing back and forth beside the bed.
“I know, I know!” Jack countered, throwing his legs over the side and gesturing wildly with his hands. “But what am I supposed to do?”
“You’re supposed to turn them down! You’re supposed to say ‘Thanks for the opportunity, but I’m afraid I can’t!’”
“And then what? Tell them I can’t take the job because of you? Let them find out about us?”
“I don’t care if they find out! It’s not 2015 anymore, Jack!” Gabe nearly yelled, with a frustrated groan. “Unless…are you ashamed of me?”
“What? No, of course not!” Jack said, jumping up and putting a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. He was quickly swatted away, as Gabe took a step back, an indignant look on his face for the barest second before becoming cold and inexpressive.
“Get out of my room, Morrison,” he deadpanned, pointing to the door.
“Gabe-“
“Out,” he repeated intensely. “And it’s Reyes to you now.”
“Gabe, please don’t do this,” Jack all but pleaded, but the look in Reyes’s eye told him all he needed to know. It was over.
“I want you gone, Morrison. Now.”
//\\//\\
The night was cold, but then again, when weren’t the nights cold anymore? Even here, right on the goddamn equator, 76 couldn’t escape the fucking cold. It was like those old stories kids used to tell about ghosts making cold spots in rooms. He’d always thought those stories were stupid. Ghosts didn’t exist. You couldn’t haunt someone after death. You die, and that’s it. Well, that’s how it used to be.
Nowadays, he wasn’t too sure about that. Something was definitely hanging over him, constantly needling at the back of his mind. Guilt, maybe? No, something else. Memories. Back before everything went to shit. Sometimes, in the dead of night, he could still remember what it was like to wake up with the sun in his eyes, next to someone that loved him. Past tense, loved.
Tonight was different, though. Trudging through the alleyways of Juarez wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, but for some reason, 76 felt more on edge than usual. Something about the dark corners just seemed a little bit more dangerous than usual. Something in the air that gave it a razor’s edge against his skin.
“Lo siento, mi amor,” says a voice that seems to come from the back of his mind, and sending a shiver down his spine. He recognizes that voice. He’d recognize it anywhere, right down to the inflection at the end. He pulls the pistol from his belt and spins around, bracing his feet against the pavement.
“Stop!” he says, to no one and nothing in particular. There’s nothing there but empty space and the dark of night. His mind must be playing tricks on him. ‘You’re too out of it for this, old man,’ he tells himself. ‘You need to start getting more sleep. Starting to lose it,’ he thinks, lowering his gun again.
“Te quiero,” says the voice again, louder this time. Jack spins around again, trying to locate the source, but he’s not seeing anything, visor or not.
“Fuck,” he whispers to himself, backing against the nearest wall and sliding to the ground. He keeps the pistol in one hand and runs the other through his hair. He must be going nuts. His brain’s finally hopped the train to crazyville and left the rest of him at the station. He shivers as a cold wind cuts right through his jacket, chilling him instantly. Goddamnit, there’s no reason it should be this cold in goddamn July. He shakes it off, getting up and starting off back down the street.
‘Don’t think about the past, don’t let it eat away at you. You can’t change it now, Morrison,’ he thinks to himself. ‘You made your choices, now you have to live with them.’
He doesn’t look back at the rooftops above him. He doesn’t see the barn owl mask melting back into the darkness it had first appeared from. He doesn’t think about the ghosts that haunt him in the night sometimes. He moves on, and he tries to forget.