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After the announcement and the after-party, they meet in Jack’s room. Both of them are slightly tipsy, both of them are very on edge, and Gabriel is simmering. He’s wringing his hands, cursing quietly under his breath, trying to catch Jack’s eye properly. Jack won’t look at him until he says, “Why didn’t you fucking tell me?”
“I couldn’t. It’s protocol-”
“Fuck protocol. You didn’t tell me, your boyfriend, that you were about to get promoted over me? When I’m practically the leader of this shitshow in all but name? You didn’t tell me that a bunch of racist old white men decided your golden boy face would look better on the posters than mine?”
“Look, Gabe-” Jack pauses, runs a hand through his hair, then stops and retracts it sheepishly. The ‘golden boy’ remark got to him. “You’re right.”
“Damn right I’m right,” Gabriel says.
“It’s an injustice,” Jack says, “It should’ve been you.” He says it over and over again, that night and every other night from then on whenever Gabriel brings it up. They have this same discussion twenty times, in his office, in Jack’s office, in their bedroom, on the battlefield, and every time Jack says the same thing.
“It should’ve been you.”
“Then what the fuck are you gonna do about it?” Gabriel demands, several times. “Are you going to step down, Jack? Are you going to cede your position to me? Hell, make some noise with the damn brass and get me a nicer office at least. Being down in the basement is so - demeaning.” He rubs his chin, feeling his stubble prickle his hand, prickle his nerves like Jack’s patient expression does. “You know what some of them call us, right? Blackwatch. Overwatch’s dirty little secret.”
Jack never makes promises. He makes small noises, of concern, of agreement, of affection, and he doesn’t do a damn motherfucking thing. He just sits there until Gabriel gets frustrated (on so many levels), that first night, and pushes Jack back onto the bed until he’s straddling him, on top , and works out his frustration in that same position, never letting Jack get the upper hand.
Which brings them to now. Present day, when Gabriel - Reaper - has Jack - Soldier 76, a ridiculous codename to match his ridiculous jacket - is straddling him again, in a deserted warehouse in the middle of goddamn Nowhere, Las Vegas. Jack’s blood is smeared across his nose and staining Gabriel’s black gloves. His eyes, stripped of his tactical visor, wander aimlessly across the space where Gabriel’s face would be if he weren’t wearing a mask. If he still had a face, really.
“What do you want, Gabe?”
“I want you,” he snarls, his voice hideously deep and with the rasp of the grave, “To stop fucking lying to me. Lying to yourself!”
“When the hell have I ever lied to you?” Jack coughs and sputters, spits out more blood. Maybe a tooth. Gabriel hit him harder than he’d thought. “What are you talking about?”
Gabriel has photographs somewhere that he’d planned to show Jack when he got to this point. It was supposed to be shortly before Jack took a double shotgun blast to the face, but then he’d actually gotten up close to him, taken his visor off, seen his dulled and vacant eyes and the thick, ropey scar that protrudes through his mouth. “I’m talking about the job, Jack.”
“Wh- The position? Strike Commander?” He thinks Jack’s coughing again. After a moment, he realises it’s a laugh. “You - even after all these years, that’s still what this is about? For god’s sake, Gabe, why can’t you let it go -”
“Fuck you,” Gabriel growls. His talons are curling in on themselves; he’ll claw himself if he’s not careful. “You kept telling me all that time that it was an injustice , that I should’ve gotten the job, but you were lying and I want you to admit it. I just want you to tell me, straight to my goddamn face, that you didn’t give up the position because you wanted it more than you cared about me or what I deserved!”
Jack is still laughing, hoarse and crackling, through the blood in his throat and the blood tacky on his lips. “Jesus,” he wheezes. “God, Gabe. I-”
“Just admit it! ”
“Alright! ” Jack yells, screams. “I wanted to lead Overwatch and I didn’t fucking care about your hurt feelings, Gabe, I wasn’t going to give you the position because they chose me, I was the one they wanted-”
“Christ -”
“And I was good at it, I was fucking excellent, everybody loved me-”
“Maybe they loved you, but they respected me more,” Gabriel snaps, and Jack stops talking. “God, I always knew you were a selfish piece of work, Jack. Hiding behind your golden boy image - that’s why you were so isolated. I had more friends than you, and I was an asshole.”
Jack rasps, “Still are.”
They stare at each other; or rather, Gabriel stares at Jack. Jack’s eyes are closed, eyelids fluttering as if he is peacefully asleep and dreaming. This whole encounter feels like a dream, in some ways, but Gabriel knows it’s real. The strain in his wrists from clenching Jack’s gaudy leather outfit in his fist proves it.
“Are you satisfied now?”
Gabriel doesn’t answer him.
“Are you fucking satisfied now, Gabe?”
“No! ” Gabriel shouts. The yell tears through his throat and leaves a choking pain on its way up.
“Then just kill me,” Jack roars, bucking his hips up into Gabriel’s thighs, and he bellows back, and then a shotgun blast rings out.
The silence afterwards is deafening, before-
“JESUS,” Jack says. Shrieks. “Jesus, fuck, Gabe,” like when they were young and reckless and their bodies fit together like two matching jigsaw pieces. Like two halves of a whole. Of course, they’re both a little different now, a little more damaged, so Jack is screaming because Gabriel has just fired his shotgun and about a third of the spread has penetrated his leg.
It feels more satisfying this way.
“You’ll live,” Gabriel says, squeezing his thighs together so that one rubs the fresh gunshot wound on Jack’s leg, and the man he used to love screams again, high and loud and when he’s finished screaming, he starts to laugh.
“God,” he says. “God, Gabe. I still love you, you know. I loved you even when I hated you.”
“I know.” He’s on his feet now, looking down on the blind and wounded old wreck of the ex-Strike Commander of Overwatch. “I still love you, too. Somewhere.”
Jack grunts. He puts out his hands, feeling for his tactical visor. When he finds it, battered but not broken, he affixes it to his face with a sharp little click, and meets the dark triangles on Gabriel’s mask that pass for eyes. “Help an old man up, Reyes?”
Gabriel gives him his hand. “You know,” he remarks. “If we ever meet like this again, I’ll probably kill you.”
“I’d like to see you try,” Jack mutters, and their hands linger on each other for a moment longer than necessary, the ghosts of old touches filling the space between them, before they turn their backs on each other and walk in opposite directions.