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Many long, painful years had passed since the incident in Switzerland, the moment that effectively destroyed Overwatch and along with it, the love between Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison. It isn’t often that that day replays in Gabriel...no, in Reaper’s mind. But the times that it does have him aching where his heart used to be.
The memories come flooding back to him like a tidal wave and won’t give him peace for days, sometimes weeks. He falls into a waking sleep, his body goes into autopilot and does as it’s supposed to do, taking orders and nourishment when absolutely necessary. But his mind is millions of miles away...thinking of soft blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes in a smiling face. And of himself, a younger man with dark skin and lazy curls atop his head holding closely to Jack. Familiar conversations, hurried kisses in hallways and stolen glances during their classes together.
Reaper tries his hardest not to let his thoughts wander to deeper places, to the places that truly hurt him….but he always fails. He always ends up sitting beside Jack’s grave and drinking with silent black tears streaming down his scarred and ruined face, his hand resting against the cool marble as some kind of grounding point while he thinks of the times they thought they’d run away together and never come back to the program, back to times when they thought they had the world on a string and that their love was the most important thing in the universe.
Was it foolish? Maybe, maybe it was. They were young and wild and in love, two bright young men with brilliant futures ahead of them with dreams of growing old and gray together while they took the world on. Reaper sighs to himself often, raking his hand over his tired old face as he speaks to the headstone, to Jack. “Al menos uno de nosotros tiene que crecer viejo y gris, mi amor.”
Not long after he’d head back to wherever he was staying and lie in bed, naked as the day he was born and clutching tightly to the only photo that he had been able to salvage from the wreckage of the Switzerland explosion. One that showed himself and Jack in a tender embrace, tear-filled eyes locked and their lips curving upward in a gentle smile. The day he had proposed to him. The day before the explosion. It would hurt his heart if he had one left to hurt, but he was thankful for that small blessing.
Even as sleep took him, the images would fly around his mind’s eye like troublesome gnats and torment his dreams. Placing the tiny silver band on Jack’s long finger, Jack’s blond flip of hair catching the light of the sunset as he laughed and laughed. He himself would interlope in the dreams occasionally as a younger version of himself, flitting visions of himself trapping the other soldier’s arms above his head and kissing him slowly, lovingly.
Reaper wanted to let go. Gabriel wanted to let go. He’d taken strings of lovers since that day, but none of them were able to catch his interest beyond a quick fuck. They’d never be his sunshine. No matter how much he wanted to deny it...Jack Morrison had left an impression on him. One that had lasted a lifetime and beyond. Truth be told, each and every time he had tried to drink himself to the point that he’d forget Jack, it had never worked. Not once. He’d always think of what the little blond would say to him, how he’d reprimand him for getting disgustingly drunk and stumbling home.
Those thoughts though...they made Gabriel smile. What he would give to have Jack telling him off again, telling him he was being an idiot and kissing him silly when he wouldn’t listen. He would give his life again for a chance like that...to see him again. But no, that wasn’t possible. He knew in his heart that Jack was long gone, dead in the ground and never coming back. He resigned himself to roaming the world alone just like he does every other time, knowing he’ll be back soon to relive the old painful memories again.