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The blinding light of the sun hitting his eye pulls Gabe from sleep. The morning light is peeking in through the blinds and landing in stripes across the bed, leaving him uncomfortably warm wherever it lands. He tightens his arms around Jack and burrows his face against the back of his neck, blocking out the light.
It’s unusual for them to be in bed this late in the morning, but they were up late last night and bone weary by the time they finally decided to go to bed. It’s no surprise to Gabe that they slept in so long. The mission they had returned from yesterday had been grueling and he could see that Jack was ready to drop where he stood. Gabe remembers poking fun at Jack’s age and receiving a gruff rebuttal in return. After all, as Jack reminded him, Gabe was older.
Gabe sighs against Jack’s skin, faint threads of black smoke escaping his lips as he remembers that they are supposed to report to Winston later today for a debrief. He’d much rather spend the day in bed with Jack where they can lay tangled together and pretend that the rest of the world no longer exists, at least for a while. But he knows Jack will give him an earful if he doesn’t wake him in time and he really doesn’t want to deal with that later.
He gives Jack a light squeeze and mumbles huskily into his ear, “Jack, time to get up.”
Gabe waits for a response and frowns when he doesn’t get one. Jack is a light sleeper and doesn’t take much to rouse in the mornings, and is usually the one that has to drag Gabe out of bed. Brows pinching together in annoyance, Gabe gives Jack a light shake and raises his voice.
“Oy, pendejo. Get up. I’m not sitting through another lecture because of you.”
It’s then that he realizes. Jack’s skin is cold and, worse still, he doesn’t hear the telltale sounds of breathing. Gabe always used to tease him about his snoring, complaining about the racket and how the whole base must be able to hear him. But now he was quiet and utterly still. Almost as if-
No!
Gabe bolts upright and looms over Jack, rolling the other man onto his back to get a good look at him. Jack’s skin is pale and waxy except for where the sunlight touches it. His fax is lax, the normally tense features smoothed out and leaving him looking more relaxed than Gabe has seen him in ages. He looks content, peaceful.
Gabe wants to scream.
“Jack! God dammit! Don’t fucking do this to me! Not now!”
He frantically presses his fingers against Jack’s throat, trying to find a pulse and shifting the position of his fingers as he finds none. When that doesn’t work he presses his ear to Jack’s chest, praying to a god he no longer believed in that he would hear the steady beat of his heart.
There was nothing.
In a frantic, last-ditch effort, Gabe closes his eyes and forces himself to concentrate. Maybe he could somehow latch on to Jack’s soul before it passed on, force it back in somehow. At the very least it would allow them to talk, let him scream at Jack for leaving him so suddenly like this. Let him beg and plead for him not to abandon him again.
He finds absolutely nothing. No whisper, no trace left behind. Jack died in his sleep and his soul moved on long before Gabe woke. Bitter tears drip from his eyes to pool on Jack’s skin as Gabe is hit with the finality of it all.
He folds himself over the body, fingers digging uselessly into Jack’s shirt as the first wail escapes him. The sounds increase in pitch and volume as his form trembles and shifts, his concentration broken as smoke boils from every pore. Gabe’s throat burns as he lets out an agonized shriek, light bulbs shattering and windows cracking as the sound splits the air.
He hears someone pounding on the door but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore. Jack was gone. He went where Gabe can’t follow. And not even in a hail of blood in bullets that was fitting for people like them. He died in his sleep like some pathetic old man. Gabe wants to hate him so badly in that moment but he can’t.
By the time McCree manages to force the door open all that’s left is Jack’s corpse and a faint haze of black smoke that slowly dissipates in the morning light.