Chapter Text
“Wakey, wakey, Gabe,” Jack’s voice rouses him up, joking and demanding at the same time. “I know the time difference’s a bitch, but I have a moment here now.”
“Okay, okay, how are you?” He yawns.
“Good. It’s nice to be again on a planetcracker as something else than a security detail,” Jack definitely is satisfied, excited even. “Even if the fucking workload is killing me.”
“Enjoy while it lasts. Ishimura’s getting scrapped next year.”
“Gabe,” Jack pauses for a moment. “I know I wasn’t… Fuck, I just want to thank you for pushing me, I wouldn’t believe they would take me on as medical staff, senior one to boot. I guess they were really in need.”
“Sunshine, you know how to kill things, and then how to patch them up,” he smiles at the screen. “They would’ve been stupid not to pick you up.”
“You say that. But… Thanks again. Love you even more for it, babe.”
“Yeah,” Gabriel waves lightly. “Half a year, Sunshine, without you, that’s what it costs me.”
“Miss you too. Might be pretty hard, since one of coworkers started to get a bit grabby.”
“Oh, did she?” Jack laughs. It’s always a pleasant sound, especially because it became rare after… Gabriel prefers not to dwell on it.
“His name is Perry, babe. So far, threatened him with…” The interference breaks up the sound and Jack says something more. “…call… back…”
Gabriel plays the message again, trapped in the shuttle. Just to hear Jack’s voice again. To hear him laugh. To hear something else than this thing sharing the cramped space with him.
“You sent me there. Aren’t you happy now, Gabe?” The thing speaks, damp hand on his neck, cold fingers on his cheek. Gabriel blindly pushes the keys, just to drown it out.
Jack sits in front of the console, his face marred by two deep wounds, stitched but still red and bleeding. No, he doesn’t want to play this one, but it still pushes the sound of gurgling breath somewhere into the back of his mind.
“Don’t know if you will get it, when will you get it, Gabe, but everything went to fucking shit. Sorry, if that’s the last thing you see of me.” There is the laugh again, but right now it edges on a hysterical thing. “Just wanted to see you again, but that’s apparently not going to happen fucking right now because the relay is fucking down.”
Jack looks behind at the strange wailing sound coming from somewhere.
“Right. So there’s the thing. This shit is unreal, unlike anything… This is worse even than… you know,” the blonde shudders and purses his lips. “I just wanted to talk to you.”
Jack takes the syringe and puts it to his forearm.
“I don’t want this to fucking end like this. Just, so you know for sure, I love you, babe. I fucking love you. I want to fucking see you again. But…” Jack takes a deep breath and jabs the needle into his arm, taking a deep breath, biting his lip. Gabriel stops the recording before the blonde slumps forward.
“You are insane. All this time, chasing your Jack, and you didn’t even watch the whole thing. He’s dead,” the voice of Amelie reverberates. “He has been dead from before you set foot on Ishimura.”
But Jack is with him, here, on the shuttle, and Gabriel leans to the side, meeting the gaze of the once blue eyes now covered with a milky sheen of death and maybe something else. The smile shows teeth between torn lips, the blond hair are matted and stuck together with blood that refuses to dry and drips down his face.
“That’s a fair point, Gabe. You never watched it till the end,” the blonde leans closer, props his cheek on Gabriel’s shoulder. “You killed me.”
Maybe he did. Maybe he did kill a thing Jack had become on Ishimura. Maybe he killed him when he encouraged him to go through with the job.
“But you can still make us whole again,” Jack murmurs, and more blood drips from his lips.
*
Somewhere on Ishimura, in the medical facilities, one terminal plays a video on the loop.
The blonde slumps forward in the chair, his hand falling down from his lap. Suddenly, he shudders.
“Damn, those stimulants pack a fucking punch.” He looks into the camera. “So I was entertaining an easy out, but then I realized that you’d find a way to kick my dead ass, so I’m fucking legging it.” Jack snorts without humor, picking up a rifle from the floor by his chair. “I rigged a scrapped shuttle, it should work, the life-support works, only a minor matter of fucking literal horror monsters trying to kill everybody, everybody not being a monster pretty much fucking insane, I swear I saw one of lab techs eating a torn off hand, and I don’t have a lot of ammo. So wish me luck, babe.”
Jack gets up and ends the recording.