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It’s dark.
Jack can’t see because this fucking asshole he’s fighting just hit him over the head with the strength of a goddamn Bastion unit. It doesn’t help that the dull ringing in his ears reduces his shitty hearing to be completely non-functioning. The dirt and blood in his mouth send his broken mind back to the war, and the air is thick with smog and the stench of trash — two potent reminders of his time on the streets after Zurich.
There are better ways to die, admittedly.
With half of his senses refusing to cooperate, Jack does his best to drag himself into a sitting position, scrambling for his rifle and holding it to his chest protectively. If he is going to go down like this — not too far off from the many ways he’s fantasized about in the past few months — he might at least go down fighting.
The crunch of boots on gravel rapidly approaching him is unmistakable. The man’s gait is slightly uneven, with his steps just loud enough to betray his weight and fatigue. Surprisingly, his attacker is in no hurry: his steps come even, even rhythmically, against the gravel like a metronome counting down the seconds until his death.
Jack would rather face his death with his own eyes than the blackness of the smashed visor, so he slips his fingers underneath the junction between his throat and jaw and lets the face mask fall to the floor.
The crunch of gravel becomes louder to his muted senses.
Jack hurries, unclipping the visor from his eyes and nearly staggering backwards from his spot on his knees when the dull light hits his eyes.
He’s not completely blind; his eyes were fucked up just enough to warrant him practically legally blind, only able to make out dull shapes, movement, and lights at far distances. His sight was originally corrected during SEP, but apparently third degree burns and head trauma from an explosion in his own office were enough to undo all of that.
But still, he’s just able to see the man in front of him — tattered cape and old tactical gear, heavy boots and leather belts, double shotguns and smoke bombs, animal skull mask modified as a respirator — before a hand is reaching down to his throat, lifting him off the ground without any apparent effort.
Jack’s no small man, nor should he be an easy target as he writhes out of this iron grip. No one should be able to control him with a single hand, let alone lift him off the ground like a tattered rag doll.
There was only a single soul who could do that back in the day, but he’s deeper than six feet under after the explosion that stole his sight ripped them apart.
There's something about this man’s aura — he fights like an animal, sharp movements and unrestrained power. A trained soldier, undoubtedly. Even with his shitty sight, Jack can tell this is not the uniform of any organization, at least not one he knows about.
This man looks like he’s been through Hell and back.
Jack's fingers scramble for purchase around the man’s thick wrist, using brute strength to try and pry away at the glove. He successfully gets a peek of a sliver of skin: deep, earthen tone, a warm caramel that reminds him of home and a better time. His attacker’s grip falters as Jack locks fingers around the man’s hand.
Instinctively, Jack looks into the holes of the mask. The full moon’s light highlights sharp angles and edges of the mask, making his eyes seem like endless pools of black nothingness.
Just as Jack’s vision darkens around the edges — and not from the mask this time — the man relents, letting Jack go with a rough shove into the brick wall at his back.
Now he’s concerned.
Nobody should be able to overpower him like that with a simple shove.
Jack tries not to overthink the situation and pushes his body to operate on autopilot. A few wobbly steps lead to surer ones; he hoists his rifle from the ground and levels it at the masked man’s head. He barely has enough time to take another step before the man is on him, shooting one slug at the ground and another directly at his chest.
Jack flinches — if Death must come, he’s not going to fight it anymore.
Everything has gone to shit anyways.
Except the man doesn’t fire. Instead, he presses the barrel of the shotgun into the worn leather of Jack’s signature jacket with enough force to make him stumble backwards. He regains his wits and swings his fist, colliding with the man’s mask with a sickening crack. It falls to the ground, the straps ripped from his face with the strength of Jack’s blow.
Jack doesn’t feel his surely broken hand. It’s impossible to feel anything when he’s staring into the eyes of his world.
Or, who used to be his world.
Time stops.
He’s breathless.
Staring in the eyes of a dead man.
“Gabe?”
His eyes snap up. Their faces are inches away, but Gabriel stares at him blankly, no sign of recognition in his red-rimmed irises.
“Who the hell is Gabe?”
Jack doesn’t move; he can’t move with the mixture of shock, anger, and confusion coursing through his veins.
Gabe? abandons his shotguns and reaches for his throat, his eyes blank and distant. Jack is sluggish, shocked, and heartbroken all in one; he ducks his head, barely missing Gabriel’s advances. He steadies himself and plants his feet in the dirt. It’s become a fistfight; Jack doesn’t even think about using the rifle.
Gabriel is in there, even if he doesn’t recognize Jack.
Jack can’t risk killing him.
Gabe advances, throwing punches that Jack struggles to block, using his body weight to knock Jack off balance in ways he’s never done before. Whoever — or whatever — he has become both is and is not the Gabriel he fought beside, lived beside, and laid beside…
A knife materializes in a cloud of smoke into Gabriel’s hand. Jack stands his ground and takes a hasty step backwards, barely missing a punch from Gabriel’s deft left hand. With the knife in his right, Gabriel slices a wide arc down the front of Jack’s chest, only dragging the tip of the weapon to cut through his jacket.
The motherfucker is playing with him.
Two can play dirty.
Jack lunges at the last moment and grabs a hold of his wrist. The weapon clatters to ground asd Jack yanks Gabe’s wrist into an unnatural position, which pulls a guttural growl from Gabriel’s throat. Emboldened, Jack uses his leverage on Gabriel’s arm to pull him closer, slamming him over his shoulder with a grunt of exertion. He lands on his feet a few feet away like a wild panther. But while his body is wound up tight with the strength of ten men, his eyes are blank; they lack the life that always used to be reflected in his eyes.
It always reminded Jack of the cold, Pacific waters Gabriel loved, and the warmer, stiller rivers Jack did.
There is a loud crash behind Jack. He turns, ready to protect himself from another assailant, but he sees nothing but blurry shapes — no clear movement. He scrambles, drops to his knees, and searches half-blindly for his rifle. His hand meets metal and worn leather.
Jack pushes himself to his knees and peers through the scope of his pulse rifle, but he can’t see anything. He tosses the rifle back down, useless to him in his emotional haze.
So he turns around, and squints.
He doesn’t see any movement. Any tattered cloak.
He doesn’t even see the animal skull face mask.
Gabriel is simply gone.
As if he was never there in the first place.
All Jack has are purple bruises shaped like fingers under his collar, bloody nicks from his claws along his exposed skin, and a broken visor from his relentless blows to prove it.
••••
Jack sits with back against the wall, leaning his head against the surface to alleviate some of the pressure in his aching back. There’s more pain deeper in his chest, but nothing short of a miracle could even hope to ease that.
“It was him,” he says, voice thick with emotion. He refuses to lift his eyes. “He looked right at me. And didn’t even know me.”
“How is that even possible?” Ana asks, tone even as to not betray the warring emotions inside her own mind. Not like any of them have room to talk; it seems like all three of the old soldiers faked their deaths, only to come back as a ghost of their former selves.
It’s harder to be killed if you’re already dead.
Jack turns over her question in his mind, not knowing where to even start. She was there to see Gabriel’s rapid deterioration during the end of Overwatch’s golden age, but she didn’t see it in gruesome detail like Jack did.
The nightmares that plagued their sleep every single night.
The disassociation that happened after every soldier they lost.
The way he refused to look Jack in the eyes in their quiet moments.
The way he touched Jack to inflict pain instead of to demonstrate love.
“Moira,” Jack whispers. “He was having problems — some sort of side effect from SEP. his cells were regenerating too quickly in some places and too slowly in others. Whatever she did helped Gabriel survive the blast. Talon must’ve found him.”
“None of that’s your fault, Jack.”
“Even when I had nothing, I had Gabe.”
Ana audibly sighs, reaching for her sniper rifle lying at her feet. There’s nothing to say, really. She knows their story: unlikely friends during SEP, their partnership during the Overwatch Strike Team era, their blooming love during the golden age of Overwatch, and finally, their slow separation as the years passed. There was always love between them, and Jack could always rely on Gabriel to be his anchor.
But now, with the face of his commander, his friend, his lover, belonging to another soul, Jack feels a piece of himself slip away.
This fight to kick down Talon has become personal; it has morphed into a rescue mission instead of indiscriminate destruction.
Gabriel would want him to keep fighting.
Even if his motives are selfish.