So apparently this is a thing I’m doing now. More of the Overwatch thing where bad guys tried to brainwash Soldier: 76 into a human weapon except they did a bad job, so Reaper decides to take matters into his own hands.
Where am I going with this? Why is Reaper trying to be helpful? Is Jack really in any way recoverable? Those are all good questions! I’ll get back to you if I figure them out.
When Gabriel was 12, he got a kitten.
Technically he found a kitten. It was crying under a dumpster, sick from something he never did figure out. It was about two months old, not tiny anymore, but the poor little thing had looked and sounded so pitiful that he couldn’t bear to leave it there.
At 12, he was old enough to understand that alley cats weren’t tame, but too young to have patience for it. He’d chased the thing around, trying to pet her and hold her to show her he was friendly. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t go well. The little girl did fall in love with his older sister, though. She always had a way with small scared things. Took the cat with her when she moved away for college.
That saved her life. She wasn’t in LA when the omnics tore up the city. Last he checked up on her, she was out near Whitefish, doing field biology in Glacier. The cat’s been gone for years; kidney failure when she was 11. She never did warm up to him.
Meanwhile, Gabriel hasn’t gotten any better with small scared things.
On the bright side, Jack is not in any sense small.
He lunges the moment Gabriel comes in and hits the wall behind him shoulder-first.
Gabriel sighs and shakes his head, drifting to the other side of the room before he reconstitutes. “You haven’t gotten any brighter, cabron.”
Jack spins around and comes at him again. Gabriel dodges, weaves, sidesteps and wraiths around the room, muttering endearments and encouragements as he goes, giving way before the whirlwind of Jack’s attacks but not trying to lay a hand of his own on him. He did learn a couple of things from his youthful attempts to have pets.
Jack would genuinely try to kill him if he could catch him. Gabriel can see it in his eyes. He knows what Jack looks like when he legitimately wants someone dead. It’s fair enough; they didn’t exactly end their partnership on good terms. Fortunately, having his arm ripped off is only a temporary inconvenience these days.
Although it does hurt like a son of a bitch. He doesn’t try to stop himself from screaming, just poofs into a cloud and skids away, his arm dissolving from Jack’s grip to follow him. Having done some damage does seem to mollify the other man a bit. When Gabriel reforms about 25 feet away, Jack pauses to eye him thoughtfully.
Gabriel cocks his head at him. “What’s going through your mind, viejo?” Jack narrows his eyes at the sound of Gabriel’s voice, but doesn’t come after him. “No lie, I’d give a lot to know.”
Jack is smart. Anyone who tries to judge him on the feral appearance will get themselves dead real fast. He’s still got a human intelligence in there, a sense of tactics and almost a half century of fighting experience in the worst combat theaters this century has produced. They slaughtered their way out of the Talon lab, killing at almost superhuman speed and with perfect form. Couldn’t happen to a higher class of assholes, as far as Gabriel’s concerned, but it’s been a long damn time since he saw Jack fight that viscerally. Then again it’s been a long damn time since he last needed to.
But he hasn’t said a word since Gabriel found him. Gabriel’s begun to wonder if he can.
“You know what pisses me off?” he says, filling the silence since Jack won’t. “You remember Widowmaker? She used to be Amélie Lacroix. Gérard’s Amélie. They turned that sweet woman into a weapon. And she’s perfect, Jack. I’ve worked with her. She’s a flawless, obedient, stone cold killer. They used to be good at the brainwashing gig. And then they get hold of you, and look what they do to you.” He jerks a hand in Jack’s direction, thoughtless with frustration, and has to dash to the side as Jack charges. He floats in wraith form for a bit, letting Jack swat and kick at him till he gets it out of his system. “They try to weaponize someone who’s already a human weapon, and all they manage to do is turn you into a pitbull.”
He shadow steps back to the far side of the room, and waits quietly till Jack spots him again. When he does, he crouches a little, ready to move—and damn but he can move fast when he wants—but just watching, with the blank expression of a wild animal that’s not sure if it’s been spotted. Maybe he’s just tired, but he seems inclined to stay that way as long as Gabriel doesn’t move first. So Gabriel just leans back against the wall, arms crossed, and keeps talking. “It’s pathetic, you know? You held the soul of an entire generation in your hand. There was a time when you were practically the goddamn Second Coming. Even now you could walk into any press office on the planet, take off your mask and ask to speak to the President, and you’d be in the White House in three hours. Under heavy guard, granted, but she’d listen to you. And yet this is the best thing they can think to do with you.” He shakes his head theatrically. If he’s only entertaining himself, then he may as well go whole hog. “I can’t work with people like that, Jack. They’re practically sabotaging themselves.”
Jack puts a hand to his face and makes some kind of noise under his breath. Gabriel bolts upright because it sounds almost like, “Jesus Christ.”
But the sudden movement has Jack snarling and streaking forward again. Everything in Gabriel wants to lunge for that little glimpse of whatever he just saw and sink his claws in so it can’t disappear again. It takes an act of will that’s almost physically painful to fade back and turn to mist, instead. Jack’s swing catches nothing but air as Gabriel wraiths under the door and out of the room.
He taps at it with a metal knuckle from the other side. “I’ll bring you you food in a bit, Jack.”
He doesn’t know what the hell Talon did to Jack, but there’s a man in there, still. Gabriel just has to be patient enough to lure him back out.
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/2axzCqG