Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Cole’s bleeding heavily, running on nothing but fear and adrenaline he knows is about to expire.

He’s out of options.

He stumbles, bracing himself against the rough stone walls of newly familiar buildings as he inches his way toward the door he’s been watching for the past week. He’s almost close enough to touch it, but trips and slams into the wall next to it instead.

The door opens and he’s met with the business end of a shotgun.

He tries to smile.

“Hey there, jefe.”

The world goes black.

-

Reaper stares down at the man collapsed in front of him, finger on the trigger as he prepares to tie up another loose end from a past that refuses to stop haunting him.

His finger flexes.

“Hey there, jefe.” The door to his office slides open, revealing Cole Cassidy in his full cowboy regalia leaning against the frame, grin on his face and whisky bottle in hand. “Thought you could use a lil’ break from all this doom and gloom.” Cole gestures to the dark office before stepping in and flicking on the lights. “And thought I could use a drinking buddy.”

“Pendejo.” Past and present blur for a disorienting moment with the word, Reaper and Gabriel mixing just long enough for the gun to be lowered.

Reaper glares down at the unconscious man, then into the darkness behind him, searching. For enemies, for allies, for ghosts. But the darkness is still and silent, so Reaper hauls the dying man from the street and carries him inside.

-

The thing about biotic fields that no one ever notices on the battle field, not while the bullets are flying and your heart is racing, is that they make you itchy as hell. Cole remembers Angela trying to explain it to him before, something about trying to heal dead skin and old wounds, something else about unnatural rates of healing and the body’s reaction to it. All he knows for sure is that it’s a damn nuisance and he tries to use the things as little as possible off the field of battle.

He tries to reach up, scratch his shoulder where the itch is the worst, but finds his hands are quite literally tied.

Maybe he’s not as far from the field as he thought.

He cracks open his eyes, it’s hard, like the morning after drinking too much and sleeping too little, and takes stock of his situation.

The lights are off, but the faint glow of a spent biotic field and the moonlight filtering through the shuttered windows give him enough light to see most of the room, with a single shadowed corner being the only spot dark enough conceal anything fully. He makes note of it before looking around.

He’s inside of what appears to be a small and simple civilian home, but the sparse decoration and lack of clutter make it feel more like a hotel. Somewhere to stay, not somewhere truly lived in. Probably someone’s safe-house.

He’s slouched in a wooden chair, hands tied behind him with rope woven through the openings in the back rest, below him his ankles are tied to the chair legs. He’s been captured, but by who? And how?

He tries to recall how he got here.

-

A sniper, Talon probably, but he hadn’t seen his attacker before he was shot. He remembers feeling... something. Paranoia or a sixth sense for danger, he didn’t care which, and was already reaching for his gun when a bullet shot clean through him, through his shoulder, just to the side of his spine, and out his chest. He remembers feeling his right arm go numb, faintly registering that the bullet must have damaged some nerve or something before quickly rolling out of the way and ducking into an alley. With his right arm useless, doing little more than twitching when he tried to move it, he drew Peacekeeper with his left. He wasn’t as good of a shot with his prosthetic, but it’d be good enough for some cover fire.

He braced himself to peek from his hiding spot and return fire, but that’s when he heard it, a strange gurgling noise coming from... him?

It had been a while since he’d been shot, actually shot, not just grazed by a bullet, and he’d all but forgotten how easily his body could ignore the pain. But the pain wasn’t the problem, wasn’t the thing that would kill him.

It was the blood.

The blood escaping his veins, trickling out of his body and down his chest. The blood filling his lungs where the bullet had pierced them and drowning him from the inside. The blood gurgling in the back of his throat, urging him to choke and vomit and die.

It had been a good shot, but a damn cruel way of killing someone.

He needed help, but his team was in Gibraltar and he was supposed to be on vacation in Fiji, not hunting a ghost in Dorado.

But he found his ghost. Had been watching him for a week, making sure he was actually real, that Ana’s info had been good and the man really hadn’t died all those years ago.

Cole hadn’t approached him, knew that the man Reyes had become would probably shoot him on sight and not think twice about it after.

But if Cole was going to die anyway...

He braced himself against the wall, and stumbled off to meet the Reaper.

-

Cole glances around the room again. Had he made it? Or had he passed out on the way and been picked up by Talon thugs or a street gang?

No, a street gang wouldn’t waste biotic healing on some poor sap they found, they’d just rob him and leave him for dead. Talon might patch him up, keep him for some fucked up experiments like they had with Madame Lacroix, but they’d have him in a cell, or maybe a lab, not tied to a wooden chair in a tiny house.

Cole squints into that dark, dangerous corner, now able to make out a chair similar to his own, but no obvious threat.

He pauses. He could see into the corner.

The hairs on his neck stand on end as he becomes aware of a presence behind him.

“Took too long.” The voice is like gravel and smoke, distorted behind the mask Cole knows he must be wearing. “Disappointing, agent.”

“Clocked the shadow as a threat if that helps, just didn’t expect it to be alive,” Cole tries to turn his head, but the lingering pain in his shoulder stops him, “and I’m not an agent anymore, not really.” He never did officially join back up with Overwatch after delivering the new recruits, even if the whole crew treated him like he had anyway.

“Then why are you here.” There’s a dangerous edge to the man’s voice now.

“Well y’see I got shot and-”

“Cassidy.” Even before his voice sounded like his throat was made of sandpaper, Reyes had had a way of scaring the shit out of him with just his name.

Cole slouches as much as his bindings will allow, the new spike of adrenaline he had felt upon waking up in restraints fading and leaving him bone tired.

“Ana told me you were alive, jefe, had to see it for myself.”

There’s a gravelly noise from the man behind him, Cole cant tell if its a sigh or a growl, and then he’s moving to stand in front of Cole.

“Gabriel Reyes is dead.” The man glares down at Cole through the eye holes in his mask, and Cole feels a sudden burst of indignant rage in his chest.

“Yeah?” He tilts his head up defiantly, returns the man’s glare with his own. “Then why am I still alive?”

-

Reaper wants to kill him. Wrap his hands around the cowboy’s throat and squeeze until that cocky smirk is gone for good. But his body is slow to move and his mind wont focus, too busy conjuring phantoms of the past around them.

An angry boy sitting across from him in an interrogation room, nose freshly bloodied from Gabriel’s fist, and knuckles freshly bruised from where they met Gabriel’s face in an ill-fated surprise attack.

“Join us. Last chance.”

The boy spits some blood on the ground.

“If it means I get another shot at fuckin’ up that pretty face a’ yours, sure.” and then he smirks.

Reaper reaches a hand toward the man’s throat. The cowboy’s eyes flick down to it before returning to glare at him.

A young man smoking up on the roof of the base, past the fire escape with the deactivated alarm, suddenly startled and flustered.

“Oh, uh, hey commander, uh, Reyes... sir. I was just uh-”

“You’re not allowed to smoke on base, agent.” Gabriel digs into his pocket and pulls out his own pack of cigarillos. “Besides, those things will kill you.” He lights up, inhales and smirks at the man through a puff of smoke.

“Understood, commander.” The man smiles back, takes another puff.

Reaper’s other hand meets the first, carefully completing the circle around the man’s neck. This time his eyes don’t move.

His second in command, sweat drenched and groaning, pulling himself up off the training mats and stretching in one of those too-tight shirts he likes to wear while working out.

“Damn jefe, been a while since I had a beautiful man put me on my back like that.” He winks and laughs.

“Yeah? Try fixing up that mess of facial hair you’ve got going on and you might have better luck.” Gabriel pretends the color in his cheeks is just from the work out.

“You don’t like my beard?”

“Needs a moustache.”

Reaper starts to squeeze. Cassidy’s eyes don’t move but he can feel the man’s pulse quicken beneath his fingers.

Cole Cassidy standing in his office, hair mussed and jaw clenched, the stress of a botched mission evident in his posture from head to toe. But what bothers Gabriel the most is the fear in Cole’s eyes.

“I... I almost died. He was gonna pull the trigger. I would have-”

“But you didn’t.” Gabriel places a hand on Cole’s shoulder.

“Only because of you. If you weren’t there-”

“But I was. And I will be.” He leans in, just a little closer “I’m not gonna let you die on my watch, vaquero.”

Suddenly Cole is in his arms, hands wrapped around his back and face tucked against his shoulder while Gabriel pretends he cant feel the tears soaking into his shirt. He wonders if Cole is pretending not to notice Gabriel’s racing heart.

Reaper’s grip loosens, and Gabriel gently slides a hand up to cradle Cole’s jaw through his scruffy beard.

“Who did this to you, vaquero?”

Chapter Text

Who did do this to him?

The whole attack was strange now that he has time to analyze it. No one should know he’s in Dorado, he had in fact flown from Gibraltar to Fiji like he told Overwatch he was going to, only making his way to Dorado afterwards through an agonizingly complex chain of busses, trains, boats, and planes which were all carefully booked under different aliases.

If someone had been following him he’d surely have noticed.

He glances at Gabriel, at Reaper. Talon is active in the area, so maybe he hadn’t been followed as much as found.

But even then it’s strange. Why had they let him live? The first shot could have been a mistake, a rifle calibrated just slightly wrong or a new sniper still learning to control their breathing, but after that? While he was stumbling down the streets with all the speed and grace of a turtle in a tar-pit? He was an easy target, for kill or capture. Unless...

Cole’s eyes widen.

“Well?” There’s and edge in Gabriel’s voice again, and the hand cradling his chin tightens it’s grip ever so slightly before retreating.

“Jefe, you don’t happen to be hiding from someone out here, do ya?”

Gabriel’s eyes narrow. “Out with it.”

Cole explains the attack, points out its oddities even though he knows his former commander would have noticed them himself.

“You think they used you to find me.” The man looks away in thought, and Cole wishes he could see more than just his narrowed eyes behind the mask, something to help him figure out what he’s thinking. Those eye’s find his again. “Who knows you’re here.”

“No one.” A glare. “Well, Ana probably figured it out.”

“Morrison?” Reaper says the name like a curse.

Cole shakes his head. “Haven’t seen him since everything went down. Ana said they’ve met up a few times, but he seems to be out doing his own thing. Can’t imagine he’s much interested in what I’m up to.” Cole mentally berates himself. He might not have given any specifics, and he might be speaking to his former commander, but he’s still giving information to a Talon member. This whole thing could be some kind of trap.

He flexes his bound arms. It definitely feels like a trap.

Cole makes an exaggerated pull at his bindings. “Think we can do something about these? Getting mighty uncomfortable, jefe.”

“Stop calling me that. I’m not your boss anymore.” There’s venom in his voice, but Reaper moves to free Cole anyway.

“Well something tells me ‘Gabriel’ ain’t gonna fly neither.” He feels his wrists being freed, but the relief is short lived.

A rope is suddenly looped around his neck and used to pull his head up and back. The masked man looms above him, inches from his face, and Cole would be a liar if he said he didn’t feel a spark of arousal mixed in with his panic.

“It’s Reaper.” Came the growl from behind the mask.

“Edgy.” Cole gives the slightest smirk, and suddenly he’s being thrown to the ground, chair flipped forward with his legs still tied in place. There’s a moment where the air is knocked out of him and he’s sure he’s about to be shot.

It passes, no new holes are put in his body.

“That how you treat an injured man round these parts?” Cole rights himself slowly, and moves to untie his legs.

“That’s how we treat smart-asses like you.” There’s a bit of levity to the comment, an echo of friendly ribbing from long ago, and Cole might have noticed it if he wasn’t so focused on his hand.

-

Reaper scowls behind his mask. He doesn’t have time to be teasing the cowboy, someone is after him and whoever they are they had probably followed the cowboy right to him. He should have killed him.

He glances at one of his holstered shotguns. He still could.

When he looks back at the cowboy he hasn’t moved, hands hovering over one of his bound ankles with a strange look on his face, somewhere between confusion and...

Fear.

Gabriel kneels next to Cole. “What’s wrong, Cole? Talk to me.”

Cole just glances from Gabriel to his hand, the one made of flesh and blood rather than cool metal. Gabriel sees it, sees Cole’s fingers twitch and shake in a way that tells him Cole is trying to move them but can’t quite control them.

Gabriel has been there, panicking while realizing he’d lost control of part of his body after a bad fire fight. He knows it’s usually treatable, knows a doctor could probably get Cole’s hand back in working order in less than a day. But he knows the fear too, know how scary ‘usually’ and ‘probably’ sound when your own body feels like it’s betraying you.

Cole is looking at him now, trying to school his expression into something calmer, more collected, but Gabriel knows him too well, can still see the fear in his eyes threatening to take over.

“It’s alright Cole, we’re going to get you to a doctor and you’ll be fixed right up.” Gabriel places a hand on Cole’s back. “You hear me vaquero?” He waits until Cole nods, watches some of the fear disappear from his eyes. “Good, now lemme get these off for you.”

-

Gabriel Reyes is not dead, and Cole is sure of it now.

The mask has already slipped a few times in their short conversation but this, the man next to him calming and comforting him, this is Gabriel Reyes through and through. There’s no trace of Reaper but the mask over his face, Cole even thinks he might be smiling below the mask, the same gentle smile he used to calm Cole a million time back in Blackwatch.

What he wouldn’t give to see that smile again.

He doesn’t even realize he’s reaching for the mask until there’s a strong hand wrapped around his prosthetic, pulling it away.

Gabriel doesn’t say anything, just shakes his head once and stands. His ankles are free.

“Sorry, jef-”

“Your gun’s in the dresser, second drawer.” Gabriel begins gathering things around the room, packing from what Cole can tell.

Cole grabs his gun silently, choking down a lump in his throat when he tries to hold it in his right hand out of reflex. He takes a steadying breath and holsters it with his left instead.

Gabriel is finished packing when he turns. There’s a moment where neither of them move, Cole isn’t sure what to say, isn’t sure if the offer of taking him to a doctor was sincere or just Gabriel's old habit of saying anything to calm someone down refusing to die.

Cole opens his mouth, and the room explodes.

-

Gabriel had been distracted, mulling over where to find a good doctor that wouldn’t ask too many questions, and if he hadn’t been he probably would have noticed the grenade before it collided with the window.

Reaper shifts before it explodes, the form is uncomfortable but after all this time it no longer leads to the panic and nausea it once did. He watches Cole try to roll away from the explosion just a second too late, watches him get thrown into the wall and crumple on the ground, looking much like he had on the doorstep just minutes ago.

Gabriel curses, without thinking he become corporeal again and goes to retrieve his ex-agent, slinging him over his shoulder before running for the back exit of his hideout. He kicks the door open and draws a gun, making sure the alley is clear.

There’s no sign of anyone waiting to ambush them, Gabriel isn’t sure if it’s suspicious or sloppy, but he’ll leave thinking for later. For now he dashes down the alley and up a stone staircase he knows leads to a small, covered walkway.

Glancing around a thick pillar on the walkway grants him a view of his now crumbled hideout, and more importantly of the figures in front of it. There’s two, they seem to be arguing.

Sloppy then.

With a quick glance around for any allies his attackers may have, he continues his path away from the explosion site. Gabriel carefully weaves his way through alleys and side streets, ducking into a few empty buildings along the way, until he’s sure he’s not being followed.

He shifts the man on his shoulder and tucks into a shadowed alley.

Gabriel sets Cole down to check on him. The man is breathing, if somewhat unevenly, but shows no sign of regaining consciousness.

If he leaves Cole here there’s a decent chance he’ll be fine. He’ll wake up confused and injured, but surely he’ll make it back to Overwatch soon enough, they’ll patch him up, and this will all be over.

Maybe they’ll never see each other again.

Gabriel gazes down at the man. He’s aged, fine wrinkles stating to form on his brow, crows feet by his eyes, and Gabriel is sure there’s laugh lines under his facial hair, the man was always smiling, cracking wise and laughing at his own terrible jokes. But he still looks much as he does in Gabriel’s memories, and in the dreams he won’t admit to having. Age hasn’t made him less handsome, it might even have done him some favours.

Gabriel crouches, gently lifts Cole’s chin, listens closer to his breathing, watches his slightly parted lips as if he’ll see the air moving between them. A glance to Cole’s still closed eyes, then back to his mouth.

The moustache suits him, Gabriel knew it would. He lifts a thumb, gently soothes over Cole’s chapped bottom lip.

Cole’s breath catches, and Gabriel stands suddenly, letting the cowboys head fall again.

Gabriel should leave him here and never look back. It’ll be the best for both of them.

He stares of into the dark streets and plans his route to his next hideout, one outside of the newly hostile city.

He spares another glance at the cowboy.

One away from prying eyes, hostile or otherwise.

Chapter Text

“You’re an idiot.”

Cole is grinning ear to ear, carrying Gabriel on his back.

“Yeah, an alive idiot.”

“An alive idiot who nearly got us both killed.”

“An alive idiot who got the data and saved your life.” Cole lifts a hand to fire a finger gun. “I call that a success.”

Gabriel rolls his eyes. “I call that getting lucky.”

“Oh commander, how bold.” Cole winks at him over his shoulder, and just laughs when Gabriel frowns at him.

“You couldn’t handle me, vaquero.”

Another laugh, then a thoughtful hum.

“Think I’d be mighty pleased to handle anything you’d let me.” There’s a lazy, slightly suggestive smile on Cole’s face, and a weaker man would have kissed it off him.

“Then you can handle all the paperwork I’m going to have to file for the stunt you pulled back there.”

Cole groans, and Gabriel wonders if he’s really as strong of a man as he thinks he is.

-

Cole wakes up sore, dizzy, and, for the second time in a row, itchy as hell.

God damned biotic fields.

At least he’s in a bed this time, and doesn't seem to be restrained.

The room doesn’t look so different from the last one he woke up in, with the same tell-tale signs that no one really lives there. Another safe-house then.

It’s one room, he can see a living area and a kitchen from the bed, and only one door besides the main entrance, likely a bathroom.

He doesn’t need to search any dark corners this time, what he’s looking for is right in front of him, sitting at the kitchen table with a tablet in his hand.

Cole shifts to sit up in bed and Reaper turns his masked face toward him.

“We gotta stop meeting like this boss.”

It’s hard to tell with the mask, but Cole thinks huff he hears from the other man just might be a laugh.

“Hows your head?” Reaper stands, takes a few steps closer so he’s standing by the end of the bed.

Cole’s head is pounding and he feels like moving too fast might make him throw up, but all in all he’s dealt with worse.

“Feels like it’s still on right.”

“Your heads never been on right.” It’s said flatly, but Cole laughs anyway.

“Reckon you’re right.” He looks around again. “So where are we? Don’t look like a Talon base, guess I should thank you for that.”

“Safe house. And you should be thanking me for not leaving your sorry ass in the rubble.”

Cole roles his eyes. “Thanks yer majesty. And a safe house where?”

Reaper just glares at him through the mask.

Right, so secret safe house that Cole probably isn’t allowed to leave without a blindfold.

Cole sighs, and there’s a pause, then Reaper crosses his arms and takes another step toward him.

“Why are you really here Cassidy?” He sounds... tired. Not angry, not accusatory, just tired.

“Told ya, couldn’t believe you were alive, so I had to see it for myself.”

“That was you across the street watching me the past week, wasn’t it.”

It’s not a question, and Cole doesn’t ask how he knows.

Gabriel Reyes always knows when he’s being watched.

Cole just nods.

“So you saw me.” Reaper spreads his arms, annoyance creeping into his otherwise flat voice. “If that was really all you were here for you would have left.”

Cole hesitates. But he’s sick of not being honest with Gabriel.

“I didn’t.”

Reaper is glaring through the mask again.

“Didn’t what, Cassidy?”

“Didn’t see you.”

Reaper doesn’t move, just keeps glaring and waits.

“Saw some man in a mask. Right build, right walk, right guns, but that’s all easy to fake.” He turns where he’s sitting, gets his feet on the ground. “And now I know the voice is right, the way you talk is too, but,” Cole stands, takes a step towards the masked man, “I still ain’t seen you.”

They glare at each other, Cole’s already preparing himself to be hit when he hears a slow, angry exhale.

He’s familiar with that, it’s the same exhale Gabriel used do in UN meetings when he was trying not to yell or hit something.

Cole flinches when Reaper raises his hands, but they end up on the sides of his own mask rather than on Cole’s body.

Somehow, Cole feels a little disappointed.

There’s a quiet mechanical hiss, and suddenly Cole forget his disappointment.

Gabriel Reyes is staring back at him, a few more scars than Cole remembers, but otherwise his commander is the same.

His hair is short, cropped close like Cole remembers with just a speckling of grey among the rich, dark brown that carries down into his beard stubble and goatee. Cole had thought the grey would be taking over by now.

Cole’s eyes narrow.

The wrinkles on Gabriel’s face are exactly as he remembers them, they haven’t deepened or multiplied, his skin hasn’t sagged, and other than the new scars its like Cole is staring at a photo taken the day the Swiss headquarters exploded.

Almost 10 years ago.

Cole knows SEP has all kinds of strange effects, but he’s seen photos Ana took of Jack, seen how the years had changed him, and sure, he looked good for his age, but he had definitely aged.

Gabriel on the other hand...

“How...?”

Gabriel’s face contorts with anger and he glares at the ground. “Moira” The word drips with venom.

Cole doesn’t know what to say, so he does what he always does when he’s out of his depth, he cracks a joke.

“Never seen someone so angry ‘bout lookin’ young.” He cracks a grin, but it immediately falls from his face.

Suddenly all that hate and venom is being directed at him and Gabriel is stepping closer, his face becoming ashy and distorted until it’s barely more that a cloud of black smoke.

“She made me a monster.” The smoke has no mouth, the words seem to come from all of it. Cole isn’t sure where to look.

“Didn’t seem to mind so much back in Blackwatch, called all this smokey bullshit an asset.”

The smoke solidifies, and Gabriel Reyes is back, now only inches from Cole’s face.

His voice is quiet now, his face tired.

“It’s different now, Cole. It’s... more. It’s worse.”

Cole watches him and he can’t quite read his expression. There’s something in it that makes Cole want to hold him, tell him everything’s going to be alright, the same way Gabriel used to do for him.

But then it’s gone, and Gabriel is stone faced again.

“Gabriel Reyes died in Switzerland, Cassidy, I’m just wearing his skin.”

Gabriel moves to walk away, but Cole grabs his wrist with his mechanical hand.

“Skin don’t account for you not blasting me on your doorstep.”

Cole raises his still useless right hand for Gabriel to see.

“Skin don’t mean you calm my ass down when I’m thinking I’ll lose my other hand.”

Cole steps closer, close enough that their chests are touching and he has to tilt his head ever so slightly upwards to meet Gabriel’s eyes. Their mouths almost touch as he speaks.

“Skin don’t make you carry an unconscious man to safety.”

Cole watches Gabriel’s eyes flick down just a little, feels him exhale through his nose like he’s scared to move his mouth before he meets Cole’s eyes again.

Cole’s next words are barely a whisper.

“And skin don’t account for the way your looking at me right now neither.”

Cole moves his good hand to Gabriel’s neck and presses their mouths together.

It’s electric, it’s nearly two decades worth of pining poured into one kiss and Cole can feel it in his whole body. Gabriel’s lips are chapped but soft, so much softer than Cole ever thought they’d be, and he want’s nothing more in this moment than to feel them moving against his own.

But they don’t.

And then Gabriel is moving away, putting his mask back on.

Cole feels all that pining again, feels it swelling in his throat and trying to choke him. Feels it sinking into his stomach and making him sick.

Feels it fall to the floor and shatter.

Gabriel isn’t looking at him anymore.

Reaper speaks “We should get your hand looked at soon.”