almightythirst | Deerington Inbox

[ It’s enough to get a surprised laugh out of Jesse despite his innate distrust. It’s impossible to keep his thoughts from flashing back, if only just for a moment, to their days in Blackwatch. Nights spent attempting to drink one another under the table, before paranoia and betrayal had spoiled it all.

Jesse shakes his head in a disbelieving sort of way, in part to help him shake off the sudden influx of memories. ]

You came over for a drink?

[ He doesn’t bother to hide the disbelief in his tone, but at least he doesn’t have his battle-ready stance out. There’s not even a gun at his hip, believe it or not. ]

[ The laugh brings a small smirk to her own face, glad to know that it’s baffling enough to both of them - maybe even more so to him. There’s something nice about the nostalgia it brings, the connection to a time long before Deerington, when things seemed to be so much less of a mess. She knows she played a large part in things becoming a mess, but … Well. She’s had plenty of time to reflect on that, too.

She nods, grateful that he isn’t armed, that maybe there was that slightest enough change in things that he hadn’t bothered to grab his gun before answering the door. And apparently also enough to not just slam it in her face. ]

I did. Drinking alone is depressing. [ A pause, because honesty isn’t her forte when it comes to this kind of thing, and it’s hard to get the words out. ] I can’t ask anyone else. [ Reaper or Angela, she means, but actually saying their names is expecting too much of her. ]

[ His first instinct is, of course, to say a quick and decisive ‘no.’ Because when Jesse thinks of “fun drinking buddy,” Moira doesn’t show up at the top of the list. Hell, she’s not even on the list.

Who can say what it is that makes him decide to let her come in anyway. Maybe it’s because he can relate, having spent way too many nights getting drunk alone these past few months… or years. Or maybe it’s the honesty, something that comes so rarely and with so much difficulty between the two of them. Maybe it’s because, with all these run-ins Jesse has had with Reaper lately, he could stand to share a drink or two with someone who… well, might not understand completely, but who understands a little. That’s worth something.

Whatever it is, Jesse nods once before stepping aside, door opening wider as he moves. ]

Well, don’t just stand there. You’ll let the bugs in.

[ It's her turn to look a bit surprised, brows lifting slightly when he steps to the side, but she isn't going to ask questions and risk having him turn her away. So she ducks slightly so she doesn't hit her head (a hazard of being too damn tall) and makes her way inside, being sure to take a proper look around like the nosy woman that she is. ]

Thank you.

[ It's probably the first time in a while that she's said that to him and truly meant it with no sarcasm to be found. She goes to stick the bottle down on the closest table, not wasting any time in getting it open. ]

I see you recovered from the virus well enough. Did you have to go through that barbaric cure or were you strong enough to fight it off on your own like some?

Nothin’ to thank me for. You’re the one who brought the liquor.

[ He gets it though, and he might even smile a little to himself as he goes through the process of relocking the door behind her.

Looking around, Moira will see a surprisingly homey space. There’s a line of hooks on the wall by the door, sporting his serape and hat, and there’s an interesting painting on the wall immediately to the right. From there, the room opens up into an open living room space strewn with an eclectic mix of old-but-comfy furniture that all doesn’t quite match. The walls are painted white, worn down in a way that some people do on purpose for that old-country-farmhouse effect. They were already like that when Jesse moved in though. He can’t take credit. ]

It was already on the way out of my system before that cure landed, but I heard plenty.

[ Since the closest table is the one over by the fireplace, Jesse slips into the kitchen to grab a couple of glasses— which match, being from the same set. He’d made an effort there at least.

There’s a couch, a standalone recliner, and a footstool angled around the low table. Jesse perches on the latter seat as he sets the glasses down beside Moira’s bottle. There’s already an open beer bottle on the table, along with a mess of maps and other random bits of paper. He’d been in the middle of something or other before she’d come, but it’s apparently not so important that it can’t wait. ]

Not that the flu by itself was a walk in the park, but I did make it out luckier than a lot of people.

[ Given how wasted he'd looked at the end of the night, Chloe was going to safely assume it wasn't likely that McCree was going to be an early riser the next day. She, however, had had one amazing bout of insomnia, waking up after only a few hours of sleep, and being raring to go at a much more reasonable hour than her usual twelve thirty in the afternoon wake up time.

It's what's got her in front of his door at roughly eight in the morning, a coffee in each hand and some donuts tucked in a bag under her arm. Being the ever so polite adult that she was now, she uses her heel to kick at the door a couple of times with a relatively loud thud each time. ]

Hey, McCree! Open up, it's story time!

Mm, fair enough.

[ She took her time to eye the painting as he went to retrieve glasses. Usually a deep lover of art, she's got her eyes narrowed and her brow furrowed as she tries to figure out why the hell he's got something like that hanging on his wall in the first place. She's pretty sure that there's nothing deep about this and she gives a sigh of disappointment; nothing emphasized the differences between Jesse and Moira much more than this.

Returning her attention to the whiskey, she went to take her seat on the couch, lifting the bottle so she could start to pour some of the liquid into each glass. ]

There weren't as many direct deaths from the flu as I had worried there would be. Finally receiving some of our nanobiotic technology from home couldn't have come at a better time. [ She had watched the way Lance and Azwel had suffered first hand, seen Angela die in her office - it had all been a bit too much for her to take, apparently.

Her eyes flickered to the maps, though, brow arching as she looked over to him, setting the bottle back down and being sure to avoid resting it on anything that looked important. ]

Keeping busy?

[ Chloe had guessed 110% correctly about Jesse’s sleep schedule. He hasn’t gone that hard, accidentally or on-purpose, in a long time. A fact his entire body seems intent on reminding him of as he struggles up towards wakefulness. The sound of the front door rattling on its hinges has him groaning and attempting to bury himself even deeper beneath the covers, at least right up until he realizes who is giving him this wake-up call.

Jesse answers the door in plaid pajama pants and the same shirt he’d had on the night before, unbuttoned and wrinkled from sleep. It’s also plaid. An entirely different variety. ]

How are you awake?

[ He sounds honestly a little in awe of that fact as he waves her in, morning sunlight glinting off of his metal hand. ]

[ What happened to Angela hangs there in the air, an unspoken fact he knows neither of them will forget about anytime soon. He wonders if that has anything to do with why Moira is here. Surely this all related, in some small part at least, to Angela. Else the scientist would be drinking with her, wouldn’t she?

The papers are a much safer topic, and Jesse acknowledges her question with a nod as he picks up his own glass. ]

Somethin’ like that. F.E.A.R. probably keeps tabs on what goes on around town already, but… [ He shrugs. ] Old habits die hard I guess. Plus stayin’ busy keeps me out of trouble.

[ Jesse holds up his glass expectantly over the table towards Moira, the smallest hint of a challenge in his smile. ] We gonna toast or what? Might as well do this proper if we’re gonna do it at all.

[ She grimaces in a bit of an exaggerated manner a this clothes, even if she's definitely looked way worse the morning after some of the parties thrown at Blackwell. Ah, the choices made when you just want to fall into bed and be done with it.

She moves inside, putting one of the coffees into his hand as she scoots by him. There's a grin on her face briefly when she sees the painting hanging on the wall, a small "Sweet!" as she points to it, before turning back more fully towards him. ]

Poor life choices and bad mental health. Plus Keith started to hog the blankets and my bed is kinda tiny.

[ Jesse can’t help but smile down at the coffee in his hand for the moment Chloe is turned away. Far as peace offerings go, it’s not a bad one. He’d still rather have several more hours of uninterrupted sleep, but this isn’t bad either. ]

Guess you didn’t sleep much to begin with then. You sure you don’t need a little shut-eye before we get into this?

[ He nods his head toward the couch. ]

An hour or three wouldn’t kill you. Or me.

[ He’s not taking the offer too seriously though, considering he just took a big sip from the cup in his hand. ]

[ Moira laughs - not the usual cruel and harsh tone that she had around him these past few years, but a genuine chuckle of real amusement as she gives him a mockingly disbelieving look. ] Do you even know how to stay out of trouble, Jesse?

[ When he's raising his glass for a toast, though, the look is replaced with one slightly more stunned, before swiftly changing to that of thought as she plays with her glass for a moment. It was easier to feel a decade younger for a moment, the nostalgia of Blackwatch and the times when maybe they hadn't all hated each other quite as much as they pretended to some days. ]

Mmm... To old habits, then. [ She raised her glass to meet his. ] Since we seem to be surrounding ourselves with them at the moment.

[ She shakes her head as she moved over to the couch, putting her coffee down on the table so that she could dig a donut out of the bag as she took a seat. She uses the hand with said donut in it to point at him. ]

Nope. Once I'm awake, I'm up for good. And you'll just have to suffer right along next to me.

[ She motions for him to take a seat too, before taking a bite of her sugary breakfast. ]

[ Yeah, that’s the answer Jesse was expecting to get. He brings his coffee over and makes himself comfortable in the standalone chair, a hand going back through his hair to try and tame the mess as he settles back into the seat. ]

Alright then.

[ He takes a deep breath, then lets it out slow— not quite a sigh, but something close to it. ]

You wanted to know if I was the ‘ingrate.’ [ His voice pitches strangely on the word, like it’s one that sits uncomfortably on his tongue. And it does. He’s not usually the one saying it, and he hasn’t heard it thrown his way in years. ]

Not sure what it means, him saying it to you. But yeah. It’s an old nickname.

... That's what you couldn't tell me at the party? [ It didn't seem very complicated. She grabs her coffee so she can take another sip, before scrunching her mouth in thought. ]

It was after I stabbed him - uhh, which ... isn't as bad as it sounds. He was teaching me to use a knife and he was saying the people who've trained me to fight haven't done me any good by going easy on me. He said something about being as loud and annoying as someone, but didn't say who until I asked. But he wouldn't tell me who it was so I had to guess. Luckily he doesn't seem to know a whole lot of dudes, so it was pretty easy.

[ Deerington’s cruelest trick is how it makes the past nearly tangible like this. It doesn’t even seem to be a function of the town, unlike the other purposeful horrors it inflicts on the dreamers. It’s just a side-effect, and Jesse isn’t sure he resents it more or less for that reason.

But at least the nostalgia isn’t all bad all the time. ]

To old habits.

[ He taps his glass against hers before knocking back the first mouthful of liquor. ]

And for the record, it’s not like I go lookin’ for trouble. [ Said with the easy smile of a man who is lying, and who is totally unconcerned if it’s caught at it. ] It just likes to find me. You know I'm an angel, right?

[ Jesse doesn’t even have words for that. He just puts his face in his hand, the other hand busy holding his coffee. ]

Chloe, you’re gonna have to help me out here. Explain it to me real simple.

[ He lets his hand drop so he can stare her down, the effect perhaps a little dulled by his wrinkled, mismatched clothes and the take-out coffee. He can be intimidating when he wants to be, promise. ]

You trust the guy who killed you to teach you how to fight? With a knife? Alone in a park?

[ Definitely dulled; her eyes even flicker to his tousled and unbuttoned shirt that clashes so terrible with his PJ pants, and then back to his face with a look that can only be given from a sassy teenager who is having a real hard time taking an adult seriously. Maybe she should've let him get changed.

She gives a long sigh though because she knows how crazy it sounds; hadn't she said as much to Reaper when they'd talked about her instability? She got how bad an idea it was, and yet... ]

I know it's stupid. But he - we - [ Every way she thinks of explaining it sounds terrible in her head which means it will definitely sound worse out loud. ] After he and I came back, I just wanted to know why he did it. I don't know that I ever got a real answer, but we sort of - we ended up talking about some shit we had in common and since then, he's been... Different? Like he told me how to avoid getting shot by someone and he saved my life in the tunnels and he talked me through a panic attack I had after I saw those - those things - k-kill Keith and --

[ She cuts herself off and rubs her hands on her jeans a little roughly, trying to use the texture to stop herself from getting too caught up in all the memories that want to replay in her head. ]

If he wanted to kill me again, he's had tons of opportunities. But he hasn't and I don't think he will. Why would he want to teach me how to survive in this place if he was going to shoot me again?

[ There's a small smile as the glasses clink against one another, one that she quickly hides in her glass as she takes a sip that might have been larger than entirely necessary. She hadn't been lying about needing a drink, clearly. ]

Ironically, the only one of us who can honestly claim to have ever been an angel is me. [ She finds the humor in it all now that she's no longer glowing. ] I'd say you're a terrible liar, but I know better than that.

Hey now, was that a compliment? Color me surprised. Didn't know you had it in you.

[ Because being a good liar isn’t a bad thing in his book, clearly.

Watching her take that first drink, Jesse debates whether or not to get to the heart of the issue this early on in this night. Maybe it’ll do them both good to get a little more alcohol in their systems before he starts asking questions. It’s not like it appears either of them intends to go slow. ]

How’d that pan out for you, anyway? The whole angel thing? Wasn’t a bad look on you.

[ Jesse’s expression softens a little. He can’t let her off the hook completely, but… it’s familiar, what she’s saying. Not exactly the same, but he’s heard this story before: troubled kid with more than a few issues. A mentor in an unexpected place. It’s even got the betrayal, though it came at a different point in the timeline and at the wrong set of hands.

Jesse sighs and runs a hand back through his hair, leaving his coffee cup perched precariously on the armrest of his chair. ]

He was a good man once. One of the best. Raised me up more than anybody else ever did. But that man he was is dead, and I… I think this thing that’s left is pretty damn good at parroting him when it wants. It’s deceptive. Don’t know why it does the things it does, but it’s not safe to keep giving it a reason to do all that before we figure its motives out.

[ Because Reaper doesn’t do things out of the goodness of his heart. It would make no sense, set side-by-side with the mercenary’s other actions. Like killing Chloe, for one. ]

For all we know, it’s doing all that to gain your trust. Might be he wants to use it against you later.

[ Hadn’t Reyes done the same with him, if for a more magnanimous reason? ]

I'm full of surprises.

[ It didn't matter whether or not she'd meant it as one, clearly. Although being a decent liar would never be an insult in her eyes.

She pulls a face at the whole memory of it, shaking her head. ]

Dreadfully dull, as one might expect. Is that what it's like to adhere to standard ethical practices? How do people not go mad with boredom? [ It's hard to tell if she's actually joking. ]

He's not a thing. [ That was likely far more defensive than it needed to be - more so than it should be, even, considering the history she had with Reaper. It would have been far easier to disconnect him from his humanity, to say that he was just a monster, but for some reason, the idea made her stomach twist in knots. ] You can't... call someone an "it" just because they've done terrible things or because you don't like them. He might be fucked up now in a lot of ways, but he didn't just stop being a person. [ Maybe she was too empathetic for her own good.

It was weird to think about Reaper as anyone other than Reaper, though, and she chewed on her lip as she mulled over the idea of him raising Jesse. It made her think of all the ways he'd said certain things about teenagers, the way that he had reacted with Lance when he was falling apart. ]

How do you know he's dead? If he was a good man once, what... what makes you so sure he couldn't be again? People are different here than they are at home, sometimes. Maybe he's not just parroting who he was before but able to actually have chances to be more like he was before.

You didn’t know Gabe.

[ For some reason, Chloe’s fervent defense of Reaper hits harder than it should. Is it just the misplaced hope for a man long gone? Or does it remind him a little too much of himself, when he was young and had placed his trust on the one person who had truly earned it?

Jesse’s hands grip the armrests, fingers digging into the old upholstery. He doesn’t have words for what he’s feeling, this mix of regret and anger and sadness. Guilt. ]

Gabriel Reyes didn’t always follow the rules, but he did what he had to do for the best possible outcome. He wanted to help people same as anybody else in Overwatch. He had his own methods, but they didn’t involve killing kids or shooting people for cash.

[ He had never lost his moral compass, skewed as it might have seemed from the outside. Not until the end. Again, like at the party, it’s as if a shutter closes over Jesse’s expression. Not quite angry, not quite blank, but not genuine. Controlled. ]

You know what Reaper does, back in our world? He hunts down the men and women who used to work in Overwatch. The ones who worked with Gabe. And when he’s not doing that? He freelances for terrorists. Gabe would’ve looked at a thing like Reaper and shot it dead himself. There’s no way he’d become that.

[ Gabe. So that was his name. Angela had never actually mentioned it before and she vaguely remembers seeing him in a photo she’d received of her friends from her own Overwatch days. The ... hot looking Latinx dude? No fucking way.

But that revelation is swallowed for now, focused instead on the way that McCree talks about his old friend, the way he talks about Reaper. She cringes some when he mentions killing kids, fists clenching, but she at least lets him finish rather than just talking back like she might have wanted to. It said something for how much she’d grown to care about Jesse - men didn’t usually get that kind of self-control from her.

It helps that she doesn’t quite know what to say at first, lingering in silence for a moment. ]

Well he did. I might not have known him, but Reaper’s not some different entity who just took control of Gabe’s body. They’re the same people. Sometimes - sometimes shit happens and it makes us turn into our worst selves, but that doesn’t erase who we were. [ She looked back up at him finally, not sure why it was so important. Maybe because she’d seen it Frank. Or Rachel’s mother. Not as extreme, maybe, but certainly the same kind of twisting from a once decent person to someone who was barely recognizable. ]

Angela told me about his shit with that group - Talon or... whatever it was called. And she told the whole network about him wanting to kill you guys. It’s not like I don’t know he’s done all this shit. I don’t trust him the way I trust you or any of my other friends here, but I don’t think he’s some pure evil creature you’ve made up in your head. Wouldn’t he have just killed you already if he was? If he wanted you dead so badly, couldn’t he just keep doing it until someone stopped him or you just stayed gone?

Edited 2019-04-01 05:25 (UTC)

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March 12th!!

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