almightythirst | Deerington Inbox

[ 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.

[ 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?

[ 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? ]

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)

Chloe, you’re smart as a whip and twice as sharp, but you don’t know what you’re talkin’ about here.

[ His tone brooks no argument. She doesn’t know, can’t know… and that’s not her fault, is it? She didn’t put these ideas in her own head.

It was Reaper. Whatever his plan was, whatever he was trying to do with the shadowy remnants of Gabe, his memory, his legacy… he’d tear apart whatever was left of the former commander’s name for his own ends. And there’s just nothing forgivable about that.

But thinking of Gabe being alive still, surviving only to become this twisted version of everything he’d valued—no. That’s worse. And it’s selfish of Jesse not to consider it, in part, because he can’t ignore the part he also played in the fall. The guilt of Gabe’s death is heavy enough.

Knowing he’d been part of Gabe losing his humanity would be so much worse. ]

… Just, please. [ He drags a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes, and the only thing he telegraphs now is exhaustion. ] Don’t meet with him alone anymore. Bring someone along. Meet where there’s other people around.

[ If she were anyone else, she’d likely have been able to see the rationality in his words. But his sharp tone, the words he used, the demands he made, it all reminded her too much of home, of David telling her what to do without any explanation. It makes her give an unamused snort as she the bag of donuts onto the table, appetite lost. ]

Right. If you guys are so convinced I’m wrong and he’s gone, then why didn’t you warn anyone about how fucking dangerous you thought he was before he blew my brains out? Angela might have taken the brunt of the blame, but she wasn’t the only one who kept her mouth shut. [ She grabbed her coffee, going to get up from the couch. ]

If I bring someone else, he won’t see me anymore and you know it. [ Stubborn as always, apparently smart didn’t mean self-preserving. ] I’m not just a kid. Maybe I don’t know everything about him, but that means I can see shit you can’t. I’m not gonna lose the only person in this place who knows what it’s like to die over and over and never stay dead just because you’re scared about what’s going to happen when we’re alone!

[ She’s right. Jesse’s stomach twists unpleasantly at the thought, but he doesn’t try to deflect the blame, letting it settle over him instead. Like most disastrous situations, there had been several factors in things going straight to hell. Having only played a small part doesn’t mean being any less responsible for the outcome.

What he doesn’t— or can’t— deflect is the quicksilver sting of irritation as she shrugs his concerns off again. Instead of insisting she sit down, or instead of trying to get through to her again, Jesse watches Chloe stand with a deeply-etched frown on his face. Later, he’ll puzzle over that last bit. The part about dying. Later, when he’s in a better position for making bad decisions. ]

If you’re really gonna keep takin’ his word over the word of people who actually care about you, then I don’t know what else to say.

[ Later, when she was calm, Chloe would likely feel terrible for the way she’d handled all of this, like she always did whenever she spoke from her emotions instead of her head. She was never very good at biting her tongue or keeping her temper in check, not unless she went completely silent all together. Which seemed to be what she chose for a moment, wondering if she should just leave it all at that.

There was a small stab of guilt at the words he chose, people who actually care about you, and she lifted her hand to scratch at the back of her neck. ]

Yeah, well - in my experience, it’s the people who say they care about you who are more likely to fuck you over. Especially when they disagree with you and think you’re just some dumb kid. [ She rubs at her face with her own irritation before she goes to grab her coffee from the table just to have something to hold.

Maybe it’s not fair to hold him to the same low expectations she has of people at home. Believing adults actually want to help and don’t just want to tell her what to do is so damn hard, though. ]

I don’t meet him unarmed. I don’t go anywhere with him that I can get cornered. No dark alleys, no enclosed buildings, no narrow streets. I’m - I’m being as cautious as I can be, okay? But I know he won’t kill me again. I’m not asking you to like it, I’m just asking you to - [ She cuts herself off as she tries to think of what it is she’s actually asking, not sure at first, before she lets out another sigh as she finds the words. ] To trust me. Please.

[ Jesse won’t be feeling any better about this later. He’s the adult here. Shouldn’t he be all level-headed, giving good advice and not letting his emotions get the better of him? At the end of the day, they’re just two people with good intentions trying to do their best. ]

It’s not you I don’t trust.

[ That’s the best he can do. If it were just about anyone else, in any other situation, he’d be more flexible. More willing to look for alternative ways to handle this. But it’s Reaper, and that changes things. ]

And I don’t think you’re dumb, for the record.

You’ve got a funny way of showing it when you’re telling me what to do or that I don’t know what I’m talking about. [ It’s said in more of a grumble than as harsh as her words might have sounded, looking down at her feet as she spoke instead of at him. If there was any ever doubt of how much of a kid Chloe still was, it probably shone brightly in the moment.

Her lips pursed for a moment, some of her anger having at least dissipated when he said he didn’t think she was dumb. It wasn’t often that people actually corrected her on that when she brought it up and it at least meant something to her. Enough of a something to at least make her not just storm off in a huff, like she usually did. ]

Are you... disappointed in me?

[ Craving relationships with adults and wanting their approval while simultaneously not fully trusting any of them was an extremely exhausting balance. ]

[ That question, simple as it is, leaves Jesse baffled. ]

What?

[ It’s been a long time since he thought about that aspect of being a kid. It’s funny how, as adults, the things that mattered so much can sometimes fall into the gray spaces of memory. Not forgotten, but so hard to remember until they’re brought to light somehow. Confusion gives way to understanding, and Jesse lets out another sigh, this one more like he’s letting down a burden than simply breathing. ]

Chloe… no. I’m a lot of things when it comes to this mess, but disappointed in you? [ He shakes his head. ] ‘Course I’m not.

[ There's some visible relief, even if she doesn't look any less awkward after asking. Prone to making people disappointed on a regular basis until they all decided to give up on her, there's always some sort of safety in being told the opposite.

She rubs the back of her neck, clearing her throat, still looking at her shoes like they're the most fascinating thing since the Great Wall of China. ]

... Okay.

[ Jesse’s expression isn’t quite a smile. It’s a little too worn-down for that, a little too sad maybe. But it’s there as he stands up and walks over to her, leaving his coffee behind. ]

Hey.

[ Doesn’t matter if she has a hat on or not today— he’s ruffling up her hair with or without it. ]

What’s down there on the floor that’s more interestin’ than my handsome mug, huh?

[ There's a grumbled protest as she gives a half-assed attempt at batting his hand away. Like she cares about hair she barely even brushes. ]

Iunno. [ It's said with a shrug, scrunching her mouth before she lifts her head just enough to look at him. ] You know, this is the first time I think you've ever really told me about stuff from your world. Even if it is a shitty reason to talk about it. I never thought about it before, but I guess I've never really asked.

[ Jesse hadn’t thought about it either, but now that she mentions it… ]

Yeah, well… guess I never really offered, huh?

[ He pulls his hand back, slipping his thumbs— both real and metal— into the pockets of his PJs. ]

Think I’m out of practice, talkin’ about myself. I had to keep a low profile back home. Talkin’ about the past would be a surefire way to invite trouble in.

[ Trouble like getting tracked down by the likes of Reaper, which is a moot point here basically. ]

Yeah. I mean, I haven't really been any better about it - uh, minus the... drunk texts. Sorry about those, by the way.

[ She rubs the back of her neck again, rocking some on her heals. ]

But maybe you could get back into practice. It'd be cool to know more about you.

Don’t have to apologize to me about sendin’ off a drunk text or two. So long as you don’t make it a habit.

[ It’s one thing for him to have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, another entirely to let it slide with Chloe. ]

But yeah. Same goes for you. Just be patient with me if I’m not so good at the whole… [ He gestures vaguely with his left hand, indicating the whole 'mutual socializing' thing. ]

[ Haha.... hahahaha.... Too late on that one, likely; at least she's usually wise enough to only send her nightly drunk texts to people like Eddie or Lance. ]

I think I can do that. Maybe we'll have to do a round of 20 questions or something, force it out of each other.

[ That is a half joke. ]

[ Jesse lets out a surprised laugh. Has he ever played a game like that? At least, one where he didn’t lie through his teeth? ]

... Y’know what? Alright. Let’s do it when we get around to that movie night we got planned.

[ Assuming that old plan still stands. ]

[ She grins at his laugh, visibly relaxing at it. ]

Cool. That sounds like a good idea.

[ Chloe pauses before she goes in to give him a tight hug. Sudden, maybe, but it doesn’t feel wrong. ]

Soon, okay? [ A lot of people she knows have been disappearing lately and she’s worried he’ll do the same before they can watch some stupid western. ]

[ It’s an almost embarrassing deer-in-headlights moment for Jesse, when Chloe hugs him. He’s not touch-averse at all, but… it’s just been a long time since a friend did that. Hell, they hadn’t even been so touchy-feely back in Blackwatch.

There’s a second or two that passes, his arms hesitating out on either side of her in a moment of indecision before he returns the hug.

Being a family man will never be in the cards for him, that much he’s sure of. A vigilante like him could never settle long enough. Jesse has known this for a long time. So he’d never expected to feel this particular sort of fond, protective rush of emotion that he does holding Chloe. Damn near paternal, though no one better dark say as much. ]

Yeah. Soon, I promise.

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