#velvettclaws

Gabe in the distance: I’m gonna suck them tiddies dry.

for once.

        slowly jack smiles a bit, feeling the bump and the warmth of the other pressed up against his.

              ❛ you sly dog... taking advantage of me with my visor off. ❜

he grumbles out, slowly closing his eyes. for once... this is a tad bit relaxing. at least the most relaxed he ever is with his visor off. dude sleeps with the thing on. he doesn’t like not being able to see. it’s... damaging.

   The old soldier still cannot pinpoint exactly what he’d done to deserve this second chance or even how an alternate Gabriel had practically fallen into his lap like this, but he chooses not to question the grace of the god he’d come to believe did not exist when he was about twenty years old and had seen too much suffering. Now, he’s beginning to wonder if there is a god and the deity is doing his damnedest to apologize.

   All is forgiven, he supposes, as those dark, strong arms tug him forward at the waist, bring him in for a kiss that brings a flutter to his tired heart. His hands, calloused and scarred, come to rest upon Gabriel’s shoulders, and a smile graces his features. He has to admit, the surprise kisses work wonders in lifting his mood.

   ❝ Don’t know what’s got you so affectionate, but I won’t complain. ❞ Blue eyes shine with adoration, but they soon grow dim, the smile fading from his lips. He cups the younger man’s face in his hands, traces the sharp jaw with the pad of his thumb, contemplative. An ache is wholly present in his gaze, yet no words form, not until a hand has fallen to Gabriel’s chest and he has safely buried his face in the crook of his neck.

   He knows Reyes doesn’t belong in this timeline; he knows one day he could find a way out.

      ❝ This isn’t going to last long, is it? ❞

grave suggestions. | not accepting.

Redemption was a quaint idea, as well as one that he’d found himself clinging to in the years since the Shimada clan’s demise. And what a demise it had been! Their clan a shell of its former glory, robbed of all that had gilded it into the makings of an empire: Soujiro long since dead, Genji reaped for their benefit, and Hanzo…

Hanzo had only himself to blame for his dishonor.

Failure! How it scalded him—he, who had seen himself as the superior and obedient son. He, who had dared swing the sword of judgment upon Genji as if he himself could do no wrong. Yet it was he who stood here in shame, a shallow husk of a man cast in purgatory’s shadow, and yes… perhaps that was another form of fate. The promise of absolution from a man whom death clung to yet could not hold.

At least, Hanzo mused, the Reaper’s decay was merely external. Could the death of a spirit ever truly be undone? His sins ran steep. The archer exhaled, gaze lifting towards the inky sky. In the wake of his silence, it seemed even the stars had forsaken them that night. Coward. A celestial whisper. The weight of father’s hand upon his shoulder.

‘All of this is to be yours.’

Genji. Defiant. Blood on the lip. Betrayed and afraid, but steady.

                               ( “Do it, then. Kill me.” )

A challenge he’d echoed upon unknowingly meeting his brother again—and oh, his audacity; how very much he’d wished himself the martyr in that moment. As if repeating the words could make him half as brave as the sparrow when faced with death. Redemption. Yes, it seemed almost laughable, but the hunger for it was there. He turned at last to face Reaper, the weight of his own shadows darkening the brown of his eyes to obsidian.

“Surrender was never an option,” he rasped, voice soft on the wind. “My doubts are numerous, and whether I achieve my goal cannot be discerned so easily—I can only speak to my nature. Time is not my enemy in this.”