#weatheredsoldier

just wait until you learn what gumbo is

❛  heard  you  might  have some business for me.  ❜   he’s familiar with the way people work these kinds of deals, credits  &  favors exchanged for a  headshot.  leisurely, eyebrow cocked like a trigger, one bulky arm stacked atop the other, bucky reels back like the sight of that fucking muzzle doesn’t turn his stomach with every second that ticks past.   ❛   i got a couple ‘a bullets for sale if you’re buyin’.    ❜

★— DORADO. That was the name of the place he’d been teleported to by Reed’s device. Given that his word was COLLAPSING it was an escape plan; temporary, as it was, to find ASSISTANCE. And thus, running through the portal had led him to familiar-yet-foreign terrains; this LOOKED as though he’d been here before... resembling areas from home, but the posters, graffiti and lack of people around did make him realise he wasn’t in his WORLD. 

             Azures catch a poster -- OVERWATCH -- who WERE these people? Whoever they are, they looked like heroes, and those were the people he was in search of. Perhaps if they could come back to EARTH-616 with him, they would have a chance saving the world from a planet-consumer and his dark dimension destroying ally.  

            Careful strides through the street -- following whatever noise he could, until it brought him to a bunch of odd looking folks; neon paint scrawlings over their body GLOWING in the dim light of the street. The hooligans (?) loitered by a cart, which when opened, brought large weapons to sight. Now, this may not have been his world -- but he KNEW that this wasn’t a good sign. 

            Standing by the mouth of the alley he held up his shield, readying it for a firm THROW -- but not without a little chit-chat first---

❛ jesus, do you ever shut up? ❜ a rhetorical question. it’s been two months, two months of chemically-induced hell and during that time he’s learned that no, jack morrison never shuts up. 

not even when both of them lie broken on their beds, squeezing careful breaths out of their lungs. contorted into pain-filled shapes, their bodies attempt to take in the latest batch of injections and minds are simply left behind. gabriel feels like every inch of him is simultaneously getting crushed and ground into powder and all he can do is press his face into sweat-soaked pillow. his muscles, his bones, his genes– they’re trying their best to reject the ordered invasion ( even if it kills him ) and, god, he’s not a WHINER, not a fucking pussy, but in this moment he prays his body loses. because he has to be better than this, he has to SURVIVE. and if he has to change in order to do that– he will. and these trembling bones will have to listen.

his eye darts to the side to check how morrison is doing and gabriel really hopes he doesn’t look as miserable as jack– fingers twisted into the sheets, almost tearing it apart, eyes glued shut, mouth parted to wheeze, skin covered in sweat from fever that won’t go away until it finishes them off ( or they prove that they’re stronger than this ). poor lab rats, he thinks, imagining how they must look to someone in a lab coat and a full syringe. 

poor lab rats. on a scale from zero to ten, how much serving our country hurts?

he grunts out a pained noise when a sudden tremor splits his spine in two, embedding more agony between the shoulderblades. jesus fucking christ– !! he bites down on the pillow, stopping his voice from reaching the clenched teeth. 

fuck this country. 

❛ gabe? ❜ he hears a breathless question and he ignores it, focusing on the taste of bleached fabric on his tongue. but jack doesn’t give up, lets out another relentless ‘gabe?’ and he wants to raise his head and SNAP ( it’s gabriel, not gabe ), but he only has strength for one angry bite:

 ❛ what. ❜ 

fuck this serum, fuck the program, fuck jack for trying to have a conversation while they’re both being burned inside out.

❛ why’d you do it? ❜

reyes doesn’t have to raise his head to know that there are blue eyes staring at him, he keeps his face hidden. he also knows what the question is about. they both have a limited number of words in them right now and jack wouldn’t ask about trivial shit. why’d you sign up, reyes? 

and fuck morrison for asking that question now– because he’d shoot it down in any other situation. but with experimental pain wrecking his insides, he almost feels compelled to answer. just to give some meaning to the torture he’s going through, to force SENSE upon it. he thinks. why did he sign up for the super enhancement program? for mom and mamá, his mind supplies, but that’s just wishful thinking, he knows. it’s not about paying a tribute or making anyone proud or trying to outweigh the bad he did with good. he could have done all that in army, he didn’t have to give his body away to the syringes. it’s about earning the place that’s always been his, even though the world shoved his face in dirt and tried to tell him that this is where he belongs.

he doesn’t have much strength left, can’t buy many words with it. so he’d better make them count. gabriel twists his face to look at jack, he lets their feverish wide-eyed gazes connect. 

❛ to get better. so i can be the best. ❜

the way jack stares back at him, it makes his inflamed skin crawl. he knows, gabriel realizes.

he’s fully aware of the streak of red watching him from the platform above. but he still puts on a show-- walks over to the nearest body of a talon operative, crouches to check nonexistent pulse with metal-coated tips of his claws, snarls. hooded head cranes, white mask looks up. 

❛ these don’t come cheap, you know. ❜ he stands up, anger lazily coming to his side, brushing against his leg. morrison’s death wish is starting to get annoying and reaper questions if whatever it is he gains from their meetings is really worth it. soldier should learn to sit tight and not peek out of the hole he hides in-- that is, until reaper decides it’s time to drag him out and break a bone or two. that’s all he is to him, a toy.