equilibrium
@lifewhatisthat HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!! I was Chosen to write for you for the R76 Valentine’s Event, and I picked the Family AU prompt because I’m That Weak for baby Sombra and Jess. I hope you like it (and that you have a good Valentine’s, of course; hopefully all the Good r76 Content going up will help!!)
The house was everything Jack had ever dreamed of, and at the same time, none of it. Mostly because they didn’t have a dog yet. He was still working on that, though Gabe insisted that they had to have enough funds to put Jesse through college, and a good college, Jackie, my son isn’t going to be writing instruction manuals for spare change in between novels. As far as Jack was concerned, Jesse could have a fantastic career as is, but he wasn’t about to get between Gabriel Reyes and his dream of well-educated children.
The house was, besides that, a mess. Even though two (long, exhausting) weeks had passed since they moved in, the hallways were still crammed with boxes, to the point where the only room in the house where anyone could actually move was Sombra’s room, because she insisted on unpacking and sorting her every possession as soon as possible so that she could continue hacking the universe or whatever. Jack had been good with guns, back in the day, but he never had much of a knack for computers, so he just nodded and listened as politely as he could manage when his daughter detailed her schemes for world domination. At least her room was clean.
Therefore, when Gabriel was tearing half the house apart because he couldn’t find a single razor anywhere, Jack reminded him that one of their children had, in fact, unpacked her stuff, and that maybe she would know where literally anything in the house was. “And you know,” he added, “all those times when I said we should really start unpacking and you said no, this is the Big Game, it’s the world cup—”
“The World Cup is a championship, Jack. It’s sixty-four matches.”
Jack fought not to roll his eyes. “You and the kids could’ve tag-teamed them or something. And then you’d have razors. You don’t trust Sombra to catch all the good plays?”
“Sombra, yes. Jesse, no,” Gabe chuckled. He had a point; Jesse had the attention span of a goldfish, when it came to things like marathoning soccer games. “You look perfectly clean-shaven. Are you hiding razors from me?”
Jack snorted. “As entertaining as it is to watch you run around like a chicken with its head cut off, I’m not actually trying to impede progress here. Why do you need razors so desperately?”
A subtle glance to each side, and Gabriel moved in close enough that Jack could catch the scent of his ruggedly warm cologne. “Jesse’s got five entire chin hairs. No better time than the present!”
“You’re teaching him to shave?” Jack struggled to keep his voice low, though he clearly conveyed his excitement well enough, by the smile warming Gabriel’s stoic face. “I would’ve helped you look if you told me that!”
Gabriel shook his head, even as he leaned in to peck Jack on the cheek and nuzzle against his hairline. “You can go find Sombra, see if she knows anything. Since, as you said, she’s the organized member of this family.”
“I’m right. You’ll see,” teases Jack as he extracts himself from the surrounding boxes and heads for the stairs. As much as Sombra tries to hide her surveillance hideout, or whatever codename she comes up with on a given week, Jack knows full well that she has taken up residence in the attic crawlspace for good.
Or, at least, for as long as an investment in some bulk purple velvet to make slapdash curtains is good. Sombra tries to be discrete, but she’s also somehow more dramatic than her father, so it’s not hard to find her. When Jack pulls the curtain back, she tilts her head to one side, but doesn’t move otherwise; of course she knew he was on his way. She would claim that she’s tracking him, but he knows that she’s just very aware of her surroundings. And it’s hard to walk quietly when you’re Jack Morrison-sized.
“Are you shaving your fingers?” he murmurs, flopping onto the floor next to his daughter. “I hope you’re at least using lotion or something.”
She snorts. “Papi didn’t teach me to shave dry, dad, don’t worry.”
Jack shakes his head and rests his hand in the center of her back, making sure that she knows he’s about to touch her before he does. “Is this some kind of new fad? Hairless fingers?”
“Yes. It’s to go with my new fashion line, Boredom by Sombra.” She pulls a tissue out of the fuschia box in front of her and wipes the loose hair off one thumb.
The pack of razors is open on the floor in front of her. They’re the really nice ones that Gabriel buys, since he considers touching up his precisely-shaped goatee to be an art form, and apparently they came with one free super-soft-smooth-curvy-gentle-feminine women’s razor as a bonus, because the one in Sombra’s hand is, of course, purple. “So. You don’t want Jesse to shave? I don’t think any of us want to know where his peach fuzz is going.”
Sombra’s mouth twists downward on one side, and she shrugs, gentle enough that Jack’s hand barely moves. “I don’t know, I just wanted to mess with Papi. It’s… whatever.”
“And what about Jesse? Punishing him for his dad’s misdeeds?”
“He totally deserves it,” she chuckles. “Little shit.”
“Language.”
She rolls her eyes and finally turns to face him. “Whatever you say, bigger shit. No, biggest shit. Papi is bigger shit.”
“Sure. I doubt that has anything to do with hoarding razors, though,” prompts Jack.
The laptop in front of Sombra’s crossed legs crackles, like interference on an audio transmission, though no sound was coming through a moment before. “Fine, I’ll bite. I don’t want him to go to college.”
No surprise there. “He knows, Sombra, and that’s why he’s gonna come back all the time, remember? That’s why we moved in the first place. So you two could both have the support you need while you’re at school.”
“That makes it sound like he’s my therapist or something.”
Jack frowns. “He’s not. We’re all going to miss him, though, and it makes perfect sense for you to worry about how our family will change when he’s not around every day.”
“You two are already like high-class military helicopter dads,” she grumbles.
“I hope that’s a compliment.”
“Of course.”
Shaking his head, Jack nudges the pack of razors closer to her. “This is a really big deal for Jess. He was worried that it would take him way longer than other boys to start growing facial hair.”
“Yeah, I know.” She’s avoiding his eyes again, looking a bit guilty but mostly like she’d rather be moping in her hideout alone. “His life is so—he has so much fun now. Things happen to him, and he doesn’t have to go digging in the deep web for entertainment all day.”
Jack presses his lips together. “Again, the fifth page of an eBay search for some obscure computer part does not count as the ‘deep web.’”
“Like you would know,” she jabs back.
“Touché.” He rubs her back in a few slow circles, then takes his hand away before she gets too tense. To his surprise, she follows the touch, and ends up nearly faceplanting in his shoulder. “You know, if you can shave your fingers, you can handle a face. Why don’t you ask Gabe if you can help teach Jesse?”
She wrinkles her nose, but still turns to look up at him with guarded hope in her eyes. “Isn’t it some big father-son thing?”
“It can be, but you’re just as important to Jesse. And you’re also the only person in this house with a clean room at the moment. As far as I’m concerned, you can do whatever you want.”
Those are Sombra’s favorite words. She jumps up and grabs the razors off the floor, and before Jack can drag his middle-aged body off the floor, she’s already tumbling down the stairs at full speed. “Hey, jackasses!” he hears her shouting. “Dad says I can do whatever I want. You’re both getting haircuts!”
“That’s not what I meant,” Jack yells after her, not that she cares.
By the time he gets downstairs, Jesse and Sombra are swordfighting with razors—thankfully still capped—and Gabe is looking on in outright horror, unable to do much once his teenage children get this wild. Jack just bites sidles up to him and wraps his arm around his husband’s waist. “See, you can’t pay any more attention to one than the other, or else they get all survival-of-the-fittest in our brand new living room.”
“They definitely get this from you,” Gabe mutters.
“Slander.”
“If you say so, Mr. Statue.”
