it's been 6 months of me actually posting content and writing,
so here are my favourite things i've shared so far in a random order:
such is the life of a lobster [ how it feels to be afab in society ]
workshop poems [ first time writing poems !!! ]
will & nico being sad + queer [ writing chemistry and actually feeling it ?! woah ?! ]
dear prudence [ a happy, emotional letter // beatles reference bc idk how to describe this, it's just all the loveliness in the world ]
i implore y'all to read these, if anything of mine, to get to know my writing style or wtvvv i think these are most/what i wish to be representative of me :)
p.s. thank u for all the support these few months
p.p.s. i'd love to see other people make a post like this no matter the content!! [ not tagging anyone because i'm anxious and shy or wtv 💀 ]
"-and I fucking told you to leave the kid alone! What the fuck is your problem Jack?"
"I'm sorry I 'made him cry' but c'mon Blackie. He needs to toughen up a bit!"
"Toughen up? You called him-"
There was a loud slam followed by more yelling and Izzy did his best to ignore the fight. The eleven year old curling up further in his bed as he wrapped the pillow over his ears tighter. Biting back a sob as he heard his dad's voice get louder and louder. Clutching his possum plush, he clenched his eyes shut and tried to count backwards.
It started when they got home. It was surprisingly early considering the sun was still out when his dad and Jack stumbled in. The eleven year old was sat in front of the TV, eating the pre cooked dinner his dad left for him that morning. Izzy would've usually greeted his father but Jack was there too. Jack was just his dad's latest boyfriend and the less he acknowledged him, the easier it was. The smell of booze on them drifted through the air making Izzy frown further.
"They're in you're hand man." Jack laughed at his father's drunken state. Izzy gritted his teeth are he walked over to his dad and pulled on his shirt.
"You're not supposed to be drinking." His dad stared down at the child confused as the boy tried to lead him to the couch. "You told me you had a big meeting with the bank tomorrow."
"Bank? Oh fuck me, is the loan meeting tomorrow?" It was hard to forget. Izzy had seen his dad spend so much time into arranging a meeting so he could try to finally open the restaurant he'd been talking about. And then Jack came in and fucked everything up like he always did.
"C'mon man, forget the stupid bank." Jack brushed off Izzy's worries with a roll of his eyes. "Got more fun shit to do." Jack leaned into his father and none too quietly whispered. "Gonna keep you up all night." He giggled and Izzy watched his father do the same. Taking his father's arm, Jack began to lead him back into the bedroom but Izzy stood in front of them.
"You're leaving." The eleven year old spoke as assertively as he could. The other man staring down at him amused.
"Excuse me?" The man seemed slightly annoyed.
"Dad's gotta do something important tomorrow. You're just gonna ruin it like the last time." The answering machine was filled with messages from the bank and despite his dad trying to hide them, Izzy had seen the letters about final notices. Jack, as usual, didn't care. Instead this made him angry. Angrier than usual at least as he took his free hand and roughly jabbing Izzy in the chest with it.
"Listen here you little shit, you don't get to tell me what the fuck to do." Izzy watched his father snap to attention at this, pushing Jack away from his son.
"Hey, you don't get to lay a hand on my kid."
It spiralled from there until Izzy retreated to his room to hide from the two. Every shout and slam making the child wince until there was the telltale slam off the front door slamming shut. A minute passing before there was a knock on his door.
"Iz?" His father's voice called out. "Can I come in?"
"...is Jack still here?" As he spoke, Izzy realized how hoarse his voice was.
"No. Jack...Jack left. For good this time." Izzy peaked out from his pillows before going over and unlocking the door for his father. He looked just as upset as Izzy. The boy carefully helping his still very drunk father over to his neck to sit down. The man moaned as he lifted his leg and Izzy noticed he wasn't wearing his knee brace. The child took a seat next to him. They sat there in an awkward silence when Izzy spoke.
"I'm sorry..." Izzy cried. "I didn't mean to-I'm always messing up."
"Wha? Hey, hey, don't say that." Ed sat straight up. Wrapping his arms around Izzy in a hug as the child continued to cry. "Don't say that. You didn't do anything wrong." He pressed a kiss into Izzy's forehead before tightening his grip.
"I didn't?"
"No. Of course not." Izzy looked up to see his father tearing up as he spoke. "I'm the one who messed up. I should've known better." Ed rocked the boy slightly in an attempt to calm his child. "Izzy, I promise, there's nothing more important to me than you."
Thank you to everyone for your support! I hope ya’ll are enjoying the stuff I put on this blog!
So for new and old followers here’s some stuff about me and a mini writing showcase:
Tumblr username: Segadores-y-soldados
AO3 username: clickclickBANG
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SegadorYSoldado (I am very new at the bird website, please send help)
Semi-personal info: transdude from California, please use he/him for me
Semi-relevant skills: slowly improving my Spanish - feel free to correct my nonsense (also, 00halle, I saw your comment - I’ve been meaning to respond! Thank you again for the offer, I super appreciate it and will be coming to you with some questions when I get a chance)
Content: All Overwatch stuff, lots of Reaper76 shippy stuff - be sure to look at my About page to find my other ships I’ll reblog
Things I’m most well-known for: My essays (tagged as “my essays”) including references on Reaper, Soldier, and Ana; little dialogue scenarios (tagged as “dumb stuff”), usually involving Reaper/Gabriel and Soldier/Jack in some way; doing research on lore and locational stuff in Overwatch; writing fics about Gabriel and Jack being ridiculous smartasses who are in love (and oftentimes the poor people who have to witness their shenanigans).
Little writing showcase:
SEP: Sunsets (written for the amazing Vapewraith!)
They’re in one of the halls of the SEP facility - tucked away into a deep mountainside “somewhere out west,” the building is hard angles and brutal concrete and cut-steel, as soft as titanium and as gentle as the injections they get every morning and evening. Yet even here, in “wherever’s-range,” there is still beauty: the massive windows, normally just cold, crystalline glass, are open to the sunset, bleeding colors across the land and sky, dripping into the hallway with the vibrancy of oil paints. Reds smoke into bright, endless pinks, golds melt into bold, sunshine yellows, oranges shift into liquid amber, and at the edges of the atmosphere, velvet purples sigh into silky blues, tinting the more vivid colors and steeped clouds with the dusk of night and the emerging stars.
It’s a sight neither Gabriel nor Jack will ever get tired of -
No matter how exhausted they are.
“The doctors will see you shortly -” the SEP instructor starts to say, reappearing at the far end of the hallway, before he looks up from the papers on his clipboard and scowls at the group of crumbling supersoldiers, snapping, “Is that what you call ‘lining up?’”
“Maybe if y’all didn’t work us so damn hard,” Number: 141 growls, his voice climbing into a hoarse yell, “We’d still have the energy to fucking stand!”
There are shouts of agreement and calls of “Yeah that!” and quiet mumbles of assent. Gabriel huffs to himself, sliding himself onto the concrete barrier and trying his hardest not to wince as his muscles settle into a sitting position. He’s used to hard work and even harder workouts, but today had been…brutal. 3 am running through the facility and into the mountains and back, to 10 am sparring and boxing and hand-to-hand combat, to 1 pm “simulation training” where they ran teams in rubber-bullet fire-fights, to 4 pm regulated work outs of push ups and squats and curls, to now - 8 pm - where they fall to their pieces in concrete hallways, waiting for doctors to take their biodata and continue churning them into statistics for the U.S. government before jamming more needles in their arms and sending them to brutal, uncomfortable cots in the dorms.
Jack slides himself up next to Gabriel, sighing just loud enough for his best friend to hear, “Today…was pretty bad.”
“Would’ve been easier on you if you hadn’t burned yourself out on those push ups,” Gabriel grunts back, pulling a pack of cigarettes from a pant pocket. He taps one out, muttering with some confusion, “Why were you doing all those one-armed push ups?”
Old Habits (aka “the big fic”) - Rating: T - Action/Adventure for R76:
“PULL BACK,” Reaper’s shouting at the three goons who got blasted the fuck back with a concussive rocket, “ASSHOLES, THOSE ARE HELIX MARK VI, IF THEY FIRE A REAL ROCKET YOU’RE FUCKING DEAD.”
Louis is, remarkably, the only one who stays on his feet, although now that they’re all wearing their visors it’s getting difficult to tell who’s who. The other two roll backwards, flipping over a few times before slamming into the cliff wall behind them. Reaper could fucking push both of them off the ledge and into the depths of the canyon with how annoyed he is at them, but that’s not important right now.
Three of the Helix fliers pop up from behind the rock ledge, hovering just a bit above the ground - low enough to get shelter again, but just high enough to give them a subtle height and maneuverability advantage over the Talon and Deadlock ground units. He hears Widowmaker and Henri fire off a few more rounds, but distant screams are the only reward for that - they’re aiming at the U.S. military soldiers who are stupidly rappelling down from the stable parts of the train still up on the tracks and making themselves easy targets.
“Widowmaker, Helix units, on the ground, below you!” Reaper growls out over the comms before he fucking dematerializes -
- and reforms himself directly behind the three Helix fliers.
God, that hurt like a FUCK.
He punches one of them in the back to make up for it.
FUCK THAT FUCKING HURT TOO
WHY DIDN’T HE JUST FUCKING SHOOT THEM LIKE A REGULAR ASSHOLE
(More under the cut)
76 + 127: How We Were Made - Rating: E - Reaper76 SEP fic
Jack stands by one of the dull, concrete walls and bends himself over before slowly reverse-walking his legs up the side. The rush of blood to his already throbbing head just makes it feel worse, but the weird mix of exhaustion and energy courses through him and he -
He cannot tell if he wants to fight something
Or fuck something.
...Probably both.
That was the other thing: the fucking raging mix of hormones and chemicals - both natural and artificial - had only cranked individual personalities, energies, attentions, aggressions, and desires to the fucking max. It had been apparent from the day of orientation that all 150 of them were between 18 and 25 years old - all physically fit, largely martially-oriented people from a multitude of military programs across the country. Jack and Gabriel had been the top two picks from West Point, but Jack had recognized a handful of the others as being from the academy - like three upperclassmen and ten lowerclassmen and two from their own group - Adrien and Sarah.
So yeah
Of course both fighting and fucking had started occurring within the first week.
Pinche mierda, there had been packets of lube and condoms in their supply chests in their bunk rooms from the very first day onwards. The program directors had certainly known what to expect from a bunch of high-energy, high-intensity young adults.
Jack sighs again, not sure if he loves or hates the pressure in his head and neck, before pushing his arms up off his elbows and onto his hands.
Upside-down push-ups suck.
Gabriel’s wide, smug, fucking charming grin flashes into his head.
Sharpshooter: Hit Me Like A Drum - Rating: T - McHanzo meeting fic
Jesse flicks his eyes from the apparent quiver back to the man’s amazing face and his dark eyes and immediately knows two things:
1 - This man is absolutely the most handsome person Jesse has ever had the blessed fortune of meeting.
2 - He does not understand a word coming out of the man’s mouth.
“...Pardon?” Jesse asks absently, blinking awkwardly. The...archer (?) tilts his head a little and scowls a bit - oh jackrabbit turds, I pissed him right off - before saying in flawless English, “It is your turn.”
Oh. Jesse thinks lamely. English.
“Oh uh, thanks, partner,” Jesse says awkwardly, glancing back towards the counter where one of the chefs is waiting with an expression of stern politeness that is fading into increasing annoyance. Jesse makes eye contact with the chef and she gives him a small handwave of “hurry up, tourist, I don’t have all day.”
“Uh…” Jesse glances back sheepishly at the man behind me, giving him an embarrassed smile, “You wouldn’t happen to know which one is the spicy pork ramen, would you?”
The man’s scowl fades for a quick second before returning, and he says with startlingly serious focus, “Oh. You can’t read it.”
“Uh…no, sorry ‘bout that, darlin’,” Jesse apologizes without thinking and the man raises an eyebrow, asking, “‘Darling?’”
OH FUCK ME AND MY DUMB ASS
Why, yes, please do, the wiseass side of Jesse cracks in his head and he fucking flounders over the barrage of shame and embarrassment and attraction.
“Oh, damn, shit, sorry - oh cheese on a cracker, I shouldn’t be swearing, oh god you’re gonna think I was never taught manners - shoot, sugar, I’m so sorry, it’s a bad habit I got from my pa and - Shit, I just did it again - sorry, it’s been a long trip here and, oh Lord, I just swore again, this is so embarrassing -”
A startled look of wonder blossoms on the man’s face and if Jesse wasn’t so fucking flustered, he would love to try and mentally catalogue how the man looks so open and surprised. Jesse is in the middle of tripping over his words when the unthinkable happens.
A miracle occurs.
The man gives a surprisingly broad and genuinely happy grin and starts to laugh.
The cord is held in your hand after being quickly pulled from the wall. You’re kneeled down to the floor near your computer while you’re trying to catch your breath. Now the PC has been unplugged.
It all happened so fast. First, you remembered your mouse on the “Reset Character” button and now you’ve rushed to unplug your device.
As you begin to lie down, your eyes water while your mind tries to comprehend everything that’s happened.
That Natural Disaster game was the perfect moment to just let it happen. A chance to leave all of this behind, but there was a rush that hit you like a speeding train, you felt your heart pounding, and you exit out of the menu at the last second. Why did you hesitate? Why did you do that?
Maybe it was the thought of death that horrified you. Thinking about what happens after that, and where you go. Your vision feels blurry, and you begin to shut your eyes with tears streaming down your face. You place the empty hand on your thumping heart as your body begins to feel numb and heavy. You were so close to just letting it happen because you are so tired from all this. Tired from the constant encounters, the stars, the distancing from your friends—
Your friends.
Suddenly, you remembered that interaction with Dragon. You’ve sent him two quick messages, you told him that you could do his video. But look at where you are now. You’ve left him hanging, just like how you’ve done multiple times before. He’s been waiting for weeks, holding it off for you. You’ve messed up and ran away again. You always mess up.
But you can’t bring yourself to get online right now. Despite how much you want to go back for Dragon, you need a moment to pull yourself together. After all, you almost died. You look up trying to find the clock. 11:01 PM. It’s only been a couple minutes. You take a deep breath, wipe the tears off your eyes, and get up from the floor albeit you had a hard time balancing yourself. You walk over to your room, doing your best to keep your footsteps silent. You know you’ll barely get any sleep tonight, especially after that, but you didn’t wanna continue laying down on the floor like that.
As you head to your room, with blinds already covering the window and the door being shut, you immediately lay down on your back on the bed. Your eyes feel blank as they stare at the ceiling, your chest still aching a little.
You’ll continue the video with Dragon tomorrow. Just apologize and tell him that your parents called you. He’ll surely believe that. Keep making excuses and hopefully, that guilt will fade. It’s for the better.
i’m gonna use ellipsus as a way to send in my writings from now on cuz I don’t have dark mode on for google docs and I don’t like being flashbanged all the time
here is a platonic sixtyspades fic that’s will to live related. Just smth light-hearted as I work on other stuff https://write.ellipsus.com
Hit another follower milestone the other day and like holy hell, I just cannot believe there are so many of you hanging out here?? Seriously, thank you for all the love and support, especially on that “Gabriel/Reaper is mlm/gay-coded” post. It meant so much to me to see all the people supporting it in the tags.
Normally when I hit these follower milestones, I do a little introduction about who I am for newcomers and to help older followers remember who I am and what I’m about. In this one, I’m gonna do something a little different. I’m gonna do a small showcase of my writing.
Tumblr username: Segadores-y-soldados
AO3 username: clickclickBANG
Semi-personal info: transdude from California, please use he/him for me
Semi-relevant skills: slowly improving my Spanish - feel free to correct my nonsense
Content: All Overwatch stuff, lots of Reaper76 shippy stuff - be sure to look at my About page to find my other ships I’ll reblog
Works Showcase:
Old Habits (Rating: T - Action/Adventure - slow-burn Reaper76):
“We’re gonna blow the train - ”
“Do you think that maybe - just maybe - blowing up a bridge with a fucking military-grade bomb on it is...not a great idea?” Reaper growls, and Widowmaker shoots him another bitter glare.
Hernandez, genius military strategist that he is not, frowns a little at this, before saying, “Ya know… we’re just gonna have to roll with it because we don’t got any other options.”
“...We could hijack the train?” You know, like normal terrorist assholes.
“Nah, they got extra security on there - brought in some fancy Helix guards from Egypt itself after that shitshow in Grand Mesa two days ago. Gonna be extra tough to stop it without heavy fire power.”
This is a recipe for disaster.
“Anyways, y’all ain’t even gonna be at the blast site,” Hernandez continues, sliding onto the crude overhead map of the gorge. Reaper can see some of the buildings that line the winding road of Deadlock Gorge, as Hernandez points a baton of a finger at some of the buildings closest to the entrance to the Deadlock base, “Y’all are gonna be here and here - ” he points to a tunnel on the southern side of the map, cut into the cliffs, “We think that posting y’all up in the tunnel o’ mysteries here and in the guard house here - ” he moves his hand to the building on the north side of the road, the one built into the bluff, “ - will best suit our needs. The gang and I - we’re gonna be out here, in the diner - ” he moves his finger to the far west side of the map, to the building almost directly under the blast site, “ - so that we can jump on the cargo rapido, get ‘em while they’re surprised. If everything goes according to plan, we’ll meet up with y’all at the first gate here, and it should be smooth sailing into the base.”
“Except for the part where the military and Helix fucking rain hellfire on us, right?” Reaper asks, and he sees some of the Talon agents glance at each other, “Cause you didn’t mention that part.”
“Well, yeah, no shit they’re gonna be pissed. But don’t you worry your ugly little head, hombre de craneo, we’re gonna take care of the worst of ‘em. Got us some heavy duty shit, if you know what I mean.” Hernandez flashes a toothy grin and Reaper rolls his eyes.
Blowing up a bridge, a military-grade bomb, and rocket launchers.
Fucking swell.
“Why even bring us here if you weren’t gonna let Widowmaker snipe for you?” Reaper asks sourly.
“Well, uh…” Hernandez stumbles over his genius military strategy, “She can, uh...snipe from the cliffside where you’re at.”
“Does it have a view for sniping?” he snaps at the gang leader who mumbles, “I...uh...don’t know?”
Reaper sighs, rubbing at the forehead of his mask as if that would help clear up his real headache at all before muttering, “Alright, listen, here’s a better plan -”
“No one asked you, cabrón -”
“No, no one did, but you know, Widowmaker can’t fail this mission and, frankly, right now, this mission is a failure. How ‘bout instead, we’re gonna be posted here, on this cliff - ” Reaper points a talon at the cliff just east across the road from the diner, but on the non-blast side, “ - Widowmaker and - which one of you assholes can snipe? Oh, Henri, right - Widowmaker and Henri will be up here, and once the blast is cleared, you two will start sniping the wreck survivors. If they’ve brought in Helix from Egypt, that means Raptora Mark VI units, which are fliers with rocket power, so you’re gonna want snipers on the scene ASAP. Me and these other assholes, we’re gonna be posted up in this ground tunnel just beneath Widowmaker and Henri, so we can help out with some of the ground units that are bound to show up - they always fucking do. If we move fast, we can get the payload past this cliff and by this building here before they even know what hit them. AT THAT POINT, we can start fanning back out - no need to put all of our eggs in one basket, that’s just begging for us all to get blown the fuck up. Widowmaker’s squad will back out to the positions you originally suggested, but we’ll crawl on it, moving behind that building and up to the tunnels by the first gate. There’s gotta be a second or even third military train of support for this - there’s no way in fucking hell they’re letting this go with only one train. That means backup will be hitting us just before the first gate if we’re unlucky, or just past it if we’re lucky - we want it to be past the first gate as soon as fucking possible, so that we can block them off if need be. Shoring up these tunnels around the gate is gonna be a pain in the ass, why do you even have them here? But well, I guess we’ll just have to fucking deal with them. I don’t like the look of this curve with all these buildings here - ridiculously fucking open to airstrikes and heavy ground-level pushes, but we’ll just have to ambush them out of the buildings instead - I take it you don’t give a shit if these shitholes are still standing after this?”
Reaper pauses, but when the tractor of a man doesn’t respond, he finally looks up from the map to see that…
Oh.
They’re all staring at him.
Oh shit.
---------
76 + 127: How We Were Made (Rating: Explicit - Reaper76 (SEP-era Morreyeson)):
Even now, Jack knows Gabriel has already found a way out of his cell.
Jack just has no idea what he did.
Think outside the box, he can practically hear Gabriel whisper incessantly to him in his rattling, loose brain.
I can’t, Gabe - I’m fucking trapped inside the box.
You just gotta assess the situation critically. You have advantages, Jack - you just gotta find them.
Advantages.
Sure.
Being locked in a cell has zero advantages over a guard in light body armor and a rubber-bullet gun.
The haze of sleepiness and exhaustion and pent-up frustration and roiling, thunderous energy in his veins is killing every idea in his head.
Look at your situation, think of what you have that 16 or 14 doesn’t.
“...So you are you gonna suck 16’s dick or nah?” 83 asks him vaguely from across the hall.
Sucking dicks is thinking outside the box, right? Jack half-wonders to himself, half to whatever sliver of Gabriel exists in his exhausted mind. He can practically see Gabriel’s shrug - Gabriel would understand if Jack sucked a dick to get out of jail. Gabriel would probably do that himself.
Had Gabriel sucked his guard’s dick for the key?
The thought alone makes his head pound harder.
Jack grunts, “Fuck off. Get 99 to do it.”
“Dude, I fucking will,” 99 whines but 100 snorts, “16 won’t want you, asshole. At least 76 is attractive.”
Reflexively, Jack makes a face as 78 chuckles.
“Y’all know I fucking hear you, right?” Jack asks loudly and 100 calls back, “Oh, we know. We just don’t care.”
Think, Jack. Think about your advantages.
I don’t have any, Gabriel. You can think outside of the box. I can’t. I’m not like you. I’m not good enough. Not smart enough.
I’m inside the box.
I’ve always been inside the box.
---------
(More content under the cut)
---------
Sharpshooter: Hit Me Like A Drum (Rating: T - McHanzo):
At this point in his life, Jesse is used to the stares. Doesn’t matter where he goes, people oogle him. Well, okay, not entirely true - some parts of Central and Southern America still got some authentic vaqueros and oddly enough some banditos, but even there, Jesse’s height makes him stand easily above most heads and shoulders.
And yes, okay, maaaaybe the hat doesn’t help. But he’ll let the Devil drag him to Hell kicking and screaming before giving up the damn thing.
So he barely notices the glances the poor patrons of Rikimaru are shooting his way when someone behind him taps him just above his right elbow.
Jesse jerks a little, startling out of his semi-mosing thoughts and vacant-eyed stare at the menu to twist and little and glance behind him and oh Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the Arizona Diamondbacks, what a gorgeous face.
The man behind him is a beautiful mix of high, sweeping curves and careful angles - his face is fairly chiseled but features a softness to it that is offset by the neatly trimmed beard and steady glint in his deep, dark eyes. His jet-black hair, peppered on the sides with some strands of grey, is pulled back into a small ponytail at the back of his head, and Jesse thinks he sees a long yellow...ribbon holding it back. But otherwise the man is dressed in a simple sweatshirt and some black jeans except that -
Is that a fucking bow and quiver? Jesse wonders. The man is not much shorter than him - only a few inches - but Jesse can see something slung over his shoulder and something else that looks suspiciously like a bunch of arrow feathers poking out from behind his back.
Jesse flicks his eyes from the apparent quiver back to the man’s amazing face and his dark eyes and immediately knows two things:
1 - This man is absolutely the most handsome person Jesse has ever had the blessed fortune of meeting.
2 - He does not understand a word coming out of the man’s mouth.
“...Pardon?” Jesse asks absently, blinking awkwardly. The...archer (?) tilts his head a little and scowls a bit - oh jackrabbit turds, I pissed him right off - before saying in flawless English, “It is your turn.”
Oh. Jesse thinks lamely. English.
“Oh uh, thanks, partner,” Jesse says awkwardly, glancing back towards the counter where one of the chefs is waiting with an expression of stern politeness that is fading into increasing annoyance. Jesse makes eye contact with the chef and she gives him a small handwave of “hurry up, tourist, I don’t have all day.”
“Uh…” Jesse glances back sheepishly at the man behind me, giving him an embarrassed smile, “You wouldn’t happen to know which one is the spicy pork ramen, would you?”
The man’s scowl fades for a quick second before returning, and he says with startlingly serious focus, “Oh. You can’t read it.”
“Uh…no, sorry ‘bout that, darlin’,” Jesse apologizes without thinking and the man raises an eyebrow, asking, “‘Darling?’”
OH FUCK ME AND MY DUMB ASS
Why, yes, please do, the wiseass side of Jesse cracks in his head and he fucking flounders over the barrage of shame and embarrassment and attraction.
“Oh, damn, shit, sorry - oh cheese on a cracker, I shouldn’t be swearing, oh god you’re gonna think I was never taught manners - shoot, sugar, I’m so sorry, it’s a bad habit I got from my pa and - Shit, I just did it again - sorry, it’s been a long trip here and, oh Lord, I just swore again, this is so embarrassing -”
A startled look of wonder blossoms on the man’s face and if Jesse wasn’t so fucking flustered, he would love to try and mentally catalogue how the man looks so open and surprised. Jesse is in the middle of tripping over his words when the unthinkable happens.
A miracle occurs.
The man gives a surprisingly broad and genuinely happy grin and starts to laugh.
---------
Segador: It Is Not Him (Rating - T):
Gabriel practically jogs up to her in the hallway to the main entrance, muttering, “Gabrielle… Gabrielle… Adawe, fucking stop.”
That gets her attention, and she snaps around towards him with a fierce stare, squaring herself up to him rather impressively with her short stature as she whispers dangerously, “Do not take that tone of voice with me, Gabriel -”
“I can’t do this.”
Adawe pauses because -
There’s a cracking in his voice.
Gabriel knows he has problems conveying his emotions - Jack always jokes that Gabriel’s face could make a bed of nails look soft. Gabriel knows he has problems expressing himself - he can never find the right words to say. Gabriel knows he has problems opening up - his heart struggles behind the layers of steel and bravado and taunting sarcasm, barriers only a select few have managed to get past.
Gabriel knows he has problems taking pictures.
Gabriel locks onto her dark eyes and -
He wouldn’t call it begging, per se -
But he’s definitely pleading with her:
“Please… Please, Gabrielle - we need to talk about this,” he says softly and Adawe’s dark mood lightens a bit as she says to him gently, “...It is just a few pictures, Gabriel.”
“...It’s not the pictures, Gabrielle.”
Adawe’s eyes - normally so bright and lively, now turned solemn and serious - search his for an answer and Gabriel whispers, dangerously close to feeling vulnerable -
He feels uncomfortable.
He feels unlike himself.
“This isn’t me, Gabrielle,” Gabriel says, his voice breaking under the pressure of a too-tight headset and the pressure of a too-tight chestpiece and the weight of carrying an empty rifle that isn’t his, “The meetings, the Security Council, planning city reconstructions, balancing budgets - I’m a general, not a politician.”
“There are still many parts of the world under great violence, Gabriel,” she reminds him, with a gentle pressure but a pressure nonetheless, “The world still needs you as Commander.”
“Out there, on the battlefield, sure, yeah, fuck, I’ll fight, I’ll always fight, but this?” Gabriel says, gesturing to himself, to the ridiculous blue pieces of armor and the empty rifle, “This is playing fucking dress-up -”
“Funny,” Adawe smirks at him, “I thought you would have liked that, considering your fondness for that American costume holiday.”
“This isn’t fucking Halloween, Adawe,” he snaps, perhaps a touch more...violently than he should have, “This is not what I wore when I was ripping heads off Bastions or tripping up Spiders or even destroying Titans - and it won’t be what I wear when I put down terrorists or gangs or mercenaries.”
“It’s just a photoshoot, Reyes -”
“We need to talk about putting Jack or Ana in charge of Overwatch.”
Adawe stops, her mouth sealing into a tight line and Gabriel scowls at her, muttering in a low, dark, bittersweet growl, his words curling out of his lungs like black smoke, “I’ll fight whatever new battles this damn organization faces, I’ll do whatever needs to be done - whether that’s mercing a few bad guys or cleaning up the leftover Bastions or fucking balancing budgets - but you cannot keep putting this off on me. We both know that this is a fucking sham, my math skills aren’t fucking great, I can't persuade anyone anything for shit, and you need someone who will fight your political battles, who will balance your budgets, who will find great recruits, and who will actually take good photos when you pressure them into it -
