"I don't have a lot of time left." Gabriel wasn't sure how he could make that more clear— she'd seen the results. The report was laid open right in front of her in a manila envelope. "Six months, if we're being optimistic." He was not very good at being optimistic.

Moira O'Deorain had been under his command for approximately two years. She carried a reputation over her shoulders, flowing like a battle flag dipped in blood. It was part of why he wanted to reach out to her. Traditional methods weren't working.

Back in the day he and Jack had been considered rebels. When the structure of the world fell apart, the only people who thrived were agents of chaos like them. Like McCree. Bringing him to heel had been easier than expected. Under all the turmoil McCree had a hunger in him for something none of them dared to name, though they all felt it keenly.

So Gabriel collected his misfits down in the dungeons of Blackwatch, trying to keep some of that old spark alive for when it was inevitably needed.

Even if no one wanted to admit it, there was always a need for people like them.

Her prolonged silence pulled him out of his own thoughts, and he was startled to see Moira staring at him intensely. The sheaves of paper rested under her spidery fingers, splayed out as though she would have fought him for them.

"Then give them to me." O'Deorain's expression was even, but her eyes wavered slightly, trying to drink him up without being too obvious about it. They burned like candle flames, shivering with that same hunger he saw in all of his Blackwatch recruits.

Not many things surprised him anymore. "What?"

"Your six months. What little life and time you have." Her palm was cold and dry, resting over his as she leaned forward, more earnest than he'd ever seen her.

"Give what's left to me."

Gabriel took his mother out of Los Angeles before the omnic fighting ever reached its fullest fury. Of course nowhere was truly safe, but the Northwest was slightly better protected. His father died six months into the crisis. Overexposure to Omnium radiation gave him cancer. One moment he was here, the next he was gone.

So he wasn't surprised to find out the same fate awaited him, down to the life expectancy. The only part that unsettled him was the sense that this had somehow been delayed. What had he done to escape it for over a decade? It hit so many other people right away. Who else among his squadron would wake up coughing blood and aching head to toe? Who else had been exposed, and when, and how long, and should he try to warn them?

In all likelihood, it was that serum they injected him and Jack with that kept the sickness at bay as long as it had.

While he was visiting his mother, O'Deorain caught up to him in the Pacific Northwest. She cut an unmistakable figure on the rocky coast, sharp shoulders and a sleek black profile. Still he didn't quite believe his eyes until she was in front of him, cheeks flushed with cold and a scowl on her face.

"There you are. I've been looking all over for you," she said. Chiding, as though it was an error on his part that he'd been somewhere out of reach. Setting down her briefcase at their feet, she dropped to one knee and rummaged through it, humming and speaking conversationally. "Luckily I was able to finish this ahead of my projected timeline."

Straightening up to her full, impressive height, she looked down at him and took his hand. "Roll up your sleeve."

That second part was delivered dry and clipped, like they would talk on missions. Gabriel found himself reacting to it instinctively, because she was his medic and he knew better than to argue with her when she slowly pushed down the plunger of a needle, injecting him with God-Knows-What.

O'Deorain slapped a bandaid on it and disposed of the needle in a bag she'd brought with her. Nearby the waves crashed against the coast, each time sending up a spray of fine mist. She blinked a few times, squinting at him. "In around two hours we'll administer the second round of injections. Perhaps it's better we're doing this where there are no cameras."

If she was going to play it like this, he would respond in kind. "You want to tell me what the fuck is going on, Fate?"

Her lips twitched. That was her callsign before he drafted her into Blackwatch, from the centerfold to the underbelly.

"You came to me and said you'd give me your six months," Moira reminded him. "If you've changed your mind, let me know. Otherwise every day is valuable time wasted."

Gabriel understood the numb ache of sudden deaths very well. A soldier sniped right next to him, or a family member wasting away to an illness with no discernable hope for a cure. He'd been on the other end, now it was his turn.

He felt sad for the people he'd leave behind. For Jack and Ana, left with the task of rebuilding their broken world without him. But mostly he was pissed off and impatient.

Maybe that's why he went to Moira first. Something about her felt cold and detached and he didn't want to console anyone just yet. He wasn't sure her pragmatism was much of a step up from anguished wailing, though.

"So you wanted me to be your new guinea pig?" Gabriel asked. "You think you can... fix this?"

"People only come to me when they need something." Moira fixed his sleeve, but left her fingertips on his forearm. "What did you think I meant?"

He wasn't quite sure, now that she asked. Considering his past, it wouldn't be odd for her to assume he'd be game to playing someone else's lab rat again. The Soldier Enhancement Program had made him and Jack what they were, hadn't it?

Except when she asked for his life, it hadn't sounded like that at all. It had felt like the oddest love confession he'd ever received.

Maybe it was sad and pathetic that he'd thought that at all. But Moira was here, offering him a chance. That couldn't go without some acknowledgement, some quid quo pro.

"Where are you staying?" he asked instead of answering her question.

"Local base," Moira said. Overwatch had living arrangements for transient agents, even black sheep and exiles like her. "Didn't want to waste money on a hotel."

He checked his tablet, seeing the last message from his mother. Lunch was ready, if he wanted any. There would surely be enough for a guest. "Got any plans?"

"None. Perhaps I will stay here and enjoy the coast, since I've never been to this section of the globe before." She glanced over at the ocean. Gleaming white filtration systems, for the town's water supply, rose up like whale ribs out of the charcoal waves. Moira's unsettlingly bright eyes narrowed in thought as she studied them. "This weather reminds me of home."

It was drizzling, he realized then as he tore his attention away from her to look at the sky. A low gray mist settled over the entire world. He hadn't noticed it at first, mistaking it for the cold ocean's spray. "Most people say it's kinda shit."

"And I said something to contradict that?"

Gabriel huffed in laughter, breath fogging up in the cold.

"Come on," he said, extending a hand to her. "If we need to reconvene in two hours anyway, you might as well come home with me."

Most of Gabriel's love affairs started with a surge of passion, heat, excitement at the unknown. Like striking a match. With Moira, it was more like skipping stones on a lake. Surging forward, jagged and unsteady, but reaching an incredible distance in a very short amount of time.

They leapfrogged over the awkward firsts, landing squarely in a place that was decidedly domestic.

I mean, I introduced her to my mother on the first date.

Moira never pretended she didn't love a dying man, which he was grateful for. More than once he returned to that initial conversation in her lab, why he'd approached her and no one else, how Moira never properly explained what she meant when she asked for his life. But he'd given it to her the only way he knew how, and she treated it with respect. That was good; he suspected by the end of this he'd have very little dignity left.

Again, objectively, this was sad and probably a little pathetic. But it never felt like that, not once.

"What'll you do if I don't die?" Gabriel asked her, sitting on the edge of the examination table in nothing but his boxer shorts. She smoothed electrodes over his bare skin, brushing her gloved fingers once over his buzzed head.

"That would be a very pleasant surprise," was all she said.

He had to struggle not to approach this relationship like it was a wary animal, cautious and slow to avoid frightening her. They didn't really have... time for that. Even when, through some miracle, she managed to fix his lungs and extend his life expectancy by another five months.

He pulled her down by the back of her neck, bowing her head so he could kiss the crown of her head.

"Eleven out of twelve ain't bad."

At first they didn't tell anyone what they were doing, not the least because most of it was highly illegal. Moira was taking advantage of a dying man to test out all her theories. He was her superior officer. They never signed a release form, they never sat down and properly stitched out every inch of consent and bodily autonomy. If anyone found out, he would probably be fine— threats and punishments never dissuaded him in the past, and that was before he had a guillotine hanging over his neck. The consequences, the fallout, they would all be hers.

But in the end, they knew they couldn't keep it secret forever. Especially when he changed.

It first happened when they were in bed. Not like that. Moira had a habit of sprawling out over his chest when the hour grew late. Almost like a lean, lanky, bony cat.

She pressed her ear to his chest. "Let me hear your heartbeat, Gabriel," she murmured sleepily, her tablet held loosely in one hand. On the screen were more theoretical formulas, ways to try and reengineer him, to stop the spread of cancerous cells and regrow what was destroyed by their rapidfire chemo.

She kept lifting her head occasionally to look at it, squinting in exhaustion, refusing to relax until he started stroking her hair.

"Need to make sure my pulse is good?"

"Need to make sure your pulse is good," she agreed in another mumble, this time muffled as she kissed his neck. Soon she was asleep. Then it was exactly like having a big cat on top of him, and he couldn't risk moving and waking her.

She was still fully dressed, so he carefully worked the knot of her tie loose and unbuttoned her collar. The tablet fell out of her limp hand, sliding down the blanket.

That's when his comm started buzzing off the hook, an endless flood of messages. Shit. He tried to reach for it without moving Moira too much, straining, his fingers stretched out towards the bedside table.

If he could only reach a little further, if he could only stretch a little more—

He slipped out from under her, collapsing into ink and blood and gas. Searing pain lanced him from head to toe as he rematerialized on the other side of the room, drenched in sweat and panting heavily.

"What the fuck!?"

Moira snapped awake, on the edge of the bed on her hands and knees to stare down at him in alarm.

"Oh," she said. "Shit."

"I hate wasting my time with this," she said the next day, rolling up her own sleeve, tapping the needle. She sat on the edge of the examination table. "But we do need a healthy subject as a control group."

He glowered at her from the doorway, arms crossed. "So you didn't intend for this to happen."

"I didn't intend for this to happen. I thought we could sublimate the cancerous cells into gas, mark them somehow and then vaporize them, making them easier to expunge—"

"You were going to have me fart myself to a cure?"

"Reyes." They were on a first name basis by now, of course. The surname was only busted out when she was really mad.

Very few things got under her skin so thoroughly as when he made light of her research.

But she wasn't the one turning into a gas monster, was she? "You know they were trying to make heart medication when they invented viagra?" he said. "This could be your viagra. Gas boys!"

"Don't be an absolute bleeding tick about this." Moira refused to look at him, instead moving on with her plan. But she was a hard stick, and it was harder when she was stressed, her hands unsteady and shaking.

So he stopped her before she could continue, one hand around her wrist. "No." He stepped closer, forcing her hand onto the table. "No more. We're done."

"This is just a minor setback, Reyes, we can't let this intimidate us—" Mismatched eyes glared up at him, softened only when he kissed her gently.

He could feel her struggle, confused and angry. She recoiled only to lean in again, dropping the needle to grasp the back of his neck and pull him closer.

Her legs wrapped around his waist, ankles hooked together on the small of his back. Kissing her deeper, Gabriel untucked her shirt to touch her bare stomach. The soft white flesh twitched at every little contact, a moan turning into a whimper as he ground his hips forward.

They were the only ones down here. The sound of their lips parting was terribly loud in that silence, as she grasped his head to push him further down, directing him where she wanted to be kissed.

"You smell good," he said, kissing her fondly on the cheek before moving lower to slowly suck a mark onto the hollow of her neck.

"This is an attempt to sabotage me." Sharp talons never sank in deep, but scratched soothing lines down his scalp, encouraging and gentle.

"No, you do. You smell like a nice perfume. The kind with high-budget commercials." He pulled back to splay his hands wide, dramatically. "Handsome by Versace."

"That's not a real perfume."

"It should be. The official O'Deorain scent."

Her lips pursed, to stop herself from shooting back. After a moment of thought, she teased down the zipper of his hoodie. Gaze sharpening with want, she spread her hands to open it wider, rubbing her fingertips over his chest like she was in someone else's house, and wasn't sure what she was allowed to touch. "Distracting me with something you think I'd like is a cheap move."

It never occurred to him that she thought he might be faking this. "What," he said, one palm over hers to press it flat against his skin, giving quiet permission for her to touch wherever, however she wanted. "You don't think I want this too?

"Oh no, Gabriel." She was quick to correct him. A sharp smile sliced through her hesitation as she lifted up her chin, displaying self confidence that bordered on audacity. "Of that I have no doubt."

Then she relaxed, reluctantly letting him go. Her solid black dress shoes clicked onto the floor as she stood up, her hands still lingering on his chest. "But the sooner we discuss this, the better." She paused to kiss him once more. "You wish to cease experimentation?"

"If it means you'll stop shooting yourself up with mystery trial drugs, then yes."

"It's the quickest path to figuring out what's wrong," Moira pointed out. "More test subjects, more data."

"You'd be in danger because of me."

Her head quirked to the side. "It wouldn't be the first time."

The worst part was he couldn't disagree. He'd been there on her first mission for Blackwatch, hadn't he? Moira had been still signing off as 'Fate' back then. She'd asked him to help her shave and shape her new beret. In retrospect he wondered if that was just an excuse to talk to him. He wondered a lot of things in retrospect, recently.

"As much as I hate to admit it, I'm being stretched thin," Moira continued, hands still wandering but staying chaste for now. "If I could devote myself entirely to this project, we'd soar by leaps and bounds." Her hands rested on his arms, squeezing them to convey how serious this was. "I need more freedom. I need more funding."

"And," Moira added reluctantly, "I probably need Angela."

A million red alerts went up in his head. "How is asking your ex-wife to help your boyfriend a good idea, again?"

Moira's devious little grin reappeared. "Boyfriend?"

He leaned closer, frown deepening. "O'Deorain," he said warningly. "Do we need to have a talk? Are we not on the same page here?"

"I just think of you as lover in my head, is all. Boyfriend is adorable." She danced her fingertips up the side of his face, tugging the shell of his ear.

"Now who's distracting," he muttered darkly, twitching his head out of her grasp and trying not to get any redder. "You think Mercy's gonna be up to the task?"

"Of course she will, she's my guardian angel," Moira said. "She'll leap on the chance to work on our old project again, and she was never as in love with the rules as she pretends to be. Jack is the one we might have to lie to— Give me a week to whip up some documents and I'll make it look like what we're doing is legal."

God bless his Blackwatch team. They always knew exactly how and when to bend the rules.

But something had him curious. "Old project?"

Moira nodded. "She and I have been trying to tackle cancer cures since... oh, since before we were married." Her eyes went somewhere else, somewhere soft and fond as she lost herself in nostalgia. "We spent years daydreaming about how we'd change the world. Of course it was the medical equivalent of an art student doing nothing except practice their signature—"

She bit her lower lip suddenly, eyes frozen like a pane of glass.

"I'm sorry," Gabriel said softly.

"It's fine," Moira said. And then, "It still hurts."

The back of her neck was cold to the touch, but he brought her head down again, to press her brow to his. "Yeah, I know."

Moira tucked her arms under his, stroking his back. When she kissed him again it was hard and needy, followed by a sharp inhale like she was trying to take the air from his lungs.

"You can't stop me," she said, and kissed him again. "I'll run the trials on myself regardless of whether or not you decide to follow suit."

He gripped her arms in a warning squeeze. "As your superior officer—"

"Please." If looks could kill, he'd be six feet under already. "Do not insult me again."

So he kissed her instead, running his hands over her to muss up her sharp profile. All the angles became wrinkled, soft fabric and exposed flesh. Clean, tight, snake-hipped, effortlessly trim and fashionable Moira drove him crazy on the best of days; when he saw her fall apart under his hands, it was enough to make him go blind with lust.

After tossing his hoodie aside, Gabriel rolled his fingers in soothing circles on her back, massaging away the stress she carried there. Tense muscles shifted under his touch, the silky texture of her small black bra contrasting with a knot of scar tissue on her shoulder, a nasty exit wound that he'd had to stitch up himself.

"You know, there's a comfy little cot in my office closet," she offered, and then squeaked when he hefted her up into his arms to carry her across the lab. She laughed, her long legs wrapping around his waist again— though she had to duck not to smack her head against the doorframe when they entered.

"Whoops," Gabriel said.

"I'm six foot five," she said, voice dry. "I'm used to it."

Despite the promise of a cot, he set her down on the edge of her desk, kissing her until she was leaning back with the force of it. Chest to chest, with just enough space for her to work her hands between them, stroking over his abdomen in open admiration. Pushing her shirt from her shoulders, he kissed down each one, ending on the pulse points of her wrists.

Sinking down to his knees, he pulled her thighs apart, kissing between her legs hard enough to be felt through the fabric of her pants. If her sharp, pleasured gasp was any indicator.

"Tease," Moira hissed. One hand held him back by the top of his head while the other fumbled with her belt, trembling with anticipation. Together they worked her pants down past smooth thighs.

He framed her hips with his hands, toying over the elastic band of her tight black boy shorts. "Any requests?"

She tilted her head to the side, thinking about it as she rubbed his head some more, before moving down to pass hands over his broad shoulders. "Well... as much as I love your tongue, darling..."

"No need to be coy."

"In my desk. The bag in the bottom drawer."

Curious but excited, he gave her one more kiss before doing as she asked. In the bottom drawer there was a makeup bag and what looked like a set of spare clothing. No doubt for nights she spent down here in the labs.

When he opened the zipper, he found a small packet of condoms, a single sealed set of disposable latex gloves, lube, and a bullet vibrator.

"Oooooh," he sang. "Moira, you are a very dirty girl."

Her gaze remained even and level, expressionless and revealing nothing. Despite that, a red flush spread across her nose and cheeks, brushing over her freckle-dusted shoulders. She unhooked her bra and tossed it aside, raising an eyebrow as if to ask if he was done talking.

"Do you jack off in your office during work hours?" There was no judgement in the question, not when most of his attention was on playing with the different settings. When he looked up, Moira was red all the way down her pale chest, and she couldn't make eye contact with him. "Oh, so you definitely do."

"Once," she said sternly. "After everyone else had left."

"Nah." His voice, throttled by the treatment and by years of hard use, registered as a low growl. "I bet you do it all the time."

The little bullet hummed quietly in his hands, quiet enough for stealthy use. He imagined Moira, pants hitched down over her spread knees. Sprawled at her desk chair, tie loosened but not undone as she worked herself to orgasm. The mental image paled in comparison to the real thing in front of him, of course, but it still had him getting hard enough to be distracting.

He played with her, passing the vibrator over her chest until her nipples stood up at the attention, eager for his mouth. The steady thrum of her pulse beat under his tongue; he sucked, trailing open-mouthed kisses back up to her neck to leave his mark there too.

"I bet you think about me, don't you, Doctor?"

The way her nails bit into his shoulders told him she was mad, but she did it to pull him closer. The curve of her clit against him, plump and throbbing, made him want to strip them both down to nothing and fuck her until the desk broke.

"Did you think about me when you were fingering yourself? Wishing it was my cock instead?"

Gabriel rolled the bullet over her, teasing her through the fabric of her underwear. The urge to take his time was stronger than the growing need between his own legs. Time was the one resource they didn't have at their command, but this wasn't something he liked to rush. Not when it was so much fun to peel her apart, piece by piece.

The most fascinating aspect of it all was that she let him. Some part of him wondered if that was her idea of a fair trade— his body for hers, his power as Commander struck down as her patient, enough trust built to hold each other's lives and dignity in their palms.

He'd seen Moira field all the accusations hurled at her, from half-joking literary comparisons to the very real, very virulent, very persistent idea that she was some modern Mengele. It hurt her. Like all pain, most of it eventually hardened into callus. But a lot of things hurt her that never stopped being vulnerable, that she shared with no one except him.

And, of course, Gabriel promised to take those secrets to the grave.

She ground against his hand, struggling to maintain her narrowed eyes, her tight-lipped frown. When he moved to kiss her she turned her face away, lips parting in a startled, ragged gasp.

"Moira," he said gently, kissing her cheek instead. "Fate. Look at me or I'll stop."

She did. Lips slightly parted, she gulped back every noise on a shaky breath, sweating and writhing against him in increasing desperation.

"That's a good girl," he said, petting her hair out of her face with his free hand. The other slipped into her underwear, pulling it down just enough to hold her in his hand. Pressed between the center of his palm and her soft shaft, the vibrator pulsed in slow, gentle rhythms. "They trained you to follow orders back in Overwatch, didn't they?"

Everything about her screamed that she was ready to come. He rolled the bullet underneath her sensitive head, rubbing it against her as he clicked it again. No more waves, but an unrelenting, steady purr.

"But this is where you belong." He spoke over her choked sob, allowing her to break eye contact and bow her head against his neck. She bit his shoulder, needing something, anything to keep her traitorous mouth busy, prompting a pained groan of pleasure from him. "Right here in Blackwatch with me."

Moira nodded in between a muffled agreement, hips rocking in a frantic rhythm.

When he lovingly stroked a hand down her back, he could feel every notch of her spine. Leaning in closer, he held her tight, murmuring in her ear. "...Say yes, sir."

A little shudder ran through her, all the way down that jagged, sharp frame.

"Yes," she moaned, searching and digging and pulling the words out shard by shard. A low, raspy clatter of a voice, surgical instruments on the desk. "Yes, Commander."

Not what he'd asked, but the result he intended was the same.

It was like a dam had been broken, air feeding into a spark and lifting it up into a full inferno. No longer silenced, she whimpered openly, volume rising as the last mental barrier was breached. "Yes... yes! I want to stay here— I want you, Commander, to stay here with you—" Moira's breath hitched, her pulse pounding in his hand. "Commander—!"

He squeezed.

"Gabriel! God!"

She came with a noiseless scream, tapering off into sobs as she spilled inside his palm with needy, quivering thrusts.

When he clicked the toy off, she groaned as if in pain. Moira's hips shifted; she rubbed her face against his neck and huffed.

"You're an ass."

Gabriel kissed her bare shoulder, pleased to see it bright red. "Love you too." Stepping back, he set the toy aside to lick his hand clean, staring at Moira with a pleased grin. She was trembling still, eyes shining with unshed tears. But all the tension had bled out of her, replaced with lazy indulgence. "God, you're an illegal amount of cute."

She reclined on her desk, neck lolling as she stretched it carelessly. Bite marks littered her chest and shoulders; she rubbed a palm over her bruised neck, closing her eyes and sighing in relief. "Tell me something I don't know, Commander."

Before he could think of a fun fact, try to really come up with something she didn't know in order to make her smile, she reached out and stroked him through his sweatpants. He'd gone soft in the distraction of making her come. At that simple touch, all the air caught in his throat, a little choked grumble.

"Shall I repay the favor?" she wondered, pulling him closer.

"Eh... You don't gotta." It was a cliche, but he was getting old and it showed. He wasn't young anymore, not cut diamond-hard with a cock to match. Not healthy anymore. The only reason he could traipse around and pretend things were normal was because of his stint in the SEP. Anyone else would have been bedridden at this point— as his father had been.

"But I want to."

In a moment their positions were reversed, him reclining on the desk while she sank down to her knees. His hands filled themselves with her soft hair, stroking through red strands to anchor himself as Moira took him into her mouth half-hard, and sucked.

It was a slow start, and once he no longer had Moira at his mercy it was hard to stay focused. Everything else threatened to crowd up his head: how cold the room was, the needle waiting in the other room, the grave lingering at the end of his path, and then how pretty Moira looked, glancing up at him with those strange, bright eyes.

She stood up just to kiss him, rummaging around in the bag for the bottle of lube. "Move with me, Reyes," she teased, her hand slick with spit and silky silicone as she stroked him. "If you want to come you have to work for it."

Uh oh. His surname. Was she mad? He had been kind of mean with the yes sir thing. They didn't always let the lines blur like that during sex, but he found she enjoyed it more often than not.

Her lips were warm, though. Soft and a little chapped. He drank in every detail as a matter of course; the SEP had sharpened his memory and all five senses. As he deteriorated it meant he quickly became overwhelmed with too many sensations, but right now it meant he could feel Moira's body against him and be concerned with nothing else.

He rubbed her breasts in his hands, stroking her all over before settling on her ass and squeezing. The sounds she made when he did that were only rivaled by him spreading her cheeks apart to circle her asshole with a finger. Moira shivered, her pace quickening as she rocked her hips back and forth, torn between his thigh between her legs and his gentle exploration of her asshole.

"Distracting... me," she ground out between huffs.

"What? I'm workin' for it," he said by way of explanation, keeping her tight against him as he thrust into her slick palm.

They kissed messily, her breath hot on his lips. With his fingers wet he could please her better, toy with that tight ring of muscle and nerves and pleasure. When she gasped again he came close, so hard it hurt as he felt himself reaching a peak he couldn't climb down from.

And Moira stopped, merely holding him, watching his expression carefully. Stuttering to a halt, he waited for her to say something, but she just smiled.

"Well? I'm waiting."

Oh.

He was too far gone to worry about his pride, instead taking her hand to finish himself off. But she growled when he did that, and he was forced to touch anywhere else, himself, the grainy wood of the desk, and pump into her tightly held fist until he was there again, there, so close, so close—

Moira let go of him just to run a wet palm over his chest, murmuring fond, sweet nothings.

"Moira!" he shouted, orgasm interrupted again. "Come on!"

"Oh, I see," she said, tweaking his nipple. He flinched away, frowning. "You're allowed to tease me, but I can't tease you. Is that how this is going to work, Commander?"

"You are gonna get it," he said, one finger raised warningly.

Her eyes glittered with mirth. "What a wonderful thought."

Despite her words she was down on her knees again in an instant, working him up with no intent of stopping. He choked, hands caressing down her scalp over and over again to brush her hair out of her face. Moira took him into her mouth as deep as she could, working his shaft with one hand while the other scratched mindless patterns on his hip, striking a row of dark red lines over his scarred thighs.

When he came, his knees almost gave out. He trembled, piercing pleasure fading out in little waves as Moira finally pulled away with a smirk, lips shining wet and pink.

"Come here," he said breathlessly, getting down to kiss her tenderly, swipe the taste of himself from her with the tip of his tongue.

Moira smiled against his mouth, held so tight that he could feel her heart beating next to his. They couldn't have sounded more different, even to someone who didn't know the truth. Fluttering strong, and weary, cold, out-of-sync.

In the safety of his bedroom, fully dressed again, he watched her pace and mutter to herself, practicing what she'd say to Angela. He offered to do it himself; he loved Angela too, just not the same way Moira did. And there was no bad blood between them.

"No," she said shortly. "This is my experiment, I have to take ownership of it."

"Oh, of course. Cause this affects nobody but you."

She gave him an unreadable look, blank and mild.

Okay, so she wasn't going to rise to the bait. "How are we going to convince Jack to sign off on something that's probably killing me as much as the cancer is?" Gabriel asked after a while, rubbing the back of his neck. Two, three years ago he would have had a clue.

But the divide between him and his best friend was growing too deep to pass, these days.

"Same way we did before," Moira said. "Same way Angela managed to get Shimada the treatment he needed."

Moira stood straight, gaze expectant. Waiting for Gabriel to stop her, to contradict her, to insist that they hadn't dangled a second chance at life to the youngest Shimada in order to manipulate him and gain access to his underworld connections. She waited for Gabriel to defend their actions.

He didn't.

His palms turned into fists on his lap. "You want to weaponize me."

"Yes," she said.

At least it was out in the open now.

"We could figure out how to isolate what's happening to you, assuming it's not just a fluke," Moira continued on, musing out loud. She resumed pacing, nervous energy not the least bit dampened by their little session in the lab. "If this treatment nets the same... ghostly effect on other cancer victims, we could put a host of fresh bodies back on the field. Jack will eat it up."

The worst part is Gabriel knew he would, though Jack would likely have a different way to justify it.

"Why do we need Shimada again?" Gabriel asked weakly.

"His lineage is uniquely adept at channeling electromagnetic impulses that are naturally present in the body, if we could apply the same theories to you—"

"I can become gassy boy on command, like he gets green and sparky?"

"...If you say gassy boy one more time I'm going to be very cross with you, Gabriel."

Still, she hadn't disagreed with his assessment. Getting up from the bed, he pulled her into a loose embrace, his chin resting on her shoulder. "What a regular group of freaks we are, down here in the dungeon," he said to no one in particular, staring out at nothing, heartbroken and exhausted.

In the morning, he awoke to the sound of his shower running. With one arm braced over his eyes, he listened to Moira rustle quietly in the darkness, trying not to wake him. She always woke up earlier than he did, which was no small feat. She said she liked the still hours of the morning, when the whole world was quiet. She said she got her best work done then, waiting for the dawn to rise.

"Gabriel."

She spoke softly, brushing one hand over his sleeping form.

"Gabriel, darling, I hate to bother you. But did you see where I put my contact lenses?"

"Mmm." He lowered his arm to blink at her sleepily. "In the thingie. You took 'em off last night and put them in the little... Round thingie."

"Well yes, but where is the thingie?" She stopped, then rolled her eyes. "The case for my contact lenses. Did you see where I placed it?

He rolled out of bed to help her search, checking the pockets of his pants and all the flat surfaces in his room. When they came up empty-handed, she huffed, then gave him a quick kiss on the lips in apology. "Nevermind. I have spares in my lab. Go back to bed."

Gabriel agreed under his breath, but didn't let her go without a proper kiss. When she tried to make a brisk exit, he grabbed her by the arm and tugged her up against him. One hand lingered on her waist, the other running through her loose hair. Not styled today, just left swinging in soft strands down past her cheeks. "I'll see you later, beautiful."

When he kissed her, he made it last. And when she pulled away, she was sulking and red to her roots.

"You're a very silly man," she murmured, kissing him again before finally taking her leave.

He found her contact lenses in his medicine cabinet, a few hours later. Without thinking, he put them in his pocket, knowing he would see her later in the day.

Until then, he had his own job to do.

No one knew about his sickness yet, though many were beginning to suspect. Ana had records of everything anyone did, and nothing got past those hawk eyes of hers. Still, she was smart enough to keep her mouth shut during debriefings with Jack, where they went over the tasks for the day, figured out who was deployed where and for how long and what did they need and when, the dry logistics of keeping boots on the ground in the shittiest parts of the world and making sure the people filling those boots weren't hungry, sick, or injured.

And all of it of course working and weaving through a million miles of red tape.

God forbid we insult some prince or prime minister with— he checked— water purification kits.

Gabriel looked across the table and hardly recognized the man staring back at him. Without Ana there, a constant source of calming energy, what would he have said? What would he have done? With so little time left in his life, did he really want to spend it here, boiling in frustration as he was left shackled, too afraid to truly speak his mind?

His feet carried him to the medical ward, wanting to talk to Ziegler about those field rez kits. The ones in his Blackwatch facilities were still version 2.0; he needed something with a faster response time if his people were going to come back from missions alive.

The sound of laughter hit him first, some familiar and one raspy as rusty steel. Cadet Oxton and Ziegler were both sitting on one of the examination tables, leaning against each other. Oxton was in tears, wiping her eyes over and over again.

"No. Tell me you didn't!" she gasped, fanning herself.

"I'm afraid I did," Genji responded gravely. "There were only two left and I would rather die than let Hanzo win."

"Did the police have to fish you out of there or something?"

"The fire department," Genji said, and then blood-red eyes caught Gabriel's and the young Shimada went completely still and quiet. "Hello, Commander."

The other two stopped as well, though they didn't tense up at the sight of him. Gabriel nodded, feeling like an intruder. He wished Genji didn't slink around him like a nervous cat. It wasn't as though he forbade from from getting along with Overwatch members. If anything, he was glad Genji and Cadet Oxton seemed to have hit it off.

Another freak for the dungeon, he thought, eyes drawn down to the accelerator on her chest. Guess they were all drawn to each other.

Angela, comparatively, seemed perfect. It was no wonder Moira had fallen for her. Young, brilliant, beautiful, kind. More than once he'd heard rumblings of their divorce, but never wanted to pry too deep. It wasn't his business.

"Can I help you, Gabriel?" Angela asked, smiling brightly at him as Oxton and Genji both made themselves scarce.

He felt the contact lenses in his pocket, thinking of Moira down below. Working just as diligently as her ex-wife. That was something they had in common; no doubt it was what brought them together, since they still produced amazing results when they were locked in a room with one another.

Unbidden, he was presented with a simple, soothing mental image: when he died, Moira and Angela might get back together. That would be good. He didn't like the thought of Moira lingering too long without him, mourning him.

He didn't want her to be alone.

"Ah..." he hesitated when he realized Angela was staring at him still, expectant and curious. "Nothing. Just making sure you guys are all good up here."

Her brows pinched together. "What's wrong?" she asked at once, stepping closer to peer at him, up and down. "You do look rather pale."

Gabriel made some space between them, hands out to keep her at bay. "Whoa, personal space, doc. I'm fine."

"Please, Gabriel. I know you." Dark blue eyes narrowed at him, scrutinizing. Damn. He'd forgotten how easily Angela picked him apart. "Whenever you're in trouble, the first thing you do is go about trying to solve everyone else's problems. What's wrong?"

He grimaced. "Do I do that?"

"You really do."

Fortunately he was able to deflect most of her concerns by reminding her about needing the rez pack 2.5 for his crew. That softened her up considerably, and she was back to being cheerful, chatty Mercy with him.

At one point he patted her on the shoulder, fondly, and she smiled up at him. "Promise you'll come to me first if you do need something?" she asked.

"Of course," he lied, because that's what Blackwatch did best.