Archive of Our Own

“Switch clothes with me.”

Gabriel stares. Not really his fault; he can’t not stare with such a strange request being offered to him by a gorgeous, strange young man, roundabouts his own age, fair with regal features, a delicate spattering of freckles, and the bluest eyes that Gabe’s ever seen. The other boy looks at him, waiting for an answer from under the deep cowl of an inexplicably expensive cloak. The cloak alone would fetch a handsome price, and the whole outfit? Gabriel could give the rest of the money to his father for the new forge they desperately needed. 

“Uh, sure?”

No sooner has he said it than the boy is stepping further into the shadows of the alley Gabriel had just been taking a piss in, unclasping a wrought beaten silver clasp and all but shoving the cloak at him. Wow, his hair was blonde- so blonde it was like it glowed even out of the sunlight, prettier than the wheat fields at high harvest. Then he starts on the extremely expensive navy and silver embroidered frock coat, and Gabriel is staring again. Forget the rest of the money for the forge, they could buy two whole new ones with an outfit like this. 

The frock coat is off, so is the silken blouse, both unceremoniously handed to him. The blonde stops with his hands on the drawstrings of his breeches and gives Gabriel a curious look. “Well?”

Right. They were trading. 

It seemed a poor trade to exchange Gabriel beaten work tunic and threadbare britches for such finery, but he wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. He pulls it off, winces at the smell of smoke, metal and sweat that clings to it, and the other boy snatches it from his fingers, tugs it over his head like he couldn’t be happier. He’s pantless in a back alley with Gabriel now, and Gabe peers around to make sure no ones watching too closely. This late at night, the only people out were wearied farmhands heading back to the fields and drunkards like him stumbling out of pubs to purge their bowels in one way or another- no one was looking, but still Gabe finds himself horridly awkward. The breeches get thrown at his face. 

“Give me your pants, it’s cold out here,” comes snapped commentary from Gabe’s surprise companion, and with a shake of his head, Gabe shucks out of them too. 

Their sizes are pretty close- the tunic’s sleeves hang a bit long on Gabe, the pants a little bit snug around his rear, but not a bad fit. His mother was going to have a fit when he came home tonight, but the money would placate her and keep her from accusing Gabriel of theft again. The blonde starts shoving Gabe’s tunic into the borrowed britches with a satisfied air and hums to himself. “Perfect.”

“I’m sorry, why are we doing this?” Gabriel coughs, tucking the cloak and frock coat into a neat bundle over his arm. He himself would end up robbed wearing such nice clothes in an area like this. 

His companion shrugs. “Needed a new set.” Finally he meets Gabe’s eyes and thrusts a hand between them. “Thanks for that.”

“No problem, I guess?” Gabriel says, shaking the hand. Strong and heavy, but the callouses were nothing like Gabriel’s own from handling a hammer and bellows, all in the wrong places. Curiously, he peers at the boy before him. “I’m, uh. I’m Gabe.”

He’s given a tilted smile from a perfect set of teeth. Wow, this guy was just pretty all over, wasn’t he? “Jo- Jack. I’m Jack. Really appreciate that, you have no idea.”

“Jack,” Gabriel says musingly, and stares at his released hand. Where did callouses like that come from? Handling something, like a weapon? Sword play, probably, but very much not the hands of a farmer or a city worker. If Jack had money for weaponry, then why trade for clothes in a back alley with someone like Gabriel in the day’s sweaty, soot grimed work clothes? Why be out here this late?

He’s going to ask, but Jack is already walking away. He’s actually quite a bit away already- fast motherfucker- whistling as he goes, with his hands shoved down into his new britches’ pockets, singing like a lark with no care in the world. 

“Hey-! Wait!” Gabriel calls after him. “It’s a little late for a pretty boy like you to be out and about. Where’re you headed?”

Jack just shrugs. He doesn’t seem to have a care in the world to his lean frame in a brazen sort of way that only the rich could manage, further cementing Gabriel’s assumptions. “Not sure yet. Probably a pub. Who knows?”

Strange answer, Gabriel thinks. Intrigued, he matches steps with Jack.  “Let me walk you there.  You seem, ah, like you’re not from around here.” 

Gabriel’s tactful response falls flat, but Jack doesn’t seem to care. He offers another one of those devil-may-care smiles in Gabriel’s direction, brighter than the orange glows of the gas lamps around them. “That obvious, huh?”

Oh yeah. Even without the clothing more expensive than his family’s whole forge, Jack stepped through the streets like crowds would part for him. Tall and bright like a star, if the golden hair didn’t set him apart from everyone else like a sore thumb, then the endearing smile he seemed to offer out like candy would. 

He was gonna get hella fucked up if Gabriel didn’t at least try to escort him wherever he needed to go tonight. “Sorta.” 

“You know where the Blue Overhang is?” 

The Blue Overhang? Possibly one of the seediest, raunchiest bars in the city and that’s where pretty boy Jack was heading? “I do, but... You’re sure that’s where you’re going?”

 “Do you know someplace better?” Jack’s hands run along his thighs like he’s searching for pockets, but find none. Gabriel does the same and finds that yes, his brand new breeches have well seamed pockets too. He stuffs a hand in one.

“I do.” Someplace safer at the very least, that wouldn’t get them both knifed just for walking in. Gabriel jerks his head to indicate the opposite direction, towards the southwest. “Follow me.”

Maybe this is a little self-serving, walking along with Jack through the city. It feels self-serving, even though Gabriel keeps trying to convince himself that he’s just making sure that pretty boy here doesn’t end up dead on a curbside. Man was he pretty, Gabriel couldn’t stop looking at him and thinking that his forge clothes looked way better on Jack than they had ever looked on Gabriel, dirty or not. He keeps a steady few inches between them as they walk, but every so often, his elbow brushes Jack’s and it’s sending Gabe’s thoughts scattering in every direction until he has to backtrack to keep them on the right path. 

One of those true blue eyes catches Gabriel’s too quickly for him to look away without being caught. “Do you live around here?”

“Smokey Owl Forgery. It’s a few blocks over,” Gabriel tells him, and Jack nods like he knows of the place. Gabriel’s family only did work the finest work for lords and ladies- Jack was definitely pretending to be someone he wasn’t tonight. Gabriel hedges around his questions carefully. “So where are you coming from? It’s kinda late to just be wandering around-”

“Oh just outside the city,” Jack’s flippant tone is a blatant lie.  Gabriel can’t call him on it, so he just says ‘oh,’ and they keep walking. 

The bar that Gabriel takes them to is one owned by a friend; Amélie, who had come into it at the young tender age of sixteen when both her parents had died. Even from a young age, she ran it just exactly as her mother had, which was with an iron fist that allowed no quarrels within the solid oak confines, and that the friends gathering inside were just that- friends, through and through. In the darkening city, it sits like a beacon, lit from every window and bursting with filtered helter skelter music that seeps through cracks of it’s dark painted doors and windows. 

When Gabriel strides through the front entrance, he’s met with a choir of ‘hello’s and ‘long time no see’s. That quiets out a bit when it’s Jack that walks in directly after him, and Gabriel can feel the murmured shift of attention. Jack tenses at his back. 

“C’mon,” Gabriel mutters, snags an easy-going arm around Jack’s neck to bow his head a bit away from all the staring and drags him over to the bar. Lena is behind it, polishing a glass. When she sees Gabriel approach, the glass hits the bartop with a smark and her elfin face lights up with glee and a shout of “Gabby!” bobbing over in their direction to the counter with a hop and a skip that bobs her short cropped fluffs of hair. 

She seems to take a little bit of a double glance when she catches sight of Gabriel’s blonde shadow, nearly tripping on a floor mat, then a crate before landing more or less gracefully perched against the countertop before them. Gabriel snaps his fingers in her face twice to get her to focus on him and not his guest. “Two of the usual.”

“Sure thing, bossman.” Lena chirrups, twisting and ducking around the bar to fill up a pair of drafts. “Haven’t seen you around in a while Gabe, where you been?” She slides two foam topped mugs in front of them and when she comes to a stop, it’s directly in front of Jack. “And who’s your new friend?”

Jack answers for himself, a courteous bob of, “I’m Jack.”

“Jack?” Lena tilts her head, birdlike. Her cherub face turns to a pout and one waifish finger taps thoughtfully at her bottom lip. “You seem familiar Jack, we met before?”

Jack laughs awkwardly, looking anywhere but at Lena’s face, which is getting closer and closer by the second in it’s inspection. “Ah, no, no. I don’t think so,” He practically murmurs into his jug of ale, the only thing keeping them separated besides the bartop.

"Jack, this is Lena. Lena, play nice." Gabriel swigs his ale. True to Amélie’s regimen-like quality, this stuff is cooler and sweeter than the last pub he'd been drinking at.  

Lena’ chin perches on her wrist. "You sure? I swear I seen you somewhere before…."

Jack is now actively hiding behind the mug now, so Gabriel does the merciful thing and steps in. "Oi, Lena. That chick’s been waving you down for a solid minute now."

Lena swears and swerves off towards an anxious looking redhead at the other end of the bar. Jack leans over towards Gabriel with a grateful look. "Thanks."

Gabriel waves him off “She’s nosy on her best days. Coldest ale in town here, though.”

“It’s good.” Jack takes another drink and it leaves a thin filmy white moustache on his upper lip. A light pink tongue peeks out to sop it up. Gabriel snaps his eyes back up in time to meet Jack’s. “They seem to all know you here.”

“Yeah, well,  you hang around long enough, it’s hard to keep people from knowing you.”

Jack laughs, “God I hope not,” and his shoulder bumps Gabe’s familiarly. It makes Gabe flush, and god, he was so overthinking this. Jack was too pretty for his own good, he had to know what he was doing to Gabe.

A massive mug slams itself between them and then Gabriel is being engulfed in a massive one armed bearhug. “Gabriel, my friend! It is good to see you, it has been much too long! Where have you been?’

“Jeez, Rein, let me go-!” Gabriel squeezes out under the sway of a burly, broad ogre of a man, already roaringly drunk as he rocks Gabriel nearly off his stool. 

A delicate hand taps the giant’s elbow. “Careful not to break his neck, Wil, dear.” Ana comes to the rescue on Gabriel’s other side. “Gabriel, it’s been a while.”

“I’ve been busy,” Gabriel says. He hasn’t been avoiding his friends, he really has been busy. Getting drunk and laid at other taverns when he wasn’t working his life away at the forge.

Ana snorts. “Too busy to let us know you are still alive? Mature.”

He shoves her, and Reinhardt seems to just then notice Jack, who has been watching this exchange with no short amount of amusement. “Well, hello lad, didn’t see you there.” Reinhardt bends down close, a frown scrunching up the jagged scar that ran down his left temple. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“Oh, not you too,” Gabriel says sharply, and elbows Reinhardt back a few inches to give Jack some space. “Jack, this is Wilhelm Reinhardt and Ana Amari. Best mercenaries a miserable shit like me could ever hope to find.”

“Oh posh, Gabriel, you flatter.” Ana says, serpentine as she leans across Gabriel to take Jack’s hand. “Just call me Ana, dear.  Where does a pretty thing like you hale from?”

“Ah, just outside the city,” Jack coughs, eyes wide like he can’t decide what to make of the two of them, especially not together. “Just came in tonight, and ah, well Gabriel said he knew a good pub-”

“Oh, did he now?” Ana’s elegant eyebrows rise up to her hairline. “How unusual- Gabriel never brings by his ‘friends’.”

Gabriel nearly chokes on his ale. Sputtering, he shakes his head vehemently. “It’s not like that Ana.”

“No?” Ana’s smile widens, and horrified, Gabe can only watch her swing around to squeeze in on Jack’s other side, until he’s hemmed in by both her and Reinhardt. “That’s just perfect, because Reinhardt and I-”

“ Ana!”

“What?” She accosts Gabriel, affronted. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

“At least buy him a goddamn drink before you start that shit.” Gabriel says shortly. Jack has flushed a very becoming shade of beet red, apparently having caught on to the gist of the conversation. 

They do buy Jack a drink- more than one, because, awful as Gabe’s friends are, they did in fact know how to treat someone to a good time. And within minutes, they have Jack well on his way to being as liquored up as they are. The three of them lean against each other as Reinhardt gives an in-depth rendition of an obscenely dirty joke he’d heard once travelling through the gimp bogs, with Ana chiming in on the details he’s forgotten since she’d no doubt heard the story before. And then Ana is telling Jack of a boy she’d met a long time ago who looked just like him but didn’t speak a lick of their language. She’d had to spend the whole trip escorting him in silence, drawing pictures in the dirt back and forth to communicate.  Never had she been more grateful to get back to her husband and her daughter for some real conversation. 

“You have a daughter?” Jack asks. The booze has begun to sit high in his cheeks, giving him a pleasant flush that contrasts with the gold of his hair something beautiful. Ana nods, leaning into Jack and making her knees nearly shove Gabe off of his own stool. 

“Oh yes, she’s my gorgeous precious little baby.”

Gabriel snorts into his cup. “Your baby is taller than you.”

Ana practically gets stars in her eyes. “And every inch is honed, adorable killer.” She sighs proudly. Jack seems confused because Ana in no way looks like she has a grown daughter, Gabriel was surprised too when he found out. Silently, Gabriel  uses his hand to measure about a foot over Ana’s head with meaningfully raised eyebrows, and Jack’s laugh turns his face into something magical.

 Gabriel can’t look away, even if he wanted to.

Gabriel himself had started his own bar crawl much earlier in the evening, and it doesn’t take much at all to get him laughing along with the rest of them. Ana and Reinhardt have a way of drawing anyone into a party, and Jack’s laughter, his charismatic reactions and gestures, it’s all contagious. Gabriel ends up spilling a tale after tale, and when he comes to the  girl he’d met at Candy’s brothel a week ago who kept trying to feed him pork chops as some sort of strange foreplay- something he’d only mentioned to Genji and Jesse over hard bottle of liquor once - It makes Jack snort beer through his nose, spluttering and coughing through tears of hilarity. Reinhardt slaps him heavily on the back, and Ana leans up close to Gabriel. 

“Lucky find,” Ana says, nudging Gabe’s knuckles with her mug. She gives Gabriel a he rolls his eyes. Jack was so stunningly far out of Gabriel’s league- especially if he was a young lord escaped out for the night. 

He eyes Jack, who seemed to be fitting in just fine though. He seemed to be having the time of his life, actually, and Gabriel is so grateful for whatever higher powers above that had prompted him to approach Gabriel of all people for such a strange request as ‘trade clothes with me.’

Speaking of- he still has the frock and cloak settled underneath his thigh. 

“No worries, even this cannot drown you, lad!” Reinhardt shouts, volume moderation shot to hell worse than usual. “It reminds me of a time I fought two brave men around an enchanted well and with one bludgeon, the three of us fell down over the edge-!”

This story is a long one that Gabe has heard before. Leaving Jack in the capable care of his two drunkard friends, Gabriel leaves his cup by Ana’s elbow and sneaks away to do some business. 

The corner where Moira is busy monopolizing a game of blackjack like she intended to run the men settled around it out of town is her usual seat. Knowing her, running them out of town probably was her endgame. Despite this, her table was always full of heads with plenty of money to spare, and tonight is no different. Her red head tilts to Gabriel in greeting when he crouches beside the table at her hip. 

“Gabriel. My, my… I haven’t seen you around in a while.” Moira purs, a long pointed nail dragging at her lip. “Last I heard you’d stopped taking my jobs- what brings you here tonight, pet?’ Her smile breaks jagged over her features, lilt heavy on her tongue. “Hungry enough for money to crawl back to me finally, I hope?”

“Not quite,” Gabriel demurs. He pulls the clothing into view, spread on his lap in warm blues and languorous silver and gold threading. “I have something to sell, if you’re interested.”

Moira looks disappointed. “I don’t peddle in clothing ,” she says, tartly distasteful... until she catches sight of what Gabriel is holding out. Her lips thin as she reaches out to touch the edge of the cloak’s lined hem and it’s finely detailed, perfectly done embroidering. Her mismatched eyes flick up to him.  “Where did you come across these, Gabriel?”

“Ran into some surprise luck.” Gabriel pulls them just out of her reach. “How much?”

Moira’s arms fold over her chest. “80 gold florins.”

Gabriel snorts. “I could get more down the road at the black market.”

“Take them there, then.”

“ Moira. ” Gabriel wheedles.

Moira’s thinned lips purse together. She eyes the cloak and the tunic like she’s weighing her options. Gabriel knows Moira, though. 

“120 gold florins.’ She finally says. 

Much better . “110, plus,” Gabriel holds up a finger before she can agree, “a favor.” 

A favor from Moira was near invaluable in this city- she had a finger in just about everything, knew anyone you were trying to find, and could find them herself if she so wished, which she seldom did, preferring to sell that information to the highest bidder. 

Moira sneers at him. “100 and the favor.”

“Done.” Gabriel smiles.

She hands him money from her blackjack pile, eliciting displeased murmurs from her companions that go mute from Moira’s single, jagged  look around the table. In return, he hands her the cloak and jacket. The money gets tucked safely in another one of the convenient pockets that seemed to be imperceptibly hidden in these new breeches, more than satisfied. Ma would be overjoyed.

He stands to go when Moira catches his sleeve, fingers digging into the smooth satiny fabric of his tunic. She rubs it musingly between his fingers, studying him carefully “Such finery, Gabriel. Can’t be just chance for you to become lucky enough for this .”

Gabriel pulls his sleeve from her grasp slowly. “None of it’s stolen, if thats what you’re implying. They’re clean.” 

Moira hums and lets his sleeve go, but her amber gaze says that she does not believe him for one moment. A private part of Gabriel is bitter about that- this was why he’d had to stop coming around here after everything had been said and done. His history seemed to follow him in the most unpleasant of ways, a reputation he couldn’t seem to shake no matter how much he tried to leave that life behind. He doesn’t give Moira a second look as he fades away from the table and leaves her to devour the souls of hapless fools. 

There’s a crowd gathering around Jack now, and the faces clustered around him are familiar and unfamiliar,  Ana and Reinhardt still valiantly at his flanks. The three of them had laced arms over shoulders by now, the height difference leading to a long slope from tallest to shortest, none of them still managing to stay on their stools. Reinhardt leans too far sideways, dragging Jack nearly off his feet and at least four people reach out to steady him before Ana herself does it. 

Gabriel shakes his head at the sight. Like a magnet, it was as if everyone in the room felt the force of Jack’s pull. They were all moths to his sunlight; Gabriel was no better, instantly finding a way to slide in beside Jack again and replace his draining mug with a fresher cold one. It gets Gabriel another one of Jack’s beautific smiles, aimed solely at him. 

“Ah, I love this song!” Reinhardt shouts when the band strikes up a familiar tune. “Louder!” He shouts, booming over the bustle of the tavern, and looms his bulk over Jack. “You jig, yes? We will jig!”

“Wait, actually, I don’t-” Jack starts, still grinning even as he protests. He half-heartedly clutches at Gabriel as he’s dragged away. “ Save me!”

“ Hell no.” Gabriel smirks. Once Reinhardt got into the mood to dance, there was virtually no stopping him, and Gabriel was far too drunk to get pulled into one of those messes again. Jack practically wails at him, and then he’s being swung around the room, others joining in around them. Suddenly the whole room is singing loud enough to shake the rafters, Jack right along with him, and despite what he’d said, he really wasn’t all that bad a dancer. Maybe that was just because having Reinhardt’s terrible dancing right next to him made it seem better.

It’s many songs and spinning dances later that Jack finally manages to hurl himself to the edges where Gabriel has been bobbing along with the music, doing his fair share of singing to songs he’s known since before he could walk. 

Jack is breathless and heaving, covered in a light sheen of sweat that’s darkening the roots of his sunlight hair. He’s devastatingly beautiful, and Gabriel feels wrecked just being near him, stunned when Jack leans up right close to him, and arm around his neck, face just a breath away. “Thank you, I owe you. This is great.”

“You don’t owe me,” Gabriel says, too loudly over the music, but Jack doesn’t seem to mind. Just squeezes Gabe and pilfers Gabe’s remaining ale right from between his motionless fingers,  swigging the last and giving a dramatic ‘Ahh!’ as he finishes. 

“You can bring me back here again, right?” He gulps, slamming the cup down on the bartop.

Gabriel head bobs at the thought of bringing Jack out again. “Whenever you want. But let's see if you still say that in the morning.” 

Jack’s eyes widen and when Gabriel realizes how that could have sounded, he flushes. “Wow, I didn’t mean-”

“You’ll let me stay?” Jack cuts him off, leans up close again. “That’s awful nice of you to do for a stranger, isn’t it?”

“You aren’t a stranger,” Gabriel autopilot responses spilling from him like froth before Jack’s guileless honesty. “Not anymore.”

Gabriel has heard stories of beautiful nymphs that lured you to the woods, or sirens that spun songs into nets for men who disappeared into the ocean forever. He’s never been one to believe in magic, only in the things he saw with his own two eyes or felt with his own two hands- But looking at Jack makes him think that he knows where all those stories came from, and that they are all true. 

Jack’s grin is dazzling, pearl white with promise and he snickers, "Quit smiling at me like that, you make it hard to think." 

Jack is so obviously drunk that Gabriel doesn’t think Jack knows he’s said the words aloud. Gabriel's mouth pops open in surprise, and before he can stop gaping like a shocked fish, Reinhardt is once again whisking Jack away, spinning around the edges of the room and picking up stragglers until a massive dancing circle wreaths between tables and chairs. So many people, so much laughter, and Jack sticks out among them like something shiny with wonder, bright like starlight and sparkling with careless happiness. 

Gabriel isn’t sure how they ended up outside the bar, but here they are, leaning against each other on the front stoop as Gabriel struggles not to hurl all over Jack’s very expensive looking shoes. Damn those would fetch a pretty penny too-

“You want ‘em?” Jack slurs. Gabriel must have muttered it, because suddenly Jack is depositing him against a light post, sitting down heavily on the curb to tug off the shoes sloppily. 

“Jeez, no, stop giving me your shit,” Gabriel bats at him, collapsing gracelessly beside Jack when the whole world decides to careen around the two of them, topsy turvy. He shakes Jack’s shoulder until the other boy has to stop unlacing his shoes just to keep his balance, laughing raucously at the treatment. 

“C’mon, let’s go. ‘S late.” 

He and Jack have to haul each other up to get going, and it takes more than one bout of collapsing laughter to actually start moving down the streets. The ground keeps sliding away from Gabriel’s feet, but Jack seems no better, his weight heavy at Gabriel’s side as he steers them along, taking the lead around corners that he isn’t really supposed to know, but Gabriel doesn’t mention it. He’s too drunk to, and not even sure that he’d have made it back to his own place that night at all, if it weren’t for Jack. 

Once or twice Jack trips. The second time they fall over some uneven cobbles that refuse to even out, the both of them end up smacking against a wall in a tangle of arms and legs. Gabe’s back digs into the crumbling grout and bricks, sticking to him roughly though the thin covering of his new silk shirt- He’s too drunk for it to hurt, but having his arms full of Jack makes any stray inkling of being uncomfortable shoot far far away. And Jack, who’s still chuckling and trying to right himself? Jack has his large hands with strange callouses curled around Gabe’s biceps, sniffling through his grin against the lingering chill of night air and looking up at Gabe through white blonde lashes and bemused, hazy eyes.

When Gabe had been little, his father had once taken him to the sea. Before Michael had died, he and Gabe and their father had set off for two years as journeymen, honing Michael’s skills to take over the forge and gain experience from every city they could get to.  One of the very last cities they’d come to berth in had been a sprawling port hub with a myriad of night markets and piers like fingers extended into the coast of the Aegean. The smell of salt had been high and strong, warmed by a full day of sun by the time they’d crested a jagged cliffside edge and Gabriel had caught his first real glimpse of the ocean.   

Churning turquoise, hyacinth, and cobalt waves with white frosted peaks- ripples of green darker than the forests, and writhing swathes of blues like every shade of the day and night, pulled into a great frothing tumult as far as the eye could see. It was massive, farther than the eye could see until it melted away to the horizon and where the sky met the sea? It was like an artist’s crisply drawn line; the ink from a single pen’s perfect scrawl. With waves beating the rocks at the bottom of the cliff, it was like the aqua waters were reaching for Gabriel himself. 

It was exhilarating, overwhelming- It was amazing . Gabriel had never forgotten that suspended moment, his father’s hand safely on his shoulder and his arms stretched out in the wind, basking in the inexorable power of an unfathomable ultramarine ocean, larger than imagination.

The drowning, deep blue depths of the Aegean sea, cast into gems and perfected to something nigh untouchably beautiful- that’s what Jack’s eyes are. He blinks slow, and Gabe’s breath catches in his throat. He wonders if Jack has ever seen the sea. 

“I’m going to kiss you,” Jack exhales against Gabe’s lips. Not ‘can I,’ or ‘do you want me to;’ just a plain declaration of Jack’s intentions.  Gabe nods dumbly, unable to put to words how very much he wanted that, had wanted that exact thing all night long. 

He meets Jack halfway and thinks, this is what tasting sunlight is like .

Jack’s fingers curl against Gabriel’s arms, and he pushes himself up until Gabriel is sandwiched between the unforgiving building and Jack’s warm, insistent chest, their mouths opening against the taste of alcohol and into something more. Gabriel’s head swims, stuffed full of everything Jack Jack Jack , and Jack hums a silent agreement right into Gabriel’s parted mouth.

“How much farther is your place again?” Jack murmurs, lips still scuffing against Gabriel’s own.

“Not too far,” Gabriel says, and the thrill of Jack coming home with him is very visceral in that moment. He got to have this. 

Jack’s smile is contagious- Gabriel is giddy with it, and his hand is warm in Gabriel’s when he tugs them further. “Let’s go then.”

Gabriel’s house is dark with slumber- it’s become abysmally late, and the two of them try hard to be quiet once Gabriel manages to get them through the front door. They kind of make being stealthy happen, with an emphasis on ‘kind of.’ Honestly, Gabriel is surprised his mother doesn’t come out with a bat after Jack knocks over a dining chair that clatters on the stone floor with an accompanying string of curses from the both of them.

The very top of the house is Gabriel’s own. Technically it’s the attic. Or what used to be a hayloft once upon a time, and it’s where the forge smoke gathers, but it’s far more private than his sisters’ shared quarters and his parents bedroom, both beside the forge itself on the first floor. No one but Gabriel usually comes up here, and with some mild embarrassment and sluggish movements, Gabe scuffles around, shoving his belongings aside and moving bedding around until there’s space enough for the two of them. 

“You nest like an owl,” Jack snickers when he makes it to the top of the ladder. He hauls himself over, crouched down to avoid the ceiling and making his way over to Gabe as Gabe shushes him. If they woke his father up this late at night, there really would be hell to pay. “It suits you.” 

Gabriel is about to tell him to hush again, but his mouth goes dry. Jack is crawling towards him on hands and knees, lithe like a big cat on the prowl, and those predatory, seaborn eyes are aimed right at Gabriel, full force like a tidal wave. Gabriel can’t find the words to say anything at all until Jack is right between his legs, braced over Gabe on his forearms and offering an anxious, “Hello.”

“Hi,” Gabriel greets back, reaches up and twines his fingers through that gorgeous gold hair, which isn’t nearly as soft as it looks. Coarse and shorn close towards the back, and Gabriel’s nails scratch over Jack’s scalp. The pleased look that the motion brings to Jack’s face is truly phenomenal, as is the feeling of Jack sinking down, covering Gabe’s body with his own like a blanket. 

They kiss again, and with the drink starting to fade from it’s high in Gabriel’s blood, everything is replaced with heat, tingling in all the places he and Jack align. Jack’s already hard, and Gabriel is quick to join him, especially with Jack rolling his hips like that in just the right spot, god …

 Somehow, he’s surprised when Jack rolls down his body and begins pulling at the gold buttons of Gabe’s breeches with a purpose. Moronically, he asks, “What are you doing?”

Jack gives him a pithy look. “Giving you a blowjob?” He tugs at the waistline until the pants begin to remove themselves with quiet zips of the laces through eyelets.

Gabriel snatches Jack’s wrists, his libido screaming obscenities at him from the back of Gabe’s head. “Wait, I thought- I mean-” He’d thought they’d get each other off, actually. But putting a voice to his incessant need to get his hands all over Jack was quite a bit more awkward than Gabriel was used to. His experience lay in brothels… not with lovers. Reciprocation usually wasn’t something he had to worry about.

Jack blinks at him quizzically, pulls his wrists from Gabriel’s grasp when there’s nothing else forthcoming, and goes back to work. He gives Gabriel’s stiffening member a pointed pump, amused. “I told you, I owe you.” 

That makes Gabriel suck a tight breath right through his teeth. His palm lands in the middle of Jack’s forehead, keeping him at bay scant inches from the head of his cock. Jack gives a sharp chuff of laughter, but Gabriel is serious this time. 

“You don’t owe me anything, Jack,” A night of fun they both enjoyed was nothing to be owing favors towards. And beautiful wonderful Jack- the idea of him spreading his legs because of some phony debt was like eating a bitter melon raw.

A series of emotions pass over Jack’s face, too quick for Gabriel to follow, each as fleeting and complicated as the last. Finally, Jack slides away from Gabriel’s hindering palm and he leans up into Gabriel, face to face once again. “Do you not want me to?”

“No, I do,” Gabriel rushes. “I definitely do, just…. Ah,” Gabriel coughs, feeling himself flush. “Kinda wanted to do this right.”

Jack’s eyebrow raises. “Me giving you a blowjob is… wrong?”

“Jesus, stop saying it like that,” Gabriel wheezes, because if something that crass comes from Jack’s smart mouth one more time, Gabriel thinks he might do something truly unforgivable.

“What?” Jack asks. His eyebrows rise farther, both of them this time. “ Blowjob ? Gabe, am I making you blush ?” He snarks out a quick laugh that Gabe quickly slaps a hand over his mouth for.

“Shh! You wanna wake up the whole house?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Jack snickers, tucking his face into the side of Gabe’s throat, pressing first one small kiss, then a longer, more open mouthed one over it. “You just really didn’t seem like the shy type-”

“I’m not .” This was just different. Gabe wanted it to be different. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to. Like this is what I expected when I brought you around town tonight.”

“I didn’t think you did,” Jack answers, pulling away from nibbling at the cusp of Gabriel’s adam’s apple to look Gabe in the face again, and he looks like he’s thinking very hard about something. Their breaths mingle in the space between their mouths and Gabe lets the silence linger, lets his hands smooth over the narrow curve that was Jack’s waist as he thinks.

Finally, Jack seems to choose his words. “I don’t get to choose very much for myself Gabe. Not often, at least.” Their noses brush, Jack’s eye’s half lidded with question. “Let me be greedy, just for one night Gabe? Just with you?”

Jack being greedy... for Gabriel? From that face, Jack’s imploring seafoam eyes asking everything at once and demanding nothing at all…. Hell, how is he supposed to say no to that?

“What do you say?” Jack wheedles further, ducking down and nosing just under the curve of Gabriel’s jaw, feather light. Gabriel swallows.

“I guess if you insist.”

Jack gives him a happy little peck on the cheek that is just as wonderful as the other kisses Gabriel has received from him tonight, then gleefully wiggles his way back down Gabe’s body. He nudges at Gabriel’s knees until Gabriel lets them come apart wide enough for Jack to settle between and Gabe can feel his excited exhale against the overheated skin of his groin, one of Jack’s hands warm like a brand against the inside of his thigh.

The first lick to the underside of Gabe’s cock makes his body give an unadulterated, full being shudder, too warm and wet against the chill fogging his room. The second is more of an open mouthed kiss, right against the head where it crested. Then Jack is sinking down, slowly and incessantly around Gabriel until Gabe feels his whole being try to lurch at the sensation, fingers come to grip Jack’s head and stop just shy, curling into the crumpled fabric of the breeches instead. He groans, and knows immediately that this time he’s going to be the one being far too loud. 

Gently, he feels Jack’s fingers lace through his own, pulls Gabe’s hands up into the tawny ruffles of gold hair in a silent request, and so Gabe lets his fingers lace there instead, feel the rhythm and jump of muscles on Jack’s scalp as he swallows, bobs and swallows, lower and lower. It’s both amazing and amazingly lewd, the sounds that are coming from Jack; soft squelches and slick slides that make him slurp and hum around the length in his mouth- unpracticed, and so very responsive. Jack is so gorgeous that Gabriel finds himself fantasizing that maybe he’s already died, taken the fast track to heaven and is being blown by a delicately pretty boy angel, highlighted in strips of holy moonlight. He has to close his eyes to cling to some sort of self-control.

“You do this alot?” He groans, in between pauses when Jack pulls back for air. 

Jack grins up at him, oddly pleased. He jacks Gabriel with his palm in lieu of his mouth. “No, never,” and Gabriel thinks that he means all of tonight. That all of this was new to Jack, and he had chosen to spend it with Gabriel. Had chosen to come back here like this. That it made Gabriel special. 

He sinks down again and Gabriel’s head thunks against the floor. “God, fuck, keep- keep doing that,” Gabe rasps. Jack’s fingers curl around his base and a deft swallow that constricts everything into sweltering bliss. Jack’s acquiescing hum sends vibrations skittering past Gabriel’s cock into the blazing pit of his stomach with bright sizzles, and when he repeats the motion and Gabriel’s groan curdles up louder than before, Gabriel can feel Jack smile around him. His fingers tighten in Jack’s hair which makes Jack do some kind of full body, appreciative tremor, so he does it again. With a firm grip to Jack’s head, his thighs tense and he presses upwards, feels Jack stiffen, neck constricting and then relaxing all at once, throat muscles moving to liquid around Gabriel, letting him push and take and take -

“Holy fuck , you’re-” amazing . Wonderful. A wet dream come true. Jack pulls away with a juddering gasp that is definitely too loud, but fuck, Gabe wants this man before him so badly. Wants every noise and reaction he can get from this gorgeous, crazy, mysterious person that had somehow found their way to Gabe’s bed of all places. He again thanks whatever benevolent deity seemed to be looking out for him tonight, deeming that Gabriel deserved this kindness, and then uses the one hand still grasping Jack by the nape of his hair to drag him up and kiss those sweetly beautiful noises right from his mouth.

The distinctive thunk of a shoe getting thrown at the ceiling above his sister’s room thuds against Gabe’s floorboards loudly. Jack jumps like he’s heard a gunshot. Eyes wide, he glances at Gabe with his open mouth still red, beginning to bruise, and wet with spit. “Was that-”

“My sisters. Thin walls,” Gabe rolls his eyes, smoothes his palm over Jack’s broad shoulders soothingly. “Ignore them.” 

Jack coughs, and his face is redder than it should be under his dusting of freckles, even halfway through a blowjob. “I didn’t realize you were being serious-”

“Just ignore them,” Gabriel reassures again, letting his hands run over Jack’s collarbone. He raises his voice just enough to carry as he speaks up into the air. “If either of them are smart, they’ll be quiet. Or I’ll stop covering Rebecca when she sneaks out to see her boyfriend.”

There’s a squeak, followed by a conspicuous amount of silence from downstairs, and Jack covers his mouth and leans into Gabriel’s shoulder to snigger. Gabriel himself, well he’s becoming very preoccupied with letting his hands slick all over Jack’s shoulders and decently built arms- even if Jack was upper echelon, Jack had none of the softness of someone who sat on laurels all day. He was beautifully crafted all over. From the nipples Gabriel tweaks to the ridges of his abdomen and tapered waist that Gabe lets his fingers sink into, Jack was tantalizingly delicious. He follows the narrow line of gilded fuzz down Jack’s navel and loves watching the way his face smoothes and loosens, eyelids lowering when he finally reaches Jack’s cock.   

Gabe rolls them both so he can lie over Jack, their legs slotting together. “My turn.”

Jack’s lips quirk. His hips roll up into Gabriel’s, his hands are hard and grabbing on Gabriel’s hips. “I didn’t finish you yet-”

“I want to finish with you, instead.” Gabriel wanted to cum with Jack, not be serviced. He wanted them both to feel as good as Jack was making him feel. And he kisses Jack with every intention of pressing that line of thought right into Jack’s mouth.

Jack gives a sigh that’s soft as a first snowfall. His hands creep up to Gabriel’s face, cradling his jaw and he kisses back with fervor. He tastes like Amélie’s brand of beer and a crisp sharpness that Gabe can tell is just completely Jack- maybe he’s imagining the breath of salt air he can taste when he licks against the inside of Jack’s lips and is rewarded with a throaty groan. 

The friction is rough, so Gabriel gathers spit to lick onto his palm before returning to gripping both of their lengths. 

“Hot,” Jack whispers, following Gabe’s eyes down between them. It’s a pretty nice sight with the contrast of their skin, Gabriel a tad thicker, Jack a little bit longer, both of them hard as hell. There’s a choked rumble from deep in Jack’s chest. “Remind me to bring some oil next time.”

The words echo in Gabe’s head because god, if there was a chance at a next time, he would grab onto that chance and hold it tight. His fist speeds between them, adjusts to the slickest grip and pull at Jack’s gasps and grunts with sharp twists of his palms. Gabriel could feel Jack getting closer just as he could feel himself racing up towards his peak at dizzying levels, so good that Gabe almost didn’t want to reach the end. He just wanted this to go on forever and ever….

Jack’s fingers tighten to white knuckles against Gabe’s ribs. “Gabe, I’m gonna-”

“Go, Jackie. Cum.”

Shuddering and quaking Jack does, eyes squeezing shut and brow furrowed like he was almost in pain, writhing in something better. His cum lubricates Gabe’s motions just enough that Gabe’s following him a half second later, nearly biting down on his own tongue at the startling force of it from just this.  His hips press down into Jack with shockwave pulses from his cock, and his hand stutters down to a stilted stop between them. 

For a second, Gabriel just lets himself breathe. He came so hard his head was pounding. 

“Fuck….” Jack huffs, some minutes later. Gabriel nods, slides partway off to the side so he’s not weighing Jack down. It leaves Jack spreadeagled and cusped in moonlight that shines over the sheen of his skin, cooling sweat and fluids, breathing quietly and swallowing softly with his eyes closed. He’s more beautiful than before. Gabe didn’t think it was possible. 

He smoothes some of Jack’s sweaty bangs from Jack’s forehead and Jack peeks out at him. “I can feel you looking at me.”

Gabriel shrugs. “Hard not to look at an angel.”

Jack blinks, somehow surprised by this statement out of everything else, and his smile is so very warm. Gabriel feels his guts crunch up with squirming pleasure. He lets Jack shuffle forward, jostling and nudging at Gabriel until he can seal himself along Gabriel’s back, knees nestled into the backs of Gabe’s legs, toes curling at the tendons on Gabe’s ankles. He pressed affectionate kisses along the section of Gabriel's neck that meets his shoulder, and they feel so very cherishing.

It’s a long while later, and Jack’s breathing has evened out, but Gabriel still finds himself awake, petting circles and shapes into Jack’s forearm. The hair on Jack’s arms is so fine and light colored it was barely visible, especially in the darkness. Such a crazy stark contrast to Gabriel’s own it was like they were night and day. If Gabriel let himself be romantic, it was like they were two halves of a whole- but that would be asking too much, wouldn’t it? He wanted to be content with just this moment, but he just can’t seem to help but want more. 

He skims his fingers down the angle of Jack’s wrist. Gabriel wants so badly.

“Did you fetch a good price for the jacket and cloak?” Jack yawns, apparently not asleep yet. 

“Yeah.” Gabe answers. Jack’s nose nuzzles behind Gabe’s ear, breath tickling his curls. Gabe thinks of Moira’s sharp gaze, her question of how Gabriel had lucked out so strongly. She didn’t even know just how much Gabe had lucked out tonight. Jack’s kisses in an alleyway, careless smiles in a tavern, leaning on each other to stumble their way back here-

Gabriel frowns a bit as a question reoccurs to him, ever since he’d sobered up enough to realize it. 

“Hey, Jack? How’d you know where my family’s place was?” Jack had definitely led them more than a portion of the way home. But a rich boy, a young lord who had no business in Gabe’s section of the city- it seemed a slim chance.

Jack shuffles closer, (what a cuddler) and his palm slides heavily across Gabe’s midriff. “Saw it on the maps in father’s courtroom. They kept talking-”

Gabriel can feel the instant that Jack realizes he’s said the wrong thing. His relaxed form suddenly comes alive with action, tense like a rabbit ready to bolt, vestiges of sleepiness evaporating to thin air. He swallows, and Gabe can feel how thick and strained it is. “...I-” 

He’s already beginning to edge away when Gabriel grabs his arm to hold him still, heart thundering like a drumbeat between his ears. 

“Don’t.” Gabe tells him, tries not to think about how stricken Jack sounds.  “I kind of… I think I already knew.” 

Gabriel had suspected. More than once after people started to recognize Jack at the bar, after Moira’s reaction to the sale of Jack’s clothes and how he’d happened upon them. Really, Gabriel thinks he’d kind of known the second Jack’s hood had shoved back to show hair spun finer than any gold he’d seen paired with eyes bluer than the ocean. Jack couldn’t have been anyone other than royal bloodline, could he?

“You knew?” Jack’s voice is barely audible. His arm stays stiff around Gabriel and he doesn’t move closer, but he doesn’t keep trying to leave. His words are more a motion of the syllables written with his lips against the back of Gabriel’s shoulder. 

Gabriel swallows. “I wasn’t sure. But,” He doesn’t even want to say it, afraid that if he does Jack will run, that he’ll leave as quickly as he came into Gabe’s life and never come back. “Are you really? The prince?”

Jack’s face buries into Gabriel’s back and his body curls tight.  He nods. 

Gabriel lets out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. The Prince. Not Jack; John Morrison, the younger. Heir to the coming throne. 

He squeezes Jack’s arm where he holds it, presses back against him quietly in reassurance.

“I want you to know that I had fun tonight, too. I’m glad you picked me out of everyone off the street you could have.” Gabriel says, wondering if this is his only chance to get these words out to someone who was so inexorably out of his league, above his status, intangibly out of reach. These were never the words he’d imagined himself saying to anyone, much less someone like Jack, but they’re the ones Gabriel has been thinking all night long.  “You’re amazing Jack. No matter what happens, I hope you remember tonight.” I hope you remember me, hangs like wordless smoke in the ashes of his room. 

There’s wet against his shoulder, and Gabriel realizes that Jack is crying. 

“Thank you,” Jack murmurs, and then again. A quieter thank you, again and again into the back of Gabe’s shoulder until Gabe turns around, has to to hold Jack close, folding Jack’s arms up into the cradle of his arms, feeling him cry and letting Jack kiss softly at his collarbone as he utters gratitudes that Gabriel doesn’t deserve from this wonderful human. 

Jack’s crying finally peters out. The moon is reaching far past it’s zenith and it’ll be dawn soon enough, but Gabriel thinks he’s fine to just hold Jack like this for the rest of the night. 

“Gabe, I don’t ever wanna go back,” Jack whispers into the crevice their bodies make. 

Gabe cranes down to see Jack, but the other boy is staring at Gabe’s chest and his eyes are far far away, expression complicated. “Why?”

“It’s…” Jack’s fingers flex and wiggle. He crooks himself closer and turns his head away so Gabriel can’t see that perplexing expression anymore. “It’s complicated.”

To be honest, Gabriel doesn’t know shit about courts or royalty beyond the fact that he paid taxes to them and stepped out of a Lord’s way when they passed on the road. Still, “Try to tell me.”

And he listens as Jack tells him of the court, of his father, dying of an assassination attempt that left him poisoned and crippled, of the paintings of his mother that hung in the rooms, along the hallways- her bloodline had been the royal one, her looks are what had passed down to Jack. It was really her throne that Jack was to inherit. He tells Gabe of his sister, far more suited to rule even as young as she was, five years his junior.  So very, achingly young that it left Jack with no choice about anything really. He had to step up to the plate, if only to alleviate the weight from his father’s shoulders so he could finally rest. But the assassination attempts on Jack’s own life had grown so frequent, that he was being sheltered. Confined and lock and goddamn key, like some pet. A prisoner in his own right, in his own castle. He hated it more than he hated the idea of a life of political trappings and meetings and inaction, settled on a gossamer throne he wasn’t even allowed to defend for himself. He hated it all, hated the way he was treated, hated that he had no choice-

He huffs, and Gabe is quiet, listens to Jack’s ragged breaths and pets his soft hair with his lips pressed to Jack’s temple, not sure what to say. Gabe’s own family wasn’t like that- even in the worst moments after Michael had died and his absence had nearly torn Gabriel’s father and mother apart, they’d always been there. Sometimes not for each other, but still there, with willing ready hands to step in and help glue the remaining pieces of their family back together where they could. 

But Gabriel’s circle that he called ‘family’ had grown over the years, and enveloped the people he’d met. Once upon a time, that family had been the gang Gabe had led with bloodstained teeth in a mock-picture of a robin hood crusade. Then it had become Jesse, Genji at his side as they ruthlessly ripped the mantle from Gabe’s shoulders- a gift to ‘get out while the going was still good.’ Gabe’s family had become Amélie, crying as she carried in kegs by herself to a business she had been far too young to inherit; and Lena, the girl of her dreams who had brought the smiles back to Amélie’s imperious face with every joyous bounce around the tavern.  It had become Ana and Reinhardt and their terrible, raunchy stories, Sombra with her meddling remarks and pervasive nosiness, and Brigitte as she flirted her way through the brothels right by Gabriel’s side with a wink and raucous laughter.

“I think… I think family doesn’t always have to be blood.” Gabriel says haltingly. Jack’s hair sifts through his fingers, voice long since quieted, but his fingers rub small circles into Gabe’s sternum, letting Gabe know he was still listening. “I think family is just the people who want your life in theirs, and accept you for who you are. The people who would do anything to see you smile, and love you no matter what crazy shit you do.” 

And Gabriel desperately, desperately wanted to be that for Jack. Forget meeting him a few hours ago- just this one night with Jack, and all Gabriel wanted to do was make sure those sunlight smiles never ever went away. 

Jack sighs tiredly into Gabriel’s chest. “I don’t think I have many people like that around me.”

“Well, you’re not there right now, you’re here. And I care about you like that.” Gabriel muses. “And the pub? Ana and Reinhardt and all of them? You let them love you, and they will love you right back.”

Jack props his chin on the back of his hand on Gabe’s chest to peer up at him through his golden ichor lashes. “You think?”

“I know. Trust me, it’s inescapable.” Gabe’s friends were like the plague in their affections. Jack hums, but between his brows there is still the small crease of trouble. He turns his cheek to the side, thinking deeply.

“Hey Jack?” Gabriel looks at his face as he says it, to prove that the words are the truest he’s ever spoken. “I want to be there for you. I promise. It might not mean much but to the best of my abilities, I’d like to help.” He pulls Jack close to him, tries to press his meaning down into Jack’s skin like marks that could never leave. “I promise.”

Jack laughs thickly through the tears that haven’t quite faded all the way away. “Yeah?” He scrubs at his face and pulls Gabe close. “God, I said I wanted to be greedy, but I just wanted you to fuck me!” His laughter is a little bit hysterical. Inside of Gabe, right in the vulnerable area where he’d just exposed himself to this princling with only the most devout of intentions, Jack’s words pierce and ache fiercely. 

Then Jack is turning those sea-born eyes towards him and they wan silver with moonlight residue. “Is it wrong for me to want to never leave, and maybe want your love, too?”

Gabe kisses him. Kisses him for all he’s worth and thinks, Jack, you already have it .

They fall asleep like that, curled in each other’s arms with the first fingerlings of dawn stretching up from the horizon. 

____________________

Gabriel knows instinctively upon waking that he’d slept far past the normal time he usually rises. He’d slept so deeply and soundly that he kind of feels stoned as he drags himself up from slumber and squints at the sunlight slanting through the thatched roofing.  Jack is slung across his chest, his breathing tranquil and undisturbed, peaceful with all emotion from last night smoothed away like a rock by the sea.  He’s drooling onto Gabe’s chest a bit, but Gabriel was right about Jack’s hair looking like sunlight- the morning made his hair look like a halo across Gabe’s pillows. 

Jack had stayed. The feeling buzzes so much warmth through Gabe’s body. Jack hadn’t left yet, had stayed the night with Gabriel. Maybe it hadn’t just been heat of the moment when he’d told Gabriel ‘next time.’

Hell, he’d slept with a prince. Gabriel had slept with the heir to the literal throne. He’s undecided if this constitutes as a stroke of luck or a potentially massive problem, and decides that thought is worth shelving for later.

A flicker of motion catches his eye from the ladder up to his room. His sisters, poking their noses over the top rung of the ladder. Rebecca catches his eye and makes an absolutely ridiculous wiggling motion with her eyebrows and a lewd hand sign with her fingers. Nicola is making kissy faces. 

Gabriel sneers at them both and flips them a finger with the hand that isn’t still pinned under Jack. In a fit of giggles and twin flashes of black curls, they both duck back out of sight, thumping down the rungs of the ladder. Gabriel can hear the patter of their feet across the floorboards. For some reason, no one had come to wake Gabriel up for work, and Gabriel has a sneaking suspicion that has a lot to do with his houseguest and the probable large amount of noise they made last night.  

Well, if they let him sleep in this long, they could let him sleep in a little longer. 

He traces the edge of Jack’s face, runs a finger along Jack’s jawline. Jack barely stirs, cozies even closer to Gabe under the blankets that have rucked up enough to leave their feet exposed. Eventually he blinks awake, swipes his face up Gabriel’s chest with a scruff of barely there stubble. “Gu’dm’rning,” he slurs. 

“Goodmorning.” Gabriel replies, oddly touched. Half of Jack’s hair is mashed upwards with bedhead. It gives him the resemblance of a barely woken kitten. “You drooled on me.”

Jack blinks hard, rubs some sleep from his eyes. “Did I? Sorry.” He sits up, takes most of the blankets with him as he goes. He glances around with a pained grimace, and then rubs his head. “I think I’m hungover.”

“I’m sure you are.” Gabriel tells him, reaching around for pants and clothes. He skips over the clothes Jack had given him and grabs a fresh pair for himself and Jack. That’s pretty much his whole wardrobe- he’d have to go bother Sombra for an extra set of everything. He tosses the clothes at Jack and tries not to watch him pull them on. In daylight, he can see the remnants of his own handiwork, fingerprints against Jack’s hipbones, a hickey or two he doesn’t remember leaving on the pale column of Jack’s neck. There’s also a couple of yellow green bruises drying out that Gabriel recognizes. 

He touches the edge of one of the large ones, distinctly in the shape of a fist and settled just above where Jack’s kidney would be. Jack jumps and with a little laughter twists to Gabe. “Hey, stop . I’m ticklish-”

“What are these from?” Gabe asks intently, hand still on the mark, skin buzzing with something akin to anger. The mark was old- the swelling was nearly gone, but some of the other marks were fresher- harder.

Jack’s face changes. His head tilts to the side. “Training.” Like a puppy, his head tilts to the other side and his eyes on Gabe turn regarding. “I like being able to protect myself. Relying on everyone else to keep me safe all the time doesn’t do much good.”

The bruises were from training to defend himself? The callouses, the firm muscle all makes a lot more sense- Jack was in enough danger that bodyguards weren’t enough. The anger burning under Gabe’s skin fizzles into something that whispers to him, protect . 

“I can help you train,” He jumps, immediately. “There’s only so much you can learn from form fighting- I could help you become good. Real good.” Gabriel was nothing if not an expert street brawler- it was how he’d earned his name.  Give him a set of iron knuckles or trench knives, and he could divide enemy lines through sheer brutality, though he can’t imagine Jack needed that kind of power. “I can teach you things your palace keepers don’t even know about, or maybe-”

“Gabe.” Jack’s hand on his shoulder stops Gabriel before his rant and truly begin to roll. “I’d like that. A lot.”

The tightness in Gabe’s chest eases. “Yeah?”

Jack nods, pulling the offered shirt over his head and covering the marks from sight once again. “If it’s you teaching me, sure. Why wouldn’t I want a hot teacher to teach me how to fight dirty?”

Gabriel feels himself flush and Jack’s laughing again. He shoves Jack away from himself, grumbling, and ushers them both downstairs.

The house goes silent when Gabriel and Jack climb down the ladder. Gabe’s the first to hit the floor, but all eyes are on Jack’s descent. His sister’s eyes are very wide. Even his baby brother’s cooing halts. At least Gabe knew not that Jack being pretty as hell wasn’t just him, the feeling seemed to be mutual. 

“What? You’ve never seen a white boy before or something?” He announces to the room crassly, and that seems to break the spell. Rebecca turns a pout to the ceiling, while Nicola dashes over with all the unashamed familiarity that comes with being only four years old, and throws herself at Jack’s legs. 

“Whoa mister! You’re so pretty! Are you a fairy? ”

Jack laughs, staring down at the little girl with a frizz of black hair puffing from her head and grinning up at him from his shins. “Well, thank you! What’s your name?”

“I’m Nicola!” She says, locking her arms around his knees and her legs around his ankles. “Did Gabi bring you back from the woods?”

Jack laughs again, eyebrows raised in Gabriel’s direction. “Not quite. I’m not actually a fairy-” And then he leans over to peer at her very seriously, smile so kind. “But I’ll tell you a secret. I’m actually an angel .”

Gabriel flushes again, because as Jack uttered that he very pointedly had winked at Gabriel. He was flirting with him, blatantly in front of Gabriel’s family repeating the words that Gabriel had said to him.  Gabriel’s face is burning.

 By the kitchen table Rebecca begins to make gagging noises, and Gabriel’s saint of a mother comes to his rescue and smacks her upside the head with a spoon. “Hush, demon-child.” Then she brandishes the spoon in Gabriel’s direction. “And you . You should know by now the house is quiet when the forge dies.”

“Sorry, Ma.” Gabriel ducks his head in apology, and Jack tries to cover his chuckle with a cough. Badly.

His Ma still smacks him with the spoon, but lighter than usual.  “Get your sister to stop harassing your friend and make them both sit down. I have breakfast almost ready.” She ruffles his hair in the way she knows he hates, and he lets her. He’d gotten off with a light sentence.

He can’t help but notice that his father is nowhere to be seen.

Jack is crouched down in front of Nicola, while she asks him with wide eyes if she can touch his hair. When he tilts his head, her tiny fingers run through it twice before she jerks away giggling, clutching her hand to her chest. 

“There’s breakfast.” Gabriel says to them both, and Nicola scurries away hopping up next to Rebecca to tell her about how soft Jack’s hair is. He watches Jack get up and dust his knees off. “If you want to stay.” Wouldn’t someone be missing him at the palace? If Jack had really snuck out of the palace under the safe guards he said he was under, then surely there was bound to be someone out looking for the prince.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Jack huffs, and before Gabe can stop him, leans over and plants a dry kiss on his cheek. 

“Come come. You boys must be hungry after your late night. Eat while the food is hot.”

Gabe’s mother serves them fresh bread rolls from the bakery, thick with rye and flax seeds, grilled down with butter and grease, along with slivers of the goat cheese they’d traded the miller for.  Even better, a plate of scalded sausages arrives at the very center of the table smelling thickly of sage and garlic, fried with onions- a rare treat. 

Gabriel wonders what the occasion is, serving himself two before Nicola can get her grubby hands all over the plate. He keeps trying to catch his Ma’s eye, but she won’t look at him long enough for him to ask the silent question. When Jack only serves himself one sausage, she heaps his plate with two more, another slice of bread and more cheese.

Then Jack gives his Ma one of those patent star-dazzling smiles and she nearly swoons to give him an extra pat of butter for his plate and Gabriel really doesn’t have to wonder.

Watching Jack leave is a new experience for Gabe. He leans against the doorway as Jack says goodbyes to his family, who have for the most part already adopted Jack as one of their own, like the raucous tribe they were. Jack takes his sweet time too, letting Nicola try to climb up the broad slope of his shoulders and answering Rebecca’s nosy questions one after the other. Gabe keeps trying to describe this sweet and sour feeling in his chest that makes him feel a little wobbly, a little off center. 

After giving Gabe’s mother another hug goodbye, he comes to a stop before Gabe and raises an eyebrow. “Walk with me?”

“If you really need me to,” Gabriel says gratefully and follows Jack out. 

The day has begun without them, and the morning markets are just wrapping up stalls and shifting produce to sell nightly wares instead. It’s easy to blend in with the streams of bustling citizens, even with Jack at his side. Still, Gabriel takes them on a meandering route back towards where he’d met Jack the night before, closer to city center and the palace, now that Gabriel can see it in the light of day. Jack doesn’t say anything though, and so neither does Gabriel, letting the silence between them ride comfortable and undisturbed. 

Jack still looks just as good in Gabe’s clothes during daylight as he had eclipsed in the blue dark. 

“Hey Gabe?” Jack says. He’s stopped, a few paces behind Gabriel. The sparse crowd on this particular side street parts around him like a stone amidst a river. Jack doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. “When can I see you again?”

Gabriel turns to look at him, and slowly gives a shrug. “I guess whenever you want.” Jack was after all, the prince. Gabriel’s time was, technically, his to command. Somehow, Gabriel couldn’t imagine Jack doing something like that, either. 

Jack makes a face and his eyes slide to the side, then down to the ground between their feet. “Whenever I want?”

Gabriel gives him a lopsided grin. “What, are you missing me already? We haven’t even left yet.”

Jack meets his eyes. “About what I said-”

“Your secret is safe with me.” Gabriel assures, automatically. Jack gives him a fleeting smile, but it is obviously not the answer he was looking for. Whatever question precluded that answer though, Jack never says it. Instead he steps forward just enough not to make too intimate a scene, but Gabe can feel the distance shrink like a rubber band snapping back together. Two of Jack’s fingers reach out to snag two of Gabriel’s, held innocuous between them. 

“I’m holding you to that promise for extra training.”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

Jack’s fingers squeeze his just once, and fall away. “Bye, Gabe.”

“Goodbye, Jack.”

Jack parts from him, walks on ahead proud and unwavering once again. There’s a hickey peeking out from his collar, even at this distance, and it takes everything in Gabriel not to jog after him and follow Jack the rest of the way. 

He settles for admiring the view while it lasts.

Gabriel spends the walk back replaying everything over in his head with a sense of beholden wonder. What a surreal night of happenstance. His mind swirls with Jack and his honeyed promises that Gabriel hopes desperately will come to fruition, brimming with fresh anticipation and a light buoyancy that has never arisen quite like this from other nights out, other beds shared. Jack .

He’s practically whistling when he makes it back to the forge, and is barely inside before his sisters begin accosting him.

“When’s Jack coming back?” Nicola bounces up from the table, her feet nearly on the bench with eagerness. She glances around Gabriel like Jack was going to reappear again by his side just around the edge of the doorway, growing disappointed when no sunshine blonde head appears. Her focus hones back in on Gabriel, jumping increasing its fervor. “When, Gabi, when ?”

“When he wants to. Now, settle,” He tells her, kicking his shoes away, moving to open the forge up for business.  

Rebecca sets the iron ore she’d just brought in down with a thunk, leans against the carrier to twirl her hair in amusement. “If that were the case, I don’t think he would have left in the first place. He’s way out of your league- I’m surprised he even stayed for breakfast.”

“Is that right?” Gabriel asks with a leer. “When are you and Isaac supposed to meet again?”

“Issac?” Their mother perks up immediately from the kitchen table where she is peeling potatoes and slicing them to slivers. “Issac again? Mija, you cannot be serious.”

Rebecca gives Gabriel a look hotter than the forge and set to melt metal as Gabriel’s mother sets in about the merits and worth of a potential husband and Rebecca’s choices regarding the matter. Gabriel just goes about his work and lets it unfold around him and thinks of Jack, wondering if he’d show up again or find Gabriel wandering the streets in the dead of night again.

“He should come back sooner!” Nicola whines from the table until she’s told to hush and the whining turns to angry, Reyes’ style muttering.

Gabriel’s mother comes over to interrupt his coal stoking in favor of ruffling his hair. Gabriel ducks away, but she just seizes his ear instead to hold him still. “I like this one Gabi. You should keep him.”

“Mama…” Gabriel grumbles. She shakes his ear once more and releases. Gabriel settles back down against the hearth. “He’ll come back,” He says, trying to convince himself the same even though he’d said as much to everyone in the room. 

Gabriel’s mother just nods sagely. “He will.”