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It's hard to say when it started.
It's not that he didn't see it, he saw it quite well, but it was just... a weird new thing of his, another cent in the unusual quirks jar. It seemed so normal for him to do things like these. It's the same as when he sometimes doesn't blink at all for a while and then blinks rapidly, or how his nails became jagged and ugly from biting. It just is. So he never bothered categorising the behaviours when he started noticing (meaning when they started in general), and now it's been so long, he really has no idea where it begun.
Jack was always tired, bags under his eyes as expected as the moon coming up at night or Gabriel making a decision based on how he wants it done. It came with the job, sleep deprivation. What was a little weird is finding him in his office, passed out, arms crossed, head resting on them, on the table where a small amount of drool is collecting. Gabe was happy to see him sleep for once, but it wasn't really like Jack to stop and rest. When he first stumbled into him like that, he woke him up with a few shoves. Jack shot up not knowing where he is, and once he saw Gabe his cheeks flushed and he started apologising.
"I don't know how that happened, sorry."
But after a few apologies, they moved on, and didn't bring it up again. The next time he found him, he left him alone. The time after that, it became routine, and one time he even brought a blanket for Jack to have in his office. Jack still managed to do all his paperwork in time, as much as he managed before at least, so no one ever bothered him about it. Cole once joked to Gabriel,
"I'm being hauled around the globe at every hour of every day, and our Strike Commander takes mid-day naps."
he wanted to yell at him and strangle him that time, but he managed to keep it to an extremely aggressive whisper.
Cole didn't joke about it, or even mention it, ever again.
Then there were memory gaps. They started out small, Jack forgetting what he ate yesterday, or something Gabriel told him, but then it was multiple hours. Once Jack could barely recall how an op they were on went. Only remembering bits and pieces, a paper burnt in multiple places. Sometimes, later, a little before Gabe knew, he forgot multiple days in a row, just barely being able to name the things he did and even then
"I ate lunch early."
"I had a meeting about an operation in Egypt."
"Ana came back from somewhere. Seoul?"
"We went on a walk."
And this was odd to Gabriel, but Jack had a history of undiagnosed PTSD and disassociated before that. During those moments he couldn't recall anything at all. Gabriel was grateful for at least some memories. He thought the stress is eating at him, Overwatch is becoming a heavier weight to carry, so he just brought him more water to drink, with a 500g tablet of magnesium, so he drilled a hole through multiple guitar picks and tied them to a string, for Jack to put around his neck and chew on them instead of his nails. Held him tighter at night, tried to be a little more calm with him. Hoping. Desperately. That it would get a little better. Even though he knew, watching Cole lose an arm, and seeing the papers stack higher, and seeing Jack run his fingers against the handgun wrapped to his thigh, and comforting Angela when she was vomiting and crying after losing another member, that it really won't.
Jack also became more... reserved. You would see him less, he didn't talk as much, he ate little. Didn't smile, didn't frown, didn't get angry, always out of it and exhausted. Tide becoming the imprint in the sand, grains of a person that once was, even though he's right there. He did catch him crying more often, but it's hard to tell if he cried that much before, or if he just started showing it now. He tried to get him to be a little more upbeat, took him out more, tried to get him into doing a hobby or something, writing a journal, maybe. Birdwatching, not really. Jack didn't resist it, wrote some pages, could identify a few Swiss city species, ate when in a restaurant. Didn't make him talk much more though, or smile or anything. "Thank you." was what Gabe heard the most from him. And sex too. Fell asleep immediately after coming to bed, or before Gabriel could come even. Said no more often, which Gabe didn't necessarily mind, unusual was all it was. But sometimes when it actually came to it Jack struggled to get hard, even when he was clearly wanting to fuck Gabriel, or just have his dick sucked. A few times he struggled until he was so ashamed he almost started crying. Gabe kissed him, told him it's no problem and that he should sleep. He did, go to sleep that is, and before laying next to him Gabe took a quick shower to jerk off.
The final nail in the coffin was the slurring, the slowed down movements. It's when that got really bad that he forced Jack to go to Angela for a checkup. It went from Jack slurring words like the tongue in his mouth was too heavy, to forgetting what he was saying, to being completely incomprehensible. It was hard to notice at first, seeing as his lack of speaking came before the slurring, but at some point it became too obvious to ignore. But his body, that's what really scared Gabriel at times. Walking came with wobbling, tripping and falling also. He was generally slower, at picking up a pen, at reloading his rifle, at ducking from a shot. The last two, the slowed down movement in combat, is what fucked him over sometimes. He came back with a lot more injuries than usual, and when Gabriel saw him naked in bed there were always bruises, and stitches and carpet burns.
Taking him to Angela wasn't pretty. He brought up some of the things before, just curious about their origin, if they are just a 'Jack thing' or something more serious, but it always went the same.
"It's fine."
"I'm just tired."
"I have a headache."
"I slept bad." Even though he slept in.
But after a really nasty few bullets that he tanked, Gabriel came to him and said he needs to go to medical and get himself checked. At first Jack just said the same things as before, but Gabriel insisted.
"No."
"Why not?"
"It's a waste of resources, and time. Overwatch can't afford it."
"Overwatch can't afford to lose you either. Don't be stupid."
"That's different. Besides I went through the SEP, everything will heal."
"But it won't!" he was screaming now, "It's just been getting worse!"
"I'm not going. As long as I'm doing my job, there's nothing to be worried about."
"And when will there be?! When you're sent back in a body bag? Is that when?"
Jack turns to look at him, he's been changing, back to Gabriel, this entire time.
"You're overdoing it. I won't–"
"And you're not doing your job, either! You're getting worse at it, we've failed missions before. You're declining." Rotting, chipping, dying.
Jack never replied to that. With an angry look on his face, he let Gabriel drag him to Angie.
"He's been drinking."
Angela slumps in the seat next to him, turned away from Gabriel. She's sacrificing her lunch break to tell him this instead of sending the test results.
"What?"
He asks. He tries to feign disbelief, but you can tell he's asking just because he has nothing better to say.
And it all makes sense. And the only thing that Gabriel wonders is how stupid he must've been to not see it. Maybe he did, then the question is how devoted he was to never consider it properly.
"His alcohol levels are high. It explains all the symptoms he's been having."
She says. It's not a really honest response either. She knows, Gabriel knows, she knows that Gabriel knows, and so on. They're filling in the silence with faux suprise, perhaps hoping maybe it will disappear and won't be true, perhaps to pretend they're normal and this wasn't expected.
It was. Jack had a history of alcoholism, both his own and in his family. His dad was a drunk. After the SEP, when they couldn't stop him, Gabriel spent way too many nights gently taking away a bottle from his hands, drying tears, taking him to the bathroom, then shower, then bed. When he joined Overwatch it stopped. He still had his binges on worse days or weeks, but he never got stuck at the bottom.
'The only thing he learned,' Gabe thinks, 'is to not let me see it.'
"What do we do?" He asks, and turns to Angela.
She turns to look at him. And there's so many things in her eyes, grief, exhaustion, shame, sickness. None of it is related to Jack. He thinks then, for some reason, how she'll never be able to visit her home in peace. If she were to go work in a normal hospital, or lab, or visit her parents, or go to their grave, she'll never see her home. In her mind, it will always be the Swiss Overwatch Headquarters, and all the people she lost, and never the ones she saved.
"I don't know."
They walk back to Gabe's room in silence. And it's always Gabe's room. It was an unspoken agreement after Jack once mentioned how the view through the glass wall next to his bed makes him see the statue on full display and it he vomited because of it once. Does looking at it through the glass of a whiskey bottle help any? Can you then convince yourself you're throwing up because of the alcohol? Amber-tinted glasses, and whatnot.
When they reach the room, after Gabe closes the door, he turns to see Jack sitting on their bed and looking on the floor. Gabriel wants nothing more than to yell at him. Destroy all the furniture and make Overwatch pay for a replacement.
'I could use a drink.' but that's hardly an appropriate thought. Not unfair to Jack, but to the people he takes care of in Blackwatch, to Ana, to Angela.
Jack can tell, too. Yelling at eachother is fine, but Jack has nothing to say, and that just makes the entire thing pathetic to look at. So Gabriel walks over to him, and he's still looking at the floor, knowing, when Gabe says,
"Give me your key card." Calm, a whisper of a whisper, like a father to his son. (Which is funny, since Jack is supposed to be the one with the authority.)
"What?" Jack looks up at him, surprised.
"Give me your key card."
In his eyes, he sees it, Why?
Why aren't you screaming?
Why that?
Why are you trying to help me?
Why do you think I will?
He knows the answer to the last one, because Jack knows Gabriel knows what's best for him, he always did.
Why live if another person knows how to do it better?
Is another question, one that he can only answer with a drink, so he just ignores it.
Jack reaches into his jean pocket and takes out the card, handing it to Gabriel.
"Will you give it back?" ... today?
"I'll see."
And with that he turns to go to the small kitchen, where he opens a cupboard to pick up a roll of trash bags. He puts them in the pocket of his hoodie. Gabriel walks back to the bedroom, Jack's eyes just follow him around, tired. Gabriel kneels infront of Jack, and grabs him by his chin, gently, to move him closer and kiss his lips.
"It'll be okay. We'll make it through."
He stands, ruffles Jack's hair, smiles, and leaves.