A/N: Sorry. I needed to write something terribly sad and this is what I came up with. It is short, and I apologize. But I felt that dragging it on was unnecessary. So, here you go. Short and bitter-sweet.
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"Destruction can be beautiful to some people. Don't ask me why. It just is. And if they can't find anything to destroy, the destroy themselves." –John Knowles
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It's late, and he has work tomorrow—god, he always has work tomorrow. It never fucking ends—but he's going to damn well sit here and get flat-out drunk off his ass because, damnit, he needs to do something to try to make the pain just fucking stop.
Gabriel Reyes puts down yet another shot of tequila, and feels it burn all the way down his throat. The fire temporarily sears the ends of his damn fucking sensitive heartstrings, and he steadily swallows back the bitter reminder that Jack no longer cares about him, no longer believes in him, no longer trusts him. Because if he did, Gabe wouldn't sitting here, all alone, drowning his loneliness and pain in alcohol.
He closes his eyes momentarily, fighting back the strain of emotion that clenches his chest, but he all he sees are ghosts behind his eyelids. The haunted expressions of people he's murdered and tortured. Men and women and omnics, bodies twisted and broken, expressions bloodied and terrified, and sometimes full of rage and defiance. It's the screams, though. The agonized screams that fill his dreams, and eat away at him in every fucking moment of silence he has.
Gabe realizes his hands are shaking, and he's breathing heavily, and there's a wetness at the corners of his eyes. Pushing the empty shot glass away, the soldier gets his feet underneath himself and turns to make his way across the bar to the bathroom. He's got enough practice being this shit-faced drunk to at least not trip and fall as he walks, but he palms the door open with more force than necessary due to his blurred vision, and finally stumbles the last few steps to the porcelain sink.
Gripping the edges with a hold so fierce both bone and stone groan in protest, vaguely Reyes knows he's going to have massive bruising all over the length of both palms. But it doesn't matter right now, because all he can focus on is sinking his teeth into his lower lip trying to will himself to just hold-it-the-fuck-together. He cannot lose it. He can't.
He came here to drown all the god-awful thoughts and memories that had been going round and round and round inside his head all evening. Like a fucking demented merry-go-round. As he'd sat at his desk staring blankly at paperwork and seeing ghost-white faces of all the people he's killed staring back at him. And now, all he can do is drown in guilt and agony, knowing he's suffering alone, and that Jack wouldn't give a damn if he knew.
God… if Jack knew… If Jack knew what kinds of missions Gabriel and his team were tasked with doing… He'd probably be utterly repulsed by the man he'd once called his best friend. Completely and utterly repulsed.
The tears begin falling, and Reyes can do absolutely nothing to stop them. He stands there, hunched over the sink, arms shaking as he keeps himself upright even as he weeps bitterly under the unsteady fluorescent lights.
He accepted Blackwatch's first ill-fated mission because he'd wanted desperately to do what he could to lessen Jack's workload, despite his lingering anger at being completely dismissed out of hand for the promotion. And this mission sounded bad. His best friend didn't need the shit nightmares are made from that this type of mission would likely bring… And it just became a downward spiral from there… Jack became more and more busy, drifting away, and Gabriel mired himself deeper and deeper in the shit and blood heaped on him.
And now all he can do is stand in the bathroom and desperately pray that no one walks in here while he sobs breathlessly over the sink, tears making tracks down his cheeks as snot pours from his nose.
People who think crying is a beautiful thing haven't seen real crying, because Gabriel sure as hell knows this is not fucking beautiful. It's gross, and messy, and terrible, and yet all he can do is cry and cry and cry until he starts seeing spots overlay the images of the faces of his victims, and he's hiccupping, and he doesn't have the strength to hold himself upright any longer.
Finally, the broken soldier lets himself crumple to the floor, shoulder braced heavily against the stall next to the sink, just hiccupping and gasping and struggling not to pass out here on the cold tile floor.
It could've been minutes, it could've been hours, it could've been years for all Reyes knows, but finally, he falls completely silent, a silence only disrupted once and again by a small hiccup or hitch in his breathing.
By some miracle, he remains blissfully alone until he can force himself to stagger to his feet, grab a handful of toilet paper from the stall to clean his nose and face up with, and actually relieve himself, before making his way back out to the bar once more.
Gabriel asks for one last shot of tequila, something to burn feeling back into him after all the crying he's just done has left him feeling cold and empty. Afterwards, he pays his tab, and grabs his black leather jacket and leaves. He's got work tomorrow, always more fucking work, and while he doesn't expect to get a lot of sleep tonight, even a few hours is better than nothing...