It didn't take much to convince Moira to allow him to watch the treatment, probably because she was always so eager to flaunt her handiwork. Reaper watched the procedure from behind an observation window, along with a blond Talon agent he'd never seen before. Neither of them spoke when the tubes were inserted into McCree's veins, or when they stuck the electrodes on his bare torso and temples. Reaper watched as the cowboy struggled not to flinch at the cold, as he bit back a cry when the first jolt of electricity coursed through his body, making his muscles tense and spasm.
Simultaneously, an IV drip pumped drugs into his system. Drugs to keep him docile, drugs to make him suggestible, drugs to heighten the agony, drugs to keep him from passing out, and drugs to make it all sit in his subconscious like some kind of nightmarish fever dream.
The agents on the other side of the glass showed him a picture. Jesse groaned. "Who is that supposed to be? Are you telling me I should know this guy?" He writhed as another shock was sent through his system. Reaper felt an odd sensation in his chest, something akin to the echo of glass shattering in the middle of a tunnel. Jesse strained against his bindings, snarling in their faces, "What do you want from me, huh? Why don't you try telling me for a change, you cowards!" The current increased and he slammed his head back against the table with a tortured scream.
Eventually, the time came when Reaper could no longer bring himself to watch, and he strode briskly out of the room, leaving the nameless Talon agent to wonder at his sudden departure.
Afterwards, Reaper began screening the cowboy's mission assignments. He'd always suspected that the kid hadn't joined Talon willingly, but seeing it for himself had brought a new sense of reality to the fact, and the thought of sending him after Overwatch when the wraith was the only one of the two with a grudge to settle didn't sit right with him. He told himself he didn't need McCree's help, that his skills would be easily neutralized by combatants who'd fought with him in Blackwatch, but it'd been years since Reaper had believed his own lies. Still, they were easier to swallow than the slim possibility that Gabriel Reyes wasn't as dead as he'd thought. More than a commander, Reyes had been a mentor and a teacher, and what teacher would ever want to live to see the day that his best students were pitted against each other?
Moira must have caught wind of something, though, because orders soon came for McCree to join in recruit initiation procedures. It was torture, plain and simple, but McCree had just shrugged, like he couldn't have cared less.
"Agent McCree," Jesse stopped at the door, a palm placed over his holster while his other hand curled into a fist around the file he'd received containing his latest assignment. "Are you sure you're okay with this?"
He hesitated, like he was gauging whether or not the question was a trick. Reaper wished it was. "I'm a killer, Reaps," Jesse said finally, sadly. "Nothing more and nothing less." He rubbed a calloused palm over his eyes, and when the hand fell, there was tired resignation and pity carved into the lines of his mouth and the slump of his broad shoulders. "So why do I keep getting the feeling you're trying to convince me of something different?"
It only got worse over time. McCree wasn't made for wanton violence or cruelty. It tore him apart inside. Reaper caught him sitting in the lounge room more than once, nursing a whiskey as the sky gradually shifted from dark blues and violets to a soft yellow and a hint of pink on the horizon.
It culminated in the cowboy deliberately provoking the other agents, until eventually they hauled him off to be thrown into a cell. As he was being dragged away, Reaper glimpsed his expression, and the sheer relief it expressed sent a chill through his congealed blood.
By the time he found himself standing outside the cell, his feet having led him there on their own, the agents had already done a number on the cowboy. Blood streamed down his face from a split lip and a broken nose, yet he was grinning, and when the pistol aimed at his forehead was dug into his flesh, Jesse laughed.
"Give me one good reason," the Talon agent from Jesse's reconditioning session snarled, "why I should let trash like you live, and maybe I will." Reaper guessed there was a story behind the hatred burning in his eyes. He didn't care much to find out what it was, though.
Throwing his weight forward, Jesse forced the man to take a step back, "Sorry, hoss. I got nothing." The cowboy shrugged with practiced nonchalance when the agent scowled, his finger curling over the trigger. "Guess you'll just have to shoot me."
"Don't call 'em that, kid." The wrath stepped out of the shadows and into the cell with his shotgun raised and aimed at the Talon soldier's temple. "You don't take orders from him."
It was almost disappointing how McCree didn't even look surprised to see him. "What's brought you here, Spooks?"
Opting not to divide his attention, Reaper focused on the Talon soldier. The agent's expression was clouded with confusion, but that wasn't going to last for much longer. Soon, he'd shake off the shock of having the rug pulled out from under him by an agent of higher ranking, and when he did, there'd be no putting Jesse back together again."Pull that trigger," Reaper growled, "and it'll be the last thing you ever do."
Rather than comply, the agent shifted to grip the handle of his pistol more firmly. "My orders were to put him down if he caused any trouble." It was the cool and mechanical way in which he relayed his task that forced Reaper to suppress a groan. It was a hell of thing when robots acted with more independent thought and free will than the humans that created them.
"Are those orders worth your life?"
A long moment passed where the agent simply stared at him, considering. Meanwhile, Jesse didn't say a word. Reaper glanced quickly at him just to make sure he was still conscious. Finally, the agent stepped back, allowing his firearm to fall to his side with a defeated sigh, "Just shoot me. Considering what'll happen to me if Talon finds out I let him go, it'd be a mercy."
Reaper nodded. "I'm sorry." And pulled the trigger.
In the short time following his comprehension of the situation and the agent's body hitting concrete without resistance, Jesse had tried to protest, but when it became overwhelmingly obvious that the agent wasn't getting up again, McCree fell into silence, staring mutely at the corpse with wide, disbelieving eyes. He didn't say anything as Reaper pulled him away, didn't even lift his gaze off the ground.
Cameras powered down wherever they walked, hallways they traveled through sealed shut behind them, and the lights flickered – once, twice – before finally shutting down for good. Someone was wrecking havoc on the Talon base's security system, the result being a state of chaos that provided enough of a distraction for the pair to slip out past the guards.
The final defense, a large gate built like the entrance to a bomb shelter, ran on a back-up generator, however. Thus, it was already closing when Reaper arrived with the semi-conscious cowboy. "Wake up, vaquero." The opening was only wide enough to fit one of them, which was fine by him.
He shoved Jesse out into the snow-covered field outside, and had just enough time to see him stumble groggily and fall before the gate slammed shut behind him.
Within seconds, the security and electricity was up and running again. The wraith ghosted through the corridors, forgoing his corporeal form entirely in his haste to get to Sombra. He was sure she'd be tapped into the camera feeds. It was an assumption which was proved correct the instant he found her in front of her computer screens, because every screen showed Jesse sitting outside in the snow, disoriented and confused. His breath steamed in front of him, wispy clouds of white yanked into oblivion by the howling wind.
A shadow fell over him. "Why aren't you running?" Widow didn't wear a coat, not when her body temperature finally matched her surroundings. The flakes that clung to her skin and hair didn't melt, and so she stood over him, beautiful and deadly with a rifle in her hand. Reaper didn't wait to find out what happened next. For the second time that day, he allowed his form to break into smoke, and slipped into the vents. It was the fastest path to the outdoors.
He could only hope it would be enough.
Startled by the presence of Talon's best sniper, McCree blinked up at her sluggishly. "I don't have any place to go, ma'am. I think I might be lost." He was so cold.
You are," she agreed. "Do you want to go back?" Jesse stared at her dumbly, then slowly shook his head. "Where do you want to go?'
After a moment of thought, he replied, "Home."
The sniper nodded understandingly. Beyond that, however, she was very, disconcertingly still. "Where is your home, Jesse McCree?"
Suddenly anxious, Jesse swallowed. "I don't have one. Not anymore." Then, though he knew it was irrational, and he didn't quite understand it himself, he met her cool gaze with a request, "But I want to go there. Can you do that?"
Again, she nodded, shifting slightly as she positioned the rifle. "Oui, mon cher. Close your eyes." He did.
Neither of them expected the furious cloud of smoke that descended from the ceiling to plunge directly in front of the cowboy. "Don't," the amorphous mass crackled with its incomplete vocal chords. "He's not yours to take."
Widow shook her head. "I gave him a choice, Reaper. He wants to go home." The rifle remained lifted, directed at the heart of the man slumped behind the mass.
"They've messed with his head, Lacroix," the specter leaking black gaseous tendrils managed to rasp. "He doesn't know what he wants." It was the smothered note of desperation that baffled the Widow. She couldn't fathom why the universe had seen to it to deny her this one act of mercy, and through the means of a being so warped by vengeance at that.
"To let him live now," she cautioned in a last bid to make the wraith see reason, "would be cruel."
"Leave."
At last, Widow did as he asked, slinging the rifle over her shoulder with ease as she turned to walk back into the snow, though not before gifting the Reaper with a parting, "Do not blame me when he breaks your heart."
He didn't move, didn't even breath until he was sure she was gone. Then he spun around to grab the cowboy by the arm. "Come on, kid," Reyes urged. It scared him how cold the cowboy was. "Let's get you inside." McCree groaned at the movement when Reaper wrapped his arm around his neck in an attempt to take as much of his weight as he could manage.
"'m head hurts," Jesse mumbled. "Hey… " Reaper didn't answer right away. He was too busy trying to signal Sombra. Someone needed to open the gate to let them back in. "'m missing something, ain't I?" That, however, got the wraith's attention. His brow furrowed in frustration, Jesse seemed to grope for the words with a palm placed over his chest, "It's like there's this nothingness gone so deep inside me it might as well be all there is."
"You've never been nothing, Jesse." It came out harsh, as everything he said did, as though he'd taken to gargling with acid instead of mouthwash, but Jesse didn't even know who he was at the moment, so he tried not to let it bother him too much. "Someday, you're gonna remember that."
Drowsy and dazed, Jesse nodded. Then by some buried instinct that told him he was in good hands, decided he was safe enough to pass out. Grumbling half-hearted complaints under his breath, Reaper gathered the man up in his arms. When he was done, an alarm sounded, and the gate lifted off the ground, enough to allow for a wraith and the cowboy he carried to slip through, hopefully unnoticed.
Sombra looked on sadly when he passed her on the way to Jesse's quarters. He'd have to thank her later for putting her neck on the line for him and McCree, but for now, the priority was setting him down and letting him sleep off the past few weeks.
"You're too big for this now, vaquero," Reaper grunted as he dropped the cowboy on his bed. Upon spotting a very familiar Stetson sitting on the edge of his pillow, the wraith almost smiled.
Honestly, looking at him now, curled up on top of the covers with his arms guarding his head even in his sleep, saying Jesse looked young was like saying the sun was bright or the night was dark. More than that, though, he looked frail and half-starved, like a wayward woodland creature could knock flat on his rear.
Certainly, he didn't look like he could take another one of Moira's reconditioning sessions, but in the end, it wouldn't matter. Because none of them were ever going to touch him again.
