Patreon Compilation – Fic #75 – Reaper/Soldier76 – Halloween AU; more plot than porn – What if...

“They will attack tonight. I can feel it.”

Ana is perched on one of the crates they have used to try and barricade the castle as much as possible. She is cleaning her rifle with much attention, small fingers deft and careful even as she glances at Jack.

He is going through his own supplies, forehead creased deeply.

“How is your shoulder?” Ana asks softly. He grunts.

“It’ll do,” he rasps, but honestly he is… nervous. The Reaper had gotten him good last time. The claws had dug deep and drawn blood in seconds after Jack had gotten the drop on him from above and tried to grapple his guns from him.

He knows what Ana is talking about; he can feel the dark tension in the air as well; as if the Witch was watching them from her tower as they speak. Another attack so soon would be doom for them. He glances at their other two companions. They are quiet and solemn; as if they, too, can feel that tonight might be their last one.

Tonight might be the night that Adlersbrunn would fall after all; even after all their efforts. The Witch’s thirst for revenge was simply too strong; too… restless. They were but humans trying to push against the neverending waves of hatred and violence she was sending out.

There was no possible way they could keep this up. Not indefinitely. Not without… help; even if Jack refused to admit it out loud. He was a leader and a winner. He would not damage his troup’s morality.

“I’m gonna check the barriers again,” he grunts, swinging his newly put-together rifle up onto his shoulder. He stares Ana right in the eyes, refusing to so much as wince as his wound flares up with a bright, all-encompassing ache.

The Reaper’s claws looked to be simple metal, but the wounds they inflicted festered like bites from a snake.

Ana doesn’t say anything, as do their other companions. He turns his back on them and makes his way around the castle, right knee aching. When he is around the bend, he allows himself to hobble at least, face scrunched up with determination.

One more night. They could do it for just one more goddamn night. And then another one. And another one. Just hoping that reinforcements would arrive.

There’s movement in the corner of his eyes, and he’s whirled around and pressed his rifle against the assailant’s chest before he had really time to process what was happening.

The glow of the Reaper’s grinning pumpkin face falls onto his skin, and feels sickly hot. It makes Jack feel ill to the stomach. He presses harder, free hand now on Reaper’s shoulder to keep him steady. He pulls the trigger before he really forms any opinion about it, but the unnaturally hot body does not sag like a puppet with its strings cut.

Reaper slowly lifts a hand and curls it around the barrel of Jack’s gun, then pushes the rifle to the side. Where Jack had shot, a smoking hole had eaten its way into Reaper’s chest.

As he watches, the hole knits itself back together again; only the ripped material of the monster’s coat remains.

Slowly, sluggishly, it occurs to Jack that the strings of this particular puppet were held in the hands of the witch, reinforced by whatever contract the Reaper has made with her.

“I don’t die so easily,” Reaper purrs at him. It would sound proud if there wasn’t a weirdly hollow cadence to the voice coming straight from his chest. “I still have work to do.”

“And then what?” Jack growls, pulse thrumming at the base of his neck, sweat sprung up along his hairline. He was alone and already wounded. Reaper would have no problem picking him off. Maybe that was their angle now. They had just waited for one of them to leave the heard so they could off them one by one…

Reaper’s large pumpkin head moves; it’s almost as if he wants to tilt it like a curious dog.

“What do you mean?” he inquires. It is almost like talking to a human. For some reason that makes Jack even more furious.

“What happens after you’ve done your work?! Will the Witch just… cut you off? Will she take the life she has given you? Gabriel?!”

The Reaper does not react. There’s a faint crackling in the air, like a fire slowly eating up wood. It comes from the depths of the pumpkin head. It’s expression is one of continuous, malicious joy, but Jack has the distinct feeling that he has confused the creature with his questions. Or maybe with the name.

He bites the tip of his tongue. He had not meant to say it.

“Who is Gabriel?”

Jack’s face hardens. He slowly lowers his gun against his side, free hand fisting in the front of the extravagant cloak the Reaper is wearing. He pulls him away from the castle wall, then slams him back into it. He doesn’t think the creature can even feel it, not after simply shrugging off the bullet put directly into his chest, but he feels like he has to do something before he explodes with anger.

“You dumb goddamn fuck!” Jack cries at him, voice breaking precariously as he pushes closer, thigh against Reaper’s crotch. Here, too, he is hot as some festering disease, and Jack hates how he reacts to it immediately, body still primed for him even after all these years. “You made that fucking pact and you can’t even remember anymore! You said you would! Fuck, Gabriel.”

He swallows hard and bites the tip of his tongue so he wouldn’t say more. The Reaper doesn’t react, just grins down at him with his stupid pumpkin face.

Then, suddenly, a jerk goes through his body and life comes back to him.

“Why don’t you give me something to remember?”

His voice is different; the reverberation that had distorted his voice earlier has pulled back enough that it almost sounds like pure… Gabriel. Like Gabriel before the accident. Before he’d pushed Jack down into the mud and told him he’ll get back to him at any cost.

Before he had run into that burning building to get the children out, and got decapitated in a freak accident.

Jack’s heart spasms in his chest. He feels sick to his stomach, and has to let go of Gabriel. Reaper. This abomination… he couldn’t be his Gabriel. As he leans over, hand pressed against his revolting stomach, darkness descends upon his senses.

The blood seems to freeze in his veins as everything around him goes pitch black and silent. His arms shoot out, trying to grab back on to Reaper, but instead of grabbing someone, he is the one being seized.

He recognizes Gabriel’s body immediately; hot with blood and hard with muscles, pressing into his space. He is pushed to the ground, and begins to fight, satisfied with the fact that it seems to not be in vain. He gets a few good kicks and hits in, and Gabriel… Reaper… they recede for a moment.

They grapple with one another. Jack has no idea whether they are loud or not while they fight for dominance; there’s not even a rustling filling his ears… just endless silence – until Gabriel’s voice pipes up again, soft and purring and sinuous.

“I’ve missed you, Jackie.”

Jack’s breath hitches. His muscles become slack for a moment, and his opponent uses it to push him back and sit on his hips. Their cocks are hard and straining from the rush of fighting and the adrenaline of being close to one another again after so many lonely months.

“Do not… play with me,” Jack grits out. He tries not to react to the Reaper rocking on top of him, but his blood is on fire, and his whole being is fixating on him. In the darkness that has descended upon him, slowly the silhouette above him becomes visible; outlined in thin, blue fire.

There’s not a pumpkin head on top of those broad shoulders.

“I’m not playing, Jackie,” the voice croons, and Jack knows – knows! – it is the Witch’s doing, but when Gabriel leans down to kiss him, he can’t help but go lax and just let him.

This is not Gabriel’s fault. He’s done what he thought is right. He’s tried to uphold his promise to Jack. It is the Witch… the Witch that has warped Gabriel and made him into the Reaper. She has tricked him somehow.

And she is trying to trick him now in turn; with Gabriel’s lips against his, his mustache tickling Jack’s mouth.

He hates Reaper. But he loves Gabriel. And he won’t rest until he has freed him from whatever contract the Witch has made with him.

They will live through tonight. And the night after. And the night after. He will push his companions on and through it because he wants Gabriel, and he will get him back.

Jack bites at the phantom lips viciously, and the answering chuckle in his ears is all Reaper.

He’ll kill him and rip Gabriel right out of his chest.