Chapter Text
“the point of the game,” kepler says, “is that you gamble with the truth. it gets very exciting, sometimes.”
even if the words gambling with the truth hadn’t piqued jacobi’s interest somewhat, after sitting in solid silence for the last day and a half, anything would get his attention by now. “o…kay?”
“the game works as such,” kepler explains. “i ask you a question. it can be as easy or hard to answer as i want – say, what’s your favourite colour, or, what’s your most traumatic childhood memory. you answer with a number dictating how willing you are to answer the question, on a scale of one to ten. one is, i would’ve told you this anyway. ten is, i’m taking this secret to my grave. with me so far?”
“yes,” jacobi replies monotonously.
“good. then, i ask you a second question. traditionally, this question tends to be harder to answer. you rate it again. whichever question you gave the lower rating, you have to answer. we’ll have a practice round.” he pauses, as though he’s thinking, but then – “mr jacobi, what’s your favourite colour?”
jacobi rolls his eyes. “two.”
“and… what’s your most traumatic childhood memory?”
“nine.”
kepler smiles. “there we go. not that i don’t already know it’s red.”
the comment sends a slight shiver through jacobi, and he wonders just how far back, how deeply kepler remembers everything there is to know about him. a game like this should be useless on kepler’s part – anything he wants to know about jacobi, he already knows. that’s how they’ve always been. that’s how they always will be.
“now,” kepler continues, “for the actual game. we take it in turns. was maxwell’s safety more important to you than your own?”
the question comes out of nowhere, striking jacobi right in the chest, and he feels at a loss for words for a long moment before he can stumble over an awkward, clumsy, “seven.” he doesn’t want to talk about maxwell.
so, obviously, kepler does.
“was maxwell’s safety more important to you than… mine?”
this game was a bad idea, and he’s starting to wonder just what he got himself into. “eight. and, yeah, maxwell’s safety was more important to me than my own. you knew that.”
“mm,” kepler hums noncommittally. “i suppose i did. your turn.”
jacobi takes a moment, flicking through the endless questions buzzing in his mind, trying to figure out if there were any he could trick kepler into actually answering. “what’s your biggest regret?” he asks, trying to sound distant, disinterested. it doesn’t work. the curiosity filters into his tone and they both hear it.
“nine,” kepler says, surprising him. he tries not to let it show on his face.
“huh.” jacobi hesitates. he ploughs on to his second question before he can second-guess himself. “did you ever actually love me?”
there’s a brief flicker of something behind kepler’s steady gaze, something that suggests he clearly didn’t expect for jacobi to have the guts to actually ask a question like that. silence hangs over the room for a long moment. “ten,” kepler responds, emotionless.
a cold tendril wraps around jacobi’s heart, squeezing it uncomfortably, as kepler continues, “my biggest regret… allowing these idiots the chance to succeed with their mutiny.”
somehow, it feels like a lie, but unless jacobi wants to call on hera to monitor kepler’s heart rate like a sentient lie detector, he has no choice but to accept it.
kepler is silent for a long moment. jacobi waits, inevitably, for him to bring up maxwell again. “do you,” he starts, voice slower than usual – calculating, as though he’s delicately crossing a minefield and choosing each word as he’d choose each step, “wish i’d never hired you?”
jacobi blinks. “uh, six.”
“do you wish i’d never hired maxwell?”
there it is. jacobi considers the answer to that question with a new kind of self-loathing he’s never experienced before. he’s always known he was selfish. it’s never bothered him before. but, now, thinking over it, with all these years of hindsight, knowing what kepler did, what cutter did, what minkowski did, he still can’t imagine saying yes.
if kepler hadn’t hired her, maxwell wouldn’t be dead. if kepler hadn’t hired her, jacobi would have spent all these years alone. “seven,” he says, knowing the number is just high enough to avoid having to answer the question, pretending his mind isn’t chanting ten, ten, ten, ten, ten.
“well?”
right. now he has to answer the first. “no,” he replies, casual, eyes drifting to the window as he talks. wolf 359 is as blue and starry as ever, but somehow far more interesting when jacobi is required to talk. “sure, i wouldn’t be stuck in here with you, but… goddard didn’t suck. the time before the hephaestus mission didn’t suck.”
“don’t forget that,” kepler replies mildly.
jacobi ignores him. “do you wish we’d never come up here?” he asks, before he can really think through his questions.
“eh, six,” kepler says easily, leaning back against the pipe his one hand is still cuffed to.
jacobi clicks his tongue. he has to try and think of a harder question than that. “do… you…” he pauses. there’s a question on his mind, but he genuinely can’t decide where he thinks kepler will rank it. “do you think we’re gonna get off this station alive?”
kepler pauses for a long time. “do… i… think… we’re going to get off this station… alive?” he repeats slowly. the drawl sounds oddly contemplative, as though he doesn’t already know what he thinks on it. jacobi knows better than that. only, after the hefty pause, he replies, “three.”
“what?”
“three. and my answer is, that depends on who you count as we.”
“you and me,” jacobi says dumbly.
kepler tuts. “you asked the question, and i answered. better luck next time. now,” and he leans forward slightly, eyes narrowing not in anger but in thought. “did you ever doubt your ability to follow orders when it came to terminating the hephaestus crew?”
“nine,” jacobi replies, visibly uncomfortable.
kepler’s lips curve into a smile. “could you face killing me?”
“this game’s stupid,” jacobi mutters, ignoring the ringing in his ears, the hot flash of colour in his cheeks, the humiliation as it burns through him at the inability to say ten and the reluctance to actually answer the question. both, in their own way, tell kepler the answer. rejecting the game altogether carves the truth into stone. could you face killing me?
kepler laughs, quietly, humourlessly. he says nothing. jacobi is left alone to the silence once more.