Work Text:
“Are you enjoying this?”
The question comes out in a snarl – when he’s this angry, this disappointed, Jacobi can hardly recognise Kepler’s voice, it’s so buried beneath his spluttering rage. When he does not look up to meet his superior’s eyes, Kepler grabs him by the collar, pulls him up, forces him to look; Jacobi hardly manages to suppress the shudder that always comes at such close contact.
There is a mixture of emotions betrayed by Kepler’s gaze, and Jacobi drinks all of it in. The fury, the disappointment, the pity – he always tries to ignore the pity, sees it more and more in people’s eyes when they look at him, now – and confusion. The jackpot. He lives to confuse, intrigue, interest Kepler.
Is that all he lives for, now?
The Colonel lets him go, practically shoving Jacobi away, and Jacobi takes this moment to try and wipe the blood from his face with his sleeve. He still watches Kepler, who gets out a tissue to wipe the flecks of blood – Jacobi’s blood, and it shouldn’t make him as happy as it does to see that blood on that man – away from his face.
“Dismissed,” is all Kepler says, catching Jacobi’s eye. Jacobi nods, turns, walks away. They will be back here before the week’s out.
“Are you enjoying this?”
Jacobi is hunched over, half-drained glass in his hand, and Maxwell is reaching out to gently pull the glass away from him. He’s already had more than he should’ve. She sounds angry; not Kepler angry, no one but the genuine article could manage that, but her anger is not delicious, like Kepler’s is. Hers is the fury that gets through to him.
He gives her a half-hearted shrug in reply, does not look at her. Doesn’t even try to take his glass back. He squeezes his eyes shut tight. If he blocks out this room, and the knowledge that Maxwell is there, and the confused sadness he feels radiating from her whenever she spots the bruises, or the scars, or the bags under his eyes, he could pretend there’s nothing wrong with what’s going on. It’s fine.
She still waits, silently, and he mumbles a response. “Maybe.”
“God,” she says. He digs his nails into his palms.
“Are you enjoying this?”
Jacobi is staring at his mirror, assessing the newest marks he’s received from the Colonel. Every wound, every bruise, is a testament to his idiocy and his recklessness and his stupid fucking love. He can’t bear to see them fade.
Luckily, at this rate, he’ll never be without his scars.
He’s not sure why he asked himself the question; perhaps it’s because he’s heard it so many times, recently, from so many lips, and he’s never been able to find an answer. At least, he knows the answer – he’s never been able to tell them. He leans in close, eyes wide open, soaking in every inch of red and purple crossing and dotting his face. His forehead rests on the mirror’s surface.
“Yes.”