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“Still not talking to me?” Kepler asks as soon as he walks into the living room. Jacobi’s on the couch, same spot as always, and keeps staring into his laptop.
“I see.” He sits down next to him. “Good day today.”
The pros of Jacobi not talking to him is that he won’t interrupt him.
“One of the kids – Jamie, you’d like him – brought his plush duck to kindergarten. Because it would protect him. Had a nightmare. Jamie, I mean. Not the duck. It’s called Donnie. Nice duck. You wouldn’t like it.”
Kepler leans back and turns his head, tries to get a look at Jacobi’s laptop screen.
“Are you looking for a job? Not that you need to pay rent, of course. I’m a man of my word. You can stay here as long as you want. But still, it’s been, hmm, how long?” (102 days.) “About three months, give or take? I didn’t count. I think it’d be a good distraction, no?”
The cons of Jacobi not talking to him is Jacobi not talking to him.
The silence stretches out between them, heavy and uncomfortable and foreign. Kepler turns on the TV, they sit next to each other without further acknowledging the other’s existence, and then it’s hours later and he gets up. “Good talk,” he says. “Goodnight.”
He wakes up a few hours later, wide awake immediately and breathing heavily, shreds of something still present in his head, the residue of a nightmare, more a ghost than a real, tangible concept. Space and the endless void that’s part of it, the endless void that is space, space and the creaking of metal, the creaking of a space station, of the Hephaestus, the sudden feeling of gravity on the Sol, Rachel Young’s condescending eyes on him, Cutter, disappointed or angry, which in the end is the same, feeling powerlessuselesshelpless, the faint whirring sound of Pryce’s eyes, gunshots, the look of utter betrayal replaced by anger replaced by hatred in Jacobi’s eyes, body bags, moving and unmoving, the sound of Maxwell’s laughter, red stars and blue stars, gunshots, the feeling of flesh being torn away, the sounds of his own screams, Eiffel’s confused voice, hey, uh, do we know each other, are we friends, he sits up, clutching his right wrist, the feeling of warm, slightly sweaty skin against one finger, the feeling of the fake hand that seems to mock him now that it’s all over against another, and he closes his eyes and he thinks to himself, Well, Well Warren, You Really Did Think You’d Just Come Home And Proceed With Your Life As If Nothing Had Happened, Hm, How’s That One Going?
He tries not to dream. Mostly he succeeds, but when he doesn’t, it’s bad. There’s always a gun underneath his pillow, and for what purpose, he can’t say, because the only thing he’s got to fear here, now, is his own subconsciousness.
Not good, that’s the answer, it’s not going good. He is fairly certain he likes his new job. Getting it was ridiculously easy and the co-workers are nice, they all share their personal lives with him and he makes one up for himself, and why not, if he’s good at one thing it’s stories, and the kids are nice, they really are, they listen to him, they like to hear him talk about his Funk band and about missions, adjusted in narrative to make them more suitable for the audience, he likes being around them, being surrounded by naive innocence, idealistic optimism, but-
But.
But it’s so strange that he simply dropped his title, his rank, his former self, he did it once before for Goddard, he hadn’t planned to do it again. It’s so strange, being someone, being someone he isn’t actually, being a human person, tangible, there.
It’s so strange, Jacobi in his house, defiant, angry still, not talking to him.
It’s so strange, so, so strange, that he- that he dreams, that he’s confronted with the consequences of his actions, even stranger that some part of him seems to care. He always knew what to do, he always had a plan, and now the next best thing to a plan is getting up eating breakfast going to work coming home talking at Jacobi going to bed.
There’s something heavy in his chest, making breathing harder, and he digs his nails into his wrist - into the part that’s still there - hard enough to draw blood.
He slowly gets up, cards his fingers through his hair and makes his way into the living room, because he can’t stand to sit in the bedroom, empty and dark and silent, for even just another second.
The living room is not as dark; there’s a street lamp right outside the window, and the sickly yellow-ish glow faintly illuminates part of the room; makes it into a mixture of vague shapes, almost indistinguishable. The heavy something in his chest clenches, painful and something else, something that feels absurdly like happiness, or simply contentment. It’s a strange sensation, like finding something he’s lost a long time ago lying on the street, dirty and damaged, and it can’t be happiness, because nothing is okay, least of all himself. It’s horrifyingly easy, admitting it to himself, while he’s standing in this rotten light.
“Jacobi. Are you awake?” His voice sounds-
Nothing.
-almost pleading, and he hates himself, just a little, he hates Jacobi, a little more.
“Jacobi,” he repeats. “I can’t sleep.” (Liar.) “Can I stay here?”
Nothing again, and seconds tick by, but then there’s a low sigh and Jacobi moves from his lying position on the couch. He sits up, pulling the blanket around himself.
Kepler slowly joins him, sits down next to him, and Jacobi turns on the TV without saying a single word. Kepler stares at the screen, it’s always the same channel at 2:48 am, one that broadcasts reruns of shitty crime shows, CSI and Law and Order and such. The images flashing over the screen bathe the room in flickering shadows, disappearing, reappearing, melting into the ugly yellow the street lamp provides, Kepler feels a little sick.
After a while - three commercial breaks, to be exact - Jacobi shifts and puts one arm around Kepler, pulling him close. Kepler closes his eyes and lets Jacobi do it, wills himself to relax into the touch, thinks about the gun underneath his pillow.
Jacobi’s hand is cold, he can feel it even through the fabric of his shirt. He doesn’t mind. It serves as a reminder, a reminder that he’s there, back, safe, that things are alright at least in theory. They watch the episode to the end and then the next, and they don’t speak, because it’s been 103 days, but Jacobi doesn’t talk to him, and in a few hours, Kepler will have to leave for work, and he’ll come back home, and Jacobi will continue to act as if he wasn’t there, will continue to refuse to acknowledge Kepler’s presence, his existence. This isn’t the first time. It’s always the same. The routine, as much as he dislikes it as a whole, is almost comforting. Routine and fixed patterns, he’s good at. This isn’t the first time. He knows how this goes. Tomorrow, Jacobi will proceed to show his hatred towards him openly. But for now, it’s this - reruns of crime shows that weren’t good even back when they first aired and the feeling of Jacobi’s arm and hand against his skin, and in the dead of night it’s easy to confess that it’s not enough, but-
But it’s all that he’ll get, so it’s alright.