Work Text:
he was the last untuned key on a victorian concert grand, he was the bitter grainy residue at the bottom of a paper coffee cup, he was the spanner in the works and you fixed him, you made him better, you made him fight for you and for goddard and for himself. look at him, look at him, he’s flawless now, he’s your beautiful killing machine, he’s your perfect protégé, and you have destroyed every last clambering, sickly detail that made him human. crushed it all to bits and dust and charcoal that you keep in your jacket pocket for a rainy day.
look at him.
look.
you did this.
and you never mourned that non-loss, that purely positive change, of course not,
you could never.
and he’s never cared much for you either, and that’s just how it goes. you send him to his death every time you take him alongside you on a job, and every time he lives, and every time, you’re… perfectly… indifferent.
on bad days, he’s just an echo chamber to your own god complex. he’s surely not stupid enough to fall for your slick words and careful disinterest, but he damn well acts the part sometimes. helena, indeed.
even on good days, though, when the rose-coloured fog slips away from his eyes and he actually manages to form a semi-realistic fucking opinion on your bastardization of human nature, he still thinks you’re some sort of emotionless madman wearing a perfect people-mask. some red-eyed slathering thing that wears a real nice suit to work just to make it easier to pull the strings without raising any eyebrows. the glorious manipulator.
he’s an idiot. you don’t manipulate shit. you ain’t some... some chessmaster thinking three moves ahead, because that would be a disgusting waste of time and energy. a butterfly knife and a bulletproof vest will almost always do the job just fine and dandy. when that’s not enough, you have maxwell, and when her highly cautionary skillset is not of any particular use, you have him, to burn it all down and start from scratch.
you’re not a team. you’re a flowchart. you do the heavy lifting, doctor maxwell sweeps up the collateral, and mister jacobi gets the last little dregs to make sure everything’s all neat and tidy.
simple logic: if this, then that. your subordinates are redundancies. it’s efficiency. that’s the closest you get to a game of chess, you and your redundancies, a knife with a replaceable blade.
he is not indispensable. he’s not. because if he is, your whole deal here, your precious little si-5, is fucked. indispensable people don’t belong anywhere near you. maxwell can be replaced. you can be replaced. he can — he can be replaced. he can. you remind him of that as often as is necessary. not a team, a grouping. not a family, a — a constellation of convenient competencies. that’s all. that’s work.
one… smallllll … problem.
fifth floor apartment, eight pm.
enter daniel, stage right.
a flash of a knife. not violently, not tonight. tonight he’s trying to stab open a half-melted tv dinner he inexplicably had in his duffel bag, something with clumped together possibly-broccoli and a quarter inch of freezer burn. much to your dismay, mind you. if he chips that blade, you’ll most certainly bury it in his sternum. that thing cost four hundred fucking dollars.
(you’re also looking forward to informing him that you don’t own a microwave.)
and my god, my god, you never loved him, never once,
but he —
a triumphant grin, as he finally manages to mangle the plastic wrap enough for it to fall away from the treasured block of barely-food. the blade is undamaged. daniel jacobi lives another day.
you walk over to him, a winning smirk on your lips, hands placed jauntily in your pockets. you blink at him. he blinks at you. you pluck the tv dinner from his hands and drop it, with a fair amount of mustered bravado, into the trash. (exeunt broccoli, center stage.)
he pouts at the trash can for a disproportionately long stretch of time, before finally grabbing his phone, presumably to order takeout from that thai place down the block. tom kha and fried rice. he likes coconut.
he orders you satay, too, and turns the coffee maker on, set to the specs he knows you like. that earns a smile, sure, but you manage to hide it before he notices. you cross your arms when he approaches you suspiciously. stands real close to you. crooks his head and places a hand on your hip.
he swipes the wallet from your back pocket with ease. you roll your eyes. he winks, and removes your debit card, two fifties, and your insurance card, just to irk you. he then tosses your wallet into the trash, right on top of the frozen broccoli mess, and looks you dead in the eye. you sigh. insubordinate little jackass.
“you’re fired, mister jacobi,” you say with a very disapproving tone.
“sure i am, sir.”
this wide eyed, fascinating man in front of you is not the disposable, monstrous thing you’ve spent the past years crafting. he can’t be. he can’t. look at him, look at him, he’s human, he’s —
“wait, takeout means we have to actually go get it, doesn’t it? that’s lame.”
“brilliant observational skills, jacobi.”
“says the man who shot a guy in times square.”
“allegedly. you’ve been spending much too much time around rachel.”
“reconnaissance, sir. know thy enemy. shakespeare said that, you know.”
“shakespeare did not. ”
“prove it.”
“you know, jacobi, that actually reminds me of the time i…”
he shakes his head and overwaters the hell out of your houseplants, listening semi-intently to your story while you fish your wallet out of the garbage and clean it off. you don’t think much of it. he doesn’t care about you, just cares about appeasing you, just cares about his job, his work. you made him this way, he needs to be this way, he —
he hands you a mug of coffee, handle first, and pours himself some into a tall, clear glass. he likes to watch the milk swirl in. strange man.
“how long did they say until you can pick up your food?”
he shrugs. “half hour.”
“has it been half an hour?”
“nope.”
“hm.” you tap your fingers on the counter.
“wanna go for a walk?” he asks out of nowhere.
“i’m not a dog, mister jacobi.”
“fine, you nature-hater.”
“this is a city.”
“semantics. we gotta walk over anyways. and it’s, like, super dark out.”
“not we. you.”
“you gotta. c’mon, i ordered you stuff too.”
“stuff which you plan on paying for with my money. not yours.”
“says who?”
“says wells fargo.” you take your insurance card back from him and toss it on the counter. “ you can go for a walk. no one’s stopping you”
“with you?”
you huff. “if you insist.”
“i don’t.” he hooks his arm with yours and drags you out the door. definitely seems like he’s insisting to you. “we’re a good team. you scare all the muggers away with your death glare, i kick their asses if they try to mug us anyways.”
“we’re not a team. we’re not even at work.”
he ignores you. “we’re the best team. the team-iest team. inseparable.”
“we’re entirely separable.”
“mhm. definitely.” he brushes his shoulder against yours as you walk. “let’s be real, here. you’d kill for me. i’d die for you. that’s pretty inseparable, if you ask me.”
you ignore him back.
“admit it. you love me. you couldn’t live without me,” he says, and the words themselves drip with gravitas, but his tone is empty and casual, like he might as well have just commented on the weather.
you raise your brows at him and say nothing for a while. just keep walking. just keep shoving down the sickening panic which really ought to not be there at all.
(look at him. never. never.)
he grins and laughs, elbowing you in the side. “just fuckin’ with you, sir. i know you’ve got a monster-bastard reputation to uphold.”
“i have no such thing.”
he nods patronizingly. “sure you don’t, warren. ”
you trip over your own feet, and he laughs again, lighter this time. you clear your throat. he hooks your arms together again, pressing himself into your side.
shit.
shit.