Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Jacobi has never been a good guy, he thinks. Maybe, in some weird alternative universe, he is inherently good, but not in this one. He cannot imagine himself being good.

He doesn’t think he’s a bad guy either. Yeah, he has done some things he is not particularly proud of, but who hasn’t? It’s not like he’s off blowing up hospitals, or- okay, that was just one time. It’s not like he’s planning on doing that again anytime soon.

So. Not good. Not bad. Maybe somewhere in between.

He isn’t soft. Jacobi doesn’t think he has the capacity to be soft. He’s always been sharp edges and tongues. He blows things up, sometimes for fun. He can’t be- can’t afford to be- soft.

But Kepler is. Surprisingly, amazingly, Kepler, of all people on this goddamn planet, is. It’s not very often that it’s visible, that he frays around the edges. Kepler doesn’t unravel easily. But he does. Lets it show. Allows the emotions to be part of him. And however much Jacobi hates it, he admires it. Here’s this man doing what he can’t, over and over and over again.

He wants to be soft, sometimes longs to be. If Kepler can, why can’t he?

He doesn’t realize it’s only ever for him, because of him, that Kepler knows softness. That, amidst all the noise and orders and desire, it only takes one look at the demolition expert for him to keep calm. See, Kepler knows how to appreciate beauty. He enjoys high-end things. He enjoys things with soul. He enjoys the scotch, and art-galleries, and appreciating things. Beautiful things. And what a beautiful thing it is to know Daniel Kenneth Jacobi.

He looks at him and his mind goes quiet, just for a moment.

[]

Daniel and Warren, they have something going on. It simmers for a while. It’s almost like dusk, a warm yellow bleeding into a cold blue, a blink in between two breaths. They’re so perfectly imbalanced that it’s a balance in itself.

“He’s different,” Alana muses, “around you.”

Daniel doesn’t believe her.

He sometimes wonders if they could ever be. Be anything else than what they are now, what they seem to be stuck in- he’s not sure he wants to know the answer. Sometimes, possibility is daunting. So he takes a deep breath and a quick look, and goes back to normal, whatever that may be. Words come out easy. Not words that matter, no, just casual, meaningless words. It was easy, once, saying words with more meaning. He thinks back to their first conversation, at times.

“Yeah, I figured that one out. Eventually.”

He doesn’t know what it means now. Kepler had asked, at the time, and he had answered. It had made sense, in a way that words placed in situations make sense. Jacobi doesn’t know why his head is stuck on these words. He wonders if Kepler’s head ever gets stuck on words.

[]

Like Daniel, Warren thinks, and thinks about things; events or occurrences, memories of a distant past. Words. They are great strategy-builders, sources of information; if you know how to react, it’s easier to bend a situation to your will. But his mind is not solely cold nor calculating.

He lies in bed, the night fraying grey around the ceiling, his duvet crisp but dark and somehow heavy. He lets the familiar voice ring in his head.

Jacobi had said: “I’m really good at making things that break other things.”

It was an undeniable talent. It was not what had struck Kepler at the time. It were those words, those two words Daniel had breathed, added in so carelessly yet careful.

“Or people.”

Kepler would be foolish to deny the statement, to deny the sheer power the other man possesses.  He could see how he could ruin people; he himself had done it multiple times. It is not as hard as one might think. A flick, a nod, a little push. Jacobi could, easily; he’s powerful like that. If he wants to be. As he’ll always be.

Kepler would let Jacobi ruin him; it’s a pain he would be willing to take. The thought is never spoken aloud, but it teeters on the edge of his mind as the ceiling fan rotates yet again, and the sentence is recycled.

[]

Kepler doesn’t feel he’s afraid often. He’s not built to be; he does not allow himself to be. Fear is a weakness he cannot afford. But he’s no fool. He lets himself be afraid at times, keeps it under the covers, but lets it out nonetheless. Picks his fears, like one would choose their battles. Lets it resonate through his body, lets it buzz through his veins. His fear is private.

He fears the truth in that single line. Fears whatever he wants it to be. Kepler is used to the fickleness of emotions. He is also used to being in control. And this- he- might not be.

For the first time in a long time, he wonders if that’s a bad thing.

[]

Jacobi is prone to say the colonel is fearless. It almost makes him less human. But then he sees a flicker across Warren’s face, when he’s not supposed to be looking, but still is. And his heart- his traitorous heart does this thing which somehow feels like a health violation.

Daniel is not envious of Warren’s fearlessness. He does, however, hate to feel fear; deep-rooted fear which shakes him to the core, fear that makes him disconnect. It has happened one too many times. Much like Kepler, Jacobi can’t afford fear. Fear is a luxury he only allows if he knows it will help deconstruct the problems at hand. His fear is often hot and sharp, and as controlled as the explosions created by the same hands that betray him. Jacobi kneads his fear into something useable, something pointed and razor-sharp, and ignores the voice in the back of his mind telling him it’s not healthy.

Kepler sometimes looks at him and wants to tell him. Tell him that it’s okay to feel, to feel fear. That fear is not always something life-threatening, that it’s just a part of human existence. But why could he, when he’s not even able to display that freedom himself?

He lets it slip once. They are alone in his office. The mission they had returned from had been particularly tense. Warren says:
“I was afraid.”
He doesn’t say why, doesn’t specify. Jacobi notices the flicker across his face. Truth.

“That’s okay, sir,” he replies. Kepler wonders if he knows. Jacobi lets out a shaky breath, and Kepler lets the tension he was holding between his shoulders go. He nods once.

“Yes, mister Jacobi,” he says in a tone that is softer than usual, as if he’s afraid someone might pick up on the conversation and his stature might fall. Daniel eyes him. “It is okay.”

[]

Sometimes his name lingers. Jacobi, Jacobi, Jacobi. It plays on repeat. It is such a recurring theme that it sometimes feel unnatural not to have it lying on his tongue. In moments of loneliness it might turn into a mere whisper, an unthought breath, a ghost of a presence. Kepler catches himself, standing in his apartment, at the verge of asking- but he isn’t there, he reminds himself. He hasn’t been there in a long time. The late sun reflects on the polished stone counter, the light sluggish over his kitchen cupboards. There’s two coffee mugs, steaming. His fingers move over the rim of the one on his right, mindlessly. Kepler coughs, blinks, then lets his feet move him to his bed. He lies himself down with the hum of sounds stuck in his throat. As he tries to sleep with his eyes wide open, a feeling creeps onto his skin, seeping through, latching on. He is awfully aware of his beating heart. He would let Jacobi love ruin him. Maybe. If he-

The ceiling fan rotates once again, as Kepler tries to not let the line recycle.

[]

It has been a long weekend. Piles of plates line up along Jacobi’s sink, dirty dishes stacked on top of each other. Another night, another cardboard pizza box. Kepler would hate it. Kepler is not there. Jacobi wonders why he thinks of the Colonel often, already knowing the answer. But it is easier to wonder than to admit. See, admitting means committing. Committing to the idea that there’s a truth, that it’s the truth. Jacobi doesn’t need to ask himself a question he already knows the answer to. Yet, he still does.

‘Warren,’ he tries, consonants soft and barely existent. He tries the softness on his tongue, evokes a skip in the beating within his chest. Stares at a reflection telling him he’s a goner. He can’t- won’t-

He spits the words out in the sink as he brushes his teeth.

The mess in his bedroom is nothing like the mess in his head. The noises of outside sneak through the small gap between the window and the windowsill. Restlessly, he tosses his shirt aside, not bothering to change out of his sweat pants before sliding into bed. There’s room for a human-shaped hole beside him. Mindless, Jacobi touches the duvet, cold to his fingers. He does not let himself imagine, just shuts his eyes tight and tells himself that he’s the only one who’s supposed to be there. He shifts, so that he lies horizontally, filling up the empty promise.

There’s longing in the silence.

[]

A false prophet. Jacobi wonders if he could be a false prophet.

He feels like he kinda has been, working for Goddard. They are doing great, terrible things. They are doing good things, as well. It’s the ‘as well’ that should bother him. It doesn’t.

He is happy to find the good, but as happy to take the good with the bad or the downright ugly. A little bit ugly, a little bit broken, a little bit jarred. Scarred. As if that doesn’t describe him. No, Jacobi didn’t go in under false pretenses.

He wonders if he is ruining anyone’s expectations. Wonders if he is too aggressive in pointing out the involvement of Goddard in positive developments. Wonders why, why he is doing that. He has got nothing to prove. To himself, at least.

Does he?

Maybe he is not trying to prove himself. Maybe he is trying to justify- trying to justify the wonder he sometimes sees. In his job. In his boss-

his own false prophet.

Long story short, there was something sighing, a relief inside when he was told about the duffelbag. Something alive and kicking when he’d said:

“I’m not complaining,” without any snark, without any teeth.

Maxwell would say: “Watch out for false prophets, they will only provide a future you won’t expect.”
She didn’t say he should not lose his bite, or that prophets were merely great pretenders knowing how to twist words. That they tied tongues and had lies as white as their teeth. That they were dangerous- but they all were.

He knows the name of the game.

[]

Do not lose your bite.
‘Do not lose your bite,’ Kepler thinks, ‘or you will lose your grip.’

Kepler cannot lose his grip.

He bites his tongue while Cutter makes another snide remark about him. About Jacobi. Warren grits his teeth, biting down hard. He does not like this. No, Warren does not like this at all.

He has not let it bleed through. He has tried not to let it bleed through. But Cutter smells blood, and to him, blood is weakness. To Warren, it’s not.

He knows it’s persistence. Endurance. A strength Cutter will never even consider.

To stand with your wounds open, palms raised. Serenity and surrender so damn close you might confuse the two. To stand with your flesh bare, that is the biggest bravery a man can show. Daniel has done it long before anyone else.

Cutter will never achieve this.

The next day Warren shows Jacobi and Alana a paper cut, terror in his heart and confusion in their eyes. Once he is in the bathroom, he allows himself to breathe. As the cold water hits his face, he has a realization. Grey eyes stare back in the mirror, and then the door opens.

“Sir,” Jacobi says, making brief eye-contact through the reflective glass as he passes by. Kepler follows his black hair as he moves.

He’s been doing this all wrong.

“Jacobi,” he answers, a fraction too late, he himself not even sure if he’s smiling. It’s small. It’s there. Kepler stares at the empty space for too long, before blankly looking back in the mirror.

He goes downstairs to get some coffee.

[]

One night, Jacobi touches his arm, and his skin is on fire.

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