Work Text:
1. Denial
'Seriously, Jacobi,' Kepler mutters, 'you've been working with me for- what, three years? I really would have hoped you'd learned this by now.'
Jacobi shrugs, which earns him a dark look from Kepler. 'I thought that was what I have you for, sir.'
Kepler says nothing, only clicks his tongue in a disapproving matter. Jacobi grins.
And of course Kepler ties the tie for him perfectly, because his own is already wrapped around his collar just right, and everything else would be cheap.
'Do you enjoy being fussed over like a four year-old, Mister Jacobi?'
Kepler is done with the tie and has now moved on to the buttons of Jacobi's jacket.
(Jacobi didn't ask him to. He doesn't think about that now, but he probably will later.)
'You told me to be convincing,' Jacobi says. His voice is easy, even though Kepler is so close now that Jacobi can feel his breath on his throat. 'We're supposed to be- what? Infatuated with each other? Isn't this what people do when they're infatuated with each other?'
Kepler looks up then, acknowledging their closeness. He grins, like he knows exactly what it does to Jacobi. 'Is it?', he asks.
Jacobi rolls his eyes. 'Shut up.'
He ducks away from under Kepler's gaze and steps out of the bathroom. 'How long until they need us downstairs?'
He doesn't ask because he doesn't know. Of course he knows, because they've been over this a million times.
But it's easy, to get Kepler talking about the mission at hand. It relaxes him, and he always takes the bait.
There's not a lot to prepare, and while this mission isn't exactly one they typically do (especially without Maxwell, Jacobi thinks to himself with a somewhat dark expression), it's not like they haven't been undercover before.
(Hell, Jacobi thinks, this isn't even for much more than one night. He doesn't think back fondly to the two months he spent hidden away working his way up one of Goddard's rival companies with no familiar voice around him expect for the occasional phone calls with Maxwell checking in. In comparison, this is a walk in the park.)
(At least that's what Maxwell told him before they got here. Jacobi doesn't usually have any reason to doubt what she says.)
Still, there's something that's strange about this, when they step out of the hotel room and Kepler gives him a last look, making sure everything is in place.
He clicks his tongue and runs a hand through Jacobi's hair. Jacobi tries a little too hard to do something else but stare.
'That's better,' Kepler mutters, seemingly content with Jacobi's now ruffled hair. 'Don't need to look too neat, do we now. We want them to think we tried very hard to fit in.'
'Right,' Jacobi mutters, falling into step besides Kepler, 'because we didn't. At all.'
Kepler doesn't say anything, which Jacobi decides to be grateful for, because he can see the lecture the major is planning to give him as soon as they have the time already shaping itself behind his eyes.
(He has always been good at multi-tasking, after all.)
Everything goes a little wrong, which in Daniel Jacobi's world just means that it becomes slightly more complicated, when they finally do start making their way down the stairs.
That's when Jacobi decides that this job kind of really isn't worth it. And Marcus Cutter might be the scariest man he's ever met. But that doesn't mean that the world wouldn't be an awful lot better if someone finally went ahead and punched him in the face.
Kepler too, Jacobi decides, rolling his shoulders. Someone should go ahead and punch Kepler in the face as well.
Because he's looking way too smug when he wraps an arm around Jacobi's waist and pulls him close, barely leaving any space between them.
'Chin up, Mister Jacobi,' Kepler mutters right into his ear. There's already things changing about him, piece by piece he's arranging himself into a new person.
Jacobi has seen this happen many times, and yet there's still something absolutely bewildering about it. He never quite gets tired of watching Kepler shift.
'It's almost time.'
Jacobi doesn't say anything. He doesn't try to touch Kepler either.
It's still convincing, the two of them. They make their way down the stairs and into the big hall like they belong together.
It's one of the easiest things in the world for Daniel, to fall into step next to Kepler.
The fact that they're about to attend this party together, with a slightly different fabricated backstory than usually, doesn't make much a difference.
(No matter what Maxwell says later. It doesn't make a difference.)
'Keep your eyes open,' Kepler mutters to him once they're there. 'We can't afford to miss anything.'
'Whatever you say, sir.' Jacobi is not distracted by Kepler's hand on his hip, but it's a really close call.
'Oh, come on, honey,' Kepler drawls, already eyeing someone else in the crowd, 'no need to be so formal.'
Jacobi smiles. He leans closer to Kepler, until he can smell his goddamn shampoo. 'Sorry,' he says, making sure he sounds as obnoxious as possible.
If Kepler is going to bother him about something that could be a perfectly fine and easy mission if he didn't insist to be like this, then Jacobi is going to bother him right back.
(Unfortunately, very few things really bother Kepler. This, for example, only puts that stupid grin on his face.)
(Jacobi is going to kill him one of these goddamn days.)
'Over there,' Kepler mutters to Jacobi, nodding his head to the other side of the room.
And there he is, their target, leaned against a doorframe, grinning at a very beautiful woman who mostly looks bored.
'You think we should introduce ourselves?', Jacobi asks lowly, swirling around the champagne in his glass. He doesn't look up at what Kepler is showing him, but he doesn't need to.
'Nah,' Kepler says, 'not yet. Let's let him have some fun first.'
'Right,' Jacobi says. 'Fun. That's what we're doing, huh?'
'No complaining,' Kepler hums, keeping his voice cheerful.
'Hmm, what was that?' Jacobi looks at him. 'You're giving me a rule? That doesn't sound like something a spouse would do.'
'Oh, yes, very funny.'
'No, I'm just saying, you know, I would expect things like that from my superior officer, but you? I'm appalled.'
'Are you done?'
'Eh,' Jacobi grins. 'I could go on.'
'You been waiting for this, huh?' Kepler smiles at Jacobi, and it's very convincing. Jacobi would buy it, really think that Kepler was in love with him, if he didn't know any better.
Everyone in the room buys it, though, so Jacobi gives him a smile cheesy enough to match his and squeezes his hand, even though he's sure that Kepler would love to tell him what exactly he thinks of his opinions.
'I wouldn't exactly say that,' Jacobi says, looking over at their target from the corner of his eyes. He thinks about touching Kepler again, but decides he shouldn't overdo it. 'But I don't exactly mind, either.'
Kepler hums and empties his glass.
(It's a calculated move. Like everything about him is tonight.)
(Hell, Jacobi, thinks to himself, who is he to say. It's probably all of his moves that are calculated like this.)
(The more often Jacobi forgets, he supposes, the better Kepler is at it. It's one of the constants in working with Warren Kepler.)
'Glad to see you're enjoying yourself,' he smiles.
Jacobi doesn't answer, and he doesn't have the time to anyway, because this is where Kepler takes his hand and drags him along.
Jacobi puts on his best face, and lets Kepler drag him wherever.
They're a good team, Jacobi supposes. It's always a little strange, to not have Maxwell on the other side of an earpiece, but they did manage to survive for quite a while before Kepler recruited her. So this, it… it's not quite right. But it does make sense. Simply in the way that it doesn't.
Jacobi grins. Another goddamn constant in working with Warren Kepler.
'Come on, darling,' Kepler drawls, his accent in full motion.
(Jacobi never quite managed to figure out if it's fake or not. He'd ask, of course, but he'd never get the truth.)
'Let's introduce ourselves to these nice people over there.'
The party drags on, like they usually do. Kepler and Jacobi stay for much longer than what would be necessary, simply to make sure people remember them as inconspicuous guests, and not what they actually are, which is pretty much overglorified assassins, even though Kepler wouldn't call them that.
Kepler and Jacobi smile, and Kepler tells some of his most charming stories, and Jacobi keeps his face straight through most of them, and Kepler starts slurring his words ever so slightly, making people believe that he's getting drunk off all the champagne he keeps drinking.
That's not true, for neither of them, but it helps put the people they're talking to at ease.
They do all of this, and while doing so also keep their arms around each other, smile at each other and pretend to whisper sweet things into each other's ear.
Jacobi would probably be concerned by how convincing the two of them are, if they weren't Daniel Jacobi and Warren Kepler, liars first and people second (or any other number, in Kepler's case).
Instead he leans back and keeps his eyes peeled.
They only end up talking to their actual target about three hours into the evening, and Jacobi is starting to feel really tired of keeping the smile up on his face the entire time.
('These are the most pretentious people I have ever met,' he's going to complain later, in the car on their way back to Canaveral, 'one would really expect they're not embarrassed to hold some kind of masquerade or whatever. When did masks go out of fashion? I feel like that shouldn't have happened.')
(‘I believe they went out of fashion around the same time anonymity did, Mister Jacobi.')
('In fact, that reminds me of something. Tell me, have I ever told you about that one very surreal weekend I spent in Copenhagen? I actually think Goddard had me tested for all kinds of drugs when I came back, simply because they could hardly believe all of the things I told them about really happened.')
(This is more or less the time Jacobi is going to stop listening.)
(He's always asleep, when they arrive in Canaveral, on the missions without Maxwell, at least. Kepler always shakes him awake a little too softly, always without saying anything. Jacobi doesn't mention it either.)
But he keeps it on anyway, if only to get that rare approving look from Kepler once the conversations and the people he shakes hands with stop blurring into each other and they’re standing in the bathroom of an empty suite, looking down at the dead body in the bathtub.
‘Nice work,’ Kepler mutters, giving his stained shirt a dark look. ‘You have everything you need?’
Jacobi hands him the flash drive. Mister Cutter is going to be satisfied with this one.
Kepler nods. ‘Then all that’s left is the cleanup,’ he says, like Jacobi doesn’t know that.
(He knows how this works; when Kepler is speaking simply because he likes the sound of his own voice.)
(Jacobi doesn’t mind as much as he should. He doesn't hate Kepler’s voice either)
Jacobi starts complaining again when they’re back in their own room, not thinking about what Kepler’s hands had looked like when they’d snapped their target’s neck like it was easy, like it doesn’t take any effort. ‘I still think we should have gone to a masquerade. I would kill a masquerade.’
Kepler chuckles. He’s just now washing the blood of his hands. He shakes his head to get some loose strands of hair out of his face. Jacobi reaches forward and brushes them to the side without thinking much about it. He can’t read the look on Kepler’s face when he turns towards him for the life of him.
They go to sleep soon after that, and Jacobi sleeps soundly, even though they can’t quite shake off the smell of blood until they’re back at Canaveral.
2. Bargaining
‘Okay,’ Jacobi says, checking his watch, ‘two more minutes. If this thing didn’t die again, at least.’
‘You know, Jacobi, other people tend to get new batteries before their devices die. Might be something to think about, I don’t know.’ Maxwell doesn’t look at him while she says this. She’s going through her backpack, apparently looking for something. Jacobi shrugs.
‘We can’t all carry around a charger for everything that we own, Alana.’
He taps onto the glass of his watch and pulls a face. ‘On a completely unrelated note,’ he says, clearing his throat. ‘I don’t think this one is kicking anymore.’
‘Absolutely shocking.’
‘Shut up.’
Jacobi leans over the railing of the roof and has a good long look at the building. It’s a safe enough distance away, but still close enough for them to be able to see everything that’s about to happen just fine. ‘Guess this one’s gonna be a surprise, then.’
Next to him, Kepler hums. He hasn’t said much since he and Jacobi came out of the building, having set up everything successfully, not since he suggested making their way up on this roof to have a little look over Jacobi’s work.
Now, he’s taking his own watch off of his wrist and gives it to Jacobi.
‘Careful with this one, Mister Jacobi,’ he says. ‘This watch is worth more than all our monthly paychecks combined.’
Jacobi rolls his eyes, but he takes the watch with a ‘thank you, Sir.’
He squints down on it, his tongue sticking out from between his teeth.
‘How much longer is it?’, Maxwell asks. She’s managed to pull her coat from her backpack and is now throwing it around her shoulders. She’s shivering, just a little, but she doesn’t complain about the cold. She very rarely does, but she doesn’t need to. Jacobi has got her cornered on that particular market.
‘One minute?’, Jacobi says, a little too vaguely.
‘You sound very sure,’ Maxwell comments. Jacobi shrugs again.
‘It’s not an exact science.’
‘Okay, I don’t know much about your line of work, but I know that that’s not even a little bit true.’
‘Don’t ask any questions and I’ll tell you no lies, doctor.’
‘It would be a little comforting to know that the ballistics expert of the team knows when his devices detonate,’ Kepler says, sounding just a little too amused for the topic at hand. ‘Just to make sure everyone that matters is out of the building before everything falls apart.’
‘Look, I know exactly when this thing is going to detonate, alright?’ Jacobi squares his shoulders and gives the watch back to Kepler. ‘Anyone that would like to complain about this can feel free to walk back inside and have a good long look at the bombs to make sure, and then they can text us about it before it blows them to pieces.’
He watches Kepler put his watch back on and scowls. ‘I hate this fucking thing,’ he mutters. Kepler looks up with a raised eyebrow.
‘Mister Jacobi,’ he says graciously, ‘you can hardly blame this watch for the fact that you came up here without your glasses.’
‘God, Daniel, are you kidding me?’, Maxwell complains, jabbing her elbow into Jacobi’s side. ‘You’re not wearing your goddamn contacts? You set a bomb today, and now you’re telling me you’re not even seeing properly?’
Jacobi crosses his arms in front of his chest. ‘You really think I don’t know how to get this job done right with the tools I have at-’
He’s interrupted by the rumbling of the ground. Everyone on the roof looks up at the same time.
Kepler gave them the mission briefing a week ago. He called it a ‘Daniel Jacobi classic’.
(That’s a lie. Kepler called it a perfectly simple mission. Maxwell went ahead and called it a Daniel Jacobi classic. Jacobi, on the other hand, had called it some very nice and easy fun. Kepler hadn’t explicitly disagreed with any of those names, and simply went on with the briefing.)
It was just like those missions the three of them had done a million times before. Somewhere a couple blocks away, the van with Maxwell's equipment in it is still standing at the street, from which she kept her eyes on the inside the building to make sure no one caught sight of Kepler and Jacobi while they went inside.
Kepler had kept watch on the six locations Jacobi had picked to get to work. Nothing was as easy as figuring out which spots of a big office building are going to make it collapse in that way that makes him feel so stupidly alive.
‘This,’ he muttered to Kepler when they made their way out of the building side by side, lost in a crowd of office workers, ‘is going to look glorious.’
‘I’m sure it is, Mister Jacobi,’ Kepler had muttered back. He squeezed his shoulder for a second, then led the way to where Maxwell was waiting.
Kepler really meant it, because he’s worked with Jacobi for a while and he knows that Jacobi is good at this. Which means that now, he gets to simply lean back and watch the wreckage unfold just the right way.
This, Jacobi keeps telling Maxwell any time she’s willing to listen, is exactly his kind of chaos.
He grins to himself and leans against her shoulder. She wraps an arm around him and pulls him closer. She’s not smiling at the explosion, but she’s not looking away from it, either. It only makes Jacobi’s grin grow wider. He’d say something to Maxwell to make her smile, but she probably wouldn’t hear him over the sound of the office building ripping apart.
That’s fine. Jacobi can just relax against her, and no one needs to say anything.
The building is starting to collapse. It happens slowly, like it always does, other than everything else that happens to Daniel Jacobi.
Jacobi counts the seconds, pays attention to every single particularly bright flare, and watches the way the smoke comes together in a huge cloud at the top.
The ground is shaking. Jacobi can hear the windows of the building they're on clatter like they’re about to burst, and Maxwell clutches the railing to not lose her footing.
(She wouldn’t. She never does. And even if she did, Jacobi would catch her.)
Then there’s no building anymore, just a pile of metal and bones and fire, and it’s strangely quiet for a moment.
The moment doesn’t last. This is when the new kind of chaos begins. Jacobi closes his eyes.
Somewhere to their right, the first set of sirens starts blaring.
This is the point where the city starts to turn its massive head and blinks slowly at the fire, like it’s just waking up and not sure yet what just happened to it.
That’s usually the point the three of them make a run for it.
Jacobi goes to check his watch, then remembers that its battery is dead and grabs Kepler’s wrist to pull it up to his face to look at the time. Kepler gives him a disapproving look but doesn’t say anything, and doesn't pull back either.
‘How much time do we have before we have to be back?’, Jacobi asks. Kepler shrugs.
‘Not a lot,’ he says. ‘We shouldn’t have stayed to watch.’
That’s a given. Everyone knows that.
‘How long is this going to burn for?’, Maxwell asks to Jacobi’s right.
Jacobi has a long look at the fire, squints at it like he can't tell exactly how long it's going to last right away. He looks at Maxwell and shrugs.
(She rolls her eyes. She can tell when he's bullshitting her.)
'A while,' he says, 'depending on how fast they're going to be here.' He turns over to where the sirens came from. 'Nothing's gonna burn to the ground,' he admits, 'but they rarely do.'
'No worries, Jacobi,' Kepler says, his voice cheerful and in no rush at all, 'Doctor Maxwell and I promise we're very impressed with your handiwork anyway. Isn't that right, Doctor?'
Maxwell grins. 'Sir, yes, sir.'
'Yeah, yeah, whatever,' Jacobi mutters. He does a great job pretending he doesn't care about this. But he does lean a little closer towards Maxwell anyway.
Maxwell reaches into her backpack and pulls out three of the protein bars Kepler makes her pack for stakeout missions and long shifts at the lab. She hands two of them to Jacobi, he hands one of them to Kepler. The major accepts it wordlessly, but doesn't actually rip open the package until he sees Maxwell start eating.
If Maxwell notices, she's holding back the annoyed comment it usually earns Kepler.
A few more minutes pass. A few more sirens from different directions join in on the chaos. Normally around this time, the three of them would be in the car, with either Maxwell berating Kepler for speeding or Jacobi berating Kepler for not doing so.
But no one makes any effort to leave. From the way she’s starting to lean against Jacobi, Maxwell even seems to relax a little, which she usually doesn’t do until they’re far, far away from wherever their last mission happened.
It’s nice, Jacobi decides. He’s not going to say that out loud, though.
‘You know what this reminds me of?’, Jacobi asks, nudging Kepler with his elbow. The major looks down at him, one eyebrow raised.
Jacobi grins and opens his mouth to continue speaking, just when he’s interrupted by the sound of a phone ringing.
Jacobi blinks. Next to him, Maxwell coughs. Kepler, very deliberately, says, ‘Ah.’
‘Jesus,’ Jacobi says off of his look. ‘Are we going to die?’
‘Nonsense, Jacobi,’ Kepler says, but he doesn’t look all that happy when he fishes the phone out of his jacket. ‘Not if you shut up, we’re not,’ he adds with a cheerful smile that’s not sincere at all, and then he picks up the phone.
‘Mister Cutter,’ Kepler drawls, pleasant as ever, ‘so nice to hear from you.’
Maxwell and Jacobi exchange a look. The two of them might live a very dangerous life, but they’re not stupid enough to underestimate a phone call from Marcus Cutter, so they keep their mouths shut.
‘That’s-’ Kepler interrupts himself, looks at Maxwell and Jacobi. His smile falters, just a little. ‘That’s very nice of you, Sir.’
Maxwell is holding her breath. It’s killing Jacobi to not be able to make fun of her for it.
‘Yes, we’re fine,’ Kepler says. ‘Yes, yes, it worked out great. I’m- sorry, sir?’
Kepler listens, and for a second Jacobi wonders if this is the one mistake that’s going to cost him his head.
It must be a little fucked up, that he never has thoughts like these when he’s up to his elbows in an armed explosive, or when a faceless stranger has a gun pinned to his head. He thinks it anyway.
But then Kepler smiles, so naturally Jacobi is sure they're going to die.
‘Why, sir,’ Kepler says, now looking right at Jacobi, ‘of course we’re on our way. We have a long drive ahead of us after all.’
Jacobi blinks once. Then a second time. And then a few more times for good measure.
Then, he beams at Kepler for the shortest moment. And then Kepler walks up to the railing and finishes his conversation with Mister Cutter.
Maxwell doesn’t say anything. She’s still just standing next to him, looking down at the city.
At least she’s breathing again.
Kepler joins them after a few minutes. ‘We should get on our way,’ he says matter-of-factly. ‘We’re already running late.’
‘Sir, yes, sir,’ Jacobi says. ‘Don’t wanna be late to the debriefing.’
‘Besides,’ Maxwell says, ‘our job here is done, right? No reason to linger.’
‘Exactly,’ Kepler says.
They don’t get off the roof until the fire Jacobi set is put out completely.
It's a nice sight, after all.
3. Anger
'Cutter is going to kill us.'
That's the first thing Jacobi hears once he's managed to put his earpiece back on. It's Maxwell's voice.
That's good. The fact that she's complaining means that she's safe.
'Jacobi,' Kepler barks through it then (good, so that means he's also safe), 'do you read us?'
'Yeah,' Jacobi says, 'yeah. I do now.' He clears his throat, but when he goes on, his voice is still raspy. 'Sorry. Had some technical difficulties. Where are you, Major?'
'I'm with Maxwell.' Kepler's voice sounds like a gun pressed against his temple. 'I expected you to be as well. Where the hell are you?'
'Uh,' Jacobi says, having a look at his surroundings. 'Not exactly sure.'
'You're not sure?', Maxwell asks him. She's speaking very slowly.
Well, that's great. Now they're both angry at him.
'Relax,' Jacobi says, 'I'm gonna find a way out. I have plenty of time, it's only-' He has a look at his watch. 'It's only-' He taps against the glass, hoping that maybe, the battery just died about eleven hours ago and looks up at the clock at the wall. 'Ah.'
'Ah?', Maxwell repeats.
'Huh,' Jacobi says, and then coughs. 'Okay. So this might be a little close after all.'
'You think so?', Kepler drawls on the other side.
'Relax,' Jacobi says. 'That doesn't change anything. I can still do this.'
'Jacobi.' Maxwell sounds very serious. 'Everyone in that building is alert and looking for the intruders.'
'I know.' Jacobi rolls his eyes. 'Who do you think I ran into two minutes ago? I'm fine, by the way, thanks for asking.'
'Listen to me. They're looking for the intruders, and anything they might have left here.'
Oh, well. That doesn't sound good.
Because Jacobi can't shut up to (literally, maybe, in this case) save his life, though, he says, 'Anything?'
Maxwell is quiet for a moment. Jacobi imagines the look she and Kepler must be sharing right now, the We're having a fight with our eyes to determine which of us gets to kill him later look, as he calls it.
He probably shouldn't do this. If only it wasn't so goddamn fun.
'Yes, Jacobi,' Maxwell says then. 'Anything.'
'So,' Jacobi says, checking the corridor he's entering for assailants, 'if someone left, for instance, an armed bomb lying around somewhere in the building's basement a few minutes ago-'
'Yes, Jacobi, that's what I was implying here,' Maxwell hisses, and then adds a, 'Would you please help me?'
That one must be directed at Kepler, because his is the next voice Jacobi hears through the earpiece.
'Jacobi, this is a direct order from your superior officer,' he says slowly, like Jacobi isn't going to get it if he's too fast. 'Get out of there so you can detonate before anything else goes wrong.'
'Yes, sir. Maxwell, do you have eyes on the bomb?'
'Yes, and they're very close to finding it, so hurry, maybe? Please?'
'Yes, yes. Soon as I find the way I'm out of here.' He grins. 'And then I'm gonna go get myself a new watch. Major, you have any recommendations?'
'I recommend you stop talking and hurry.'
Jacobi does.
This is, of course, not the way the evening was supposed to go. Jacobi would have assumed he and the others would long be out of the building at this point.
Eh. Maxwell and Kepler are, at least. Can't be that bad.
Still. Jacobi wouldn't exactly mind not being here right now.
But then again, who is he kidding. There was something about this, the danger, the pressure, the blaring of the alarms above him. Time ticking away right in his ear, the gun in his right hand and of course, probably most importantly, the detonator in his left.
This is where Daniel Jacobi belongs. That thought probably isn't exactly healthy or sane. But it's the truth.
'You're having way too much fun with this,' Maxwell's probably going to tell him later.
But that's later. This is now.
Now he's aiming his gun and shoots and watches the two people that just burst through a door to his left crumple to the floor.
And then everything shifts a little, like the camera filming the movie of his life is suddenly tilting to the side.
It gets… quiet.
Not around Jacobi, because the alarms continue blaring above him and he can still hear his own heart beat in his chest. The quiet comes from the other side of the earpiece.
Which is stupid. Because Maxwell and Kepler hadn't been talking before, either.
Now they're not just not talking, though. They're quiet.
'Major', Jacobi says. 'Maxwell? What's up?'
He knows what's going on before Maxwell even opens her mouth.
'They, uh-' Maxwell clears her throat, and Jacobi knows that she's giving Kepler a look. 'They found your bomb.'
'Well,' Jacobi says, and then, 'fuck.'
He shoots a look over his shoulder. The rest of the corridor is empty. 'Alright,' he says, 'how far am I from the exit?'
More quiet follows, this time more aggressive than before.
'Jacobi,' Kepler says, lowly. 'It's over. We're leaving. We blew it.'
He doesn't say, You blew it, which feels like it should mean something. Business, probably. Trouble, for sure. He doesn't manage to think further than that.
'Maxwell?'
Maxwell takes a deep breath. 'About thirty seconds to your right, but listen- it's too late. They're just about to disarm it.'
'Thirty seconds.' Jacobi bites his lip, then nods. 'Okay. Wait for me, I'll be there in a minute.'
'Jacobi-', Kepler starts again, but he shuts up when Jacobi presses the detonator.
Alright, great, he managed that. Now all he needs to do is run.
He doesn't hear anything for those few seconds, except for Maxwell and Kepler in his ear.
'Mister Jacobi, what the hell do you think you're doing, are you-'
'Daniel, you can't be serious, tell me you didn't just-'
Jacobi wants to say something, something stupid that's only going to make them angrier, but he doesn't have the time.
Half a second before he makes it to the door, the world around him goes up in flames.
Jacobi holds his breath, and he pulls up his shoulders, and he does what he does best.
Well. Maybe second best.
He doesn't so much step out of the building as he's thrown out, and lands on his knees, doing his best to shield his head and his neck from the debris that starts raining down on him.
A high-pitched sound rips through his ears, so Daniel rips out the earpiece. For a second, everything around him is hot and loud and awful.
Just the way he likes it.
He crawls farther away from the building, breathing steadily. Everything hurts at once; he's definitely broken at least one rib. His ears are still ringing, but at least he can see clearly.
He scrambles to his feet and rips off his jacket that has somehow caught flame.
And then he just stands there.
He turns to the mayhem that used to be a building and tries to assess just how fucked he is.
The answer to that question seems to be Not As Much As He Should Be. He can breathe just fine, even though it does make his ribs hurt. One of his wrists seems to be broken, but it's the left one, so it shouldn't be that much of a problem. His head hurts like hell, but that's due to the sound around him, which is already ebbing off. He's not seriously hurt.
Walking turns out to be a little difficult, but nothing he can't handle.
'Okay,' Jacobi mutters to himself, 'where did they say we were parked?'
He can barely hear himself, but the talking grounds him, so he doesn't shut up for a moment while he limps down the parking lot.
He sees Kepler before he sees the car, but to be fair, it's only a difference of a few seconds. He comes walking towards him like he's got all the time in the world, but grabs Jacobi by the shoulders with a sense of urgency that makes Jacobi shiver.
'I've got him,' Kepler announces, 'start the car.'
It takes Jacobi a few confused blinks too many to realise that he's talking to Maxwell in his earpiece.
'Jacobi.' Kepler grabs his jaw and forces Jacobi to look up at him. 'Can you hear me?'
Jacobi wills his eyes to focus on the major, and says, 'Loud and clear, Sir,' even though his voice does sound a little muffled still.
'Are you about to bleed out?'
'No, I don't think so.'
'Good.' Kepler smiles, but there's neither real joy nor menacing glee behind it. It's just hard, and cold, and dangerous. 'That means you're in big trouble.'
Then they arrive at the car. Kepler throws the door open with one hand, his other still on Jacobi's back. 'Maxwell,' he says. 'Drive. Now.'
Maxwell does as she's told. Jacobi blinks at that.
'Maxwell doesn't like driving,' he announces pointlessly. From the rearview mirror, Maxwell shoots him a glare.
Jacobi doesn't have the time to complain about that, because this is where Kepler starts poking at him.
'Ow,' he says instead, 'what the hell do you think you're-'
'Your rib is broken,' Kepler announces. 'So is your wrist. Your back-', he shoves a hand under Jacobi's shirt, his hand cold to his hot skin, 'is burned. Mister Jacobi,' Kepler now looks right at him, 'I'm surprised you're not dead.'
Jacobi shrugs. 'I guess I'm just really good at my job.'
He's probably not in the position to be cocky, not with the way Kepler is looking at him and with the way Maxwell isn't looking at him. He's technically too tired to have much of a discussion about this, as well. But then again, somehow this is keeping him on his feet.
'Would someone really good at their job really look like this after it's done?' Kepler's jaw is tense, his arms crossed.
'The mission went fine,' Jacobi argues. He isn't sure why he has to do so in the first place, since it's true what he's saying. 'Building's blown up, all the evidence is gone, and hey, we're even all alive - which wasn't in the dossier, as far as I remember. We almost fucked up,' he adds, giving Kepler a serious look. They both know that the lecture he'd be getting if he hadn't detonated would be a lot worse than this one. 'But we didn't. And that's good. '
Kepler's eyes don't soften. 'I think,' he says, 'I will be the judge of that, Mister Jacobi. Do you have any idea how long it takes to train a good SI5 agent? Do you know how many of those last for more than a year? It would be a real shame,' now Kepler closes his fingers around Jacobi's wrist, the one that's not broken, and grips tightly enough for it to hurt, 'if all that hard work were to be for nothing because one of them was too reckless to decide when to stop pushing. I would be very upset at such a waste of resources.'
Jacobi frowns. 'Come on,' he says, this is bullshit.' He looks over to where Maxwell is gripping the steering wheel. 'Maxwell, would you please tell him that he's being-'
'Don't talk to me,' Maxwell interrupts him. Jacobi throws up his hands. 'Seriously?'
'Sit down and be quiet,' Kepler says, apparently pacified for now (which just means he isn't going to kill Jacobi), 'we don't want you to worsen the concussion you no doubt have.'
The drive back to Canaveral is quiet; Jacobi is refusing to be the first person to speak up. With Maxwell in the driver's seat, there's no music playing, and for once Kepler doesn't seem to have any stories to bother them with. He doesn't even hum, which Jacobi thinks is very unsettling.
It's only when they switch drivers and it's Maxwell sitting next to him in the backseat that Jacobi decides he's tired of being stubborn.
'Are you seriously going to be mad at me for the rest of the drive?', he mutters to Maxwell, making sure Kepler doesn't hear him.
Maxwell doesn't look at him, and when she answers, she doesn't bother to keep her voice low.
'Yes, I am,' she says. She wraps an arm around Jacobi and pulls him onto her shoulder, one hand resting on his head. She presses their temples together.
'I'm incredibly angry at you,' she continues softly, 'and I'm going to be at least for the rest of the week. If you ever do something like that again, I'm going to kill you myself.'
'We accomplished the mission,' Jacobi mutters, his eyes falling closed. He isn't falling asleep, he tells himself. 'Isn't that what's most important?'
Maxwell pulls Jacobi a little closer and doesn't answer.
4. Depression
Jacobi has been staring out of the window for fifteen full minutes when he decides that he can’t do this anymore.
‘I can’t do this anymore,’ he mutters to Maxwell. She very pointedly doesn’t look at him.
‘Hey, Major?’, Jacobi says, ignoring the look Maxwell shoots him. Kepler doesn’t answer.
‘It’s been an hour,’ Jacobi continues. (‘It’s not been an hour,’ Maxwell mutters, ‘it hasn’t even been half an hour, Jacobi, do you have no sense of time?’) ‘Don’t you think it’s time to tell us about what the meeting was about? And like, maybe also where we’re driving?’
Kepler shoots him a look through the rearview mirror that Jacobi can’t read at all. He doesn’t say anything.
‘You know,’ Jacobi mutters to Maxwell, who at this point only looks uncomfortable, ‘maybe this is the point where he takes us out into some field to execute us. Wouldn’t that make sense?’
Maxwell bites back a smile. She’s never been good at that. ‘I would be lying if I said I didn’t consider the possibility.’ She leans closer to Jacobi and he knows he’s won. ‘What do you think was the last straw?’
Jacobi hums, pretends to think about it for a moment. Kepler continues not moving.
‘You think it was the fast food we brought for breakfast two weeks ago?’
Maxwell clicks her tongue. ‘Oh, that would be tragic.’ Now she’s smiling properly. ‘Imagine the major killing us because we- what? Because we want him to eat well?’
‘You cannot possibly call that eating well,’ Kepler says then, and Maxwell and Jacobi share a victorious look. They’re not always good at that, getting behind whichever masks Kepler puts on, but every once in a while it works.
Or he grants them the illusion of it working, at least.
‘Better than nothing but coffee,’ Maxwell quips. Kepler is still not looking at them, but something slips off his face anyway.
Unfortunately, whatever is beneath it really looks nothing else but tired. ‘That was one time,’ he says. Maxwell makes a doubtful face.
The silence they fall into after that feels a little lighter.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not still there. The tension in Kepler’s shoulders, and the force with which he’s gripping the steering wheel.
It’s always there, when he comes back from Cutter’s office. There’s always something missing from him, but he usually regains his composure soon enough.
This is different. Which means that Jacobi almost doesn’t want to, but he leans forward (Maxwell following his movement) toward Kepler and asks, ‘So what did Mister Cutter want from you, Sir?’
Another minute of silence, another look shared between Jacobi and Maxwell.
Maxwell clears her throat; she looks worried now.
‘Major,’ she says, ‘don’t you think it would be good for us to-’
‘Colonel.’
Maxwell blinks. They’ve gotten to a red light, and Kepler has stopped the car. He’s not looking at them.
‘Excuse me?’
Kepler loosens his grip on the wheel to start drumming his fingers on it instead.
For a second, that’s what everyone is looking at. Then the light turns green and Kepler continues driving.
‘It’s Colonel now,’ he says.
Jacobi raises an eyebrow. ‘You got promoted? That’s why you’re sulking? Because you got promoted?’
‘I can assure you I‘m not sulking, Jacobi,’ Kepler says.
‘That’s not all there is,’ Maxwell says. ‘Is there?’ She looks right at Kepler. ‘There’s something else.’
Kepler looks at her through the mirror, and for a moment Jacobi thinks he’s going to sigh, and his shoulders are going to slump, and he’s just going to be a man, exhausted and maybe even afraid, and neither Maxwell nor Jacobi will have any idea what to do with that.
He does no such thing. He just says, ‘Yes, there is.’
Then his eyes meet Jacobi’s. And then he doesn’t even want Kepler to say it anymore, doesn’t want to know what Cutter has told him with that fucked up smile of his, and he wants to lean back in his seat and look out of the window, and pretend this conversation never happened, and he wants to-
‘Mister Cutter has a new mission planned for us,’ Kepler says, not dragging out the words syllable by syllable like he usually likes to do so much. ‘He wants us to go to space.’
Maxwell opens her mouth like she wants to say something, then the words catch up to her.
‘Space,’ she says.
‘Space?’ Jacobi asks.
They both look at Kepler. He nods. ‘Yes. Space.’ Another beat passes, and then-
‘The Hephaestus station.’
Oh.
For a second, no one says anything at all. Jacobi figures he's lost his mind when he thinks that right now, they're all holding their breaths together. All of them the same breath, with one pair of lungs that's definitely too small to be shared, and-
But that's bullshit. Kepler is breathing just fine.
'The… Hephaestus station,' Maxwell says, slowly. She sounds like she's trying out the words for the first time, but that's not the case at all. She's talked about this often.
Everybody at Goddard knows about the Hephaestus station.
'That's the place no one comes back from, isn't it?', Jacobi asks.
He almost expects Kepler to scold him for this, but he just shoots him a look.
'I came back from there, didn't I?', he says instead. 'And I wasn't the only one, either.'
He sounds like nothing about this is troubling to him. Jacobi isn't buying it. He looks at Maxwell. Her face isn't giving anything away, either.
Jacobi isn't buying it.
'That's not what I mean,' he says. He leans back in his seat, crossing his arms. 'What is in that place, apart from death and failure? What could Cutter possibly want us there for?'
Cutter sends people up there to die. That's what Kepler told them, not exactly a long time ago. People go to the Hephaestus station to die.
'The situation up there… has changed, it would seem. New things to do. Lots of things to do for people like us.'
'That what Cutter told you?'
Kepler's eyes darken, just a little.
Jacobi probably shouldn't do this; he shouldn't push, should just square his shoulders and say Yes, sir, and then die for Kepler in space.
Because that's what this is going to be, isn't it? People go to the Hephaestus to die.
The only difference would be that Jacobi knows this, and comes along anyway. Because he's Daniel Jacobi and Major Warren Kepler told him to.
No, it’s Colonel Warren Kepler now.
(God, he's never going to get used to that.)
The thought doesn't scare him as much as it should. It's not even uncomfortable. It's also not something he takes much pride in. It's just a fact.
Like the fact that people go to the Hephaestus station to die.
It's only when he looks at Maxwell that he finds something wrong with it.
'We're going to start training tomorrow,' Kepler says. He's still driving, and his shoulders are squared like he expects Cutter to crawl out of the trunk any second now.
He's still driving, and Jacobi is starting to wonder if maybe he doesn't actually know where he's going.
(He does that sometimes, drive without anywhere to be. He's gone for hours, those times, and Jacobi shouldn't know, shouldn't wait for him until the sun comes up, but he does.)
(Kepler never takes any of them along for these drives, obviously.)
'This mission is,' Kepler starts, then interrupts himself, and he looks to the side like he's really not sure what it is.
The moment passes, and then Kepler is just Kepler again, and Jacobi would relax in his seat if it wasn't-
If it wasn't-
If it wasn't for the thing in this car that's still wrong. Jacobi can't put his finger on it, but Maxwell didn't bring it here, and neither did he.
In the short second before Kepler continues speaking, Jacobi hates him so much he wants to cry.
'This mission is going to be… different, from what we've done before. And that's an understatement, of course.'
Jacobi notices Kepler slowing down, somehow, not the car, just him, like the distinct feeling of being hunted that always comes along with visiting Cutter's office is slowly fading.
Tough fucking luck for Jacobi, because the feeling latches right onto him and he has a hunch it's gonna camp in his chest for a good long while.
'It's not going to be easy.' Kepler's eyes lock with Maxwell's through the mirror, and then that's the first time he smiles today, and it's awful, and Jacobi really just wants to get the fuck out of this car and get to his apartment and lock all the doors he has a key for.
That wouldn't help, though. Kepler has the keys to his apartment. Same with Maxwell's. So Jacobi settles on simply scowling at the- the colonel.
'It might even be a challenge.'
Jacobi has wanted Kepler to shut up- well, pretty much ever since the first time he's walked into his life like some kind of fucked up shakespearean cowboy. Now that he actually does, apparently done with sharing information for now, Jacobi regrets it.
And he doesn't grab Kepler's shoulders and shake him and shout something stupid in his face, something ridiculous like, So? When are you going to tell us that we'll make it? When are you going to tell us that it will be alright?
He doesn't, because that would be childish, and neither Kepler nor Maxwell like it when Jacobi gets like this.
Still. He wishes Kepler would just say something.
He doesn't. But they don't sit in silence, either.
'Alright,' Maxwell says, and Jacobi's head whips towards her like he's forgotten she's there.
She hasn't said anything in a while and now she's looking right at Kepler. There's something in her expression that Jacobi doesn't like, except no, that's not true.
It's not true at all. He can't quite bring himself to look away.
'And that's it?' Maxwell asks. Her voice is perfectly even, she's even speaking more slowly than usual, like she wants to-
Kepler raises one eyebrow. 'It's all you need to know for now, Doctor,' he says, 'in due time, we will-'
'That's not what I mean,' Maxwell interrupts him. 'You're- this is why- this is why you're looking at us like this? Because we're going to space? Because we're going to the evil space station?'
'I suggest you take this assignment seriously. You don't know what kind of things happen on the Hephaestus.'
'I don't? Because from what I've heard - and I've heard plenty, sir - it's a place where people die.'
Maxwell looks at Jacobi then, and her eyes are hard. 'We,' she says, 'go to places where people die all the time.'
Jacobi’s stupid heart stumbles forward while running and falls on its face, but Maxwell just keeps talking. Not even Kepler seems to have anything to say, even though her tone is probably borderline insubordinate.
‘We go to places where people die all the time, and you know what else we do? We go back home. ’
Jacobi and Kepler share a look; Maxwell doesn’t even seem to notice the way Daniel’s mind is stuck on her last word like a broken record.
This is stupid. Maxwell doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
Why the hell, then, is this working?
Kepler’s shoulders don’t relax. But Jacobi can tell anyway.
‘That’s the point,’ Maxwell says with finality. ‘Because that’s what we do. It’s like you always say, Colonel. We don’t go home until the job’s done. But we also get the job done. And we go home. And that’s the point.’
Maxwell leans back in her seat. There’s nothing on her face that suggests she has any doubt of what she said.
Kepler releases a breath that seems too long for one single person. He takes the next exit, and Jacobi does his best to believe Maxwell.
5. Acceptance
Jacobi is… hmm. I suppose the best word for it would be ‘adaptable’. This doesn’t exactly mean ‘Daniel Jacobi can parry absolutely everything you throw at him without question’. It’s more of a ‘Jesus christ, this son of a bitch really can fall asleep anywhere, huh?’ situation.
He isn’t sure if this is something to be proud of. It doesn’t really make a difference either. Just because he’s usually the first to fall asleep when he’s elsewhere with Kepler and Maxwell doesn’t mean that he’s secretly a sleep wizard or anything like that.
And anyway, right now, he feels like it really doesn’t matter.
Because falling asleep in space is a real bitch.
It’s not a very nice feeling, sitting in the Urania just before lift-off, letting his seatbelt click into place and waiting for- well. For Jacobi to leave Earth’s perfectly reasonable and sufficient atmosphere behind and go… away. He doesn’t look at Kepler or Maxwell, who he is sure both have that awfully smug expression on their faces that has snuck its way there sometime after the first month of mission prep. Back around the time they both decided they were going to have fun on this mission.
All that Jacobi does is grip the armrest of his chair as tightly as he can and grit his teeth until Earth is gone, and it’s only him and Maxwell and Kepler.
That’s more or less the time he finds out that sleeping in space is a real bitch.
And it’s not like he doesn’t try, either. He tosses and turns for hours, tries facing the window and tries facing the door to his quarters, and then the window again.
He always falls asleep eventually. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t get to be cranky about this.
Maxwell isn’t helpful. At this point in their journey to the end of the world, she’s still way too excited about the everything around her. She’s glued to windows, spends hours in Engineering, and when she deigns to spend time with him, the mission is all that she talks about.
Of course he’s glad she likes being here. But still, he hates sleeping here.
Kepler is the one that notices, at some point during their second week in space.
(Jesus christ, it’s space, they’re in space, he’s a ballistics expert in space- )
He looks up from the panel he’s working on and gives Jacobi one of his long looks. He pretends not to notice.
‘Jacobi,’ Kepler says right when Jacobi deems it safe enough to yawn, ‘everything alright over there?’
Jacobi blinks once, twice, then looks at the Colonel. ‘Why,’ he says, ‘yes, Sir. Of course. Everything is just… peachy.’
Another yawn. Kepler blinks, deliberately. ‘You don’t say.’
‘Yep.’
Jacobi is looking for an excuse to leave the room, but Kepler is faster. ‘No trouble sleeping at all?’
‘Ah.’ Jacobi clears his throat and runs a hand through his hair. ‘I wouldn’t exactly call it trouble, Colonel. It’s more like… hesitation, maybe.’
Kepler, to Jacobi’s very wary surprise, nods. ‘I remember my first trip up here,’ he says. His eyes are fixed back down to the panel. ‘I think I went about three weeks without sleep before I started to manage.’
'That's…' Jacobi is just about to be impressed and confused by this new information about Kepler he gets to file away when it actually sinks in what he just said. 'Hang on. Three weeks ?'
Kepler shrugs, like that isn't enough time to make a person go insane enough to go on a killing spree. 'Everything takes adjusting.'
'Wow,' Jacobi says. 'I'm going to die.'
'Don't be ridiculous, Jacobi.' Kepler gives him a look that's almost disappointed. 'You're not going to die. We'll figure something out.'
It's not supposed to be encouragement. There's at least 70% of a threat in the Colonel's voice. Which is why Jacobi only answers with a tired, 'Yes, Sir.'
And they do. Figure something out, that is. Jacobi has no idea why it's working.
Yeah, sure, there's probably some kind of science to it about the additional warmth and weight around you, especially in a place as cold as this, but usually all scientific bets are off as soon as the situation at hand involves Warren Kepler.
So Jacobi is surprised when the first night, there's actually something like real sleep expecting him.
And then the next night.
And the next.
The fourth, Maxwell catches on to what's happening when she finds Jacobi's quarters empty, and the Colonel's-
Well. Not.
She doesn't ask any questions, just crawls in with them the fifth night.
Only then everything falls into place a little.
Because this, well- this is familiar. This makes sense. This is them.
Jacobi couldn’t count all the times the three of them have shared a sleeping space if he used both of his hands, and then also the Colonel’s, and Maxwell’s as well while he’s at it. He doesn’t even remember the first time it happened. It seems… fixed, somehow, like there’s no universe out there in which they don’t.
It feels like fucking gravity, tucking his own body in next to Maxwell’s, or Kepler’s, or sometimes in between the two. It really doesn’t matter where, he always just- fits.
Jacobi isn’t a guy for poetry or reverence, but he can’t deny the fact that he’s never once doubted he would.
Like gravity and all the other laws of nature.
The Earth keeps pulling you towards it for as long as you live, the sun goes down in the west, and also, amongst these truths, there’s this: When they sleep, they breathe like one person. When Jacobi wakes up in the middle of the night, he hears Maxwell and Kepler breathing in unison. He doesn’t think about these things much, and he’s not much of a philosopher, but he hardly has to be.
But, well. Kinda like gravity, a lot of different constants become a little wobbly when people move just a little too far away from where they’re supposed to be.
(And they’re not people, not really, not according to Kepler, and Jacobi usually does what Kepler tells him to. That doesn’t make it any less true.)
Which is why this shouldn’t have surprised Jacobi. But it did anyway.
And now he’s-
‘Jacobi,’ Kepler mutters right into his neck, and his breathing stops for a second. ‘Are you ever going to shut up and go to sleep?’
Jacobi blinks his eyes open. He’s facing space tonight.
‘I don’t think I actually said anything,’ Jacobi mutters into his (his? no, hang on, it’s Kepler’s, isn’t it, god he sure forgot about that little fact quickly) sleeping bag. Kepler hums against his skin. He doesn’t sound very impressed.
‘You’re thinking,’ he says. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s loud enough for Maxwell to hear, and if I’m not wrong, she’s still on the bridge.’
Jacobi sighs. ‘You mean again,’ he says sourly. ‘She’s on the bridge again.’
‘Still thinking.’
‘Yeah, well.’ Jacobi tries to prop himself up on his elbows to glare at Kepler, but it’s not exactly easy in zero gravity. Besides, his resolve kinda crumbles when he actually looks at the Colonel’s face.
(Jesus. This is exactly the kind of stuff that wouldn’t happen if Maxwell was here.)
(Jacobi is going to kill her.)
‘I can’t exactly turn it off, can I?’
‘I’m not convinced that you’ve tried.’
Jacobi rolls his eyes. ‘Ever so helpful, Sir. What would I do without you? Shut it,’ he adds quickly, because he can already see what Kepler’s going to say to that on his stupid face.
‘She’s going to get here eventually,’ Kepler says.
Jacobi sighs again and drops back into the sleeping bag.
‘I know,’ he mutters.
And Kepler is right.
Of course he is.
Jacobi didn’t expect to end up actually missing the stupid cheer with which Maxwell went up into space. Her goddamn glowing eyes every time another stupid ball of gas outside the window caught her eye and she completely forgot what she was talking about.
Honestly, it was pretty annoying. But this is worse.
It’s not really a problem yet. Which is to say, Jacobi spends a whole lot of time thinking about it. But it’s not a problem yet, not in the way Kepler says the word, like his tongue is a goddamn switchblade. Not in the way he folds his hands at it, not moving at all.
(Kepler is never really still. Jacobi isn’t convinced that he’s not going to die if he closes his eyes and stops moving, like a great white shark.)
(When he is, though. That means business. That means danger. That means problem. )
No, Jacobi can tell that they’re not there yet. But he can also tell that whatever this is- it’s moving along. It’s growing, or some other kind of smart metaphor that Kepler and Maxwell are much better at coming up with.
Maxwell is quiet. She goes to sleep at later times. And where Jacobi is adapting, falling asleep faster and more easily, Maxwell is… not.
Jacobi tries not to worry, because Maxwell would hate that. But that doesn’t mean he’s not allowed to-
‘You’re still doing it.’
Jacobi drags a hand across his face.
If he had turned to Kepler a little earlier than he does, he might have seen the smile on his face. It’s very small. Very easy to miss. And it’s gone as soon as Jacobi turns around, anyway.
But still. It’s there.
Not that it means anything, in the end. It won’t by the time this mission is over.
‘How am I supposed to sleep if you keep talking all night?’
‘I wouldn’t have talk at all to if you could just-’
Kepler trails off when Jacobi wraps his arms around him and nestles his face against the Colonel’s chest.
At least this is easier in zero gravity.
Kepler makes a noise that Jacobi can’t interpret properly, and then he mirrors Jacobi. He wraps one arm around him, his other hand resting on his head.
He’s not pulling Jacobi closer to his chest.
‘Better?’ Kepler asks. Jacobi can feel his breathing against his hair.
‘No,’ Jacobi answers, and Kepler’s short laugh makes his stupid chest vibrate. ‘Stop moving. I’m trying to sleep.’
For once in his life, Kepler obliges.
Not that it makes a difference. Jacobi is still listening intently for something that isn’t Kepler’s breathing.
There’s no steps to overhear in space, though. So Kepler and Jacobi don’t hear Maxwell until she opens the door.
She crawls into the sleeping bag without a word. Jacobi turns around until his back is resting against Kepler’s chest and he pulls Maxwell as close as she will allow.
‘There we go,’ Kepler mutters. ‘I knew you could do it, Jacobi.’
Maxwell turns her head towards the colonel. ‘What are you-’
‘Nevermind,’ Jacobi says and wraps his arms around Maxwell. Somehow, his hands find hers.
(The colonel’s find them last. At that time, Jacobi is already half asleep.)
It takes a while for Maxwell’s shoulders to relax, but they do eventually. And Kepler doesn’t hold any tension anyway, not the way he used to on Earth at least, not until they make it to the Hephaestus.
And Jacobi, well. He adapts. It’s what he does.
And there would be some kind of stupid poetry to it, if he could say he can hardly sleep without them, but that’s just not true. A month, maybe two pass and he’s gotten used to space just fine.
(He’s going to be for a while.)
But still, they keep this. No one asks why. And it does get away from them at one point, but for now. They keep this.
And when Jacobi makes his way to the bridge in the middle of the night a few months later, Kepler’s eyes are on him until he shuts the door to his quarters behind him.
The next night, Jacobi sleeps alone. And he thinks when he’s quiet enough, he can hear muffled voices coming from the bridge.
And he doesn’t think, not about anything.
5+1. Death
And then Jacobi has no more yelling inside him and he briefly wonders if he's ever been more afraid than he is now.
That's ridiculous, isn't it? He listened to himself die. He saw the doubt in Maxwell's face constantly those two days afterwards, never quite fading away.
Fuck, he listened to Maxwell die. He'd really thought there was nothing else left for him to be afraid of.
Then Pryce put that- that thing into his skull and everything glazed over, and when he came back to his senses he wanted to throw up all the food he didn't eat for two weeks, and he was so tired.
He really thought he'd run out of things to lose somewhere around that time, too.
Still, now his hand is closed tightly around Kepler's wrist, and all that Jacobi wants to do is punch him in his stupid face, and then never ever forgive him.
But not as much as he wants him to stay.
Rachel is already walking away. She's not doubting for a second that Kepler is going to follow. No one else in the room is.
But Jacobi thinks, and he's so angry and he's so tired and he's so scared, but still, he thinks, maybe-
Kepler looks right at him. Jacobi can't read his face, which is a given. But he finds that he has- he has no idea what he's going to do next, either. And that scares him.
His stupid heart is pounding so quickly he's worried he's going to pass out.
But he won't. Because Kepler is still looking at him.
'Don't do this, Colonel,' Jacobi says, trying to put- fuck, to put whatever into his voice, he doesn't care at all, anything to get Kepler to just fucking stay.
The Colonel doesn't stay. He does something else.
And Jacobi feels like an idiot, because he held a gun to this guy's head just a few weeks ago, and now everybody's eyes are on them and Jacobi wishes he didn't feel so desperate.
(He thinks of Alana. He tries not to, but that never works.)
Kepler pulls his hand out of Jacobi's grip and grasps his hand instead. With both hands, the real one and the other one.
He looks at Jacobi and delivers his final verdict, like cupping the back of his head and leading it to lie on the fucking block.
'Thank you, Daniel,' he says softly, squeezes his hand. 'And goodbye.'
The words hit Jacobi like a bullet, right between the eyes, just like when Maxwell died. (Kepler always had good aim.)
He drops Jacobi's hand and he turns around.
That's when Jacobi knows. That this is the last time. He's never going to see Kepler again.
It feels like- it feels like-
It feels like losing Maxwell all over again, too. Like she's there, kneeling and waiting for Kepler, and he leans down and extends a hand and helps her to her feet and she doesn't even look at Jacobi, just walks along with Kepler, back to the Hephaestus, back to-
The door closes. Kepler is gone.
And Daniel Jacobi's story ends.
Except. It doesn't. It doesn't end at all.
Riemann shoots all his bullets at Jacobi and it hurts like hell. He spends an hour beating him to shit and Jacobi grits his teeth and spits some in the guy's face for good measure.
He laughs at the horror on Riemann's face and lets the world around them tear apart. He opens his eyes, charred and broken but still breathing and alive and he thinks, What the fuck.
Minkowski has lost way too much blood by the time he finally finds them. He's not afraid at the sight of her gunshot wound and at Lovelace not moving and at Hera being quiet and at the look on Eiffel's face.
(Except that's a lie. He's very afraid.)
(His heart is beating so quickly, but it doesn't make sense, because it shouldn't. Because Maxwell is dead and Kepler is gone and he has nothing left to be scared of or to lose and because Jacobi's story ended. )
This is fine, Jacobi tells himself. This is something he can take and put on the highest point of the shelves in his mind, push it all the way back to the wall and never get another chance to think about it, because this plan is ridiculous and the odds are fucking terrible and there's no way he's not going to die.
Then the Hephaestus is sucked up by the star, and Jacobi is on the Urania.
Lovelace is next to him, watching. And Jacobi says, 'I think I should be there,' by which he really just means, I think I should be dead.
Because here's the thing. He and his team never talked about it, but all three of them always used to think Jacobi would be the first to die.
It would be a foolish and reckless stunt, maybe throwing himself in front of a bullet for one of them, and Kepler would be furious and never forgive him.
Jacobi was- he was always sure. When he met Maxwell and shook her hand for the first time, he remembers thinking I would die for you.
He thought the same in the hospital later, kissing Kepler's knuckles.
This was a constant, like gravity. This was the one thing Jacobi knew.
He never- he never even considered painting a future that doesn't have Maxwell and Kepler in it, and now he's here.
And they're not.
What the hell is he supposed to do now with all of this fucking time on his hands?
Kepler and Maxwell are dead. He's supposed to be finished.
But he isn't, and when Lovelace shoves an elbow into his side and tells him to shut up, he's good right where he is, Jacobi is just-
Baffled. He doesn't get it.
He supposes he has a lot of time at least, to come to terms with the fact that he survived.
He doesn't take his eyes off of the Hephaestus until it's completely gone, and then he stays by the window anyway, just in case.
Lovelace sends him to sleep in what used to be his quarters during his first trip on the Urania, and he can barely even look at the sleeping bag.
It takes him months before he actually manages to sleep through a night, and he always feels cold when he wakes up.