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Space was a lonely thing, Jacobi thought as he stared out the windows of the Sol. It was dark and empty, the closest thing to them was lightyears away with the closest living thing being even further away, and if you got lost out in it there was a very slim chance of returning. But sometimes, he liked the loneliness. The hollowness in his chest was familiar to him. He didn’t have to make guesses about how the hollow was feeling, what it wanted for dinner, or if the next move he was going to make towards it was the right one. The hollowness was safe, predictable, comfortable.
He’d been in relationships back on Earth, but they’d all managed to feel lonelier than space at certain points. His first relationship had been with a much older man who had promised him the world, and then held him captive in it. The second and third weren’t much different from the first, but he’d gathered enough sense to know the signs and get out before he was a prisoner in his own home. The fourth had been okay, until a dumb mistake on the job had resulted in him having a partner who couldn’t even stomach the thought of looking at Jacobi, much less touching him. But the fifth… The fifth had been the best one of them all.
Communications Officer Douglas Eiffel was an idiot. He had no common sense and couldn’t pick up on the subtext of anyone’s words for the life of him, which was why it had taken him far too long to realize that Jacobi’s words weren’t just playful banter or sarcastic remarks. Even when Isabel asked him point blank if he’d noticed Jacobi was flirting with him, he’d denied it. But there was a night in the communications room, just the two of them working around the clock to hone in on a signal that was nothing but static, that Eiffel managed to put the pieces together.
Jacobi had floated over to him a little too fast, his hands out to catch himself just as Eiffel turned around so that he ended up catching himself on his chest rather than his back. The momentum had carried him forward just a little too much, and neither of them had really considered the consequences of leaning in to close the gap. They were delirious from a lack of sleep and lonely as hell, but he was fairly certain that he’d never have a kiss as good as that one again in his life.
“I guess Isabel was right,” Eiffel had murmured once they’d parted, and Jacobi arched an eyebrow in quiet questioning. He chuckled as he caught the look, shrugging a shoulder before glancing away, his cheeks flushed pink. “She uh… She asked me if I knew that you were flirting with me… And I kinda didn’t believe her.”
“Oh my god.”
“Hey! How was I supposed to know? I just figured you talk to everyone like that!”
“When have you ever heard me talk to anyone like that?” That was a question that Doug didn’t have an answer to, and all Jacobi could do was utter, “Oh my god,” again before pulling him in for another kiss.
The way their relationship had progressed after that had been more than a little unconventional. They didn’t broach the topic of feelings for quite some time. Speaking about anything more serious than whether the Prequels were better or the Sequels was quite difficult for the two of them, but they made sure to express them in other ways.
Jacobi started waking Eiffel up for his shifts in person, bringing him a cup of seaweed sludge with “chocolate” powder added for a bit of extra flavor. He also took to filling him in on the plots of movies and shows he’d been missing out on during his tenure on the Hephaestus station. Eiffel helped Jacobi with his idle tinkering without an ounce of complaint, bringing him whatever tools or materials he asked for, sometimes even before he even knew he needed them. They worked together wonderfully, and got along even better.
“Jacobi?” Hera’s voice came over the Sol’s speakers. Despite how soft it was, it cut into his reminiscing quite harshly, dragging him back into reality before he was ready. Upon hearing her speak, he flinched. “I’m sorry, I just… I wanted to check in. How are you doing?”
He gritted his teeth as he tensed, practically growling in response to the question. Hera was lucky that she was a part of the ship. If anyone had decided to ask him that in person, he would’ve attacked them. After a moment of thought, he realized that that was probably why she was the one asking in the first place. Minkowski and Lovelace were too smart to put themselves in harm’s way like that. “How do you think, Hera? How is anyone doing after all of that?”
She sighed softly, her servers running warm with sympathy in another section of the ship. “Not very good, I’d say. But you seem to be doing the worst.”
“Wow, Hera. Thanks. The increased processing power of the Sol really made you so much better at observation,” he drawled, bitter and sarcastic as he dropped his forehead to the glass. It hit with a satisfying thunk, the dull pain in his head distracting him from the pain in his heart. He closed his eyes, sighing heavily.
‘You know, it’s not actually glass.’ Eiffel’s voice in his head spoke around a mouthful of rations, correcting his mis-description. ‘ It’s a carbon-polymer blend. Actual glass would snap under the pressure of space and kill us all.’
“What I’m trying to say is… We were all close to Officer Eiffel, to Doug, but… You were the closest. It’s understandable that you’d be taking this the hardest, and I’m here for you.” There was a beat of silence and some faint musical beeps. “I have recordings of some of his audio logs. Would you like to hear them?”
That made his heart ache a little less, though he still didn’t lift his head from the window or open his eyes. “Yes. Please. I’d like that… I’d like that a lot.”
The first time that Jacobi could bring himself to see Eiffel again was months after they landed back on Earth. They were put up in Goddard sponsored housing by Cape Canaveral, but Jacobi insisted on having a space of his own. Lovelace and Minkowski stuck together, and Doug was stuck with them because they were the only other people that he knew. They’d done their best to reacquaint him with the facts of his life during the rest of the Sol’s journey back to Earth, but because they didn’t know about his and Jacobi’s relationship, he’d stayed in the dark about it. Hera was the only one who knew, but she wasn’t going to tell anyone without Jacobi’s permission, which he certainly wasn’t going to grant.
“He’s better off without me,” Jacobi muttered from his seat on his townhome’s balcony, staring up at the sky. “They all are.” He blamed himself for it, for everything, because Kepler wasn’t alive to blame for it all anymore. There was no one to absorb his anger, his guilt, his disgust, so he took it upon himself.
Icy booze had become his crutch of choice again, and that made it all easier to deal with. When he was laying on the floor of the bathroom, clutching the edge of the toilet while puking his guts out and fighting off a migraine mixed with a hangover, it was very difficult to think about anything but the pain. It was a distraction that had all of the pain and punishment he felt he deserved, and it was perfect.
It was perfect, until it wasn’t.
Jacobi wasn’t adjusting very well to life back on Earth, to life without Doug, that much was obvious. After an icy-booze related hospitalization, Goddard said that if he wished to continue staying in the housing that they so generously provided for him, he would have to quit drinking and start counseling. Isabel and Renee had done the latter and had found that it helped, or so he was told. Even Doug had as well, but he’d cut the doctor off before he could continue.
“Fine. I’ll do it, but only if you never mention him again.”
It was only after weeks of recovery and months of counseling that the name ‘Doug Eiffel’ started to come up in his sessions, and he was the one to say it first. It was the only way he was going to be able to talk about it. When his doctor had tried before he was ready, he shut down and didn’t say a word, going catatonic until he was escorted from the building. It was almost embarrassing how many times that had to happen before the doctor learned to not bring him up.
“How is he doing?” Jacobi asked after moments of silence at the end of the latest session. He was supposed to be leaving, their hour was up and the therapist needed to prepare for her next session, but he couldn’t bring himself to stand up from his seat.
“How is who doing?”
He scoffed, annoyed at the way the doctor played dumb, picking at a loose thread in his jeans. “Eiffel. Doug. How is he doing?”
“He’s… Better. Coping. I can’t really tell you too much, doctor-patient confidentiality you know, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind it if you wanted to ask him yourself.”
The way that she pulled a small paper from her notebook and held it out towards him told him that she’d been planning this for a while, that this was something she’d been hoping he’d ask. But, it didn’t turn him off from the idea.
“Yeah, okay. I’ll think about it.” Jacobi stood, hesitating for a second before reaching out to take the paper from her.
Once he was outside of the office, he unfolded the paper. All at once, the air was sucked from his lungs. He could recognize that handwriting anywhere. The awkward chicken scratch and misshapen letters of Eiffel’s handwriting filled the paper, and he smiled as he read the note.
‘What do you expect from me? I’m the product of the public educational system, this is basically as fancy as cursive there.’
“Some things never change,” he muttered, smiling as he folded it carefully and tucked it into his pocket.
The paper came out of his pocket and onto the coffee table once Jacobi was home, and it took up a spot in his mind all night. As he turned on the television to watch a movie, his eyes never left it. As he grabbed a bottle of booze and a glass of ice to make his signature drink, it pulled his attention away long enough to convince him to fill the glass with water instead. It lived on the table for a week before he did anything with it, all the while convincing him to make small improvements to his life because what would the real Doug do if he saw him living the way he was?
After a rather tense follow-up session where Doug wasn’t mentioned at all, Jacobi decided to pick up the phone and call him. It was hard to believe that the man hadn’t been mentioned by name once during the entire hour, but everything his therapist had said made him think of Doug, or made him think about something that made him think about Doug. It was a horrible gnawing feeling, and it wasn’t going to go away until he spoke to him.
“Hello?”
Jacobi gasped when he heard Eiffel’s voice on the other end, gripping the edge of the couch cushions like his life depended on it. “Hey, uh… Doug? It’s Jacobi… Or Daniel, if you prefer.”
There was some quiet muttering, and then a shout of, “Oh! Jacobi! Right. I was beginning to think that Isabel and Renee were joking when they said you came back with us. I think they were too.” The voice was Doug’s, but everything else was wrong . The tone, the cadence, the lack of pop culture references. This wasn’t his Doug. It made a hollowness form in his chest, but it was much more empty than the loneliness he had felt as of late.
“Yeah, I… I kind of had some of my own shit to deal with. I couldn’t… I couldn’t see you. I couldn’t even think about you until recently. But I think I’m ready now.”
“Um…” Eiffel’s confusion was audible, he didn’t understand why Jacobi was so torn up about him , and Jacobi felt awful for giving him a riddle that he couldn’t even begin to answer.
“Sorry, uh… Maybe you could come over? I can cook us something nice for dinner, and maybe explain some things?”
“Oh, that would be great, actually! I’ve got some questions of my own, and I think the girls either don’t know the answers or don’t want to tell me, so... Dinner sounds great.]”
After they said their goodbyes, Jacobi waited to let the other man hang up first. He didn’t want the moment to end, just in case it was the last one he got with Eiffel. He never savored the moments he had with Doug as much as he should have at the time. It ate him up inside every day. But once the line went dead, he set to work cleaning, getting his home ready and presentable for company.
It was filthy, bordering on uninhabitable, but several days of work and what probably added up to about a hundred trash bags later, Jacobi’s place was clean. After that, came the prepwork for his dinner date with Eiffel.
“No, wait… It’s just dinner, not a date,” he reminded himself as he looked at recipes online, a glass of juice on the table beside his laptop. “Not a date.”
In the end, he decided on something simple, but not so simple it would look like he put no effort in. Homemade chicken parm, with a side of pasta (with homemade sauce, of course) and steamed fresh veggies from a local grocery store. Going to the store to get ingredients had been the first time he’d left his home for anything other than therapy in far too long, since his groceries usually got delivered. Goddard had him on some special ‘returning to eating real food’ meal plan for a while. After that transition had ended the food deliveries never stopped, so he never stopped making use of them.
Getting to decide what to eat was a nice little bit of freedom, though. Getting to roam the aisles of the grocery store, to select the cuts of meat he wanted, to feel the produce and decide which was the most fresh before buying it, was something he hadn’t done in far too long, but it felt good. He decided then, as he made small talk with the cashier and commented about the weather outside, that he was going to make an attempt to get out of the house more often. TV wasn’t an adequate replacement for real human conversations, and his weekly talks with his therapist hardly counted towards that either.
Cooking ended up being just as good for him as the trip to the grocery store had been. Jacobi had forgotten just how much he’d loved it before going up into space, how much he loved dancing to his favorite music in the kitchen as he waited for water to boil on the stove or for food to cook in the oven, how much he loved the satisfaction of getting to taste test his creations and having it come out perfect on the first try. It was an artform. A lot of it was similar to bomb making because of how precise it needed to be and how delicately dishes need to be put together for it to come out exactly right. No wonder he liked it so much. It scratched an itch that hadn’t been scratched in a long time.
There was a knock on the door right as Jacobi was putting the finishing touches on the sauce, dipping a spoon into it to taste it and letting out a satisfied hum at how utterly delicious it was.
“Oh yeah, baby. I still got it,” he self-congratulated as he tossed the spoon into the sink. It clanged against the stainless steel, possibly breaking one of his dishes, but he didn’t care. He was in too good a mood for anything so simple to ruin it.
Outside the door, Doug stood awkwardly. He didn’t know much about Jacobi outside of what Isabel and Renee had told him, but that was the case for a lot of things in the past year. His world didn’t expand too far beyond the bedroom he’d been put up in. Even Hera was seemingly very selective with the information that she gave out. There was a lot they all left out of their stories. Whether it was because they didn’t want to share it or didn’t think he could handle it, he couldn’t tell. He just hoped Jacobi wasn’t the same way. Someone needed to be honest with him after all this time.
The door swung open, and there was Jacobi. He looked nothing like Doug had expected. They were almost equal in height, with Jacobi maybe an inch shorter, if that. He had beautiful green eyes (he tried not to think too much about the use of ‘beautiful’ as a descriptor for them in his mind), and messy brown hair that clearly had not been cut in ages. Jacobi wasn’t a military man like the rest of them, but with the way Kepler ran things he might as well have been, and it was obvious that he’d let himself go. The overflowing trash can out at the curb was another hint towards that, but he opted not to comment on any of it. It wasn’t like he was in any better shape himself.
“Hey, Jacobi. Uh… Isabel mentioned you kind of have a ‘thing’ for fancy cheeses, so…” He lifted a paper bag, offering it out to the other man who had yet to look anywhere but his face. Jacobi was still too floored by the presence of Doug himself to be able to focus on anything else.
Despite the changes he’d undergone, Doug looked largely the same. His muscles had lost some of their definition, his face was softer, and his hair had gotten longer and impossibly curlier, but he looked… Better, overall. Well-rested, healthier in every way, and lighter. He didn’t have the same burdens that the original Douglas Eiffel did, the same traumas, the same memories. That was all left behind up on the Hephaestus, most likely for the better.
“Thank you,” he said finally, taking the bag from him, his arm dropping a little from the surprising heft. “Wow, this is… A lot of cheese. Like.. A lot a lot.” He peered into the bag and chuckled, stepping out of the way to let Eiffel into his home. “Thank you.” It was a sincere thanks, not a mocking one, because going overboard on a gift was something that was so inherently Doug . He wasn’t shocked that he’d been gifted more cheese than he would be able to eat in a year or so. In fact, it made him feel relieved. Somewhere, in there, was still the same Doug that he knew. It just wasn’t up on the surface anymore. But that was okay. He didn’t mind doing a little digging.
“Wow, what smells so good?” Eiffel asked as he stepped inside, trailing along awkwardly behind Jacobi towards the kitchen.
“Chicken parm, some veggies, a side of pasta, and sauce for it all,” he answered, his head in the fridge as he tried to make room for all of the dairy. He pulled some vegetables that weren’t used in the night’s dinner out of the drawers, shoving them onto the shelves instead so he could split the bag’s contents between them. The fridge had a little trouble closing, but that was easy enough to overcome with a hearty shove. “I kinda went overboard too, I haven’t cooked in a long time, but I guess… I guess I kinda wanted to prove that I was still good at it.”
Eiffel nodded in understanding as Jacobi stepped away from the fridge. There was an awkward few seconds of silence as the latter moved, grabbing some plates from the cabinet and passing one to Eiffel so they could dish out their own portions. His own plate had more pasta than chicken on it, with Eiffel’s being the opposite, and they both grabbed a single scoop of vegetables out of courtesy to their presence.
They sat at the table across from each other, both of them eating quietly and taking sips of soda before Doug spoke up.
“I don’t know a lot about you.”
Jacobi blinked, lowering his fork from where it was lifted halfway to his mouth. “Well, of course you don’t. I imagine that’s the case for everybody.”
“No. No, not for Renee, not for Isabel. They’ve told me everything about themselves, their roles on the station, their lives before it, what part they played in all of the mess that happened up there. But whenever you come up, they sorta…” He trailed off, struggling for the words to say.
“Dance around it? Yeah, I don’t blame them. I was sorta the ‘bad guy’ up there.”
“You don’t look the type. I would’ve guessed you were on our side.”
Jacobi shook his head, taking a long sip from his soda before speaking again. “I wasn’t. Not even a little bit, not at first anyway. Towards the end, yeah, but only because I didn’t have a choice.”
Eiffel hummed softly, mulling over his words as he chewed a big bite of chicken. “Why didn’t you have a choice?”
He sighed heavily, setting the can down with a soft ‘clunk’ and staring into the liquid inside. “Because,” he started, tapping his fingers against the wood of the table. “Someone I cared a lot about was over on your side, and I wasn’t about to let anything happen to them. I had to make sure they got out of it safe.”
“Who?”
“Just eat your chicken, Doug.” The words were clipped, and Doug wanted to argue. There was and indignant look on his face as he set down his knife and fork, but the look on Jacobi’s face was nothing but sadness. That alone was enough to convince him not to push the matter more, at least for a few minutes. It was clearly a sore subject for the poor guy.
The meal passed without much more conversation. Eventually, Jacobi couldn’t stomach taking even one more bite, and pushed his plate away. He had to figure out a way to explain things to Doug, in a way that wasn’t going to be more off-putting than no explanation at all. “They didn’t make it. I did everything I could to make sure everyone got out alright, and in the end the one person I cared about didn’t make it,” he settled on after a few long moments, shaking his head at himself. “Isabel and Renee don’t want to talk about me because I’m sure they blame me, somehow, because they cared about that person a whole hell of a lot too. And honestly? I blame myself too. Every goddamn day.”
Eiffel blinked in surprise at the sudden outburst, but stopped eating to reach a hand out and place it gently on Jacobi’s shoulder. “They don’t blame you, Daniel,” he murmured, rubbing his shoulder gently with his thumb as the man slumped forward. “I’m sure they just… Don’t know. You’re a man of mystery to them, which is a problem because that just makes you all the more interesting to me. But that sucks, ‘cause they don’t really have any answers to my questions.”
Jacobi stayed silent for a few moments, sighing heavily and squeezing his eyes shut. The hand on his shoulder was warm, familiar, and the spot was going to be all too cold when it was pulled away. He was so sick of being cold. “What were your questions?”
“I don’t even remember now, I dunno. Hera just mentioned some stuff, and… I don’t know, I think I was reading into it a little too much.”
Jacobi’s eyes narrowed at that, his heart rate spiking as he tried to figure out exactly what Hera may have mentioned that Eiffel could possibly be reading into. She was the only one who knew about their relationship. That was an unfortunate side effect of her having eyes and ears everywhere on the station, though she was courteous enough to give them their privacy when they needed it. “What… What did she mention?”
“Ah, you know what? Forget it,” Eiffel said, shaking his head quickly. He saw the way that Jacobi looked, and decided that maybe now wasn’t the time to bring something that heavy up. He’d only just met the guy, technically, though from what Hera had said they’d apparently known each other very well. “This chicken is amazing , by the way. You’re an incredible cook.”
Jacobi was quiet for a second, trying to work up the courage to insist that Eiffel tell him what Hera had said, but he didn’t want to seem like he was crazy. He wanted to make a good impression on this Doug, to make up for the absolutely terrible one he’d given the first time they met. “Oh, thank you. And thanks for giving me an excuse to cook, it was… Nice.”
Eiffel smiled, that stupidly warm smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners and his dimples show clear as day, that stupidly warm smile that made Jacobi’s heart skip a beat and his chest tighten all at once. “Maybe I could give you another excuse some time.”
When Jacobi smiled back at Doug, it wasn’t as warm. It was forced, tight-lipped with a false warmth that no one but Alana would be able to discern. “Yeah, maybe. I’d like that.” He wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or not, but he still found himself wanting to see more of Doug.
They began to meet for dinner once a week, the meals almost painfully simple for Jacobi but still requiring an amount of skill that left Doug impressed. Then again, Doug was impressed with nearly everything Jacobi did. It was intentional, though. All part of a plan to slowly wear down the walls that the man had put up around himself. He was warming up to this new version of Doug, comparing him to the previous version less and less. This wasn’t his Doug anymore, but maybe that wasn’t a bad thing.
I think I might even like this Doug more , Jacobi found himself thinking, though he shook his head quickly to get it out of his mind. It was an intrusive thought, nothing more, and he pushed any like it from his mind as fast as they popped up.
“Hey, Daniel?” Doug spoke up around a mouthful of fettuccine, and Jacobi lifted his head. He liked that. He liked how Doug never called him ‘Jacobi’ anymore. He liked being ‘Daniel’ to him.
“What’s up, Doug?”
“What was I like? Before, y’know.”
That made Jacobi chuckle, but then Eiffel looked at him with an earnestness that made his heart break. “You mean… You don’t know?”
He shook his head in response, swallowing the mouthful of food before continuing. “No. I mean, I can make some guesses from the logs, but I know they don’t include everything, and Renee and Isabel always say they don’t like to dwell.”
“What about Hera?”
“She just says ‘You were Doug, I don’t know how to describe you other than that.’”
Jacobi hummed softly, thinking it over for a moment. What was Doug like before he lost his memory? For a split-second, Jacobi felt a rush of panic wash over him, because he almost couldn’t remember. Almost. “Honestly? You were fucking annoying. Every other word out of your mouth was a pop culture reference, and it made everything you said so goddamn incomprehensible that it was infuriating. You were infuriating.” He stopped and took a sip of his soda, ignoring the look of confusion and hurt on Doug’s face. “But Hera’s right. You were Doug. You were someone who always tried to make the most of a shitty situation, to find the fun in the traumatizing ordeal we went through. If you didn’t make Minkowski and Hera laugh at least once a day, either at you or with you, you considered the day wasted. And you cared, so much , about everyone. Even Kepler. Even Hilbert. After everything you were put through, you still cared.” His fingers twitched, and he stood up, disappearing into the kitchen to make himself a glass of icy booze before returning. As much as he was trying to avoid drinking in front of Eiffel at Renee’s request, he needed something if this was going to be the night’s topic of conversation. “You were the most human out of any of us, Doug. Out of all of us, you deserved what happened to you the least. I’d put myself in your place a thousand times over if I could.”
As Jacobi lifted the glass to his lips, Doug just stared at him. “Wow, I.. That is… A lot . I had no idea.”
“Of course you didn’t. You destroyed yourself to save us.” To save me . “You’re a goddamn hero, Doug. And you don’t even know what you did to deserve the title. And if you did, you’d be too humble to accept it.” There was so much he could say about Eiffel, but he didn’t know how far he could go before the other suspected there was more to it than a little bit of friendly fondness. “And you really haven’t changed that much, either.”
“I haven’t?” He asked, blinking in confusion and furrowing his eyebrows together. He certainly didn’t feel like he was the same person he was before, and no one treated him that way either.
“No, not at all,” Jacobi responded, smiling as he took another drink. “Sure, the things you say are actually understandable to the average human, and you don’t really remember anything, but… You’re still Doug. Your smile is the same, the same dumb shit still makes you laugh, and you’ve got the biggest appetite of anyone I’ve ever met. Not to mention that… That you’re still the most human of us all, the most caring, the sweetest.” His mind flashed back to the ten pounds of cheese he’d been gifted, most of which was still inhabiting the drawers of his fridge, and just how similar it was to the time that Jacobi mentioned that he’d like a snack and Eiffel brought him what must’ve been every available ration from the Urania to choose from. He smiled as he remembered that moment, swirling the ice around in his glass and staring into it as if it would take him back in time. “No matter what anyone tells you, you’re still the same Doug Eiffel I fell in love with.”
The words had slipped out before he could stop them, and they ground the conversation to a halt. Jacobi froze as the gears turned in Eiffel’s head, the ice in his glass clinking from the sudden stop. The silence seemed to stretch out for an eternity, and Jacobi started wishing that he would drop dead so he wouldn’t have to deal with the almost certainly heartbreaking response from Eiffel.
“Huh,” was the response he ended up getting, and Jacobi risked taking a glance over at him. It seemed like Doug was actually putting some pieces together, but it certainly wasn’t quick enough for Jacobi’s liking. “Now that can’t be right.” He shook his head, meeting Jacobi’s eyes with an expression the other couldn’t quite read. Before he could even ask him to elaborate, Doug continued. “You are way too far out of my league to have been with me.”
The joke was meant to bring some levity to the situation, but it just reminded Jacobi of all the situations Eiffel had said those words in before. Of all the times they spent basking in a post sex glow, with Eiffel trailing his fingers along Jacobi’s arm, listing out all the reasons why they could never be together anywhere but in space, orbiting a star with nothing but time.
“Uh, Jacobi? You there?” Doug seemed concerned, but more-so about the way his joke didn’t land than anything else.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here. Look, before you say anything else, I know… I don’t expect you to have those feelings for me again, I just wanted you back in my life, in any capacity.” There was no explaining the pain he’d faced when he learned that Eiffel had forgotten everything, forgotten him . “It hurt too much to acknowledge you were even alive for a while… But I really look forward to our dinners, and I like being your friend.”
“But you’d like being my boyfriend even more?”
“No, I’m not saying that.”
“But you are thinking it.”
“Yes.” A pause. A realization. “Wait, no. Get out of my head!” Jacobi slumped forward, his hands over his ears so he wouldn’t have to hear whatever other idiotic bullshit that Eiffel decided to spew.
Eiffel sat there for a few minutes, biting the inside of his lip as he tried to think of what to say. Clearly, Jacobi wasn’t going to be receptive to any joking about this subject, and he felt bad for pushing it too far. “Look man, I… I dunno if this is what you want to hear, but… I think I’d kinda like being your boyfriend too.”
His hands over his ears did next to nothing to muffle the words, and Jacobi lifted his head to stare at him in confusion. That had been the last thing he’d expected to hear, but then again Eiffel always knew how to be serious when it counted. “You would?” he asked dumbly, stunned by the words, but his heart threatened to leap right out of his chest.
“Yeah. I mean… Maybe it’s old feelings coming to the surface, but… The way I feel around you isn’t the same way I feel when I’m around Renee or Isabel. I mean, something about them feels familiar in a way I can’t place, I know I can trust them, but with you that feeling is so much more . I feel safe around you, like I don’t have to hide or pretend to be someone I’m not. I can be myself, the new version of myself, without worrying about upsetting you.” He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he tried to form the next part of his sentence. “I’m not sure if that feeling’s love, not yet, but I know that it’s a whole heck of a lot more than friendship. And I’m pretty sure everyone else already thinks we’re dating anyway,” he tacked on with a slight smirk that Jacobi couldn’t help but chuckle at.
He continued to laugh, leaning forward to wrap Eiffel in a tight hug and bury his face against his neck as those chuckles turned to cries. “I missed you so much, Doug… It’s been so lonely without you,” he whispered, fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt.
“Well, you don’t have to be lonely anymore. I’m right here with you.” He rubbed his back slowly, holding him tight and holding him close until Jacobi decided to pull away. When he did, he gingerly wiped away his tears, meeting his teary eyes with a soft smile. “I’m not gonna leave you again, I promise.”