agoodyarn | When We Were Monsters (Magnus 359)

When We Were Monsters (Magnus 359)

[ Death is a funny thing.

For normal people, it's an end. For people like them, like him and Jacobi and others... it's a choice. It's a moment when you decide whether you want to rest... or if there's something stronger in you. A need, a drive that's stronger than what your body can't handle. Something that defies the End, sends you towards a different path.

A path with teeth.

A path with claws.

A path that has him experiencing the most agonizing pain he's ever known, that has him burning and freezing and screaming wordlessly into the empty vacuum of space. Even the burn of the whiskey down his throat is lost in it, in all of it, flavor and meaning and words and thoughts and everything, everything lost to the drive, the need

the Hunt.

It's agony. Agony as he reaches and holds. Agony as he floats and burns and dies and does not die. And when the Goddard follow up crew finds him, moves to recover his body, he gives one of their officers the scare of their life when he sits up on the table.

Not for long, though, because their throat is in his teeth before he can even think.

Suffice to say, things on board do not go... peacefully.

But that's not really the important part. That's just the inbetween. That's just the how. It's not the why. It's not the what.

The what comes months later.

The what comes in a knock on Jacobi's door from a man in sunglasses and a Goddard Futuristics uniform that most people wouldn't realize has blood on it, but the man behind the door? There's no way he'd miss it.]

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Jacobi went home. As much as there was a home to begin with. He had anger against Goddard, anger against everyone, but he didn't throw himself at them with any passion or anger or rage. It was quiet. All quiet.

His resignation was accepted. His final paycheck sent. He had enough money to get himself an apartment outside of Boston so he could commute into the city to do consult work. The noncompete and NDA he had signed were heavy, but there were workarounds. He could still use his talents to set up a meager existence, away from the things that hurt him most.

He's not expecting his delivery so soon. The knock on the door has him a bit rattled, but he checks the cameras and finds - something that shouldn't exist. Someone that shouldn't exist.

So he throws open the door and stares up at the uniform, the sunglasses, the man, and the splash of blood. A clear copy. A perfect copy.

He wants to vomit.

"Get the fuck out of here," he tells him, his breath catching in his throat.

"It's not fucking fair."

The only warning Jacobi gets is the growl. Because this isn't some Listener copy. This isn't some alien mockery. It would be wrong to say that this is the same Warren Kepler that he went to space with that second time, but it's the same body.

The mind is-

It doesn't matter, because he doesn't so much barge in as pounce, tackling Jacobi to the ground immediately as one leg kicks the door closed behind him. A feral, curling thing rumbles in his chest as the sunglasses go flying and the glowing yellow eyes behind them peer down at Jacobi ever so curiously as clawed hands find his wrists to hold him down.

"I. think. not, Mr. Jacobi."

Edited 2022-08-29 02:17 (UTC)

The growl is alarming, but he doesn't have a chance to actually react before things happen very quickly. Kepler pounces, pins him, and Jacobi gets a glance of strange hands before they're pressing down on him and he's staring up into eyes that he doesn't recognize but that are also achingly familiar.

"What the fuck..."

And just because he's out of practice doesn't mean he's forgotten everything he was taught. He plants his feet and raises his hips with a quick jolt, trying to put him off balance to get out of the hold.

It doesn't help that that's a move that was taught to him by the man on top of him, nor does the supernatural strength that faces that bucking like the fussing of a small child. He won't slam him against the floor, but there's a warning growl after that, and he'll lean down to sniff and run the tip of his nose along Jacobi's jawline. It's all rather... uncivilized, but it still holds the strange gravitas, the poise, of Warren Kepler.

"I'm not. a Listener copy," and the words are as much that as they are a growl that rolls over Jacobi's skin.

He takes another breath in, another sniff, and seems satisfied before he pushes up and let's go, giving Jacobi a bit of space and the ability to get back up. On his terms, obviously.

Edited 2022-08-29 02:32 (UTC)

Jacobi doesn't quite give up after that, but the second warning is enough to still his body, make him listen. His apartment is set up like a trap, just in case Goddard agents came for him, and so he just has to trust that he can get to one of them in time.

Against his will, goosebumps break out along his arms, along his skin. "You know it's impossible to tell," he says, somewhat petulantly as the strange inspection is over and Warren gets up. "Especially because I know that you are dead."

Jacobi stays where he is for half a second before he pushes himself up in a fluid motion. He isn't stupid enough to go for the weapons on him yet, but he is suddenly keenly aware of their positions.

He reaches down and retrieves the sunglasses, closing them as he pops them onto his neckline. Jacobi will get the full affect of those wolfish eyes, Warren Kepler's other than how the gold has been made to glow.

"Except that I remember everything. And I can account for every. goddamn. second of agony I went through."

He shakes his head as he dusts himself off a little, a hilarious act when there's blood on his uniform that most people would mistake for grease. But it is what it is. Kepler doesn't change.

"And just because I died? Doesn't mean? That I stayed dead." A breath out. "There are... other options. If... you're deep enough down. If you've... given up enough of yourself. And I?"

That's a low huff of a laugh.

"I qualified years ago."

None of that makes any sense. He stares at Warren for half a second too long, watching every single small movement like it's second nature. Because it very much is. He takes in each gesture, insignificant or not, as information. As communication.

"Is that more - Goddard bullshit?" he wonders, still afraid but speaking with the confidence that comes with not having a goddamn thing to lose. "Because if it is, you're barking up the wrong tree. I quit."

He shakes his head, and he'll move to start walking further into the apartment with the ease of a man who knows where he's going. In fact, Jacobi might recognize it as the ease of a man who's actually rather familiar with where he is. Possibly like he's been here before.

"Not Goddard. Well." He tilts his head back and forth. "Goddard was aware of it? And... had a few associated parties on the payroll. Myself included. Something... beyond 'need to know'. Not work related so much as... a complete. shift. of one's understanding of the world. The kind of thing you can't know? So much as... experience. And survive."

He turns those glittering golden eyes on Jacobi and lifts his hand to buff his claws against his chest.

"There are powers that aren't Goddard. And when they recruit?" He shakes his head. "There's even less choice involved, if you can believe that. When I was... marked? Changed. At first Cutter was concerned... and then? He was thrilled."

That confidence, the way he walks, is alarming. Because if he knows this apartment, then he knows the traps. He knows where Jacobi's placed his security. He's never, never been able to get ahead of Kepler. Apparently, not even in death. Or whatever this is.

He follows dutifully, wondering exactly what he's looking for in the sparse one-bedroom apartment. There's nothing personal on the walls, no scrap of decoration. Only his bed, his closet, and his laptop that shows anyone even lives there.

"Oh good, something Cutter was excited about. That speaks volumes."

He's looking to make sure that Jacobi knows what he just said without words. That he doesn't try to trick him with one of the traps.

Mostly because he's dismantled most of them, taken the bite and the sting out of the more obvious ones to ensure this would go smoothly. Because of course he's been in this apartment, multiple times in fact. He'd never go in on something like this without the proper groundwork.

Jacobi should know that.

But he'll find a spot to lean against, which is all he needed.

"One of those powers is called the Hunt. As you can imagine, getting... marked by them? Becoming something... a little. more. than human. in that respect? Worked very much to his advantage."

He dips his head towards Jacobi.

"When a Hunter faces death, if they're... deep enough in? If they've... given up enough of themselves for the Hunt? Sometimes... sometimes? There's more Hunt in them than something... that can die. And when that's the case?"

He gives Jacobi a terribly wolfish, terribly Warren smile.

"They have a choice. And my choice? Is always. 'not death'."

His heart skips once, though he's not sure if it's fear or something else. Either way, he has a hand in his pocket, not even trying to hide that he's holding something there. He was trained by this man, after all. But it's his own sort of warning. His own safeguard against what else this might be.

"So what are you doing here? Dressed in a bloody Goddard uniform?"

He looks down at his outfit as if he just realized that's what he's wearing, and he'll offer Jacobi a wicked little curl at the corner of his lips. There's a flicker of his eyes towards the pocket, a very deliberate one, before he stretches his shoulders with a sigh.

"I... took this off of the team that came to do clean up. They were good enough to retrieve my... 'body'? And very surprised when I sat up and ripped the throat out of the man doing my autopsy."

He reaches to the zipper and pulls it down, and as he opens the jumpsuit, there's more blood on his skin, the kind of blood you would get all over you from ripping someone's throat out. It's dry and crusted, obviously some time ago, but there's still the dark stain on him. He peels off the top, showing the deeply soaked brown mess of an undershirt he has beneath. He'll let it hang.

He's getting comfortable.

"You really don't know?" He pushes off the wall then and takes a couple of steps closer. "You really. have. no? idea?"

He doesn't step back from that. He's seen him with someone else's blood before. He's seen him coated in his own, as well. None of that fazes him.

What does?

That he's starting to believe him. That it's starting to sink in. That this man, this Warren is - or was - his. And all that anger. All that hurt. It all hits him at once.

"About what? This? What you just said? No. But - I don't think you're lying."

"Well," he says with a wry twist of his lip, "that's... A good. first. step, I think."

And he's going to take more than one step toward's Jacobi. In fact, he's going to get within three feet of him before he stops and looks at the pocket.

"You should get that over with. Sooner rather than later."

It's all more need to know bullshit. It's all above his head. Things he didn't want to know. Things he couldn't have known because he was too busy following orders.

The hand stays in his pocket for a defiant half second before he pulls it out, empty, and he spreads out his fingers as silent proof.

"You should change clothes, sir," he finally says, an actual admission that he believes him. "There's a suitcase in my closet. It has some of your stuff and - uh - hers." It had once been for practical reasons, but now, or so he thought, was entirely sentimental. He didn't have graves for them. No headstone. No ashes to spread. All he had was old clothes and a nice little box in his mind where he had put them both. A box that had just been violently ripped open.

His eyes focus on that hand, on those fingers, and he licks his lips for a moment before his gaze lifts to Jacobi's face.

"If you don't mind me using your shower," he says, grin crooked and terribly appealing. Then there's a flicker over him as his head tilted back and forth.

"Care to join me?"

Jacobi's brain stutter-starts and he opens his eyes wide. And then he lunges for him, weaponless, pushing back against his chest with just his hands. He ignores what he is. Ignores the eyes, the hands, the blood, everything. Because right now, he's just Warren.

"Fuck you!" he shouts. "Fuck you for that. For - everything. You left me. You don't get to do this now!"

Before, on the ground, he couldn't be, wouldn't be moved. But he's shoved back against the wall he'd been leaning against, lets it happen, revels in it because it's still closeness. It's response. It's attention and passion, even if it's anger.

It's still Jacobi.

It's still... why he'll always choose life.

He doesn't push back, doesn't try and put him in his place, doesn't play the predator or the monster. Instead, his arms wrap around Jacobi, pulling him in as he rests his forehead against the top of his head and kisses into his hair.

"There's no other time but now," he says, very very quietly. There's no hint of a tease or a game, no hint of anything but how fragile the words hang in the air. Those claws are against his side, rest lightly on fabric that he could rip apart as easily as skin. And yet, he knows Jacobi isn't afraid of him.

They both know he'd never harm a hair on his head. Jacobi just has to remember that in his front brain, as far as he's concerned.

"You have two options, Daniel. Only two. Two ways this ends. And you know that, but... I'll remind you:" and those claws drum lightly along his side as he pulls him a little closer, breathes him in rapturously.

"Love me... or kill me." The squeeze that comes after that shows a touch of something less tender. "Yourself. This doesn't end any. other. way. So figure it out."

A pause before some of the smile comes back to his voice.

"Quick as you like."

Take this bomb apart, Mister Jacobi. There's only one other option.

Edited 2022-08-29 14:02 (UTC)

He doesn't react other than to sink completely into his embrace. It's what he wanted anyway, what's he's always wanted. And he's still angry and hurt and sad and betrayed because it's all broken, but there's a lifeline.

He still...smells like him, which is something Jacobi's brain just can't wrap around yet. He looks so different and there's claws at his back and a monster kissing his hair, but it's still him. It's everything he's lost, everything he had raged and cried and killed over.

He pushes everything else aside, all the extraneous information, the box-worthy, the compartmentalized, and focuses on the essence. He's always been good at that.

His entire body tenses, like a cat about to pounce, and he pulls back to grab his hair and kiss him. To make his choice, easy as that. He's not going to let him die again. Loving him is the hard road, the tough road, but it's the only choice he has.

They've never kissed before. There's a part of Warren that laments the fact that they'll never know what it would be like to have kissed when Warren was even remotely human, but the majority of him is too focused on this, now, everything that's happening in this moment. In the way Jacobi tastes, the way his mouth feels, drinking in the need and the love and the tension of it. And even then, as always, the bulk of his focus isn't on receiving but on giving, pulling Daniel close and kissing him the way he wants to be kissed, needs to be kissed, putting every ounce of observation and desperation and the burning, snarling, roiling intensity in his chest into the kiss so Daniel knows without a doubt that that love, that need, that choice... is reciprocated.

It's a small thing, how there's fingertips instead of claws against his side now. It's a small thing how the gold fades to amber brown beneath the eyelids closed in kissing, how the teeth that Jacobi's tongue is sliding against seem to shrink. The tension of a cornered, feral animal flows out of him as they talk to each other in the only language that ever really made sense to them: touch, action, desperation.

When Jacobi needs a breath, he'll only part from him far enough to let them both suck in a breath and speak, his lips brushing against Daniel's in a panting murmur.

"You feel free to do that... whenever you like.

"There's nothing but you and me now. Nothing. else. matters."

He digs fingers deep into his bloody shirt, nails embedding in skin as he takes everything he's given and wants for nothing more. He could sob at how good it is, how freeing it is, but he doesn't. When Warren pulls away, Jacobi sags against him just slightly.

"You and me," he repeats. It's true. It is all they have. Each other.

"I'm not showering with you," he tells him. "Not when you're covered in blood."

And as much as it sounds good, to forget, to just touch and have, he knows he needs a few seconds alone to just think. To act instead of react.

"Is that a standing requirement? Or... just for the moment?"

There's less growl in his voice now, the tone more the lazy, slow, steady thing he's known for years. Smokey, but smoother. There's one more kiss into his hair before he disengages, respects that boundary, and slides his hands back to his sides. Jacobi is looking at something that's a lot more like the man he knew before, a lot less animalistic... but there's flecks of gold in the amber.

This isn't a mask; it's a facet. And this facet is what's useful now.

He'll wait for the answer before he slips away, heads for the closet and then for the bathroom with the suitcase in hand. It's a message, like everything is: could he walk out in a towel and play games that appeal to Jacobi's raw loneliness and desire? He could. But... he won't.

Jacobi's chosen. Now they just... have to defuse the bomb.

He'll take a moment to nod to Daniel as he closes the door to the bathroom, and then Jacobi has his moment alone. He's going to wash up, shave, all that.

Edited 2022-08-29 15:00 (UTC)

"Just this one time," he says and lets him be, turning his back to him in an absolute show of trust rather than dismissal, and collapses on the couch. There, he seems to just fold in on himself, scratching his scalp so hard that it hurts, but enjoying the feel of it anyway.

The sound of the shower seems startling in his normally silent apartment, and he finds himself listening to it through the thin walls, remembering all the times he did the same on missions. In flimsy hotels. Wanting for something that couldn't be.

And now that he has it, he has no idea what to do with it except pack everything away.

So, feeling a little more on his feet, he turns on his television to the murder documentary he had started and finally gets the food he had ordered. He doesn't have much appetite, but there's something soothing about noodles. Normalcy is what he needs.

Warren will return, still much more human than when he'd first come in. Of the clothes that had been in the suitcase, he'd chosen the most casual: a fresh t-shirt, worn in just right, with a blue flannel shirt and a pair of well-broken-in jeans. He'd skipped socks and shoes, leaving his feet bare as he walks over and settles beside Jacobi.

There's no room for Jesus there and he slings his arm behind Jacobi without hesitation. Fuck waiting. They can argue while his man is wrapped up in him just as well.

"Smells... delicious.". A pause. "Not to mention the noodles."

He elbows him in the ribs almost instinctively, mid-noodle slurp. The arm around him is new. The proximity is not. It had almost been a game for them for so long that Jacobi knows how to play, even with new rules. Pretend to not want it. Don't think too hard. Take it to bed or a shower later.

"There's enough for two if you want it," he responds as if nothing had happened. As if he hadn't been pinned to the floor earlier. "I was going to have leftovers."

He sniffs, leaning back with his feet on the coffee table. "What was that all about when you got here? A little dramatic, don't you think?"

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