agoodyarn | 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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"Did you call me baby?"

He sits back and stares at him. Because, yes, that's what he has chosen to comment on. Everything else is cut and dry. He had a ship. He got back. He found Jacobi. Clothes in the car. He has no follow up to that. Nothing that he wants to know.

"No one has ever called me that before. Not even - well, the others."

Warren looks back at him, eyes glittering teasingly, a smug smile on his lips.

"Because," he explains very easily, "you aren't. their. baby. Not their sunshine. Not their gorgeous. Or their honey. Definitely not their sweetheart."

He's never going to get used to that. The plain talking. The outright truth with not much underneath. All his feelings laid bare.

It occurs to him, only briefly, the amount of information that he's been forced to accept in a short amount of time, but, frankly, he's almost had worse.

"Definitely not that, no."

Again, another kiss pressed to his jaw, right under his ear and he lingers a while. "This is insane. You realize that, right?"

"By all rights," he says, his voice a little lower, a little more intimate, like two people sharing a secret even if they're the only ones in the room, "I have to be insane. I... wouldn't manage a psych eval."

He turns a little to catch Jacobi's eye.

"I was burning and freezing and having my lungs exploding over and over and over again until about... two months ago. Since I died the first time."

Just the tiniest adjustment to the angle.

"That a dealbreaker?"

He shivers for another reason and turns somber, the playfulness seared from his breath.

"No. But - I dreamed about you. About that. I had nightmares about you being alone out there, suffering."

And now he knows it wasn't just a nightmare, that it was real, it hurts. "But I never forgot you. So if you're a little insane, but you're still with me? Here? It's a small price to pay."

But it isn't burned out of him. There are ways he's learned to survive as he was taken apart and put back together again, over and over.

Before he ever went out the airlock.

And that method? Involved an overdeveloped sense of humor. One he knows can creep people out sometimes but... such is life. He is what he is. He certainly isn't going to get any better.

"That's all I? Needed to know. That? Makes it all worth it."

"You put a lot of faith in me," he scoffs, as if that hasn't been Kepler's purpose the entire time. But Jacobi has always risen to that challenge, so this shouldn't be any different. At least that's what he tells himself. It's a beautiful lie that has the potential for reality, as long as he puts work into it.

And that, combined with Kepler's continued nonchalance about the whole situation, helps restore his better mood after a temporary dip.

"Well, I'm all put of complaints. And excuses. For now." And so he fills that gap with a kiss, sliding his hands under his shirt.

"I put. exactly the right level of faith in you," he says with a crooked grin before he's taking another of those kisses from Jacobi and returning it right back to him. He makes a soft, happy growl at the hands under his shirt and there's definitely a bit of flexing going on for Jacobi's benefit.

"The fact that you could stab me straight in the heart? Only makes me love you more. The fact that you did? I know. it's because of how much you need me. And I need you."

And then he's lifting a hand to cup Jacobi's jaw to pull him in for a more extensive kiss.

It's odd to feel what his eyes have memorized. So many cumulative hours on watching and staring behind sunglasses or from under his hat or from across the room. So many pangs of jealousy when someone else's hands were on him.

Now they're Jacobi's deft fingers, and all he wants is to keep going, and take all of him in in at once.

Without saying anything, without needing to, he drags himself away from the kiss and off of the couch. He takes his hand and gives him a guiding tug.

And Kepler's moving like he's on a greased track, practically sliding to his feet as he lets Jacobi pull him.

"Let me say: I'm glad? You. Got a sturdy bed."

"Don't get ahead of yourself, " he mutters. "You might still get kicked to the floor. Mm, remember that tiny hotel in Reykjavík? We slept on the floor and it was so goddamn cold? That could be your life."

And he emphasizes that point with a poke to the chest before opening the door to his barren bedroom.

Which is when Jacobi is going to get scooped up, put over his shoulder, and he's going to carry him into the room before tossing him on the bed, exactly like he said he would. There's a kiss blown his way.

"End of the bed work for you?"

Calling your bluff, Jacobi.

He lands back on the bed with a whoosh of escaped air. "That was not necessary," he mutters. He sits up, meticulously emptying his pockets and setting everything on the nightstand.

His time away from Goddard had only made him more paranoid, so there's a significant number of small capsules.

"And you can go where you want, but you know, better than anyone, how fickle I can be."

And he gives him a grin.

Kepler gives him a wolfish grin as he watches Jacobi empty out his pockets. Once it looks like he's all empty, he'll kneel on the end of the bed and start crawling his way up the bed to hover over Daniel, at least before he's leaning down to kiss him into the mattress.

He settles down, slinging one arm around his neck. His eyes slide closed, letting all of Warren cover him. "You made the right choice. I would have let you be stubborn there," he says between gasps of air.

"I've waited long enough," is panted quietly between kisses, while Jacobi's getting air. Then he's returning to the kiss and definitely starting to let his hands wander and start working on Jacobi's clothing.

"It's been an hour," he protests when he can, though he knows very well that's not at all what he means. Jacobi feels it, too. Years of waiting. Years of deliberate teasing and frustration. Years of other people enjoying the person he loves while he's forced to watch. No more. His heart is hammering in his chest so hard that he's certain it might just leap out of his throat.

He runs hands underneath Kepler's shirt again, this time with the intention of taking it off. "You had to pick a day I wore buttons, didn't you?"

When We Were Monsters (Magnus 359)

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