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teacup-crow · 3 years

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Maybe, Maybe, Maybe

Fun bit of survivors’ guilt for @badthingshappenbingo, based pretty heavily off Don’t Poke the Bear and Variations on a Theme. Post-finale.

They take it in turns to keep watch for when he wakes up: Doug, Reneé, Isabel, first names still such a novelty. Just his luck, he opens his eyes to the impassive face of Captain Lovelace.

“Hi, dickbag. Sore head?”

“Unnnnhh…” he whines as if he’s lying under a ton of rocks rather than a cosy quilt on Renee’s living room floor. His face is a patchwork of bruising. “Aspirin?”

She takes pity, and passes him two and a glass of water. The sitting up takes longer than he thought it would.

“You look terrible. Lucky for you, Renee makes a mean chilli con carne. Never would have guessed she could cook.”

“No thanks, I should, should be going-”

“You need food in your system, that’s non-negotiable. First thing’s first, though, you’re having a shower, and you either go willingly or get dragged bodily, because you goddamn stink. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir,” he mumbles automatically, and he remembers the Colonel - Warren? Was it on a day he could call him Warren? - once saying something similar and his head pounds. ((“mr jacobi, of all the irresponsible, stupid shit i have seen from you this really takes the-“))

“Bathroom’s on the second floor, just past the master bedroom. Dominick put a pile of clean clothes in there before he left for work. And it’s Isabel, okay? Not sir. Not Captain. Never again.”

***

“Who did this to you?”

He grips his mug of sweet tea like it’s thousand dollar whiskey. He’s still ashen. “I did this to me.”

“You beat the shit out of yourself? Okay, yeah. Don’t buy that one.” Isabel repeats the question. “Who did this to you?”

“Just some guys I pissed off. I don’t know how many. I don’t know who. Happy now?”

The room goes silent. Isabel continues:

“And did you go provoking them deliberately?”

Not for the first time, Renee wonders whether they should have included Doug in this little intervention. He’s been through so much just like the rest of them, but he doesn’t know it, and he’s clearly freaking out at the situation.

“Why would he want something like that to happen? He looks terrible!”

“I don’t know, Doug,” Isabel says levelly. “Care to answer, Jacobi?”

He’s not on a first name basis, apparently.

“Not… I didn’t... no. No, no, no. I was too drunk and… picking fights, but suddenly there were too many of them, okay? But I got out. And if I want to drink then that’s my own problem, so thank you for the hospitality but-“

Renee cuts in there. “When you drink yourself into a stupor, get attacked by a gang in a back alley, and stumble into my doorway at 0300 hours after six months of radio silence, it becomes our problem.” Her look of pity makes his stomach churn even more than the chilli did. He breathes in, hold, out; in, hold, out; in-((alana’s breathing technique and why why why is she everywhere in everything why does he have to see her out of the corner of his eye when it’s been so long he can’t properly remember her face-))

“Fine. What do you want from me?”

“You are a good man and you saved every single one of our lives and we need to understand why you’re so intent on throwing yours away.”

Jacobi starts laughing then, guttural laughs that worsen the ache in his head and bones but he can’t seem to stop them. “...me? I’m a good man? Oh my God, Lieutenant, that’s hilarious. Give us another.”

“You need to take this seriously! This is a form of self harm! You could have died!” Isabel is pacing up and down. She and Renee do good cop, bad cop like it’s a professional sport.

“Boo fucking hoo. And the world would forever be worse off for my passing.”

Isabel stops, and turns back towards him with some heat in her gaze. “I have lost too many crew members who deserved to die far less than you do. Okay? Is that what you want to hear? Do you need me to reconfirm that you are a an asshole? Do you need to hear about how Fisher, and Hui, and Fourier, and Lambert were all far better people than you will ever, ever be? Or will you accept that you are good in there? That deep down you’re on the right-“

“We burned their letters.” He’s staring at the duvet he’s wrapped in, running his finger over the flowers on the pattern. “Okay? Still think I’m a good person?”

“...wait. What?” She laughs a little, in shock perhaps. “But you told me…”

“I told you what I needed to tell you to make you trust me. We burned your crew’s letters. Lambert’s… I remember those especially. His hands were shaking really hard when he wrote them, weren’t they.”

It’s not a question.

Isabel stops pacing, and Jacobi grins again but it doesn’t reach his bruised eyes when he looks up at her. “More than mine, even. You could tell he was sick. They didn’t make any sense. We laughed at them. The irony of a Communications Officer who can’t communicate. Are you listening to me? We read their letters and we burned them and we laughed about it-“

Renee loses her softness. “Jacobi, that is enough!”

Isabel has a hand on her chest as if something has hit her there. She counts to ten in her head, ((fisher’s technique to try and stop her fighting with sam, never worked but still stuck in her head, or this copy of her head, or whoever she is now-)) and leaves the room.

They hear her slamming drawers in the kitchen.

Doug glances at Jacobi and shakes his head, before hurrying after her.

“How could you,” Reneé says. “How could you.”

“I don’t know. Will you let me go and ruin my own life now?”

“Never,” she replies. “Because, God help me, you’re still a member of my crew.”

At that, his eyes prick with tears he can’t explain. He rolls over on the air bed, and closes them.

***

“Lovelace?” Jacobi finally makes himself walk into the kitchen, grimacing like each step is on hot sand. The words are monotone. “I’m so sorry. What I did and said is... inexcusable.”

“Nope. That’s too large a word for your vocabulary. Come back to me with an apology Renée didn’t script,” Isabel snaps, going back to scribbling in a sketchbook.

“Look, I’m not much good at this-“

“You’re telling me.”

“I’m… really used to people yelling at me and hitting me until they feel better. Or you can shoot me if you like!”

“Jesus. Well, I am not about to do that to ease your guilt. You look like you’d snap if one more person poked you. So apologise properly.”

“I’m sorry…”

“For?” Isabel prompts over the top of her book.

“I’m sorry for burning your crew’s letters.”

“You did what you were ordered to do. It is what it is. I’m not condoning it.”

There’s a moment of silence, and Jacobi realises she’s waiting for him to continue. “And… I’m sorry for bringing it up. That was… needlessly cruel. It sucked.”

“It really did,” she replies, putting the book down. “Tell you what: that sounded somewhat genuine, and Goddard brought out the shit in all of us. You look so pathetic, I’m going to forgive you. Not because you deserve it, but because I don’t bear grudges. Not anymore.”

She holds out a hand, and he shakes it. “Thank you.”

“Wow. That actually hurt for you to say.”

Jacobi nods. He sits down across from her at Renée’s huge darkwood table, and thinks about how she and Dominick must have bought this when they moved in together with plans to have people over for dinner every other night. Maybe even plans to have kids.

He wonders if Dominick ate at it alone while his wife was gone.

“So, you gone on that holiday yet?”

“No, actually. I’ve legally been dead for about seven years, so getting a passport is proving pretty tricky.”

“I can imagine.”

“Where have you been, anyway? We tried to get into contact with you. We drove down to your old apartment - got your address from the Goddard database - but it was cleaned out.”

Jacobi looks sheepish. “Yeah, well, I’d mostly been staying at Alana’s for the last few years or overnight at… yeah… so I’d not been a very good tenant and turns out they took ‘lost in space’ as the perfect opportunity to kick me out. So I’ve been sofa to sofa, on the streets a bit-”

“For heaven’s sake, Jacobi. We would have helped you, you stupid asshole! All you had to do was ask and you could have stayed here! Renee and Dominick would probably even let you have a cheese collection or whatever the fuck it was.”

“Guess the amount of drinks it takes for me to lose my pride is somewhere over eighteen?”

“How do you have a functioning liver?”

They sit in an almost comfortable silence for a few minutes, Isabel reopening her sketchbook.

“I never knew you drew.”

“You never knew me outside of a life-threatening situation.” Isabel sighs, twists the pencil between her fingers. “I don’t think I did. Before. The old ‘me’, I mean. But I was bored and I can’t get a job because of the ‘being dead’ issue, so I thought I should take up a hobby or something. Might be therapeutic. I’m not very good at it…”

“Can I see?”

“I, uh,” Isabel suddenly looks uncertain. “I drew her. Maxwell. I drew everyone, actually. Are you sure you want to look?”

“Yes.”

He leafs through the pages, at first simple doodles before branching into full portraits. Eiffel, upside down and smoking a cigarette. Hilbert, looking troubled at a shadow behind him he can’t quite see. Two ghostlike figures in lab coats staring out at the star, the man with a prophetic terror etched on his face - must be Isabel’s old crewmates. Mr Cutter smiles up at him with far too many sharp teeth in sharper lines where the pencil was pressed far too hard and he turns the page quickly. There’s Kepler, mid-whiskey speech and it almost stops his heart. He pauses. Maxwell.

In the picture, her eyes are shining as she stares at Hera’s console, fingers nothing more than a blur - the three-day stint she spent trying to get the AI online. Aside from the orange and blue of Wolf 359, elsewhere in the book Isabel has barely used colour, but here the room is bathed in a serene green light from the screens. Behind Maxwell, Jacobi sees himself, little more than a stocky, sketchy outline, waiting for her to finish.

He looks so proud of her.

He looks so… content.

After staring for a long moment, Jacobi closes the book and hands it back. “Thank you.”

“You can keep the pictures of them, if you like,” Isabel offers, but he doesn’t know whether he would like, so he says:

“Tell me about your crew.”

“What?”

“Your old crew. Tell me about them. Was Lambert the one staring at...?”

“No. No. No, that was Kuan Hui, our senior astrophysicist. He was whipsmart and funny and fearless, until the time Goddard Futuristics played around in his brain, stretched out his perception of time. He was completely alone in the dark for two weeks. His smile never really reached his eyes after that.”

Jacobi sips tea awkwardly, even though it’s cold.

“Something like that, it stays with you. At least he had Fourier, though.”

“That’s the woman behind him?”

“Junior physicist. Victoire Fourier had eyes like stars. Cleverest person I’ve ever met. She played six instruments, spoke four languages and she had the most gentle soul. She used to read to Hui when he got sick with Decima. Coughed up every organ in his body. I thought it would break her, but she was made of stern stuff. She vanished off the space station in the final days and I still don’t know what exactly happened to her-”

“I… do. If you want to know, I mean.”

Isabel shakes her head. Then pauses. Then shakes her head again. “I get the feeling whoever is to blame is long gone.”

Jacobi shrugs. “Who else?”

“Well, there was Mace Fisher. Fisher… Fisher died because of me, not Goddard Futuristics. Asteroid shower tore him from my hands. He had a boyfriend waiting at home. He was sensitive, sensible, grounding. A real older brother type. I- I didn’t deal particularly well with his death. Well, you know that much.”

((Pill popper!)) Jacobi gulps more cold tea.

“And Lambert?”

“Sam Lambert. Officer Samuel Lambert had a stick up his ass. He was whiny, and authoritarian, and he treasured his copy of Pryce and Carter more than Reneé and Kepler combined did. He drove me nearly insane, and I drove him likewise. The best second in command you could ask for. A damn good man. Sam got sick after Hui, so we knew what was coming. What it meant. He was brave, though. At first.”

((“C-Captain, please shoot me, please, it hurts, it hurts, Captain, please, I just want it to-”)

She falters.

“Lovelace?”

“Yup?”

“You know, it’s not even really about the Hephaestus. I keep… it’s insane, but I keep thinking about… I was an explosives guy for the Air Force. Before Goddard. A trigger failed and two men died. Andrews and Sullivan. I haven’t thought about them in years and suddenly-“

“They’re everywhere?”

There’s a sudden understanding between them.

“They’re everywhere. Them and Maxwell and Kepler. They’re in mirrors, in the back of my brain, around corners.”

“Flashes of them.”

“And if you just reach out far enough, maybe-“

“Maybe-“

“Maybe.”

((let’s go be monsters)), Jacobi’s brain echoes. He grits his teeth.

“Did it stop for you? When does it stop?” He finds himself asking. Isabel doesn’t answer.

#wolf 359 #bad things happen bingo #Daniel Jacobi #isabel lovelace #w359

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waveridden · 5 years

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FIC: living on your own time

“Mr. Kerchev is just married, and there’s nothing more that newlyweds love on honeymoons than other newlyweds to show off in front of.” Kepler arches an eyebrow, presumably to let everyone absorb that. (W359 undercover as married AU, 3.1k)

A/N: this is actually a chunk of an abandoned WIP from a handful of months ago. I decided to rework the opening scene into something presentable. The longer fic, if it’s ever finished, would be Minkowski/Lovelace and Eiffel/Jacobi, with a little bit of Eiffel/Jacobi even shining through in this scene. (What can I say? I’m biased.)

AUcember || title lyric || read on ao3

“Ladies, gentlemen.” Kepler looks around the room. “What do you know about the Ukrainian mob? And Agent Eiffel, don’t say that you know they’re from Ukraine.”

Eiffel closes his mouth just long enough to frown. “That’s a legitimate piece of knowledge, sir, I think it’s to my credit that I- ow. ”

“Whoops,” Hera says cheerfully, and lifts her heel so it’s not crushing Eiffel’s big toe anymore. She’s smiling, which is the worst part. Smiling like she knows that she’s embarrassing him in a mission briefing. Smiling like she doesn’t care, which is even worse. It’s the ultimate betrayal.

Kepler doesn’t even acknowledge them. Consummate professional, that guy. “Of course, we have local mob chapters all over the country, but the main boss-”

“-is in Ukraine,” Eiffel finishes triumphantly, but this time it’s Minkowski who elbows him in the ribs. “Hey!”

“Time and a place,” Lovelace says mildly, from where she’s practically draped over one of Maxwell’s fancy touch-screen computer tables. Which is totally unfair, because if it were Eiffel, Maxwell would’ve pushed him on the floor by now.

“The time is now!” Eiffel protests. “We’re talking about the Ukrainian mob! There’s no better time!”

“I can duct tape his mouth shut if you want,” Jacobi offers, which, again, definitely unfair. If Eiffel said something about duct taping Jacobi’s mouth shut, Hera would make fun of him for having an oral fixation, and Kepler definitely wouldn’t make a face like he’s considering it. Eiffel tries to glare, but Jacobi just sort of smirks at him. “Solve a couple problems.”

After a couple seconds, Kepler sighs. “Just keep poking at him until he stops trying?”

Eiffel rolls his eyes, but Minkowski and Hera both say “yes, sir” in eerie unison, so it must not be worth the effort of arguing.

“Good,” Kepler says. “The Ukrainian mob - which is based in Ukraine, thank you, Agent Eiffel - is helmed by this man.” Maxwell, standing at Kepler’s side, hits a button, and a couple of images pop up on the massive display screen. It’s a blond white guy, early thirties, with that creepy dead-eyed stare that most mob bosses have. “Mr. Yevgeni Kerchev, who likes to cause a lot of trouble by dealing arms.”

“Seems young,” Lovelace says, propping her chin up on one palm. Her eyes narrow. “Let me guess, inherited?”

“Correct, Agent Lovelace.” Maxwell hits another button, and another image comes up, this time a family photo. “Here we have Mr. Kerchev, with his recently deceased father Piotr and his missing-in-action brother Viktor. This is all speculation, of course, but we’re pretty sure that Yevgeni killed both his father and his brother in order to take over the operation.”

“Mr. Kerchev is on watchlists all over the country. CIA, FBI, NSA, anything with three letters. Hell, the EPA probably has it out for him.” Kepler’s eyes sharpen. “He’s also stolen proprietary Goddard tech to redistribute.”

Hera whistles lowly. “I didn’t know you could steal from Goddard.”

“Generally, you can’t.” Jacobi frowns at the screen, eyes narrowing. “How’d he get away with it?”

“Mob connections, probably.” Maxwell’s mouth twitches. “Probably went all Godfather on some employee.”

Eiffel jolts upright, a slow grin already spreading across his face. “They made someone an offer they couldn’t refuse?”

Jacobi glares at Maxwell, who already looks sheepish. “You had to enable him?”

“Oh, don’t hold out on me now, Doctor.” Eiffel clasps his hands together. “Please, tell me more about Mr. Kerchev sneaking a horse’s head into Rachel Young’s bed.”

“You had to enable him,” Kepler repeats heavily, and this time Maxwell shrugs. “Fine. The point is, our goal is to bring Kerchev in as soon as possible. And luckily for us, it looks like we have an opportunity.”

“Wedding bells are ringing for Mr. Kerchev.” Maxwell hits another button, and a few more pictures pop up, all of Yevgeni Kerchev with a pretty blonde woman. “Meet Natalie Delight, and yes, that’s her real last name.”

“The YouTuber?” Minkowski says dubiously.

“Who taught you what YouTube is?” Eiffel demands. He recognizes her, now that he has a career to put to the face. “Hera, did you-”

“Me, actually,” Lovelace drawls, looking immensely pleased with herself. “Someone’s got to teach our good commander how to entertain herself online.”

“Remember before we worked with them?” Maxwell sighs, slanting a longing look at Jacobi. Even Kepler looks a little wistful, which hurts maybe more than it should. “Back in the good old days, when we would’ve been done with the mission briefing by now.”

“Already be on the next flight to Ukraine,” Jacobi mumbles.

“Not Ukraine,” Kepler says. “If you all don’t mind terribly, I’d like to get you sent on your merry way, so if you could let Dr. Maxwell and I finish with your mission briefing-”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Eiffel says, and doesn’t even protest when Hera lifts a hand to close her fingers over his mouth. He doesn’t even lick her palm, because that’s the kind of chivalrous guy and good employee that Doug Eiffel is.

“Go on, sir,” Hera says, and lifts her other hand to cover the first for good measure.

Kepler doesn’t smile, but Eiffel kind of gets the impression that he’s pleased anyways. “Natalie Delight has just married Yevgeni Kerchev, and they’re going on a honeymoon. South of France, lovely spa resort, vineyard attached, very remote. They’ll be there for ten days, and that’s ten whole days where Kerchev will be out in the open for us to find.”

Minkowski leans forward. “Sir, is this an assassination or an extraction?”

“Extraction, if possible. We don’t know what Kerchev did with the weapons he stole from Goddard, and we want them back.”

“Extraction,” Lovelace repeats. “Undercover?”

“Undercover. Mr. Kerchev is just married, and there’s nothing more that newlyweds love on honeymoons than other newlyweds to show off in front of.” Kepler arches an eyebrow, presumably to let everyone absorb that.

Eiffel glances around the room. If they need newlyweds, then they need two people. Hera never goes on missions, by virtue of technically not being trained for that, and with something this secretive Kepler will probably want Maxwell to stay in Canaveral.

And of course, SI-5 mission assignments are always… erratic, to say the least. Eiffel’s not really trained for any of this, but he’s still gone undercover more than once, so there’s a good chance that he’ll be going again. As far as partners go, Minkowski’s kind of an awful liar and Jacobi is about as subtle as a flaming sledgehammer, so that leaves…

“Dibs on Lovelace,” Eiffel says, even though it’s muffled by both of Hera’s hands. She grimaces, but digs her fingers into his cheek and holds on. “Hey!”

Kepler arches an eyebrow. “Something you want to share with the class, Agent Eiffel?”

Hera reluctantly pulls her hands away, and Eiffel grins. “Dibs on Lovelace?”

“It’s cute that you think it’s your choice,” Maxwell says, “but yes, that’s the plan. You and Agent Lovelace will be going undercover as newlyweds honeymooning at this resort.”

Eiffel grins over at Lovelace, who smiles back at him, looking pleased. Sure, everyone on this team likes to act like he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and sure, they’re normally right. But something about working with Lovelace makes him better at his job. Probably something to do with them actually being friends.

“What do you say, Isabel?” Eiffel wiggles his eyebrows, and she rolls her eyes at him. “Wanna get hitched?”

“Mm, I think I’m the one who proposed.” Lovelace glances at Hera. “Can we make that official?”

“I can make that official,” Hera says, because she is Eiffel’s best friend, and by extension his greatest enemy. “Congratulations on the engagement. And the wedding. I was Eiffel’s best man, of course.”

Eiffel beams at her. “Aw, baby, you know I wouldn’t have anyone else.”

Maxwell clears her throat, and all eyes go to her. She looks excited. Unnervingly so. “Sir?”

“Because this is such a high-priority mission, we need as many agents as possible in the field.” Kepler inclines his head. “Hera, obviously, you’re staying here with me, and Maxwell is staying because she has more than enough other projects to work on. So Jacobi, Minkowski, mazel tov.”

“No,” Jacobi says sharply. “No, sir, you can’t-”

“I’m going to have to object too,” Minkowski says, looking a little green around the gills. “You don’t mean-”

“I do mean.” Kepler fixes Minkowski with a placid look, and Maxwell has to hide her smile behind her remote. “Jacobi, Minkowski, the two of you will be going undercover with Eiffel and Lovelace. This is too serious to let go because you two are squeamish about it, do you understand?”

“Colonel,” Eiffel breathes, “it’s not even my birthday and you’ve given me the greatest gift of all.” Minkowski glares at him, but Eiffel can’t even bring himself to care. This is it. He’s died and gone to heaven, which must be real after all, because now he gets to watch Minkowski and Jacobi have to act like people. People in love. People in love with each other. “Hera, am I dreaming?”

“Maybe,” Hera whispers back. “But probably not.”

“Why do I have to be with Minkowski?” Jacobi demands. “Why can’t I be with Lovelace?”

“Eiffel called dibs,” Maxwell says, which is completely true. Eiffel knew he liked her for a reason. Maxwell is Eiffel’s favorite now. “That, and we’re pretty sure she’s the least likely to go stir crazy and kill him while you’re living together for ten days.”

“Minkowski’s really not my type. And for that matter, neither is Lovelace.”

“Do you want to be married to Eiffel for a week and a half?”

Eiffel carefully looks just over Jacobi’s shoulder, so it doesn’t look like he’s invested in hearing the answer. Because that would be desperate, and Eiffel isn’t desperate.

“Maybe Minkowski won’t be so bad,” Jacobi allows grudgingly, and Eiffel doesn’t let his face fall. He refuses. Hera bumps her hip against Eiffel’s, and he bumps her back, because there’s not much else to do in a moment like this.

“If only so Eiffel doesn’t die,” Minkowski agrees. Eiffel rolls his eyes. One of these days, these people are going to get tired of giving him shit. It hasn’t happened yet, but it has to one day.

“Congratulations on your vows,” Kepler says, with all of the infinite patience of someone who is very, very close to snapping at them all. “Eiffel, Lovelace, you’re our A-team on this. You’re going to make sure Kerchev is complacent and comfortable and having the time of his life, do you understand?”

“Yessir,” Eiffel says quickly, and Lovelace nods.

“Minkowski, Jacobi, you’re backup. You only contact Kerchev and Delight through Eiffel and Lovelace, never directly. You are there for intelligence, and you are there to make sure things don’t go wrong. Is that clear?”

“Crystal,” Jacobi grits out. If nothing else, Eiffel can appreciate the fun shade of puce that his face is turning right now.

“Excellent.” And just like that, the vein bulging in Kepler’s neck goes from “meltdown imminent” to “meltdown might be happening next Thursday.” Eiffel barely avoids sighing in relief. “You’re leaving for your honeymoon bright and early tomorrow morning, so get packed. Maxwell already emailed out your supply lists, and we’ll have some waiting for you once you get to France. Remember, you have ten days.”

“It’ll only take four,” Jacobi promises. Minkowski mutters something in agreement.

“Eiffel’s going to help me review comm devices,” Hera announces, and grabs him by the elbow. For such a tiny woman, she has hands of iron. It’s one of the things he loves about her, although maybe not in this moment. “Right, Doug?”

“Right,” Eiffel says, because he’s not about to argue with Hera about this. “Colonel, permission to check up on the comms array?”

Kepler nods. “Dismissed, both of you. Make sure you have something that’ll work well long-distance. You never know what kind of situations you’ll run into.”

Eiffel flicks off a quick salute before Hera starts tugging him towards the door. “Hey, Lovelace, wanna go ring shopping later?”

“I’d rather shave my legs with a potato peeler,” Lovelace answers blithely, ignoring Eiffel’s full-body shudder, because ew. “Goddard’ll have rings for us, right? We kind of need them.”

“We have a selection of standard-issue fake wedding rings,” Maxwell confirms, which is maybe the strangest sentence that Eiffel has ever heard come out of her mouth. She’s starting to say something else when Hera drags Eiffel out of the room and shuts the door behind her.

“Well,” Eiffel says slowly. He gets the feeling that he’s missing something here. “Comms room?”

“Comms room,” Hera agrees. “Great place to avoid being overheard.” She starts down the hall, moving so fast that it takes Eiffel aback.

He waits until he pulls the comms room door closed to look at Hera. “What?”

“What, me?” Hera frowns. “How about what, you?”

“What me?”

“Jacobi?”

Eiffel grimaces. “Yeah, that wasn’t the best.”

“That was totally unfair of him,” Hera says nobly, which, okay, that might not be true. Eiffel doesn’t have the best track record with undercover missions, but Hera probably doesn’t care about that. She’s definitely the best friend that Eiffel has ever had: she’s smart as a whip, she’s a good listener, and she is completely devoted to defending his honor even when he doesn’t deserve it.

“Maybe,” Eiffel hedges, but apparently that’s not enough, because she glares at him. “What? The guy’s allowed to not want to marry me for the sake of taking down a Serbian mobster-”

“Ukrainian.”

“Don’t tell Kepler I said that.”

“After your whole ‘I know he’s from Ukraine’ bit?” Hera snorts.

Eiffel winces. “Not my finest moment.”

He’s never going to admit it to anyone other than Hera, who already knows all his darkest secrets, but he kind of wants Kepler to like him. It’s partly a self preservation thing, because he gets the impression that people Kepler doesn’t like go away and are never heard from again. But it’s also because he’s pretty sure everyone else on the team likes him. Even if it’s the awkward, begrudging kind of liking that people start out with, they still like him. Kepler doesn’t seem to like anyone, but Eiffel’s going to try his best anyways. Because that’s what doing his job is all about. Or something.

Hera waves him off. “You’ll have another moment soon, don’t worry about it.”

“Thank you?”

“You’re welcome.” She flashes a smile at him, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Okay, we actually do need to do our jobs-”

“Do we?”

“Yes, Douglas, so pick a comms array for when you head off to France.”

“Alright, geez.” Hera only calls him Douglas when she’s patronizing him, or as a codeword something’s gone horribly wrong. He’s actually not sure which one of those situations is happening right now. But he gives it a minute, just to feel it out. He starts going through their communications devices - they need something that prioritizes the short-range, but Kepler was right about the long-distance - and settles on one of the newer models, setting it on the table in the middle of the room. “Think these’ll work?”

Hera, who seems to be settled in staring at the door, doesn’t even look. “Mmmhm.”

“Do you know what I’m talking about?”

“You don’t need me to tell you how to do your job, do you?”

Eiffel pauses. “Nnnnnnno?”

“Do you think those will work?”

He looks down at the case. “Probably?”

“Then they’re yours.”

“Hera, what’s-”

“Nothing!” Hera whirls around and slams her hands on the table. The comms room is small enough that the smack echoes, and Eiffel has to try not to flinch. “You know, maybe I’m trying to- to have your back on this whole Jacobi thing, which I still don’t get, by the way-”

“You don’t need to get it,” Eiffel mumbles, but shuts his mouth as soon as Hera’s eyes sharpen.

“Maybe I don’t need to get it, but I’m still trying to back you up with all this, and you don’t even seem bothered by it!” She folds her arms, and suddenly she looks far too small. “Maybe it’s bothering me, and I don’t know why it’s not bothering you that this is happening.”

Eiffel blinks. “This isn’t about Jacobi.”

She looks away, and Eiffel lets out a long breath. Of course it’s not about Jacobi. This is going to be the first time he’s going undercover since… since.

“Hera,” he says softly, and goes around the table so he’s closer to her. “All four of us are going to have a direct line to you and Alana the whole time.”

“The whole time,” Hera repeats, not quite mocking, and it feels like a fist wraps around Eiffel’s heart and squeezes. “Yeah, nothing’s gonna go wrong.”

Eiffel snorts. “Darlin’, something’s going to go wrong, and you and I both know it.”

She shoots a glare at him, which is completely undercut by how watery her eyes are. “Then why aren’t you worried?”

“Because I’m going to spend the whole time partnered up with Isabel, who’s one of the best people to have in a crisis. And Minkowski and Jacobi are going to be there, and they’re the best backup. And best of all-” he reaches out and rests his hands on her shoulders, as lightly as he can, and she relaxes into it - “you’re gonna be in my ear making sure that I don’t do anything too stupid.”

“You’d better not.”

“I’ll try my best.” Eiffel grins. “I’ll call you every night.”

Hera’s face relaxes into a smile, and Eiffel’s lungs collapse with relief. “You think your wife’s going to like that?”

“You know, I get this funny feeling that she’ll understand.”

“Every night,” she says seriously. “Last thing before you go to bed, no matter how late it is.”

“What’s the time difference between Canaveral and France?”

“Enough that you’ll be calling me and the other way around.”

Eiffel smiles and squeezes Hera’s shoulders. “Every night and twice on weekends.”

“Good,” Hera says, and steps forward to bury her face in the crook of Eiffel’s neck. “Come back.”

“I will.”

“Without the bad parts this time.”

“I will,” Eiffel repeats, and hopes more than anything that it’s not an empty promise.

#wolf 359 #w359 fic #jacoffel #eiffel x jacobi #like................. barely. but w/e #waveridden.fic #aucember18 #yall i am gonna be real i feel a Bit iffy about posting an old thing instead of writing something new but i am still recovering from those #overnight shifts so i am doing what i can for you!!!! i hope you enjoy the fic!!!!!!

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weekend-conspiracy-theorist · 2 years

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I think any answer for how to return eiffel's memories that may have been found in the last fifteen minutes of wolf 359 would have felt really cheap.

I mean, I can think of like four or five different potential solutions off the top of my head-- the dear listeners had scanned eiffel's mind and the star was still blue at the time, so they could have gotten themselves involved (on behalf of their message actually making it back to earth), pryce had also scanned his mind and (assuming it was transmitted to earth as suggested regarding hilbert's brain scan chair) so they could potentially get the info back from goddard futuristics, there could have been some kind of back up that hera did before she wiped eiffel and pryce, lovelace's blood could have partially immunized him such that his memories return over time, or hell, there could even just be some kind of "reboot" that hera could initiate to recover any uncorrupted data (to further the minds -> computers analogy)-- but I don't think it's at all unreasonable that mr. urbina just... didn't take it any of those directions.

it would have felt like a bit of a cop out, to have eiffel make a sacrifice that huge and then pull a reverse immediately. narratively, holding onto the mindwipe is the cleanest solution, and I also do love the "let's figure it out together" moment between him and minkowski and hera. I also think that it's really, really meaningful that they automatically embrace post-mindwipe doug as his own person.

but I also don't... really care for the idea that all of the character development that eiffel had throughout the show just... got erased. and to be clear, in some ways it didn't; mindwiped!eiffel in the last moments of the finale is obviously just as kind as he was before his memories, and he obviously still feels some modicum of emotion towards certain people, minkowski and hera especially. you could choose to attribute that to him listening to his logs, but I don't really buy that as the singular explanation. and like you could take what I just said and say, well, if the emotions kind of carried over even if the knowledge of events didn't, then all his progress is still there; this is the New Version of doug eiffel, with a better understanding of the effect of his own words and actions. ...but that also feels a little cheap to me, and disingenuous. I don't think it's unreasonable, especially given the themes of identity and personhood throughout the show, to question if the same actions have the same meaning if a person didn't actually have to put in the effort to get there, and this version of eiffel isn't the one who did the work (although there's still work to do, of course. he certainly hadn't concluded that character arc in just nine or ten episodes).

I guess what I'm saying is that I'd like to think that post-canon, he recovers at least some of his memories. (I lean towards maybe a combination of the ideas of lovelace's blood and hera being able to do some kind of reboot, for the record; I think the blood is a pre-established answer for why pryce's machines may not have worked as well on him, and I also think hera deserves the opportunity to help fix it given the guilt she feels over having helped cause it. those ideas also gel the neatest with the canon ending of the show, rather than rewriting the last ten or fifteen minutes.) I don't necessarily think eiffel could/should get all of his memories back because that's a disservice to the magnitude of the sacrifice he made, but I don't like (and okay, I'll admit it, don't want) to think that he was and remained a perfect blank slate. I want to believe that eventually he finds a conclusion to that character arc he'd started; I want to believe that eventually doug eiffel gets the chance to apologize to ann and kate (whether they accept it or not), and not just the guy wearing his face.

#again I wanna be clear that I understand and support this not actually happening in canon #but I think there's so much wiggle room to say that it could happen down the line #...ok so maybe some fanfic concepts are Percolating. I have to figure out how to be as funny as canon is in order to make them work tho #I wasn't planning on writing anything but in skimming ao3 I just didn't find a post-canon fic that Truly satisfied me in these regards #(tbf... I filtered out a Lot of ships. maybe people who like doug/jacobi vibe better with idea of postcanon & I shall never find out)

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rahayn · 7 years

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for @not-all-trains and @cmyk8, who were 110% on board with this little au happening, of course:

jacobi is, for all intents and purposes, really good at his job. it’s probably got about 50% to do with graduating with every honor they could stack on his shoulders at commencement (was not sleeping for three years worth the sour look on his father’s face from the audience when he got up to collect the degree his old man never earned? absolutely), and maybe he can credit about 10% to his dashing good looks and another 15% to the thing that goose-steps up his spine when his boss looks at him and says “go ahead, mr. jacobi” like he’s a monster, like he’s feral, wild—

but the other 25% is luck, just down-home, kiss-the-gods-and-slap-a-baby luck. he always cuts the right wire, he always beats the clock, he always takes apart or puts together or utterly ruins anything he’s let loose upon. it’s a “positive character trait”, according to his last evaluation. daniel jacobi burns to the ground everything that’s ever crossed his path and stopped to say hello.

even the only good thing he’s ever got.

when it boils down to it, it’s because he was stupid. because he got soft, got complacent, thought he could slough off what he did in the dark when he got home because—well, because his people could take care of themselves, right? kepler’s the scariest son of a bitch this side of pluto (the scariest human one, anyway; he’s got a boss named cutter who sets jacobi’s teeth on edge just hearing his name) and alana can wield a wrench the size of her own body and has a tongue as sharp as that wrench is heavy. they can take care of themselves. they can look over their shoulders and spot the shadows in the corners of the room and they can stay safe.

now, though, in a room with a bomb the likes of which he’s never seen before and a boyfriend he’s only had for a summer, jacobi realizes that’s only because they knew what to look out for in the first place. it takes a monster to know one and this time, the sort of people who want him dead went after the only thing that reminds jacobi that he isn’t always a beast.

“we’re gonna be fine, doug,” he says, like he’s talking to a scared animal, “we’re gonna get out of this.”

doug’s a darling, a real team player, and jacobi does him the favour of pretending he doesn’t see how hard his hands are shaking. “don’t worry about me, sweetheart. i’ve been in worse places than this.” he glances around, remarkably calm. “the air force. county prison. ikea the day after black friday.”

jacobi laughs, he can’t help it, and at the same time he’s starting to realize there’s not much he knows about doug, not really. to be fair, there’s not much doug knows about him (the job, the bombs, the things that stalk up and down his spine and reach claws out through his mouth, grab at anyone around to rip and tear and hurt just because they can)—they’d just sort of clicked. by the time they breezed past “help, my arms are stuck in my binder and if you laugh i’ll kill you,” jacobi wasn’t sure how they’d circle back around to “so, remember how i told you i was a chemist? well—”

it was your grade-a rom com meet-up: boy sits on the counter of his best friend’s prosthetics shop, tinkers with some spare parts and scrubs at the sharpie dicks she’d scribbled all over his arm when he’d fallen asleep during movie night. other boy walks in with his hand literally falling to pieces as he crosses the threshold, makes a fullmetal alchemist joke and asks if they accept gently burnt chocolate chip cookies as payment (alana tells him it’s on the house if he takes her friend to dinner. the first boy falls off the counter). boys bond over being broken, over steel fingertips and copper veins.

boys make the mistake of thinking they could have even just this one good thing.

“i, uh, i do this for a living.” jacobi gestures at the device merrily ticking away in front of them. “make them. break them. ‘boom boom wow’ kind of thing, you know?”

“you? the guy with a biomech arm so snazzy it makes mine look like a tinker toy?” doug chuckles, wheezes a little at the end (it’s cold in here, and damp, and that friend of his with the sharp eyes and the stutter had told him that sometimes, doug just can’t breathe), “here i thought you were some kind of librarian or something.”

“i’m always a slut for the dewey decimal system,” jacobi tells him and grins when eiffel laughs, frowns when it stutters to a gasp at the end. they’ve got to get out of here—he’s got to get them out of here.

he loses himself in it for a while, the art of trailing wires and so many parts stacked together like a house of cards, a breath away from coming down—there is no bomb that can best him, no wires he can’t unwind. it’s a dance he’d done a thousand times before, muscle memory now, tissue and tech and he cuts the right wire because of course he does. because he’s just that good. the numbers on the display flicker out and jacobi sits back on his haunches, sagging with relief.

the beeping stops.

the hissing starts.

doug whistles through his teeth. “daniel?”

“yeah?”

“that's—”

“not good?” he’s frozen in place, watching the faint shimmer of air around the ports in the bomb, dumping something he can’t smell or taste into the room with them. “yeah.”

“ah.” he doesn’t sound scared, or upset, or angry that jacobi’s fucked up, that he’s dug the hole they’re in that much deeper. doug just sounds tired. “okay.”

there’s something that lurks in the the corners of doug’s smile and the whites of his eyes—jacobi feels like he’s looking in a mirror some days, realizes he can’t stand to see that shadow on someone else’s face. he grabs doug’s hand, presses carbon-fiber and chrome palms together and watches the glint of bronze against his steel. “hey—no, listen. we’re not dead yet.” doug arches an eyebrow and jacobi knows he sounds insane, parroting back the same old thing kepler tells him every job, every time. “it’s not over til we’re dead.”

doug looks at him for a long moment and jacobi looks back—if they—when they get out of this, he’ll drop to his knees and thank whichever god is listening for this, for this man and this fucking chance at carving out even a semblance of something happy, of something he can’t break. he lets doug pull their hands closer, watches him press a kiss to jacobi’s knuckles and marvels that he can feel it every time. “alright then,” doug tells him, dropping their hands to rest on his knee. “get us out of here, dynamite dan.”

it startles a laugh out of him and the crush around his throat eases for just a moment, just long enough for him to reply, “as you wish,” and pull his hand away.

but that’s the thing about fire, about destruction—it’s only ever waiting for a chance. jacobi sees the flash before he feels it, static crackling to life between their metal palms, wrapping around their fingers like rings and bridging the gap between them for an instant before tasting gas.

alana had joked, after the first date had gone well, and the third, and the fifth and seventh and twelfth, that they had a certain spark, and laughed herself sick while he rolled his eyes.

the spark catches; the air hums with it.

unfortunately, jacobi doesn’t think this is what she’d meant.

#wolf 359 #jacobi #doug eiffel #jacoffel #me: wow i got a lot of work to do #also me: *writes 1300 words on the fly #according to google doc this is exactly 1300 words so woooh #i might post this to ao3 idk #i don't even post my shit to tumblr so this is wild #based off a thing in the discord that was like -queer boys with robot arms-#-bet zahra can't make that angsty-#i paraphrase #the salt shaker speaks #the salt shaker gets verbose with the tags lmao

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