Work Text:
Your name is Daniel. You know that your name is Daniel, although many others do not.
Most people don’t even realise that your name is Daniel, and you understand that, but you wish someone could empathise with you.
But they don't, and when you try to correct them, you get a painful reminder that nobody cares what you say, you’ll always be a girl to them.
Even your father (who you thought could shield and protect you) doesn't do anything. Calls you his daughter.
But he’s your father, so you love him and you trust him anyway.
(when you're older, you almost forget these times,
(you forget about these days, when nobody saw you for you, and that's almost certainly for the best.)
When you are fourteen, he comes into your bedroom and watches you work for almost an hour.
You don't acknowledge his presence, keeping your head down and focusing on the tangled wires in front of you- you've been working with them for half a day, you're not about to get distracted now.
“What do you want to be when you're older?” he asks you, and the question catches you so off guard you drop the soldering iron onto the carpet with a yelp.
“Someone,” you say with a nod after considering his question. “I want to be someone.”
You pat yourself on the back for that answer, reward yourself with a little smile and get back to the wires. It's not five minutes later before you hear him huff out a laugh, and your smile drops.
“People like you don't amount to anything,” he says. You can hear the smirk in his voice, feel his eyes burning your back as you curl into yourself.
“Maybe I’ll be the first,” you breathe.
(you remember this conversation when you drop to the ground to hide yourself from the force of the explosion, and you feel the heat blast your back.)
(you remember him saying you'll never make it, and you're almost starting to agree.)
He finds you in a bar.
(a different he, a better he.)
You're sat, regretting your entire life when you notice him sliding into the seat beside you.
The first thing you notice is that he's striking, and you actually feel your breath catch in your throat. When he smiles at you, you're too far gone to care that he's a total stranger, and you spill most of your life story to him. All because he buys you a drink.
(you don't mention the days where you weren't daniel, or the days where you hated yourself enough to use your fire, your breaking skills on yourself.)
He leaves his card. Or- not his card, but a card with a phone number, and you pocket it before you leave the bar.
(you don't notice the look in his eyes, those familiar feelings that you don’t allow yourself to have anymore. that's why you were there, after all.)
You forget about the card, and you don't phone the number, and the night at the bar turns into a dream, hazy images you conjure late at night- an idea of what could have been.
You're shaken from your reminiscing by a sharp knock at the door, and you stare at it dumbly for a moment as the sound echoes through the room (or maybe just your head).
There's every chance it's your landlady- you haven't paid rent for this month, but she generally doesn't bother you at five in the morning. Hell, nobody bothers you at five in the morning, because every sane person is still in bed.
But you've never claimed to be entirely sane, so you go to the door. There's a coffee mug in your hands, warming you up- it has the molecule for caffeine on it- and you open the door to find the man from the bar.
He takes in your dishevelled appearance for a moment- you've been up for over twenty-four hours at this point, you absently realise. He smiles that smile, that charming smile, and you just frown at him, your brain sluggish and slow to cooperate.
“How’d you find my house?” you manage to get out, and he almost laughs.
“When you didn't call, I got a little worried. I thought we’d really hit it off!”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess we did,” you say with a nod, and you step back to let him through the doorway. He takes in the surroundings quickly, but he doesn't mention any of it.
“So,” he says, and he's made himself at home on your couch. He leans into the cushions, asserting himself, and you don't even start questioning it as you sit beside him.
“My name is Warren Kepler,” he says. “I’d like to offer you a job.”
Insane. The man's got to be completely insane if he's offering you a job, but you nod, and you listen.
(you privately think that you could get used to him being in your home, him becoming your home, but you shake the thoughts off. no, you think, don't ruin him too.)
He kisses you for the first time after a mission, while you're still high on adrenaline. You can still smell gunpowder, still feel the recoil of the gun in your shoulder, but he's pressing you against the wall and you feel like he's stolen your heart right out of your chest.
His lips taste like whiskey and smoke- intoxicating, almost addicting, and you start to lose yourself in it. You keep your eyes closed, in the hope that you can pretend you're two normal people that love each other, not just two killers for hire that live for the thrill of the chase.
“Sir,” you breathe against his mouth when he pulls back slightly, and you can practically hear his mind working at full speed.
“Daniel,” he whispers back. “Do you want this?”
“I've wanted it for a while, sir,” you say, and he's kissing you again and you think that this is the best you've felt in years.
(he's beautiful, you realise that night. not only because he's attractive, but because he understands you, and that's something you've always wanted.)
(when you wake up in the morning curled into his chest, his arms wrapped around you in an embrace, you realise that you could call this home.)
You almost lose him (for the first time) when a routine stakeout goes horribly, terribly wrong.
He doesn't say anything, doesn't even mention the fact he's hurt, and you see for yourself when you turn and his chest is gradually becoming a scarlet rose, and his face is lightning, but he still looks at you with a ghost of that smile on his lips.
“Shit,” you say, and he huffs out a laugh as he stumbles in his next step. You rush to catch him, pushing him into a sitting position against the wall.
His breathing is irregular, and your hands are staining as you tear his shirt away. The wound is deep- you think it could be touch and go, but you're no doctor, and the best you can do is put pressure on it while requesting an extraction.
“Hold on, we’re getting out of here,” you say, and he nods. He's staring straight at you, as if he's seeing you for the first time, and he laughs. It's a terrible sound, wet and choking.
“You're gorgeous. You know that? Beautiful,” he says weakly, and you bite your lip to stop yourself from tearing up.
“Absolutely wonderful,” he breathes.
(later, when you're in his hospital room, you hold his hand and pretend that you're together, that you're a normal couple who don't live a life of fear and pain.)
You meet her in his office, when you enter your meeting to find a woman sat in the chair next to yours.
“Who the hell are you?” you say, and you see the way her shoulders rise as she prepares to defend herself. Kepler makes a noise in his throat, and she calms instantly.
She introduces herself, and as you work together, you begin to stop seeing her as ‘different’, and you start to see her as someone almost like a sister.
You're pretty sure she sees you as a brother- there's no kind of romance between you, with your infatuation with him and the fact she prefers computers to social interaction.
But you're friends. Best friends, even, and you would defend her with your life if it came to it.
“Maxwell,” you always say, “Maxwell, you're a genius.”
“I know,” she replies with a smirk.
(“are we terrible people?” she asks you one day, and you don't even laugh as you answer.)
(“yes,” you say, and she nods, satisfied with the answer.)
You don't know when you stopped being ‘Daniel’ and became ‘Jacobi’, but you can't say that you mind too much.
It means that Kepler is the only one to call you Daniel, whispering it against your skin, or late at night into the heavy air around you, and you smile and kiss him, taking the sweetness from both the name and his lips.
(“daniel, daniel, daniel,” he says in sleep, and it's almost like a prayer. it's all you can do not to cry as you lay with him and stare up at the darkened ceiling.)
You tell him you love him entirely by mistake, when you're close enough to death that it doesn't matter anyway.
“Warren,” you croak as the blood pours from your arm. “Warren, sir, I love you, I love you, I’m sorry-”
“Don't apologise,” he whispers, doing all he can to stop the flow. “Please don't apologise. If I wanted you to do that, I would have told you. So take this order, Daniel- stay alive.”
You meet his eyes and they look watery, and you feel your own start to burn, but you whimper with the pain and your head rolls back before you can apologise again.
(he tells you that he loves you too when you get back from the hospital, late at night when you've both awoken from the terrors that plague the darkness. you smile when he says it and you kiss him, before succumbing once more to the pull of sleep.)
The new ‘him’ appears on the way to the Hephaestus.
You don't expect it, with the state he was in when you first picked him up, but as his health returned, you found yourself falling for him, and falling fast.
Eiffel’s funny, and a nice person, and you hate yourself for liking it, because you aren't a good person, and you can't afford to corrupt anybody. Nobody deserves a life like yours, not even the Colonel, who you think has always been a monster, albeit a beautiful one.
But, the communications officer is beautiful too, so when he asks you to stay with him for a while in his little room, you're perfectly willing to oblige.
“Daniel… can I kiss you?” he says, and you frown at him as his request works its way through your brain.
“You want to kiss me?” you say, and he nods. You notice that you've approached him, unconsciously, and your mouths are almost touching anyway.
You nod too, and his lips meet yours without any more hesitation, and the kiss is perfect. Gentle, soft, forgiving.
Your hands flatten against his back, and you pull him into you as you stay together. He wraps one arm around your waist, and the other cups your cheek, and this is-
This is beautiful.
(when you tell kepler, later, he laughs and tells you to invite eiffel along to your quarters the next night, and you three can… converse.)
You do talk, the three of you, but it quickly escalates into less talking, and more of the three of you kissing and holding each other.
“What is this?” you ask the room, and Eiffel shrugs, but Kepler smiles in a smug way.
“I would say,” he starts, “that we are all mature adults who know communication is important.”
You don't come to an arrangement in the end, but Minkowski’s face when she sees the three of you the next morning is more than enough to make up for that.
(and you still don't want to admit anything, but you can feel your chest burning as you try to sleep that night, in the middle of the other two men. their warmth fills you, and you know that you've never been happier.)
You are called Daniel Jacobi, but the voice outside the door is also called Daniel Jacobi, and your brain is screaming at you, rising to a cacophony of screeching and crashing that resonates throughout your whole body.
“That isn't me,” you say with a shudder, and Eiffel shoots you a terrified glance as you purposefully turn away. “No. That- that thing- needs to get the hell away.”
But he- it, it- doesn't go away, and the comms are still online when the solar storm hits. This time, the screams aren't just inside your head, they're inside everyone’s head, inside the room…
You let out a quiet sob, and Eiffel pulls you into his chest as you find yourself crying and shaking. Are you angry? Upset?
Impossible to tell, really.
(this is the moment that he tells you he loves you, and he does it with the small kisses he presses against your lips as the tears fall.)
The revolution is chaos, and you hear the gunshot echoing the sound of your own shot- the explosion rings out, but the ringing in your ears is rising and rising.
“You- you killed-”
“Yes,” Minkowski says in a voice that sounds nearly nauseous. “Yes, I did.”
You scream- in rage or pain, you don't know, and you grab your handgun and handheld comms before you hurry towards her position.
But Kepler tells you to stand down, and while you can't just sit around and let her kill Maxwell, he's your commanding officer and the man you love, so you have no choice.
“Yes… sir,” you say as Minkowski slides the handcuffs over your wrists. You pass Eiffel in the hall, and you can't even look at him- you turn your head to the side as you feel your eyes beginning to burn. He lets out a pained whine, and you feel something claw at your chest.
(you realise, now, that you love him too, and that you always have, and while you still need kepler to survive, eiffel balances you out and stops you from burning yourself up.)
You expect to be thrown in with Kepler, but you don't even see him as Minkowski shoves you through the door of the observation deck.
“Where's Kepler?” you whisper as she's leaving, and she halts. She sighs, but it sounds amused.
“He isn't dead- not yet. He might have information we need.”
She leaves, and you find yourself alone with your thoughts- that hasn't happened for a long time. They aren't screaming now, thank God, they're more of a muffled whisper.
You hear a crackle as the comms channel opens, along with Eiffel's whisper of “don't tell Minkowski,” before Kepler’s voice fills the room.
He's talking about ‘La Bohème’- his favourite musical work. You laugh wetly, quietly, and his voice falters.
“Daniel?” he asks, and you nod before remembering he can't see you.
“Yes- it's me. It's me, sir, it's me.”
“You really don't need to call me that anymore,” he says. He's trying to inject humour into the situation, but he's failing at it on any number of levels.
“Have they hurt you?” he asks, and you sigh.
“No, they haven't. What did they do to you?”
“Absolutely nothing,” he says, and he almost sounds disappointed at the crew’s dislike of violence.
You talk for- hours, possibly, and then you realise that Minkowski can be heard outside Kepler’s room over the speakers.
“Sir- Warren,” you say before the channel closes, and he hums to indicate that he's listening.
“I love you,” you say, and he doesn't say anything, just makes a sound halfway between a whimper and a sob. You've never heard him make that sound before, and it breaks your heart a little bit.
“I love you too,” he finally says, and you wish you could kiss him.
(you love him so much it destroys you, but you can't get away. like the dance of a moth around a flame, your love is dangerous, and it's addicting.)
He's been taken for questioning, and now you really are alone with your thoughts, but they can't hurt you now.
You can't even find it in yourself to care about the contact event- Kepler’s probably going to die, and Maxwell-
Maxwell is dead.
You moan in pain as you think about her- always so full of life, but taken away in an instant. She didn't even have time to prepare, because she didn't think Minkowski would do it.
You clench your fists into the material of the jacket you wear- Kepler’s flight jacket, and you bury your face in it so you can feel safe and you can feel loved, and you're close to crying again.
You miss Maxwell, and you wish Kepler was with you, so he could tell you to grow up and you'd have to listen to him, and you could be a Big Boy, a grown up, and figure out a plan to get the hell out.
When Eiffel comes in, you shoot him a glare, and he flinches as he comes over to you.
“I'm sorry, Daniel,” he says, and you sigh. You know that Maxwell dying wasn't his fault, but it feels nice to be able to blame someone.
“She was like my sister,” you whisper, and it must come out more like a sob because he comes closer to you and takes you in his arms, pressing a kiss to your forehead.
“I know, I'm- I'm sorry,” he says, and you stay like that for a moment before he tells you about the funeral.
(you try not to hate yourself for hating him, but when he kisses you, you can't help but wish it was kepler.)
Kepler looks almost normal when you see him, and when you get shoved into the corner to stand beside him, you don't complain. You lean into his side, and his warmth envelops you.
“Is that my flight jacket?” he asks quietly, and you laugh.
“What’ll you do if I say yes?” you respond, quick to slip back into your old dynamic. He smirks, and his mouth is almost right next to your ear when he replies.
“Whatever I like,” he breathes, “since you stole it.”
You shudder, and Minkowski's glare when she comes into the room makes you freeze. She killed Maxwell. This was her fault.
“Play nice, Daniel,” Kepler breathes, and you growl, but let yourself relax. Getting angry won't solve anything right now.
(the screams coming from the body bag should terrify you, but they don't. they give you hope that maxwell could come back too.)
(she doesn't.)
The Hephaestus crew hate you, now, you can tell by the cold metal at the base of your spine, the way Minkowski pushes it in. You can't help but laugh, thinking about how triumphant Kepler looked, how he must have known he was right all along.
“You might have won the mutiny,” you tell her, “but you can't get rid of us. We know too much.”
“I won't hesitate to shoot you,” she snaps. You laugh again and lean back into her, pressing the gun completely against your back.
“Then do it.”
(she doesn't.)
(you stay alive, somehow.)
(but maybe you wish you didn’t.)