openmisc | TMA!Jacobi and Jon

TMA!Jacobi and Jon

"Are you sure this is the place?" he asks the driver, who was already speeding off, leaving Jacobi in front of the old building.

"Thanks for your help!" he calls out with false cheer, rolling his eyes before trudging his way up to what he had been told was the Magnus Institute. He doesn't even flinch at the screech of tires that comes from blocks behind him. He doesn't have to see the car erupt into flames as a very confused driver crawls out and phones for help. That's chaos for someone else.

Instead, he takes the steps up, backpack on his shoulder. He had flown all the way out here, so it's not as if he's going to be missing any leads. Besides. He has an appointment.

The closer to the door he gets, the more uncomfortable he feels about this. It's like a whisper of wind against his skin, a suggestion of something dangerous, but Jacobi's never let something like that bother him. He walks through, hands in his pockets.

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It is at least an eternity before he'll hear a voice he had been hoping to find.

"...what part of 'stay outside, don't come in', did you forget, Daniel?"

But in the depths of the anger and frustration, there's worry and concern. And there's a touch to his ankle that soon enough becomes a grip around it.

"Mostly the stay part," he says with a soft laugh, as much as he can mamage, jerking only a little in surprise at the touch on his ankle.

"The 'don't come in' was a little fuzzy, too."

He isn't sure he's keeping the sobbing relief from his voice.

There's a voice with a Northern accent grumbling from behind Jon but it's muffled from the dirt and the compression. Jon chuckles, though, so clearly at least frustration is keeping them afloat.

"You realize one can't guide themselves back to safety when their anchor is... in here with them, yes?"

Distantly, there is the sound of howling.

"Yes, I know that now!" he argues. "Hello, friend of Jon's."

He can't actually call out, he doesn't have the breath to, but he does try to say it a bit louder.

"But at least we are together."

"...I feel as if I brought this upon myself to some de-"

And he pauses, shifting to try and listen harder.

Howling. Definitely howling in the distance.

"Do you hear that?"

He strains through the sound of roaring in his ears. But it's there. Howling. Or something of it.

"Yeah. What the fuck is that?"

There's another murmur from beneath them.

"Daisy says it's a Hunter." Another pause. "And that she's never... heard anything quite like that."

The howling gets louder. And Jacobi, only Jacobi, will hear his name in the sound. His name in a very familiar, impossible, voice.

"...oh. Oh my. Um. Daniel? Do you... by any chance, um, know a Hunter?"

Daniel is far, far too shocked because that voice shouldn't exist.

"That's - "

He starts to struggle in earnest, scraping parts of himself he didn't know existed in an effort to get away.

"Kepler! Fuck...fuck... Warren!" he pants.

It has to be a trick. It has to be. But he'd would suffer happily if he could just hear that voice again.

Jon barks and there's something to his voice that's compelling as much as any Question he'd ask.

"He's outside, Jacobi. Keep moving. Don't kick me off and we can follow you. Burn a way through."

"Don't you think I'm fucking trying?"

But it's hard to focus. He doesn't feel like himself. He doesn't feel anything except the roaring in his chest and that place of not-empty. Of being so full of anger and rage and everything else that he's stuck here like a goddamn idiot because he followed another goddamn idiot inside. He digs fingers against the dirt underneath him and everything, for a moment, is finally still. He can feel Jon's hand on him and - hear that name in his ear and he doesn't want to be destroyed because that's his heart that's looking for him.

The world they're in goes white hot.

Everything seems to crumble around him like a dam collapsing, but there's space and he can move and one hand grabs Jon to drag them all out.

There's another hand helping them, a claw that grabs onto Jacobi's shirt and yanks him up and out, along with the Archivist, whose hand is smoking, and the bedraggled woman who's clinging onto his back.

And that impossible voice is its usual smug, satisfied self even if the owner of said voice looks more than a little frazzled, bloodspattered, and singed.

"I have heard of a fish in a fish, but this is a catch of a lifetime."

He never, not in a thousand years, thought that he'd ever hear that voice again so clearly.

He lets go of Jon, staring up at Warren Kepler with wide eyes. It lasts for only a second before he finds his voice.

"That's the line you go with?" he scoffs. He turns to find Jon, wincing at his hand. But at least he's alive. Ish. And - Daisy, too, apparently.

Which is when Jacobi is going to hear a snarl and get snatched up by the front of his shirt again, the violence of the movement sending his sunglasses askew to show the bright yellow glow to those eyes.

"What I have to say doesn't need words."

Which is when he's getting kissed, on the mouth, desperate and a little rougher than even Daniel might like as he's pressed into the wall of Jon's office hard enough to shake a bookshelf and send a few things on the desk skittering off.

For their part, Jon's going to check on Daisy, who has her eyes squarely on Kepler like a large dog that just spotted a bear and doesn't even know how to deal with the concept of something that much bigger and more deadly than it is. Jon doesn't say anything for a long moment as he observes it, and then there'll be a quiet discussion between the two while the man in question is... occupied.

In the very, very, very back of Daniel's mind, where there's sense that isn't being kissed out of him, he makes a note to apologize to Jon because there is still a distinct singe to him, and the wall behind him now has some definite burns on it. As does Kepler, though Daniel is sure he's not going to mind or even notice. He puts hands to his face, along his back, through his hair, anywhere he can get to.

They had never kissed until this moment, and it hurts in the best way. He's - happy.

He feels so whole and full again that it takes him a while to regain any sort of consciousness before he gently shoves the heel of his hand into Warren's shoulder. A deliberate burn. A stopping point so he can figure himself out.

There's smoke coming off of his jumpsuit, but Warren doesn't seem to mind. Instead, those golden eyes are glittering with dark promises and something that isn't entirely sated yet.

"That? Is three plans? You've blown up in my face, Daniel. I'm going to start charging service hours."

And he might have stopped kissing him but he's not going to stop himself dipping in to get a breath of his scent at the neck and under the jaw.

Jon, who is putting a blanket around Daisy's shoulders, gives both of them a weak smile before tipping his head towards Daisy.

"I'm going to put on the kettle. Who else would like some?"

Daniel raises up slightly and, in a show of how absolutely absurd his life is, he looks over Warren's shoulder and calls out.

"Make that instant coffee shit for me!"

But then his attention is firmly on Warren and he tries to push him back again so he can at least look at him.

"Send me a bill," he mutters. "What the hell happened?"

"Nope," he says firmly, "I get to ask that first, what with you neck deep in the Buried. Did your brains all fall out of your head on that trip back with the Hephaestus crew?"

From over his shoulder-

"Yes, yes," from Jon.

And a slightly more reedy "aye, I know how to make it" from Daisy.

He narrows his eyes. "You don't get to judge my choices when you weren't even here."

Trust Daniel to get fussy with a very fierce Hunter and have absolutely zero fear doing it.

"Jon went in. I was helping. And it - took too long. I thought I could help. And, to be fair, I did."

His answer is a growl and Jon is going to interrupt to offer him a cup of coffee that's practically jammed in his hands.

"I would have been able to find my way to you, Daniel. Your plan was sound. Your addition to it-" he glances at Kepler, "I have a feeling the arrival of your Mr. Kepler is the only reason we're alive right now."

But he will pause and lean in to gently say-

"Thank you, Daniel. It... I couldn't have done it without you."

"Don't tell him that," he says to Jon, but takes his coffee anyway.

"Well, I may have also been testing that self destructive streak," he mutters into his cup. And then he reaches over with his free hand and wraps it around Jon in a tight embrace.

Oh. Jon's... a little surprised, but he'll once more lean into the hug and give him one right back. The growling behind him doesn't subside; if anything, it does the opposite. Which has Jon giving him a squeeze before tipping his head to indicate Daisy, who he feels the need to look after.

Once he slips away, Jacobi will get to see the 'told you so' look on Warren's face.

"You break other things, Jacobi. Breaking yourself is firmly off limits."

Which is when he hears his phone beep and he'll pull it up to show him two very important things: the first one is a message that just says Did you find him yet? and the name on top.

Dr. Maxwell

He almost argues with him. He almost raises his voice and insists that he doesn't know. That text knocks all the fight out of him.

Daniel leans back against the wall, closing his eyes as the world seems to tilt off center. Jon leaves to care for Daisy and Jacobi just braces against one side of a bookshelf like a lifeline.

Jon's alright. He has someone, he has Daisy, and Jacobi has the shattered pieces of his life coming back together.

Things don't un-break. Jacobi knows that's not how it works. And yet hes seeing it happen.

"How?"

Warren keeps his voice low as he leans in.

"I had a feeling. That she... might be like us? Just... different. So. I made sure to switch the bundle with her body. Kept it from going out into space so she could heal. It took... time. For her body to reconstruct. And she's... not entirely the same?"

That earns him a cocky smile.

"Not that any of us are. But Alana and I have been... fully realized. Much like your friend over there."

He gestures towards himself.

"I had to wait for her to wake up and pluck me out of the vacuum of space. Which. I can't say I enjoyed?"

He chuckles a little. "It was easy enough to overtake the clean up crew. Commandeer the ship. And get back here. Then we were figuring out when to approach you when you did the dumbest thing I have ever seen in my entire life."

He glances around for a moment before focusing on Daniel again.

"What even brought you here, Daniel? You decided to just... trot into the middle of a war zone?"

That makes...so much sense and he hates how easy that Warren makes it sound. As if he didn't make it all the way back here and suffer for months and months. As if he should have known.

Maybe he should have. Maybe that was his problem all along.

"I got intel from some old idiot friends about something that - I wanted. And so I came here to get it."

There's a blink as Warren does a mental inventory and really, he should know. How do you think some of these artifacts move around?

"...Daniel. Tell me. you didn't. Tell me you didn't use that knife."

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