Chapter Text
Jacobi was struggling to accept his new surroundings. He was struggling to accept a lot of things, and dealing with trauma and feelings and all that crap was decidedly hard to do while being surrounded by aliens. The Hephaestus crew had been told immersing themselves in the new society they found themselves in would be the best way to get used to it though, so Jacobi found himself sitting in a bar with a glass of whisky (it was just a drink, and it didn’t mean anything, and he refused to think about it), people-watching. Alien-watching. Whatever. He was just considering leaving when Dr. Dalias sat down at his table.
“So, 2017, huh? You’ll excuse me if I find that a little hard to believe?” Dr. Dalias looked at him with a combination of skepticism and apology.
“Hey, I don’t blame ya. I’m not entirely convinced this isn’t all some kind of weird hallucination myself. I mean, we did briefly communicate with some aliens, but this is ridiculous. There are aliens just living among you and it’s just normal to you? Are you human, Dr. Dalias?”
“You can call me Ryan. And yes, I am. So’s Jane and Dr. Urvidian. Levi’s not, though.”
“Really? He looks human.”
“Not with his pants off, he doesn’t,” Ryan muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing. So, aside from the weirdness, how are you liking EOS 10?”
“Gravity’s nice. It’s a lot more open and airy than the last station I was on. I kinda find myself forgetting I’m still in space, you know? Like if I just look past all the aliens and fancy future shit I can kinda convince myself we made it back.”
He hadn’t told the others, but Jacobi didn’t really mind the fact that they weren’t home. What was left for him back on earth anyway? Practically everyone he’d ever cared about had died on the Hephaestus. Maxwell, Kepler. It was a short list. Hell, even his ex, Kline, had been turned into a zombie meat-puppet and killed up there. Besides, EOS 10 had all the amenities that earth could offer and more.
“You know what sucks, though? My best friend would have absolutely loved this place. I swear, she wouldn’t have batted an eye at the aliens. She would have been talking your ear off trying to work out how all your technology works from the moment we stepped off the Urania. She’d probably prefer being here to going back to earth, honestly.”
He hadn’t meant to start talking about Alana, but it was impossible to be in a place like this without thinking about her. It didn’t make any goddamn sense that he should be the one experiencing life on a space station in the far future and not her. This also wasn’t his first glass of whisky, and if there was one thing Jacobi did when he was drunk, it was talk. Especially to attractive strangers who showed the slightest bit of interest.
“And she’s… not around anymore?” Ryan asked carefully.
“Nah… No, my uh, boss, who I’ve definitely never had anything but strictly professional feelings about, got her killed. And then he proved himself to be on the side of unspeakable evil, when we were only supposed to be on the side of kinda evil, you know? Except then I found him floating outside of an airlock with someone who was definitely on the side of unspeakable evil sitting at the control-panel with a gunshot wound in her gut. So, either they just got into the dumbest pissing contest ever, which, knowing Kepler and Young, I wouldn’t put past them, or he really was on our side after all. And I’m not sure which is worse, you know? Like, if he really was that evil then I can just hate him. I can just hate him and be done with it, right? I can shove down all the other feelings because the world is a better place without Warren Kepler in it. But if he wasn’t? If he actually did the right thing in the end? I don’t know… shit just gets a lot more complicated, you know?”
“Well, shit. That’s a lot. I’m sorry.” He did seem genuinely sorry, which felt weird. The Hephaestus crew tried to act understanding about the fact that Jacobi might have some complicated feelings about Kepler being dead, but to them he would always just be one of the bad guys. Ryan looked at him like he understood, somehow.
“Yeah, well, you know. What about you doc, what’s your tragic backstory?”
Jacobi wasn’t really expecting an answer. The doctor did have a somewhat melancholy air about him, but he hadn’t had anything to drink, so he probably wasn’t feeling quite as chatty as Jacobi.
Ryan looked a little contemplative for a moment before he sighed.
“Well. I met a terrorist who killed billions of people, only it turns out he didn’t actually kill billions of people, so I testified in court defending his innocence and tried to uncover a government conspiracy, which got my father killed. Then said alleged terrorist got me a cat to cheer me up and later I realized I was in love with him, which I never got to tell him because my dad erased him from existence. Oh, yeah, turns out my dad actually didn’t die, he just faked his death so he could mess with the timeline to get back together with my mother, who cheated on him with Dr. Urvidian. You’ve met Dr. Urvidian, right? Anyway, now the timeline’s all fucked up and somehow the cat he got me and his stupidly named pirate ship are still here, but he’s just gone and no one else remembers him.”
Jacobi definitely didn’t expect that. He considered refusing to believe it, which would be the rational thing to do, but considering where he was and how he got there, he had fully run out of disbelief at this point.
“Alright, doctor, I guess you win. Different timelines? Your terrorist slash space-pirate boyfriend got erased from existence but us showing up from the past is too much for you to believe?”
“I guess when you put it like that, it’s not really that much of a stretch. Hey, maybe the admiral’s timeline fuckery is what brought you here?”
“It would be as good an explanation as anything, I guess. The admiral, huh? I guess military dads are assholes in all times.”
“Yeah, you got one of those too?”
“Yeah, he never erased any of my boyfriends from reality, though. Not that he wouldn’t have jumped at the chance.”
“God, I can’t even imagine actually living with 21st century homophobia. Hell, I live in what you’d probably consider a futuristic utopia, and I was in the closet like five minutes ago.”
“Eh, I coped.”
“How?”
“By blowing shit up, mostly.”
“Sounds healthy.”
“Hey, I’m a ballistics expert. It’s my job. No less healthy than you going around… doctoring.”
“Sure, I don’t usually go off and slice people open whenever I’ve had a bad day, though. I just bottle it up like any other totally well-adjusted person.”
“Hey, blowing up is way more fun than bottling up, just saying.”
Jane chose that moment to walk up to their table.
“Who’s blowing who now?”
Ryan groaned. “Blowing up, Jane.”
“Huh? Oh were you telling Jacobi about the time your penis almost exploded?”
“My penis did not- why are you here, Jane?”
“I just thought I should let Jacobi know his friends have been arrested.”
“What?” Jacobi said in a flat tone, lacking any amount of actual surprise.
“Yeah, they all tried to break into the hangar bay where your ship is being held, which is pretty heavily guarded. It was totally badass, but ultimately unsuccessful.”
“Can’t take these kids anywhere,” Jacobi grumbled. “Well, thanks for the chat, Doctor Ryan, but it seems I’ve gotta go mount a rescue op.”
“Hey, if I help you with that do you think I could get your help with some very… small-scale, no-big-deal-type explosives?”
“I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but I’ve been itching to get my hands on some explosives since we got here, so I’d probably still help you even if you decided to get those idiots hanged for treason.”
“I will remember that if I ever need your help with anything else, Mr. Jacobi.”
“Daniel.”