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[Anyone who's met Jacobi for more than fifteen seconds would be forgiven in thinking that this isn't Jacobi. This isn't the same man who packed explosives gleefully while being a sarcastic brat all at the same time. But Jacobi knows this. He knows what this is. So he's cheerful in a way that he had to once be literally programmed into.]

Hey guys! This isn't so bad, right? We're definitely going to be alright, aren't we? I mean! At least we have some food and water and a place to sleep! That's progress and something we can look forward to! We just need to work together and keep our chins up, right?

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[It's easy to play the part when he isn't actually with anyone else. But Jacobi is frayed at the edges, and he knows that this won't last. There's even a time when he wishes for the regulator again. The very thing that had taken his freedom from him. And those times are when he paces his room like a caged tiger.

And that room is as much his prison as he makes it. Jacobi doesn't leave his room except when forced to work or forced to sing or forced to be social. He will take visitors, but he won't be pleasant to be around. He knows he can't graduate that way, but it just feels so good to be angry. Especially at first.]

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A skinny kid ducks his head in, and wordlessly leaves a peanut butter and banana sandwich and an orange on Jacobi's side of the curtain.

"Hey! What if I had a nut allergy?" he calls out softly but doesn't actually mean it. He does snatch the sandwich away and rips it in half to eat it.

"What's an allergy?" Marsh asks, entirely serious.

Mouth full of peanut butter, he has to wait a moment before answering. "Mm, basically, when you eat something and it makes you itchy or your throat closes up."

"No, bad food makes you throw up," Marsh corrects, with all the world-weary wisdom of an older brother who has both had to stop Kelsier eating all manner of things, and who has himself eaten the more dubious share of the food they did have enough times to know.

"No, no. It's not bad food. It's good food. But for some people, it just makes them itchy. Not for everyone."

He shrugs. "What's your name?"

"Better itchy food than no food," Marsh mutters, unimpressed by this whole idea.

"I'm Marsh."

"Yeah, until it makes your throat close up and you die," he says easily. "Marsh. I'm Jacobi. Thanks for this, though."

"If you can die from regular food, I'm pretty sure you don't get to be a grown-up," Marsh reasons. Which, to be fair, is almost certainly true in his world and why he's never met anyone with allergies before.

"Hello, Jacobi. Is it that you don't like being around too many people, or that you don't like how the Nurse wants us to do things?"

"Fair enough."

He takes another piece from his sandwich. "I don't want to be here at all. My people aren't here. And I graduated like - weeks ago. Which, on our Barge, the demotion and graduation turnover isn't so steep. I worked hard for it."

"I get that," Marsh says quietly. "My brother isn't here. I'd never been apart from him before, and it was - really hard."

It's still hard. Some nights he wakes up in sheer panic at the absence of Kel's weight curled up against him, scared he might have gone out on his own and got caught - that's not Jacobi's problem, though. And he's doing this for Kelsier. The world is going to be better.

"What did graduating mean where you were?"

"It means - " he pauses. "It means that we're done. We can go home."

Jacobi sits back. "When was the last time you saw your brother?"

"Six months and twelve days."

He wonders if Jacobi assumes he's a patient.

"I panicked and went back after the first week, to see if time was really stopped there. And it was. He doesn't need me to be there to take care of him, he needs me to do my job. I just - miss him."

Jacobi's learned to assume nothing about this place. The lines between patient and assistant seem - strangely blurred. It makes the ship all the more disorienting. But he is curious about this kid.

"So you can leave if you want? What's your deal here? That's how it works, right?"

He nods.

"My deal is for the death of the Final Emperor and all of his Inquisitors and ministry cantons," he says calmly. Then, more loudly, glancing up as though the Nurse might reconsider after hearing it said so baldly, "BECAUSE THEY'RE MEAN."

There.

That gets a laugh out of Jacobi, who just rubs the back of his neck. "That's quite a bit deal."

He shrugs. "I would have gone home if my fiancé had come with me but - he had other responsibilities. Which means I did, too."

"It's what the world needs," he says simply. "And I don't think there's any other way to do it."

If the nurse wanted him to do something really bad, for that deal - he'd do it. But they don't. Of course not everything is as easy and perfect here as they like to pretend, but it's still so much better than anything else Marsh has known.

"It's good to be - a team. With - if you love someone." Marsh fumbles a little over the idea of a man having a husband, but he's been here long enough that he at least knows what gay people are now. And it seems better than the disaster his parents managed, even if it's gone wrong now.

"Nah, nah. We were a team. With - another person. That's the one his deal was for. But - uh, it's complicated." He has distinct "talking with a younger sibling" vibe here and it's hard to get into anything more substantial than what he already did.

"Anyway, are you one of those that goes back and forth? Between Patient and Assistant?"

He shakes his head.

"I'm careful. You don't actually have to be cheery all the time to not get demoted, you just have to keep your temper and not snap. Or hurt anyone, obviously."

And his deal is too important to risk, even if he has to go against his well-honed scolding instincts sometimes, to make sure he doesn't yell.

"But the three-month probation for graduates is...tricky."

"Yeah? What's tricky about it?" he wonders, holding out the other half of the sandwich to Marsh if he wants it.

Because it's the whole system he hates. His neck itches from where the regulator had been. A reminder of what had happened to him.

He shrugs.

"People get tired of sticking to it, I guess."

"If it's not authentic, yeah," he points out. "Hard to do it."

"Well we wouldn't want to ask anyone to do something difficult," he mutters, although his exasperation is not really directed at Jacobi.

He laughs. "Yeah, what's the fun in that? But hey, it's probably doable. Eventually."

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