#Sunburst Mantle went down hard fighting a Cat 4 lava shark; daichi nearly died

[cityandking]

dai/zaref (& ozy) + pacific rim au. 1.7k

He finds Zaref in the command hub, already hooked into comms, eyes half glazed that way he gets when he’s processing the endless stream of incoming information. Scratch sits next to him, chair twisting this way and that as she types away at her tablet, muttering numbers under her breath. Zaref looks almost peaceful by comparison, slight twitch of his mouth the only thing to belie his worry. Daichi stills a moment to watch him, a pillar stood still and solid in the churning mess of the command center. He makes the same picture he always makes, and it gives Daichi pause the way it always does.

Then one of the Jaeger techs brushes past him, close enough to nearly knock shoulders, and he steps into the slipstream of the chaos.

"Hello.” He’s almost on top of him before Zaref looks up, startled by his nearness. The twins are there too, half watching and half playing some kind of finger-count game. He ignores them for the most part, used to their eyes and the air of judgment they exude. Whatever early-days familiarity they have with Zaref, it doesn’t bother him anymore.

Mostly. There are other things to worry about.

“Hello,” Zaref returns. He’s tired these days. They all are, of course, but Zaref particularly.

“You needed me?”

That gets a twitch of amusement, like Zaref appreciates the double meaning. Satisfaction flashes through him in turn; it’s rare he gets his words so right. Scratch spins around in her chair to check something on one of her half dozen monitors, chatting away to Dobin on the other end of her line, paying the exchange no mind.

“Yes,” says Zaref with the same layered understanding, and Daichi hides his smile in the nod of his head. “Scratch, you have the conn.”

“Yep, got it,” she confirms, never once looking up from her screens. She adjusts her headset as Zaref hooks his off, and Daichi ignores the eyes on them as they step out of the command hub altogether. He swallows back his questions. If Zaref’s holding a briefing outside the hub, it must be important.

Or, maybe it’s not the brief itself that’s sensitive. It doesn’t take him long to recognize the route they’re taking, and they’re halfway down the hall when Zaref slows and stops, shoulders braced.

They don’t need to worry about anyone bothering them, not here. Only a select few come to this part of the base.

“Is this— Are we here for you?” Daichi asks. It’s a tender subject, one he isn’t quite graceful enough to dance around. Zaref’s lips thin, almost imperceptible. A no, then.

“A new pilot arrived on the morning flight,” he replies.

Ah. Daichi understands. He lets the sting of not-knowing pass over him. He trusts Zaref to tell him when things are important—like now, paused three quarters of the way to the dojo, deep enough in the base that the chaos and the fear can’t touch them.

The sting of Zaref’s quiet refusal is a harder one to let go, but that regret is old and familiar, and it only aches a little. The hope sticks furious under his breastbone that one day Zaref will trust him beyond the mats of the dojo and the meager privacy of a bunk.

Not that he doesn’t. Not that Daichi doesn’t know he does. He just hopes, is all.

But Zaref doesn’t drift—hasn’t ever, according to his file. Rumor is that’s what washed him out of the ranger program, but Daichi’s always had a sense there’s more to the story.

“Who?” he asks.

“He says his name is Ozymandias.”

“Auspicious.”

“Something like that,” Zaref agrees dryly, mouth tilting up, all wryness and exhaustion and the fraying gallows humor they hang by. “Sunburst’s repairs will be finished soon.”

And Daichi will need a copilot, now that Izzy has relocated to the other side of the Pacific. As with most things regarding Izzy, he does his best to not let himself linger on that.

“Where was his last posting?”

“Sydney.”

Daichi frowns. There hasn’t been an active Jaeger program in Sydney in nearly a decade. Zaref, seeing his confusion, adds, “He came recommended by Kallux.”

His frown deepens. “Private sector?” He tries not to let the disapproval color his voice, but it’s difficult. The private sector causes more problems than just the black market trade of kaiju parts, and not everyone is as forthcoming as Scratch’s friends. “Has he piloted since then?”

“Yes. Scratch can send you the file.”

“And you want him?”

“I don’t think want has anything to do with it,” Zaref returns, mouth pursed. Daichi winces—he certainly hadn’t meant it like that—but Zaref is frowning again, almost hesitant. “He… claims he brings nothing to the drift.”

Daichi eyes Zaref. “Do you believe him?”

Daichi’s heard people say it before. It rarely holds up when the neural link connects. Silence, he’s found, is a rather subjective experience.

“I’d like you to check.” He makes a face, almost apologetic. “I know it hasn’t been long since Izzy left, but—”

“We need pilots.” They’ve had bad luck lately—bad before they lost Marshal Frida and worse after. There’s a reason Scratch is up half the night with Dobin, both of them plugged into their calculations, frowning about shrinking windows between breaches. There’s a reason they’re all so tired.

“Yes.”

“Alright.”

“If it doesn’t work—”

“It’s alright,” Daichi says again. “I wasn’t going to drift with her again either way.”

Zaref’s expression goes pensive as he touches the scar at Daichi’s temple. It doesn’t look nearly as bad now as it had three weeks ago—he’s been patched up by the best they have, same as Sunburst Mantle.

“Maybe one day.”

“Maybe,” he allows, but he doesn’t think Zaref believes it any more than he does. It had been a bad argument to drive her a hemisphere away, and that had been his fault. He still feels bad about it. He knows the others miss her too, particularly Zaref—and not only because it leaves him with one half of a benched Jaeger crew.

Maybe not benched, if Zaref has found him a new copilot. What luck that this Shatterdome just so happens to have an extra ranger on the loose.

“We shouldn’t keep him waiting,” he says, turning to press a kiss against Zaref’s wrist and tug his hand down from where his thumb is sweeping distractingly over the curve of his ear. “If this goes well, maybe you’ll be able to bench the twins.”

“I wish I could bench the twins,” Zaref sighs, giving his hand a squeeze and pulling back, shoulders straightening and expression smoothing, falling back into the role of Chief Officer. It’s a pity—Daichi likes him soft.

When they reach the door at the end of the hall, it’s cracked open. Daichi wonders briefly how far the sound carries. If it had been closed before they stopped to talk.

“Just,” says Zaref on the threshold, a hitch of hesitation. “Don’t force it.”

“Of course not,” Daichi says, wry and lying and obvious. Zaref huffs, unamused and unimpressed and unsurprised, and opens the door.

The dojo is as still as it always is, heavy with a dusty sort of silence despite its pristine condition. A pair of boots sits at the edge of the mat, neatly squared, and in the center of the room is a man. The new ranger. Ozymandias.

A little grandiose as far as names go, but those in the Jaeger program can hardly be accused of humble or sensible naming conventions. And the folly of forgotten kings is perhaps not the worst thing to reference, even if the lone and level sands are a long way from the ocean-bound Jaeger program.

He stands facing away from the door, hands folded behind his back, at ease. He’s a little taller than Daichi, maybe, and he wears his hair long and golden and threaded with grey. There’s a squareness to his stance that speaks to military training. He doesn’t move as the door swing shut behind them.

“Ozymandias?”

“Ozy,” he offers, finally turning around. He has the barest hint of an accent, Mediterranean maybe, flattened by time and travel, and a strange coloring in one eye. Daichi can’t tell if it’s blind or not. He tilts his head, nearly birdlike as he looks between the two of them, and Daichi understands why Zaref might believe it when he claims he brings nothing to the drift: there’s an unsettling blankness in his gaze.

“Daichi,” he bows. “Sunburst Mantle.”

“I know.” He doesn’t offer up an introduction of his own.

Across the room, Zaref catches his eye, a silent question. Daichi shakes his head and bends to unlace his boots. Zaref doesn’t need to stay. In all honesty, Daichi doesn’t think they need the spar. He can already see something familiar in the man, the kind of understanding that lends itself well to a neural link. He isn’t sure he likes it, but the liking doesn’t matter.

Over Ozy’s shoulder, Zaref gives him a lingering look—warning, almost, which is as sweet as it is pointless—and slips out the door. Ozy’s mouth twitches as the latch clicks.

“Method?” Daichi asks.

“Hand-to-hand is fine.” He sinks into an opening stance—Pále, it looks like. Interesting. “If it’s alright with you.”

Daichi settles into position in turn, rolling out his shoulders. “Are you sure you want to return to the Corps after so long?”

Ozy’s mouth twitches again—a smile, sanded down. “I don’t think want has anything to do with it,” he says. “My path led me here. Isn’t that enough.”

“Maybe,” Daichi allows.

He’s right about the spar being unnecessary—as they prove four hours later, when Dobin’s grim prediction proves true and a Cat IV spills out of the breach, sprinting over the Bonin Trench. Later, when they’re back on base, Zaref finds him in a slip of privacy, holds him tight by the shoulders and takes a long, trembling moment to say—

“Well?”

“He’s right,” Daichi says, forehead pressed against the thrum of Zaref’s pulse, the reminder that they’re alive, at least until the next attack. It had been a bad fight—they’re all bad fights, these days—but not nearly as unsettling as the bare desert of Ozymandias, sands unstirred by any breeze of thought or desire. “He brings nothing.”

“Is that alright?”

It is what it is. “We need pilots,” he says.

Want has nothing to do with it.

#I'm honestly kind of dissatisfied with this but it's been in my drafts for fully 2 years so fuck it!!!!!! #(I think it was an oc kiss week prompt from 2021 and they don't even kiss these fuckers) #like idk if I'd Actually consider this canon (au-non?) for Dai and Ozy's introduction #ozy wasn't even supposed to be here #other fun facts: Bran is the Marshal on duty at the LA Shatterdome (Eniko is her mission controller/chief officer) #Zaref is the Chief Officer at this Shatterdome (idk where they're located maybe Shanghai or Tokyo?) but their Marshal is dead #Ozy has obviously been doing *waves hand* Stuff with kallux and their Secret Organization #nobody can stand the twins #Sunburst Mantle went down hard fighting a Cat 4 lava shark; daichi nearly died #then he and izzy had a big blow-up fight about it and now they can't/won't drift together and she's gone to Vancouver to work as a j-tech #au #.pacrim au #mine; daichi