#the shatterdome has never been the same | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

milflewis · 4 months

Note

idk if i am understanding the prompt of title correctly but i will submit: 1) valewis + "travel song" or 2) dantteri + "people are fragile things"

Lewis hums something quiet and slow on their walk back to the Shatterdome. It reverberates through the Drift and settles around Valtteri’s shoulders.

He catches the edges of a memory spent handing Sebastian the wrong tools on purpose as the blond man swears at him, laughing, German music playing low on the radio behind them.

It took Valtteri a very long while to get used to how easy it is to drift with Lewis.

He always felt like a Titan — even before Nico died and he dragged their Jaeger back to shore alone. Something mythic and unstoppable. There was a certainty to Lewis Hamilton that sometimes felt like the stuff stories are made of.

Valtteri has never done particularly well at the thought of not measuring up. Worse when their pre-Drift potentially was so high.

Lewis feels tired. He always feel tired. His mind is calm and cool like a lake, and Valtteri lets himself sink into it.

"What's it like being in Lewis’s head?"

He signs off on his action report. "Boring, like you said."

"We both know that's a lie. I only said it to get a rise out of him." Daniel drums his heels against the desk, a rattling repeating pattern meant to burrow under the skin. "You forget I've known him before Nico died and he became all Solemn and Serious and Grieving Widow."

Valtteri considers that as he finishes the rest of the paperwork. His eyes ache faintly. "What was he like?"

Daniel takes the pile and sets it aside. "Don't you know?"

"I don't," he says, although he catches glimpses of it on occasion, in the way Lewis moves or how his mouth shapes certain words, the lingering traces of youth, of anger, of secretly believing you would never die. Sometimes, in the middle of a fight, when they are being pushed back, when debris is falling and there is barely any time to think, Lewis’s mouth curls and snarls, sharp and vicious and feral, and Valtteri can feel it in his gut, and he thinks that's you; that's what you've always been.

"And here I thought we'd moved past you lying to me." Daniel drums another beat against the desk, staccato and just off tempo enough to set Valtteri's teeth on edge. "He was a little shit. Still had the same smart mouth — him and Sebastian used to get up to so much trouble. Almost as much as what I’ve heard him and Nico did. He laughed more. All dream — that Lewis was.”

"And then Spain happened," Valtteri says.

"Life happened," Daniel corrects, and Valtteri doesn’t bother hiding his eye roll. "We all have our Spains."

Daniel takes the opportunity to sling his leg over Valtteri's lap, and Valtteri absently rubs his thumb over the knob of Daniel's ankle.

"Fuck off," Valtteri says, but he doesn’t mean it. Hasn’t meant it with Daniel for a while now. Valtteri presses his knuckles into the ball of Daniel's foot, keeping a firm hold on his ankle so he can't jerk away. "Is this going to be a problem for you?"

"Depends on whether you’re going to show this to Lewis or not.”

"He sees everything." He digs his knuckles in harder. "But he doesn’t poke around. I think he was embarrassed to see us kissing the last time we drifted."

"That's Lewis all over," Daniel says fondly. "Will flirt with anyone and anything if he thinks it will give him an advantage but is terrible with genuine feelings."

"Speak from experience?" he says. He doesn’t know what to do with this thing in his chest. He swallows.

"We were too young to be serious." Daniel’s gaze is steady and unflinching, as if Valtteri is a reporter or donor for Daniel to spin around and around and around, every hinge and crack and vulnerability mapped and laid bare for Daniel to do with as he pleased.

He shoves Daniel’s foot off his lap and stands so fast the edges of his vision darken. He needs sleep. He needs his fucking head back.

"Does this bother you?" Valtteri asks, hating himself for it. "Lewis being in my head?"

Daniel doesn't even have the decency to be surprised by the question. Valtteri hates him. "No, not in the way you mean."

"And how do I mean it?"

"You want to know if I'm upset that I will never know you like Lewis knows you."

He flinches. "Are you?"

"No. What you and Lewis have is not something I would ever want or ask for."

"I didn't ask for it. There is a war and they said jump,” he snaps, the fury so close to the surface that he is afraid his ribs will snap and it will come boiling out, and god help anyone caught in its path. "I don't want it."

He will not be able to hide this from Lewis when they drift next. He hasn’t been able to hide it from him in the first place.

Guilt coats the inside of his mouth, thick and sour. He swallows and swallows and swallows.

He tries to breathe.

"Hey," Daniel says, so close that Valtteri jerks back in surprise. "You all right?"

"Fine," he says, coming to the belated, and embarrassed, realization that Daniel has likely been speaking the entire time. "Got distracted. Sorry."

"Did you just apologise? Has Lewis lobotomised you?"

"That's not funny," he snaps, too quick and too sharp to play it off as a joke. He draws another breath, the sound of it rattling in his empty head.

"He hasn't done anything to me. He leaves shit alone, like I said."

"Have you lobotomised him?" Daniel says instead of what Valtteri is expecting, which is asking if Valtteri wants Lewis to do something to him.

"Not yet," he says, which only seems to worry Daniel more.

Slowly, as if Valtteri is a rookie on his first deployment and Daniel doesn’t want to spook him, Daniel drags fingertips up his jaw and over his cheek. His thumb traces the scar over his lip.

Holding himself still and quiet, Valtteri didn't protest when Daniel cups his face or when he touches their heads together, or when he says, soft and revenant, "You're a fucking disaster."

He laughs and kisses Daniel.

"You don't want in my head?" he asks.

"Yes," says Daniel. "You're a private man, Valtteri, and a hard one to read. I never know what you're thinking at any given moment."

"I will not say sorry - if that is what you are looking for."

"I'm not looking for anything," Daniel says, and Valtteri doesn't need a line to his head to read the sincerity there. "I won't take your privacy from you. When you do decide to share something with me, even if it's just your opinion on my life choices, it's because you chose to trust me, and I wouldn't give that up, not for anything."

"If it would end this war?"

He means it as a joke, but Daniel, who acts as if he takes nothing seriously, does not take it as one.

"No," he says, as if he had put great thought into it, "not even if it meant that."

"Shut up."

"Yes, sir," Daniel grins, pressing a kiss to Valtteri's neck before undoing his own pants zipper and, with a frankly ridiculous shimmy and hop, kicks them off. He isn't wearing underwear.

"Stop trying to distract me."

"I know you're lying because you once told me, and I quote, you liked me better when I'm naked."

"I would have to be a dick to say that."

Lewis stays smiling as the reporter asks his question, smug as ten fucking cats.

Valtteri’s stare sits heavy on his face. The reporter swallows thickly, eyes darting away.

“Well?” He asks again. “Do you think the fact that you yourself have said that you can be too stubborn led to the rift in your and Nico’s partnership, and therefore his death?”

Lewis’s eyes are distant.

At least, they didn’t ask about Michael again, Valtteri thinks. Or Fernando.

“Can I take this one?” Valtteri asks. The reporter frowns at him but Valtteri is looking at Lewis.

Lewis blinks at him. His eyelashes are ridiculously long. They’ve just come from drifting — having taken out a three alarm Kaiju, worn and tired and spilling over into each other’s heads.

Valtteri loathes sharing his mind with another person more than nearly everything else in the world, for all that he tries to keep that boxed away from Lewis. It is times like this that he almost doesn’t mind it.

Lewis raises an eyebrow at him, quietly amused.

Never let them see, Valtteri remembers his dad telling him, hands bruise tight on his shoulders — except — no. Not his dad. They are Anthony’s hands, and that’s the grey yellow tint that Lewis has on all his childhood memories.

Valtteri turns to the reporter. His dark hair is long around his ears and he is looking at Valtteri with thinly veiled contempt.

“Go fuck yourself,” Valtteri tells him calmly, and Lewis laughs, startled.

Valtteri feels his surprise skittering down his spine, followed quickly with smothered childlike delight.

Lewis’s face is soft for hours after. His mind even more so. He smiles to himself throughout the twenty-five minute dressing down General Wolff gives Valtteri.

"What's your favourite kind of ice cream?" Lewis asks as they make their way to the gym. It is stupid early and the corridors are empty and dark.

Lewis does this sometimes. Asking Valtteri questions about himself that he could just pick out of Valtteri's head as he wishes. It is more endearing than Valtteri likes.

He stomaches it only because he thinks Lewis is doing it more for his sake than for Valtteri's. Lewis, Valtteri had been pleased to find out, is only selfless up until a point. A relatively small one, all things considered.

"Mint," Valtteri answers.

Lewis pulls a face at him as he pushes the gym door open. There are deep circles under his eyes, like someone dug in their thumbs and pressed. "That's so gross, man. Why don't you just eat toothpaste?"

Valtteri laughs before realising it. It's loud in the quietly still room. The sound echoes off the bare metal walls.

"My second favourite is pistachio," he says, and Lewis sticks his tongue out in disgust, obvious even in the dark as he throws him a bamboo stick.

Valtteri clears his throat. "Did you tamper with the sim, Tsunoda?"

"Of course not, sir," Tsunoda says, offended. "That would be -"

"Against regulations?" Gasly says.

"- cheating. I don't cheat."

When Tsunoda tries to turn that offended look on Gasly, Gasly just tugs Tsunoda back where he wants him, which is close enough for Gasly to prop his chin on the top of Tsunoda’s head. Tsunoda, like with most things where Gasly is concerned, bears it with minimal complaint.

An ache opens under Valtteri’s breastbone. It has been a little over two weeks since he has last seen Lewis. Longer since they’ve drifted. They had been taken out of the rotation after Valtteri got injured, and sent across the world on Charm-The-Rich-Into-Giving-Their-Money-Even-Though-Don’t-They-Know-The-World-Is-Fucked-And-They’re-Living-In-It-Too missions and rented out to different Shatterdomes for pep talks and training seminars.

It has been the longest they’ve been apart since they were first paired up. Maybe Valtteri shouldn’t be surprised to be missing him but he is.

He hasn’t had someone to miss in a long time.

He’s even more surprised to find himself missing Daniel.

+1.

In the end, it’s just Lewis and Valtteri and the big wide yawn of the bottom of the sea.

“You are living,” Lewis tells him, mouth grim, and Valtteri tells him to fuck off and to stop telling him what to do.

Lewis laughs, which is as partly what Valtteri was going for, and doesn’t say it again, which is the other thing Valtteri was aiming for.

Valtteri wakes up coughing with Lewis beating on his chest. “Ow,” he says. He thinks Lewis might’ve broken a rib.

“I told you you’d live, man,” Lewis tells him, hands wet and cold on his cheeks, because he’s an asshole.

“I hate you,” Valtteri says, throat sore with sea water. He stares up at the cloudless sky. He can faintly hear the thrum of a MEDEVAC-HELO in the distance.

“Uhuh,” Lewis says, and he’s grinning. Even drenched and bleeding and backlit by the sun, he is beautiful. It’s fucked up, Valtteri decides.

“My ribs are sore,” Valtteri tells him.

“I told you to get out before I blew the bomb,” Lewis replies, unsympathetic. His fingers are gentle in Valtteri’s hair, and he drags his body behind Valtteri’s so they’re further in the ejection pod, propped up against his back, weight off his ribs.

Sebastian looks decades older when they step onto the tarmac of the Shatterdome, half stumbling out of the helicopter. Lewis walks towards him. His eyes are wet. It hits Valtteri in the stomach like a gunshot. "Hey."

Sebastian takes a step forward too. His next word is spoken so softly that Valtteri can only read his lips.

"Yeah?"

Lewis just shakes his head slightly and makes a sound that might be a laugh. “I really did want to make that promise to you.”

His shoulders shrug like he wants to hold out his arms.

And then Sebastian is running towards him, colliding into his chest and throwing his arms around his neck and burying his face against his shoulder. Lewis wraps one arm around his back and presses the other hand to the back of his head.

Lewis is crying into his hair and Sebastian’s crying, too, weeping against him with such force that Valtteri would think his heart was breaking if he didn't know the opposite to be true.

He feels a hand slide into his and he squeezes it tightly. Daniel squeezes back and looks at him with a watery smile. His face is a little blurry and it's only then that Valtteri realises he has tears in his eyes too.

“Lewis broke my ribs,” Valtteri tells him, and then kisses Daniel’s laugh off his mouth.

#these were perfect thank u! kinda combined the two for u . sorta #pacific rim au #valewis #dantteri #sewis #lo tag #little fics #niamh.asks

65 notes · View notes

carlos55inz · 3 months

Note

i know i probably sound deranged but . hear me out . charlos pacific rim au . so … jaegar engineer carlos, who was dragged into becoming a pilot even though he could just strategise & build as the brightest to come out of there in years ( even though there’s nico & daniil & mitch & he can only drive himself mad watching them fall from the sky, crash into the water in graves that he designed, scribbles on notes & plans scattered across the table & grief scrawled into the margins of yet another design ).

but the higher–ups are looking for anyone & everyone — & he winds up being drift compatible with lando ( except it’s not the first person he’s compatible with, having paired with redbull’s starboy max years ago & broken their link himself at the last possible minute to avoid being forced into the field, knows how fragile these things are ), made to don an orange uniform & convince everyone that it’s fine, that their meagre efforts are going to stave off the end of the world sooner rather than later. & that’s easy-going & nice, but it’s a stop-gap all the same ( he knows they want someone better, the mclaren unit has a bone to pick & determination to prove they are still the best at this, that they want someone proven to kill & take down kaiju & get the job done in a way he’s only slowly, unbalancedly & fumbling through, figuring out how to ). & though they have great success, he’s also terrified about why it feels so deliberate, why everything feels like such a process, why they say you can’t hide anything in the drift & yet lando has not seen half the things that haunt him in his sleep.

on the other side of the world, there’s ferrari’s star pilot, charles, fresh off a partnership that had initially gone so well but ended so badly that even though they were trying their absolute best, sent their jaeger out of control & into the sea & seb with a patchwork of scars to some strategy related posting in sydney ( pardon the implied sebmark, i had to ) & him to fend off the cameras & questions about what’s wrong with the unit again. & there’s so much speculation, so many people wondering who will work wth charles — he can barely breathe ( not that he ever really could, because to don the colours he does also means some commitment to the bit, to burning til the very end ), runs the tests mechanically, as they put one person after another in front of him & everything comes up empty & he’s pleading every day to just let him solo pilot even though it’ll probably get him killed ( he just wants to go out, to prove himself & keep their shatterdome from falling apart, no matter how impossible it seems ) — but they’re so desperate that they’re testing other pilots, even the ones who are already drifting with someone else, because they can pull those pairings apart in a moment if they needed it somewhere else. thing is, he doesn’t really remember much about the first time they sparred — dark eyes and bracing against an immovable object and some dim recognition that oh is this lando’s co-pilot, moving back and forth like some sort of ebb and flow just like the surface of the ocean he’d slammed into all those months ago — or about the first time they’d attempted to drift in the simulation — blurs of colours and images and something weightless and effortless, opening his eyes and wondering why his mouth tastes like salt, like sea, like tears & the faintest hint of guilt and it feels like all the air’s been sucked clean from his lungs. ( congratulations, you’re compatible. congratulations, hope you hang in there longer & come out of it in fewer pieces than all the ones before you did. )

there is only so much space in this shatterdome. there is only so much space in your mind. & even though it goes so well, carlos a perfect co-pilot & the two of them are completing mission after mission successfully — it feels like they’ve never been able to fully close the space between the pons systems separating themselves when they drift, because after that first time, it was like everything vanished & drifting was only ever something smooth & easy. ( as though charles is very much rooted here, in this moment, and somehow carlos is reading the signal flares from a thousand miles away, and it drives him mad in the process, how someone so outwardly warm & emotional could feel so cold & always armed with a perfect distance in his mind. ) but the first advice they give to any pilot is to never chase the rabbit, to seek the memories & people in others’ minds ( to look into file after file and find them curiously blank and empty, trying to contact people long dead & gone ) — it’s advice that, in the end, charles doesn’t heed. ( i am rambling so much bc rip the meds & idk if this makes any sense but !! idk just want angsty charlos, fluorescent lights & the warmth of another person at the end of the world & just . learning to Understand™️ & be okay with being Perceived™️, that you could fall into the water together & feel like you're never coming up for air & still live, somehow )

first of all, i can’t tell you how excited i was when i got this. thank you so much for sharing your ideas.

“& grief scrawled into the margins of yet another design” FUCKED ME UP. engineer carlos getting used to the feeling that to create a machine is to get ready to grief. i would like to imagine a daniil that can’t pilot anymore because of a major injury and carlos writing to him every chance he has just because he feels like he owns that. he was the one that built the jaegar that daniil was in. maybe if he has changed this, or done that, or was just a little better here—

i love how you paired lando and carlos. imagining a very young and eager lando who grew up admiring pilots and dreaming of his own jaegar and taking down his first kaiju, and on the other side carlos, who didn’t want to be there, who was not supposed to be there, but it’s hard to find good pilots and the investments are getting scarce. so, as you said, they need to get help anywhere they can. “ yet lando has not seen half the things that haunt him in his sleep” YES. lando being to excited and so young that carlos is there mostly to help and guide him rather than create a real connection. lando doesn’t stop to Look at carlos’ mind.

“charles, fresh off a partnership that had initially gone so well but ended so badly” ooooh how i would pay bucks to see this written. i would die to see this. this would be amazing. your whole idea. your whole concept. everything is top notch. also, do not apologize for the implied sebmark. i love the implied sebmark. give me more. “not that he ever really could, because to don the colours he does also means some commitment to the bit, to burning til the very end” here, as soon as i read it, i had to stop and walk around the room. charles is a sacrificial lamb to ferrari in every universe. wearing rosso corsa as if it is blood on his hands. charles not feeling anything. mechanical. work. proving himself. red, red, red. then, sea. then salt. then other colors. then brown eyes. then something else. then another’s feelings in his chest. everything is so fast and then it just stops. just for a moment. then is fast again. i love how you described it, their first ride together, the way it’s nothing magical at the same time it is. it’s very mundane and routine like until it’s not.

i feel like charles has the knife here, he has the power to seek the rabbit, he has the upper hand, he has the power to use the knife to hurt carlos or to hand the knife for carlos to fend himself out of his little cave. but he can’t do anything with his knife. because carlos needs to let him in. and carlos can’t do that. carlos has lost too much, has too many names he carries as a reminder of his failure and he has read charles leclerc file, he knows about his dad, about the pilot that was his mentor, about sebastian, he can’t be another tale mark in the count of grief this boy has to carry.

and charles is having none of that. i don’t think it would be because he cares for carlos, at the begging, but mostly because he thinks that to be a better pilot to be the best one out there the biggest better jaegar and to take down kaijus, they need to know everything about each other: this was a problem with sebastian, he was too far away from charles, always keeping him on the brim. he won’t let it repeat again. he keeps pushing and pushing and pushing just to get to know Something. he needs to know. all while, forgetting that if carlos lets him in, charles will also be open. i don’t think charles would be realizing that until is too late. until he learns that to see someone bare open, with their chest exposed, is to also be vulnerable. the knife cuts both ways. you and i are one tear, one flesh and blood, one painful memory of the world, shared, like a grave. your heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours. intimacy in visceral violence but intimacy is sewing each other up after. to be perceived hurts, at first. you are forced to look at something you would rather hide. but then you are seen. it create a bond that transcends all other types of love, thus acting as the sole point of understanding for the other person in a world that cannot fathom what they’ve been through. you are in a room full of people and you feel like falling down. there’s a arm around you, supporting you, keeping you away from all the eyes, as you do so.

“that you could fall into the water together & feel like you're never coming up for air & still live, somehow” yeah. i need to sit down. this is— just. amazing. thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart, for sharing this.

#charlos au anon #ceu asks #PART 1 BECAUSE THERES MORE FUCK YEAH LETS GO PEOPLE LETS GO CHARLOS AU ANON #charlos pacific rim au #charlos #carlos sainz #charles leclerc

44 notes · View notes

solfish23 · 1 year

Text

Pacific rim headcanons:

-They are all trans. All of them.

-Newt and Hermanns prescriptions for their glasses got worse after drifting (Newts is far worse one lenses is obviously thicker than the other from a top view)

-Mako and Newt used to have lunch together to talk about work(and newt obviously never shuts up about Hermann)

-Mako has been around Newt since she was a young teen(shhh I don’t care about the timeline/j) and they’ve formed a proclaimed sibling like relationship. Always annoying each other.

-Hermann Never had a real relationship with his siblings so he is often baffled by the shit Mako puts up with from Newt.

Onto some more Newmann centric ones.

-The first time Hermann truly snaps back at his father for being a narcissistic slug is over an insult directed towards Newton and his work. (Particularly it being childish and not being worth the money that’s been sunk into it)

-he definitely grumbles back into the lab cursing his father under his breath but quickly crumples into his chair panicked over actually snapping at his father.

-Newt over the years has learned when and how to help Herms, particularly that he will wait until he’s in excruciating pain to take his meds, but instead of calling him out on it (it never ends with him taking them) Newt will make him tea and bring them to him with a snack of some kind to sort of bribe him into taking them before it gets bad.

-Hermann in the same light has learned when to pull Newt away from situations to keep him from spiraling and settling into a quiet panic, Newt has a hard time pulling away from the overwhelming need to be right/ know everything and it’s sent him into enough self destructive spirals for Hermann to notice.

-they need more therapy. that’s just a fact…

-Hermann has a tortoiseshell cat that stares into your soul like she can explode you with her mind for being near her dad(Herms).

-Newt wants her to love him but she thinks he’s too loud.

-Hermann secretly enjoys that she only likes him.

-Newts actual room in the Shatterdome is rarely used he can often be found asleep on the scrappy lab couch with a pillow Hermann snuck in the lab for him.

-Newt still has his scrappy self chopped shirts from BVR and will wear them from time to time in summer.

#newton geiszler #hermann gottlieb #newmann #pacific rim #mako mori #headcanon #list #trans posting

154 notes · View notes

moosemonstrous · 6 months

Text

Not me idly wondering what are the jaegers made of, checking out the wiki and once again going mad with crumbs:

a) I reject Mark 1s being made out of iron bc that's just. Not a thing. This sentiment started the mess below.

b) Gottlieb's dad started The Jaeger Program! Tony Stark had a dad! It's all according to plan.

c) The PR lore is insane and I love it.

"I reject that thesis and raise you this," Stark spins his chair around to point his pen at Amadeus's face. "My suits are just that good."

Amadeus raises an eyebrow. "All the seals melted," he says. "We had to cut Robbie out of it. He should've cooked, even if the flame retardant held up. You know there's more to it, and if you backed me up--"

"Oh, there sure is more to it. More body horror I want nowhere near my lab." Stark shudders. "Let's just be glad he made it and leave it at that, huh?"

It takes every ounce of Amadeus's professionalism not to say 'nuh-huh'. He's already laid out his theory. As tempting as it is to go around in circles until he wears Stark down, they have other work to do. It's just--it's so bloody frustrating! He joined the jaeger program specifically to study demon biology and its influence to exposed humans, and he's been stuck mid-maxing the rangers' reaction times like some run of the mill engineer.

He's seen what happens to people who trade in demon remains without protective equipment. The initial increase in strength and agility gives way to organ failure as soon as the corruption reaches the bloodstream. The longest documented survival rate was less than seventy-two hours from exposure and judging by the case footage still replaying occasionally in Amadeus's nightmares, the poor woman wasn't holding scholarly conversations in the last twenty-four.

Now, the exposure must be physical - drifting with the lesser categories haven't shown to cause the same rapid tissue degradation. The beastie riders down in the Bone Slums reported occasional headaches and weird dreams, but it's impossible to verify without independent study, and, well. Then there's Robbie.

Robbie has never drifted, period, before the accident with The Charger. His sudden physical improvements could be easily explained away by access to regular meals and a brutal training regime, and he passed medical before even approaching a jaeger. There is nothing about him - nothing that Amadeus has found so far, at least - that differs from any of the other rangers, other than, oh, being able to drift solo with the most haunted piece of technology ever allowed into military use. And now, apparently, withstanding an over twelve hundred degrees Celcius firestorm.

The media nicknamed the demon Inferno - there wasn't time for anything more creative. The whole Cam Ranh Bay turned to glass, eleven thousand dead, two whole jaegers reduced to slag. The only reason there is any Vietnam left to mourn the losses is still cooling in the sea outside the Shatterdome. The Charger isn't made of anything special, it's the same steel alloys as all the other Mark-2s. When Inferno threw up it's fiery guts all over it, Amadeus started mentally composing a way to break the news to Gabe - like hell he was going to let Ivanov field that one - and he's still not entirely convinced he hasn't hit his head and imagined the way the black jaeger's chains flew out of the fire to wrap around the demon's neck.

It's still black, although no longer from paint. The techs are already busy scrubbing it down and replacing the fried electronics, because at least something got damaged to prove Robbie didn't just teleport his mech in and out of the battle. At this point, there is no discounting any possible scenario. Maybe if he ran a Pons simulation with the Icebox protocol...

Stark sighs. "Kid, let me give you some sage advice," he says. His tone is suddenly very serious - enough to get Amadeus's attention. "Do you know what the military does with weird shit they can't explain?"

"What are you--?"

"One of two things," Stark slaps a finger to his open palm. "Either they pretend everything is hunky-dory as long as the weird shit does what they want, or," he adds a second finger, "someone complains about the weird shit enough that they lock it up, out of sight. So they can speed-run their tests. Are you picking up? What I'm putting down, here?"

Amadeus swallows past the lump in his throat. "You own the Jaeger Program."

Stark rolls his eyes. "You're confusing me with my father again. Keep up." His expression softens somewhat. "Look, I don't like it either."

"Save it," Amadeus pulls on his coat. "I'm going out."

"Cho, don't be--"

"See you at the debrief."

#amadeus cho #tony stark #ghost rider pacific rim AU #amadeus is off to make great decisions

16 notes · View notes

redfurrycat · 1 year

Text

🐨Chaleigh Fic Recs🐕

🐨🐕Chaleigh Goodies to Read🐕🐨

List of Chaleigh Ao3 Authors:

Chuck was injured instead of Herc by achilleees {M}

riding the wave

They say you never really know a guy till you break his face with your fist. Okay, they don’t really say that, but fuck it all, they should.

build a house on a mountain

In the years following the end of the kaiju war, there is political turmoil and international strife. The world is rebuilt from the ground up, social and economic upheaval disrupting every corner of the globe.

This isn’t that story.

This is the story of Chuck Hansen learning to drive a stick-shift, shotgun a joint, cook Thai food, fix a tractor, and cohabitate with the person he’s too stubborn to admit he’s pretty much in love with. Fortunately, Raleigh is a patient teacher.

Heartbeat by westofnowhere {T}

Chuck shouldn't be alive, but he is. Alive thanks to a dead man. Now Chuck has a lot of shit to sort out. Especially himself. And a certain pretty boy has-been.

This is the way, this is the way we move by JustSomeMusings

Dogs days are over {T}

For this prompt on the pacificrimkinkmeme: I simply adore Max! I get a feel that Max knows how his human feels toward Raleigh but his human is a tad shy so why not Max helps him out? So basically a 5+2 in which Max is the best dog ever.

It's your finger and how I'm wrapped around it {G}

A 2+1 sequel to Dog Days Are Over about Raleigh trying to propose to Chuck. It doesn't go that well.

I'd Call That Drift Compatibility by beachpartybb {E}

"When Raleigh gets to the base, Herc is already wounded and can't be the Jaeger pilot anymore. And somehow Raleigh happens to be drift-compatible not with Mako, but with Chuck, so now they are new co-pilots. Chuck is not happy, but only until their first drift..."

Wait for the Sequel by beachpartybb {E}

"Raleigh is a tough book critic who just gave Chuck's latest book five stars. While browsing at a bookshop, Raleigh gets into a verbal altercation with Chuck, not knowing that he's the same person who wrote his new favourite book."

Crocodile Dundee Got Nothing On Hercules Hansen by kaara {T}

Raleigh learnt that Australia (and Australians) is basically a deathtrap.

Dog Parenting by snack_size

Whelping {T}

Chuck lives, and Max gets a girlfriend when a lady bulldog arrives at the Shatterdome. Herc gets some granddogs, and Chuck doesn't realize he's been dating Raleigh for awhile.

Training {M}

The further adventures of Max's four puppies and the humans that they hang out with.

Our lives are not a linear path by Puppet_in_the_Corner {T}

At 25 years old, Yancy Becket dies reaching out, leaving behind a younger brother with his soul torn in half, and an unborn child who will never know his father. At 22 years old, Raleigh Becket finds himself newly discharged with a busted arm, a neat little description of PTSD and various other disorders he's probably been diagnosed with on his file, and a two month old baby. He's also well and truly at the end of his rope, his life dented by the impressions of those no longer there. Or How Raleigh Becket desperately tries to keep his head above water in a roiling sea of sorrow and depression threatening to drown him, and the only thing keeping him afloat is the little boy with Yancy's face who calls him "daddy".

Comfort by resonae {T}

The five times Chuck wore Raleigh's clothes, and the one time Raleigh caught him.

Sunburst by snack_size {E}

Yancy lives through the Knifehead attack, and the Becket Brothers recover to fight on in Gipsy Danger - though not without consequences. When the Jaeger program is decommissioned, they're packed off to Hong Kong with everyone else. Mako restores a different Jaeger, and Operation Pitfall is much more of a success. Cancelling the apocalypse doesn't mean that things are over, though.

Start As You Mean To Go On by Brenda {E}

This was completely absurd, but somehow, this was his life now. Giving dancing lessons to the savior of the fucking world at a party being thrown in their honor, with what felt like half of Hong Kong in attendance.

The Matchmaker by krwaken {M}

Herc isn't an idiot. He can see the way Raleigh and Chuck yearn for a fight just so they have an excuse to talk to each other. He becomes a sort of matchmaker to bring the two idiots together.

Sic Him, Boy! by nhixxie {E}

Raleigh’s pretty sure Chuck is trying to sic his bulldog onto him, and really--Raleigh thinks as the dog curls at his feet and cuddles against his boots--Chuck should have realized the plan is flawed at the very foundation.

I Don't Mind Your Odd Behaviour by Vacilando {G}

So basically; Max the bulldog was pulling a tiny red wagon filled with flower crowns upon flower crowns around the Shatterdome with a note tied to his collar that simply said “Take One”. And Raleigh was -for the lack of better term- stalking the bulldog. or The One Where Raleigh Becket Spent His Thursday Creeping On A Bulldog With A Wagon (and there are feelings and flowers and people will puke rainbows)

Interpretation is Key by Aupaiste {G}

"...a Chuck lives AU where Chuck wants a relationship with Raleigh, who is pretty much oblivious. Herc notices, and because he knows Chuck is clueless at wooing anyone, decides to give him some advice. Except Chuck, being Chuck, manages to mess it all up."

You are safe by resonae {G}

There is nothing else Herc loves more than his son. Herc knows this for a fact. Raleigh/Chuck is more of a background relationship, kind of more focuses on Herc and Chuck's father-son dynamic

Pretend Boyfriends by fadedink {T}

Everyone thinks that Raleigh and Chuck are together. They're not. But that doesn't stop them from having fun with the idea.

Give me a chance to catch my breath [so I can lay my ghosts to rest] by Puppet_in_the_Corner {T}

Chuck doesn't know where he stands with Raleigh Becket. They're certainly on better terms than before, but they're not friends. But they can talk now without getting into a fist fight, so that's an improvement, he thinks. And if his heart jumps (it does not flutter, he’s not 15 years old again) every time Raleigh smiles at him, or how once in a while during lunch or dinner Raleigh’s hand will find his own and Chuck responds with a firm grip, well, he doesn’t have much to say there. Well, he would, if these fucking ghosts would leave him the hell alone. Or That time Chuck Hansen was haunted by Raleigh Becket's annoying siblings.

Metatheria by Macx

Shifting Perspective {E}

Operation Pitfall was a success. The Breach had been closed. There had been losses, but there had also been survivors. Like Chuck Hansen, who had been found in an escape pod, seriously and rather badly injured, but alive. His recovery opens Raleigh's eyes to something he hadn't known about the other pilot, that only a select few actually do. He finds himself stunned and slightly awed, and very much drawn to the other man... even in the shape he is in. And maybe, just maybe, he can get away with calling Chuck Hansen an adorable fuzz face in the future, too....

Gridlocked {M}

It was an accident. Really. A complete and utter accident. That the accident resulted in Chuck being forced to Shift, well, who knew? Certainly not Dr. Newton Geiszler, who had no idea that distilled Kaiju Blue would do that to a Shifter when liberally doused in it. No one can explain how it happened. Just like no one can explain why Chuck is stuck and can't Shift back. Or if they can get him unstuck... Well, crap.

I Would Walk 500 Miles by themonsterswin {T}

Chuck's an Engineering student who lives in Sydney, Australia; Raleigh works construction in Anchorage with his brother Yancy. The two met a long time ago, in an online gaming community, where raleigh_danger and strikerhansen hit it off. They've been friends ever since, though they only started skyping a few years ago. This collection of drabbles follows them from friends to something a little more!

Sweater Thieves are the Best Thieves by alphaenterprise {G}

Raleigh knits Chuck a god-awful sweater.

crashing the net by achilleees {M}

Recently locked down to a five-year contract, Chuck Hansen is just getting comfortable as the superstar captain of an elite hockey team. Only, that's when the team's general manager trades for the incredibly talented but inconsistent goalie Raleigh Becket, who appears to have no ambition whatsoever. And Chuck’s pretty driven, to put it nicely. Clearly they have some stuff to teach each other - and quick, because the Stanley Cup playoffs are just about to start.

This Is How It's Going To Be by theloverneverleaves {T}

The thing about meeting your idols is that they don't always quite measure up to what you expected. And then sometimes, they're everything you imagined and more. Chuck Hansen will never admit Raleigh Becket was his hero, but the poster rolled up in his drawer says otherwise.

Big Damn Heroes by snack_size {M}

Stacker Pentecost, Captain of the Firefly Class vessel Striker Eureka, has a good crew that's willing to take on just about any job, so long as you can pay. Things have been going pretty well lately, so it would figure that life is about to get more complicated when they pick up two travelers and soon find themselves stuck as go-betweens for Weis and the Kaidanovskys, struggling to keep the Alliance off their back, and hoping not to get on the radar of Hannibal Chau and his crime syndicate.

The Most Dangerous of Animals, Beast Born of the Heart by Wolfarella {E}

Raleigh Becket is a gladiator who's fought for the house of Hercules Hansen for some time, and after he becomes Champion, his lanista’s son, Chuck, suddenly takes an avid interest in him that very quickly turns into something more.

You should stay another night with me by Puppet_in_the_Corner {M}

Chuck had thought he’d gotten over this crush years ago, but he hadn't thought that picking up a guy in a bar that his foggy, drunken brain identified as kind of looks like Raleigh Becket on his 21st birthday would backfire so spectacularly on him. Not until after Operation Pitfall, when a woman looking for Raleigh Becket shows up with a 2 month old baby. Oops.

Ghost in the Machine by fadedink {T}

Chuck Hansen's first Drift is a disaster. But what Tendo discovers several days later shocks the entire Shatterdome. Soon enough, they discover that you don't necessarily need a body to co-pilot a Jaeger.

In Which Chuck Hansen Really, Really Hates Photographers by intrikeyt {T}

“Well?” Raleigh asks with a smirk. “What do you say, you little brat? Wanna get hitched?” “You’re not gonna get down on one knee, old man?” Chuck snipes back, because this is how they always will be. The kind of madly in love that means endless bickering, trading barbs and witty rejoinders, tenderness and affection reserved for the quiet, private moments, shared only with each other (and Mako and Herc, because their jobs are twisted like that).

Pining is for Poets by Ishyko {M}

He’d never realized Chuck had dimples. Chuck had dimples and they made him breathtaking. Raleigh wanted to cry at the unfairness of it all.

Chuck's Body by intrikeyt {T}

Five different Rangers of the PPDC who saved Chuck Hansen from becoming a virgin sacrifice, and the one Ranger who decided to do something about it.

Bring the Rain by Macx {M}

Chuck Hansen; arrogant, smart-ass, an egotistical jerk with a ton of issues. Chuck Hansen; son of Herc Hansen. A Shifter like his father. Strong like his father. Just not an alpha. And not a wolf. Well, not completely. Not on the outside. Chuck Hansen; koala Shifter. With a wolf inside, and a temper and the claws to prove it. A Crossbreed. Raleigh didn't really know what hit him the first time they came together, before Operation Pitfall, but he knew he didn't want to let go of it.

I Need You So Much Closer by captainboomeraangs {T}

Five times people thought Raleigh and Yancy were fucking, plus one time Yancy and Raleigh can't believe people really think that.

Nothing But The Rain by theloverneverleaves {T}

Chuck Hansen has always hated the Kaiju, along with everything they stand for. It's just a fact of life. And with the end of the world approaching, he can't help but hate them just a little bit more. But when Raleigh Becket returns to the PPDC, he ends up bringing along more than just his piloting skills. The end of the world is coming, but when the world discovers the Kaiju can look human too, they realise there's more to the alien invaders than meets the eye.

The Kaiju Underground by GutterBall

A Life Less Ordinary {M}

Long story short, Raleigh takes Chuck hostage with a candybar, and then a gritty (slashy) reboot of the movie kind of happens. This is what might have happened if the boys had met without knowing who the other was first.

All the Bastards Here Are Cold {T}

After the events of A Life Less Ordinary, Raleigh eventually has to stop and take a moment to determine how he's dealing with everything that happened. The short answer is: not. At all. He's only done what he's done since the Gipsy Danger disaster, which is barely maintain. So what does he do now that he has a future and someone who clearly wants to share it with him? That's right. Freak right the hell out.

For the First Time by suyari {T}

Chuck Hansen is a 1st grade teacher at a private academy. He knows teachers aren't supposed to have favorites, but he absolutely adores his bright young student Jamie Becket. The kid's father however...is another matter entirely. or The one in which Raleigh is a single parent, Yancy is a doting uncle, and Chuck falls head over heels for an awesome kid before even giving his dad a second glance.

I'll Give you Fucking Romance by happyinthesilence {M}

Raleigh has been out of town and Chuck just wants to welcome him home. Contrary to what everyone thinks he is capable of romance. He is Dammit!

Where My Demons Hide by Wyndewalker {E}

When Yancy Becket died still connected to Raleigh in the Drift, Raleigh lost everything, including part of his soul. Unable to deal with the reminders and accusations that he'd killed his Alpha Guardian brother Raleigh fled the Anchorage Shatterdome. Five years later Raleigh Becket is living a half-life waiting for the wrong move to send him plummeting to his death on the Wall. Then Marshal Pentecost, his former commanding officer, tracks him down for one final mission against the alien Kaiju. Raleigh decides the conn-pod of a Jaeger is as good a place to die as any. He never expected to care again. He certainly didn't expect to find his Alpha.

Love Angle by Amethystina {T}

Chuck honestly had no idea how easy it is to fall in love with one of your neighbours until it's already happening. Raleigh from flat 314 is far too kind, far too genuine, and far too attractive for his own good, and Chuck can't help being drawn to him. He can't help falling in love. Which doesn't seem like that big of a deal, until Raleigh's girlfriend makes an appearance. Then it becomes a whole different story and Chuck pretends that it doesn't break his heart, one tiny sliver at a time, to watch Raleigh and Mako be happy together. But really, he's not fooling anyone. Chuck's life officially sucks.

Conversing Without Words by BorrowedBlueBox {T}

In which Chuck is emotionally stunted and doesn't know how to tell Raleigh how he feels, because he doesn't hate Raleigh at all. Also, Chuck's totally not a school girl with a crush, except he totally is.

Carnival of Rust by Raine_Wynd {E}

Five years ago, Chuck was on the verge of admitting he'd fallen in love, but the man he wanted fell in love with someone else. Now Raleigh's back and determined not to get his heart broken again. Can Chuck convince Raleigh otherwise? Or will the PPDC's new peacetime mission get in the way?

Lips Like Candy by galaxy_parchment {T}

Raleigh has a sweet tooth and Chuck has noticed.

chose not to fall but try again by caelestys {T}

Something smells delicious, and he can’t quite find it in himself to complain about the clanking water pipes and the cold hallways, because someone is inside, cooking real food. No mass produced, gloopy mashed potatoes or powdered eggs—real food, like what they had before the Kaiju Wars. His feet walk him, almost without thought or permission, into the kitchen. Raleigh finds Chuck cooking at 2am.

The Lost Proposal by BorrowedBlueBox {M}

Raleigh loses an important document, Yancy sends him to a strange computer repair shop, the ginered hair tech support keeps flirting with Raleigh and the two go on a date. If it isn't obvious by now, I'm not good with summaries. I promise the story is better.

Dance Lessons by GutterBall

The Mating Dance of the Majestic Hippo {T}

The Proposal AU nobody asked for! For those who haven't seen The Proposal, Raleigh is a mild-mannered, long-suffering assistant to the editor in chief, the uptight control freak Chuck Hansen. When Chuck is set for deportation, he blackmails Raleigh into a fake engagement with the end game of marrying him for the three years required for him to become a citizen. Unfortunately, the U.S. Immigration offices are not impressed, forcing the two into visiting Raleigh's family in Alaska to bolster their claims of genuine love. The only problem: they kinda despise each other. Which is when all the fun starts.

The Dance Continues {E}

A month after the events of The Mating Dance of the Majestic Hippo, Chuck and Raleigh are still exploring this new relationship. They may be married, but getting together isn't the same as staying together, and they both still have their issues to deal with. But this is Raleigh's last day as Chuck's assistant, and Chuck's taking it hard. He's trying to hide it because he knows it's selfish, but he can't help how he feels. Luckily, Raleigh can.

This Ain't Ballroom Dancing {T}

This installment takes place after the events in The Dance Continues, after Raleigh tops Chuck for the first time. Chuck has to think really hard about the implications. Raleigh… well, he's maybe not as supportive as he could be. He laughs a lot. A LOT.

Dog Sitter by Amethystina {G}

Chuck isn't a very trusting person — especially when it comes to who gets to watch Max. Problem is, Chuck has run out of options for potential dog sitters and Mako assures him that her friend Raleigh is very reliable, so he might just have to trust this guy. Grudgingly. When Chuck eventually meets Raleigh, well, he is admittedly quite distracted by how handsome he is. It's probably bad manners to want to fuck your dog sitter, right?

Two-Step Foxtrot by GutterBall {T}

Raleigh trips in the mess hall, and Chuck catches him. By sort of dipping him. Everything else springs from that one little accident. It's a complete foxtrot, and I ain't talkin' about the dance step.

And a Dope with a Charlie Brown Tree by GutterBall {T}

During the first December after Pitfall, Raleigh suddenly gets a wild hair up his ass about making Christmas a huge deal. The weirdo starts giving Chuck all sorts of odd presents and setting up situations designed to make Chuck smile. Chuck... is nonplussed. And grumpy. Shenanigans are afoot.

Christmas is Not Sweater Weather for an Australian by galaxy_parchment {T}

Chuck is introduced to the wonders of ugly Christmas jumpers and needless to say he's not at all thrilled at the idea.

Operation Save Christmas by estei {E}

Chuck is on a mission to save Christmas. Yeah, it’s weird for him, too. He quickly finds himself out of his depth, so he enlists the help of his father and Mako. Predictably, chaos ensues.

The Great Cookie Caper by estei {T}

Herc is not amused. Until he is. Damn those clownshoes.

Turn Around, Bright Eyes by GutterBall {T}

Chuck gets stuck watching over Raleigh as he's coming out of anesthesia. Raleigh says a few things, Chuck doesn't know what to make of them, and the ridiculous pair of clownshoes have no idea what to do about it. This was intended to be cracky fluff in the same vein as those cell phone videos of the wacky things anesthetized patients say, but these guys make everything so much more complicated. It can never just be easy. Nooooo.

The Little Shatterdome Around the Corner by GutterBall {E}

The "You've Got Mail" AU no one asked for! While Raleigh's working on the Wall, he starts trading emails with a guy he met on a now-defunct academy message board. They tacitly agree to not give away any details of their lives, mostly because… they're both jaeger pilots (one disgraced and one too full of himself for his own good), and they would both be almost universally recognized if they did, which would ruin the whole "secret confidante" thing they have working for them. Then, Stacker Pentecost starts putting his final plan into motion, and suddenly, the two pen pals are both in Hong Kong. The events of the movie play out as scripted, with one exception: Chuck lives. And he finds out who his pen pal really is. Now what the hell is he supposed to do?

Old Dog, New Tricks by GutterBall

Baby Steps {G}

When Raleigh nearly dies during Pitfall, Chuck surprises everyone (but Herc) by surviving and, for some reason, biting Raleigh. It turns out, Chuck is also a dog and has been since birth, and now Raleigh is a dog, too. A puppy, actually, because he's new. But hey, he's alive, right? Even if he needs lessons on the whole "how to dog" thing.

Salty Dog {T}

Someone thought it would be a good idea to puppy-snatch Raleigh and demand money from the PPDC to keep word of a shapeshifting jaeger pilot out of the news. Chuck thinks that might not be the best idea and takes matters into his own hands. Claws. Teeth.

In the Doghouse {M}

After the puppynapping incident, Chuck asks Raleigh to always take Max with him when he wants to go off alone. As a bodyguard, of a sort. Though initially reluctant, Raleigh discovers that Max is the best enforcer ever and starts spending more and more time with the dog. Chuck... is not pleased.

Don’t Stop Retrievin’ {M}

Chuck's having a hard time knowing what he's about these days. Yeah, he and Raleigh are together, but... what does "together" really mean? He's always telling Raleigh "anything you want", but what does Chuck want? Why does he sometimes just want to look at the pretty bloke? And what, exactly, is Herc up to?

Puppy Kisses {E}

Chuck rarely stays a dog after Raleigh shifts back, so when he does, Raleigh does his best to enjoy the novelty. For some reason, it makes Chuck a little more frisky than usual, and... yeah. These two clownshoes are finally ready for the next step. Until Chuck drops something of a bombshell that reminds Raleigh that, while he's the puppy when they're dogs, he really is older and more experienced than Chuck in a lot of ways.

He Followed Me Home. Can I Keep Him? {M}

Follows right after the events of Puppy Kisses. Chuck can't immediately talk about claiming. It's so personal for him, because it's one of the last things he shared with his mother. Plus, there's sex to be had. But he really, really doesn't want Raleigh to question how much Chuck wants to be with him, so... he talks. They really are getting better at this communication thing. And Herc may never not have heart eyes again.

Lavender's Blue, Dilly Dilly, Lavender's Green by Gothams_Only_Wolf {T}

Raleigh Becket loves to clean, do laundry and... well, sing. Chuck Hansen is a ruthless CEO who hates people in his sparkling clean flat. It's when the cleaning service Chuck hires screws up his place that he looks into hiring a new one. LOCCENT Laundry Services and a canceled meeting bring together two lonely souls. AKA the Maid in Manhattan/Cinderella AU

These Two Clownshoes by GutterBall

These Two Clownshoes {M}

When Chuck comes down with a virulent flu and makes himself impossible, Raleigh offers to step in to give Mako and Herc a breather, even though he's probably as welcome in Chuck's bunk as a new breed of kaiju. Chuck, however, is far more ill than he led everyone to believe, and Raleigh switches over to protective mode with a vengeance.

Recalibration {G}

This is Chuck's point of view of Chapter 10's sleepy cuddles.

The Right Sandalwood {T}

This is Chuck's POV of the lead-up to Raleigh's nightmare and the aftermath.

Happy Fucking Birthday {T}

Chuck suddenly remembers that it's Raleigh's birthday. Worse, it's his first birthday since they've been together, and Chuck feels like an asshole because how the hell could he forget? Christmas preparations for the shatterdome aside, this birthday should've been the first thing on his mind. Luckily, Herc is a strategist, and Chuck gets a lot of help from some familiar faces.

Discount Double-Check by GutterBall {T}

Raleigh's been working out at the Kaidanovskys' gym for years when Chuck moves into the neighborhood and blows in like an arrogant, angry hurricane. Everyone sort of avoids him, so -- for whatever reason -- The Jerk singles Raleigh out to hatch an evil plan to save 20% on his gym membership. Things go awry.

There Is No Loch Ness Monster in Maine by GutterBall {M}

When Chuck Hansen, paleontologist for a prestigious New York museum, catches his boss in flagrante with his dad, he's quickly shipped off to investigate a spurious report of an animal attack in Maine. There, he meets the snarky county sheriff, Mako Mori, and the "the only words I have are salty" Fish and Game officer, Raleigh Becket. Sarcastic shenanigans ensue, during which there might be a giant murderbeast swimming around some random lake in Maine. And Chuck gets routinely dunked in the lake and pelted with severed heads.

It Ain't Moonlight, But It'll Do by GutterBall {T}

Healing after closing the Breach doesn't mean no one has nightmares anymore. Sometimes, they're bad enough to make another attempt at sleep an awful idea. On those occasions, a former jaeger pilot might take a certain amount of comfort from walking the shatterdome hallways. Another former jaeger pilot might take solace from cooking amazing grilled cheese sandwiches in the harsh fluorescent lighting of the shatterdome kitchens. At some point, those paths almost have to cross, even if the stubborn jerks go out of their way not to cross paths any other time.

Touch-a Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me by GutterBall {M}

Herc is desperate. He can understand Chuck not wanting anything to do with him, but the kid has deliberately shoved away everyone who might have gotten close to him and is determinedly alone in the world. So, he decides to talk to his ol' pal, Stacker Pentecost, who happens to run a private therapy center that offers a new, experimental treatment for people in Chuck's position. Pentecost's star caseworker? Raleigh "call me Cuddles" Becket. As Captain Jack Sparrow would say, complications arose and ensued.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner by GutterBall {E}

Raleigh Becket used to be the up-and-coming chef to beat in the competitive cooking show world. Then, after beating four Iron Chefs in a row, he disappeared, and everyone forgot about him. Five years and four months later, he signs up for a new cooking show, The Cutting Board, because he and Yancy desperately need the money. The problem? The show's executives think to improve ratings by forcing him to pretend to be the gay ex-lover of current cooking wunderkind, Chuck Hansen, arrogant jerk extraordinaire.

A Very Hansen Christmas by WeekendWriter {T}

If there's one thing Chuck isn't, it's contrary. He's not. And his family absolutely has something else to say about that. When Chuck takes to ignoring his newfound blonde friend from medical, Herc enlists Mako's scheming abilities to help get them back together. It takes a bit of mistletoe, some slight of engineering-hand, and one normally-missing Scott Hansen. Needless to say, it'll take a Christmas Miracle.

Special Delivery by GutterBall {G}

After Pitfall, Raleigh walked out of the shatterdome without so much as a goodbye. Shortly after, though, he started sending letters to Chuck. Nothing too flowery or soul-searchy. Just... letters. Chuck, who's not used to getting mail, isn't quite sure what to make of them. After eleven months, though, he's pretty sure he likes them.

...Mate by softjohn {G}

Raleigh’s small huff of laughter caught Chuck’s fading attention and he raised his head, eyes heavy, to see Raleigh smirking at him over his shoulder. ‘Never would’ve pegged you for such an aggressive cuddler,’ Raleigh said, clearly amused. Chuck grinned back at him. ‘I’m full of surprises, mate.’ Raleigh’s smirk faded into something softer. ‘Yeah, I noticed.'

Breaking Habits by Klayr_de_Gall {_}

If you need a new PPDC-sweater, you only have to ask. Chuck Hansen has his own solution for that problem.

Head Over Boots by catwrites {_}

Raleigh and Chuck are having a competition to see who is better at planning dates for the other. Too bad Chuck doesn't actually know about it.

we were a paradise by littletrenchcoatangel {T}

(or: yancy is the ultimate wingman) "I think you should tell him how you feel," Yancy says. "Tell him how I feel?" Raleigh echoes. "Tell who?" Yancy nods at the table a few behind theirs, where Herc and Chuck are arguing over whether it's polite to let the dog eat at the table. "Herc?" Raleigh asks stupidly. "I don't feel anything for Herc." Yancy rolls his eyes, saying nothing. God help his moron of a brother.

Breeding Habits of the Stubborn Jaeger Pilot by Reiwyn {E}

OR Hansen’s the Endangered Species. With a population severely dwindled by the Kaiju war the human race must now resort to drastic measures in order to survive. Hence a new law is decreed, TOPA- The Omega Protection Act. It states all Omega must be mated by their first heat or assigned an Alpha by a outside official. Jaeger pilots are top of this list, viewed as heroes they are in high demand and to land one is like mating to royalty. That’s all great and dandy for some but with his first heat around the corner Chuck ain’t lettin’ no Alpha knock him up.

Love of your damn life by estei {T}

The Kaiju Insurrection by elrond50 {E}

Kaiju worshipers take an active role in the war and two families find their destinies interwoven.

One Night by Inktvis {M}

Raleigh woke up with a dog standing on his bladder, Chuck Hansen's breath fanning over his collarbone and naked as the day he was born. As far as mornings went it was a lot to take in at once.

Pacific Regency by elrond50 {M}

Lord Charles Hansen's secret got out and changed his life. The Kaiju War changed things for the Becket family. The Rim is a long way from high society.

Bloody Wankers by GutterBall

You Suck {E}

Raleigh doesn't know why Chuck's a vampire. All he knows is that the kid needs to feed. Unfortunately, the big jerk is picky, and Raleigh's blood apparently isn't quite gourmet. Thus, Chuck is frustratingly invested in Raleigh's health and demands that he improve his diet. It's a matter of taste.

Eat Me {M}

Chuck didn't ask to be turned into a vampire, but he isn't exactly mad about it, either. Herc keeps him well-fed, and his improved strength, reflexes, and speed are definitely bonuses in his line of work. Unfortunately, the Double Event forced Chuck to make a decision he'd intended to put off for years, if not forever, when Herc's arm is broken. They might have to drop for Pitfall at any moment, and whilst the marshal offered to pilot with Chuck, there's a simpler solution: turn Herc so he'll be healed and fit for battle. The only problem: there goes his convenient, voluntary food source. Enter one ambrosia-smelling Raleigh Becket.

Pain in the Neck {T}

Raleigh and Mako are stuck in the medical bay after Pitfall, recuperating from Gipsy's missing or smashed limbs and under observation from falling through the Throat. Everything seems fine until Herc casually mentions that Chuck would be fussed if Raleigh left and Raleigh suddenly realizes he hasn't so much as glimpsed Chuck since the mission. Which leaves them both wondering if Chuck has fed since then. Spoiler alert: he hasn't.

Yancy is so Done! by elrond50 {M}

Yancy loves his little brother, he really does, but there are limits.

Nurse Chuck by Farisya {E}

Chuck Hansen just wants to go home. He hasn't seen his bed in days. Then his least favorite patient shows up in the ER, again. His day gets a lot better from there.

Something Real by Raine_Wynd {T}

Post-Pitfall, Chuck almost screws up his shot at dating Raleigh.

until the Drift ends by WinchesterBurger

until the Drift ends {T}

“When they found your escape pod, your suit had already melted into your skin. It took them hours to get it off. You had burns all over your body and they managed to save almost everything, but your leg...” “How long was I out?” “Two months.” He wonders what would've happened if his escape pod had drowned instead. [Chuck survives the Pitfall, all thanks to Pentecost, but it takes him a long time to readjust. After having accepted that he's going to die, learning how to live again is harder than he expected. And Ghost Drifting with his dead copilot isn't helping.]

ti pa jaz, vsi imamo en obraz {G}

Today’s subject is none other than Chuck Hansen, who is her absolute favourite when it comes to rumours – partly because there’s always been so few of them including him. And mostly because after Pitfall, the majority of them also involve Ranger Beckett. or: Chuck and Raleigh's relationship told by very observant outsiders and one Mako Mori.

(afoot and light-hearted) I take to the open road {T}

“I’m happy if you’re happy,” he replies, so very close to Chuck’s face that Chuck can see every little scar left on the man’s skin after years of working at the Wall. His eyes bore into Chuck’s, but they don’t make him uncomfortable. Raleigh never does. He thinks about it. Wonders, more like. “I am,” he whispers and, somehow, that’s true. “I’m happy.”

Don't Sweat(er) It by misura {T}

Chuck decides he deserves nice things, and Raleigh's sweaters are very, extremely nice, so.

My Dad the DILF by elrond50 {E}

Chuck ended up finishing high school in San Diego against his will. Everything that happened after he blames on his family.

Let Me Be Your Fixer-Upper by Rexcelsior {M}

“I realise that continuing to station you here would not be productive, not only because of… personal reasons, but also because the Jaegers stationed here do not need any more engineers now that the majority of Gipsy’s engineers have been reassigned.” He watched as the Marshal made his way to the other side of the room, his steps slow and deliberate in a way that only Stacker Pentecost could manage. “Instead, should you choose to accept my offer, you will be stationed at the Sydney Shatterdome.” Sydney? Was there even a Mark-3 stationed there? “Vulcan Specter?” The Marshal didn’t respond immediately. “Striker Eureka.” Or: The AU where Raleigh becomes an engineer/technician for Striker Eureka instead of a Wall construction worker.

The Sound of Your Storm by EvilPeaches {M}

They Drift together twice. And no. Raleigh doesn’t want to do it a third time. Compared to Mako’s precise ocean of a mind, Chuck’s is a colossal shitstorm of daddy issues and grandiose views of self-importance. His neural grip is like holding hands with someone who doesn’t know how to let go. It’s way above Raleigh’s pay grade and his ‘has-been ass’ wants no part of it.

The New South Wales Driving Offences and Penalties Register by nerdqueenenterprise {T}

"Son," Herc says, sounding more incredulous than Chuck ever thought he could. "Are you telling me you incurred a fifteen thousand dollar fine because you couldn't wait to get home to shag your boyfriend?"

Completely Incompatible (Except in the Drift) by Hypropheni_a {E}

“Chuck,” Herc said, his tone cutting. “I just got off the phone with Stacker.” Hope flared to life in his chest for a moment, “About Striker?” “Yes, he’s found someone.” A grin found its way onto Chuck’s face, the irritation momentarily pushed aside, “Will we be able to go on active duty again, then?” Herc winced, hand clenching into a fist at his side. “Son…the Marshal is bringing Raleigh Becket in.” Or: Herc is injured two months before Mutavore, and Raleigh happens to be his replacement. At least until Gipsy Danger is repaired. The only issue? Chuck Hansen.

#chaleigh #chuck hansen × raleigh beckett #chaleigh fic recs #ongoing list #I need a shorter version because I have way too many bookmarks on AO3 #love and appreciation for anyone contributing to this fabulous fandom!#🐈red🐈furry🐈cat🐈tag🐈

87 notes · View notes

screechthemighty · 11 months

Text

Okay, Trigun: Stampede/Pacific Rim crossover AU time. Under a cut for length, please know that this is a rough first draft of the concept and probably nothing I can commit to writing. But if there's one thing a bitch (me) knows how to do, it's make a Pacific Rim AU out of anything. So here we go, I guess!

Basic Setup:

Transfer the start of Pacific Rim's timeline far enough into the future that Plants are a plausible technology and say that humanity never damaged Earth bad enough to have to leave it. Therefore, when two Independents are born, and when they find out the truth of what happened to the last Independent born before them, we're still on Earth. And conveniently close to the Pacific ocean.

Plants start going missing along the Pacific coast. Not long after, the first Kaiju attacks. One Independent is pulled out of the rubble by Research Team Three; another goes missing.

The monstrosities that begin to attack humanity are eventually traced back to Plants, creating a public distrust in their use. They've become too ingrained in the fabric of society to do away with entirely, but coastal communities are forced to live without them as Plant use predominantly moves inland. The exact cause of the sudden merger and transformation of the rogue Plants is unknown, but blamed on a sort of "mind virus" that causes them to behave aggressively. This virus is eventually called the Kaiju virus, and infected colonies are often referred to as Kaiju rather than Plants.

The Jaeger program is created. Vash stays with Research Team Three, who pivot to helping with the newly created program. Five years later, he sees his brother again, an incident that leaves him minus one arm and with a sinking suspicion that his brother wants him for something. He runs, and runs, and runs some more, never staying in one place for long but starting to gather reputation as a troublemaker.

The tide shifts in the favor of the Kaiju and their mysterious leader. Red Plants start going missing further and further inland. A newbie reporter and her beleaguered old-timer colleague are assigned a job: see if the reports of infamous wanted criminal Vash the Stampede being in town are accurate. And Vash?

Vash is really just trying to avoid a family reunion.

Character Specific Details:

Vash, as noted, is still an Independent, but much younger in this timeline (chronologically about 14, which would put him in his mid twenties biologically). He's been jumping from town to town to avoid being detected by Knives, but still pops in to visit Brad and Luida, who are still working in a Shatterdome (Brad works on Jaegers, Luida works in ecological restoration).

Not much has changed with Meryl or Roberto. Wolfwood is an undercover Kaiju cultist (we're combining the Eye of Michael and the Kaiju cultists from canon here) with the same mission as in canon: look after Vash, get him to July (which is in this case a Shatterdome, not a city, that has secretly been under Knives' control for years). His gun is probably different, but no less oversized.

Knives is, in fact, the cause of the Kaiju. Remember how in Maximum he could merge with the other Plants to make the Ark basically a giant living ship? It's like that. He's got his roots in the July Shatterdome and has been using his cultist underlings to undermine the program for years. Legato is there, enough said. Conrad too, though under an assumed name since most believe he died in the initial Kaiju attack. The basic plan to open the portal to the Higher Realm is also intact, with the added danger that it will make connecting to every Plant on the planet feasible (instead of having to individually kidnap them, bring them out to the ocean, and morph them into giant monsters there) and allow Knives to wipe out humanity that way.

I can still see Stacker trying to keep it together and having to bring back in Raleigh since the program is bleeding pilots and support. Mako is still the best; Newt and Hermann are still on their bullshit, though Newt is technically a Plant engineer in this timeline. You can bet your ass he loses his mind when he finds out what Vash really is.

Some Other Random Plot Ideas I Have:

The coastal wall attempt still happens, Knives just summons a Kaiju inside the wall to mess with them.

Some jackass decides that even though the Kaiju are, in fact, Plants, that Plant-powered Jaegers might be a way forward since the potential damage of a failed Plant reaction is less than the damage of a nuclear core, and they have plenty of Plants lying around that can be repurposed. Needless to say, this goes BADLY. No amount of "hardening" and "shielding" can keep Knives from influencing a Plant.

Knives forces Vash into reveal himself by basically making Vash choose between showing himself to be an Independent (by stopping a rogue Plant-powered Jaeger) or staying hidden but letting people die. Vash being Vash, he chooses the former. Yes, this does cause a LOT of distrust towards him.

Could take the ending mission of the movie (plant a bomb in the interdimensional portal to close it) and apply it to the July incident? So part of the conflict becomes that if this happens, there's a high chance Vash will die, but if they don't do it, there's a high chance EVERYONE will die.

July still gets blown off the map, it's just a matter of how. Still trying to figure that out.

I told you I can make a Pacific Rim AU out of anything.

#screech's crossover ramblings

6 notes · View notes

eleanorfenyxwrites · 6 months

Text

WIP Wednesday

So fourth place in that poll from a while ago was an excerpt from the next chapter of Soldier, Poet, King. I'm going to skip ahead a bit from where I left off last time just because I want to, so here's the first 500-ish words of Lan Xichen's POV for this chapter 😌 (Next week will be last place in the poll, which is something from the Brokeback Mountain AU!)

--//--

Lan Xichen runs through the shatterdome as fast as he can, chasing little more than glimpses of his brother’s white jumpsuit and the dark ends of his hair whipping around corners as people scatter out of their way with a sort of organized efficiency. He can only hope that they don’t leave panic in their wake — they’re at least running away from the communications tower and the Kaiju sirens are, of course, silent. He doesn’t have time to worry too much about that, though; his priority now has to be Lan Wangji, because Lan Wangji’s will be Wei Wuxian.

Lan Wangji loves Wei Wuxian past the point of rationality. This has been true for years, long before the pair of them were given the opportunity to work in proximity and let their infatuation mature into something well-rooted in mutual respect and regard for each other. Lan Xichen has been Drifting with his brother since they were teenagers, and though they don’t share their thoughts whilst in the Drift in the same way others do, that doesn’t mean Lan Xichen hadn’t known. That kind of devotion isn’t something one can tuck conveniently away in the silence of meditation, and Xichen had done what he could to help his brother nurture that love through obstacles many people could never imagine.

He knows precisely what it will do to his brother if Wei Wuxian loses himself in the way that Xue Yang has. He also knows that if Wei Wuxian must lose himself then Lan Wangji would rather be lost with him than be left behind again to wonder if there was anything he could have done differently to help Wei Wuxian avoid this in the first place.

Wei Wuxian’s inexplicable disappearance to Yiling so many years ago had been difficult for everyone, really.

Lan Xichen practically skids into the research bay mere moments after Lan Wangji and stops with one hand braced on the doorframe for support. Lan Wangji has not stopped voluntarily, that much is clear. He isn’t struggling, but Song Lan and Wen Ning both have death grips on his arms and apologetic looks on their faces when they glance up at Lan Xichen’s arrival. He can see in the next moment why they’ve stopped Lan Wangji with some force; Wei Wuxian is already deep in the Drift, his eyes squeezed shut and his hands in fists on the arms of the chair pulled up next to the exam table Xue Yang is strapped to, the latter thrashing weakly enough that he isn’t dislodging any of the dozen or so tubes and wires stuck into him.

“What is the meaning of this?” Lan Xichen asks Wen Qing, standing calmly behind Wei Wuxian’s seat with her hands cupped carefully around either side of his neck.

“If Hanguang-Jun interrupts them now Wei Wuxian may never come back.”

“His brain activity is only slightly abnormal, no more than if he were just starting to chase the rabbit,” Nie Huaisang pipes up from behind the bank of computers, Mo Xuanyu typing furiously at his side. “Xue Yang stabilized fully once they started Drifting, it’s actually helping I swear!”

#the untamed fanfic #WIP Wednesday #Soldier Poet King #Wangxian #<- as thought of by LXC but still

3 notes · View notes

brigittttoo · 2 years

Text

both @adiduck and @galateagalvanized sent this along (thank you!!) and while you may make me choose between my own fics you may not make me choose between asks from friends <3 top five codywans are as follows:

1. Wolfssegen (6921 words, E)

"Three years ago, just after Cody took on the old house on the outskirts of a small town, there had been a full moon, and Cody had woken the next morning to find the mangled remains of an iron wolf trap strewn across his back steps. The next full moon, he'd dragged a chair outside and waited up all night, and watched the patient glow of Obi-Wan's eyes from just beyond the tree-line."

A vaguely historical, vaguely German story about wolves and magic.

2. The World Offers Itself (41,002 words, E)

Cody and Obi-Wan embark on their journey to find the boy who will defeat the darkness, as foretold by the Jedi many centuries ago. On their way, they encounter fantastical nature, magic and monsters, and secrets surrounding the history of the Empire; sometimes, even a crafted fate cannot always go as planned.

3. Wild Time (4639 words, E)

"Cody kind of doubts that Obi-Wan remembers as much about it as she does, anyways. She’d seemed so at ease in that environment, like it was just another one of Those Parties, where you meet a girl, or maybe several, and take one back to your apartment to give her a college experience she’ll never forget. And then you forget about her, probably, and go on with your life with countless other girls until you have a degree and your brother gets out of juvie, and you grow out your bangs and become a really hot lawyer. Or something. Cody hasn’t thought about it."

In which Cody and Obi-Wan are undergrad students who get together on a casual basis, nothing to it. Right?

4. Akin, Removed (17,839 words, M)

“They snake along in single file, silent except for the swish of grain against itself as they push it out of their path with each step. The cliff approaches, and with it comes the gradually increasing sound of waves lapping against the short, rocky shore far below. The colour of it extends into the clouds themselves, appearing overcast in the distance, while remaining a sunny blue above them here. It has a quiet calm about it, the grain and the sea, whispering to each other in the same wind. Obi-Wan could almost forget he came here on the Senate’s orders.”

A story about coming from, and going to.

5. Slow Waters (36,950 words, T)

The events of seven days in the mid-autumn of 2025, between the arrival of the Fett brothers -- the three-man Ranger team nicknamed "The Clones" by the general public -- to the Tokyo Shatterdome, and the last mission made against the Kaiju invasion.

#my fic #codywan #a lot of variety in this! hard to choose!#almost put some of my capri stuff in here but that's ok. not now #(lucille bluth voice) i love all my fics equally #also sorry everything is rated E. this is just what the focus groups (fandom) have chosen are more popular on ao3

20 notes · View notes

alishamaybe · 2 years

Note

Newt and Hermann, peace?

INT. LOCCENT - DAY

The war clock: DEACTIVATED.

GOTTLIEB squeezes and 'excuse me's' his way through the crowd. The crowd looks lively. He, on the other hand, looks nauseous.

NEWT jabbers on to some technicians.

Gottlieb is almost towards the exit.

Turning away from his audience, Newt glances around.

NEWT: Hey, where's Hermann?

Finally, Newt spots Gottlieb dragging himself out of LOCCENT. Newt frowns. Then a solemn realisation dawns upon him, and he starts to shove his way out. The technicians glance at each other: I've never seen him look like that before.

INT. SHATTERDOME CORRIDOR - DAY

Newt finds Gottlieb supporting himself against a wall.

NEWT: Hey, Hermann, you ok? You look like you're gonna puke.

GOTTLIEB: You can't tell me you don't feel the same.

Newt hesitates-then gives in and slowly deflates.

NEWT: No, yeah, I can't.

He leans against the wall.

GOTTLIEB: Newt. We've made the situation worse.

Newt slowly slides down to the floor.

INT. SHATTERDOME CAFETERIA - NIGHT

Everyone here looks relieved and more relaxed than they have been in a long time. They're feasting; smiling and chatting; napping, in the case of some who accidentally fell asleep.

Everyone looks relaxed, except the two k-scientists.

Newt and Gottlieb sit across each other at a table. Although Newt has two trays of food for himself, he's only picking at the dishes. He's more focused on Gottlieb instead, who's staring at his own tray, frozen and dazed.

NEWT: Hermann? Earth to Hermann.

To try to get Gottlieb's attention, Newt steals a piece of food from his tray. No response. So Newt eats the piece. Still nothing.

Some shatterdome workers move past their table, glancing at Gottlieb.

SHATTERDOME WORKER #1: What's up with him? We won.

The world around Gottlieb is all doubled like an anaglyph 3D image.

To make it worse, images of the Anteverse are superimposing onto his food: churning seas of bioslurry, a spawning pool, unborn kaiju writhing in their sacs.

Gottlieb shuts his eyes.

NEWT: You get used to it.

He gets a look from Gottlieb.

NEWT (cont'd): Sorta.

Gottlieb sighs.

GOTTLIEB: This is hardly a 'peacetime' we're in. But nobody else knows that except us. You did hear it, right? The Precursor?

NEWT: Uh, no way I couldn't.

SHATTERDOME WORKER #2 (O.S.): Man, I can't wait to go home!

NEWT: Neither can we.

Gottlieb reacts. Newt jerks back, like he's been snapped out of a daze.

GOTTLIEB: You spoke for them.

NEWT: What? No! I didn't! I actually do want to go home…

GOTTLIEB: And so do they.

Realisation dawns on Newt.

NEWT: So that's why they seem so familiar.

FLASHBACK: A Precursor's face. From a distance, its eyes appear insect-like. But zooming into one of them, it becomes more like a human's…

INT. HEADSPACE

Newt and Gottlieb find themselves in a dark, foggy, dimensionless place, directly facing a PRECURSOR. It looms over them. The scientists crane their necks. Their jaws drop.

NEWT: It's you.

GOTTLIEB: The one we've been hearing.

The scientists wait, but the Precursor doesn't respond. Newt and Gottlieb look at each other.

GOTTLIEB: What do we-?

NEWT: I don't know.

The pair quickly return their gazes to the Precursor, anticipating.

EXT. KARLA'S HOUSE - DAY (FLASHBACK)

The main door opens. Behind it, Gottlieb's sister KARLA, wearing a paper domino mask and holding the hand of a small BOY, also wearing a mask. Karla's mask cartoonishly resembles an aquatic insect.

KARLA: Servus, Brüderchen. (subtitles: Hey, baby bro.)

GOTTLIEB (in German, subtitled): Please stop calling me that.

Karla grins mischievously.

KARLA: OK, Mändl.

She pulls the insect mask up and onto her head.

INT. HEADSPACE

A layer on the Precursor's face opens up, revealing a set of beady alien eyes. Gottlieb stares at it.

GOTTLIEB: What do you want from me?

EXT. ANTEVERSE - NIGHT

Gottlieb and Newt find themselves standing atop a cracked platform of bone. Around them, more bone platforms and paths, all cracked or simply obliterated into pieces.

Multiple Precursor corpses float about, with one drifting past Gottlieb and Newt. They turn to look at it. It's a horrifying sight:

Half a human face. The other half is the alien half-which they now know is a faceplate.

NEWT: So all of you are human. I knew it.

PRECURSOR (in German, subtitled): How have you been, Dr Gottlieb? It's been a long time.

The Precursor waits, but Gottlieb can't work up the courage to speak. Newt looks between the two of them, baffled.

NEWT: Wait, what?

The Precursor ignores Newt.

PRECURSOR (in German, subtitled): You must really love destroying homes, seeing as you did it again.

Gottlieb is still too scared to speak, so Newt does it for him:

NEWT: Hermann just drifted today. What do you mean, 'a long time'? And what do you mean by 'again'?

Continuing to ignore Newt, the Precursor stares down at Gottlieb.

Under the Precursor's intense attention, Gottlieb sees his own neurons short circuiting and tearing apart. This soon fills the whole screen.

Multiple streams of thoughts-all the Precursor's-bombard him, all mixing together in a whirlwind of noise. He squeezes his hands over his ears. Only a few words and phrases here and there can be made out, but the last two sentences are clear:

PRECURSOR (V.O.): Your end is coming. I'll make sure of it myself.

Gottlieb's vision starts to fade.

NEWT: Hey! I'm here too!

Gottlieb looks at Newt, distraught, but is too overwhelmed to do anything.

NEWT (cont'd): Tell me what you want, you jerk! You want a truce? Let's make one!

GOTTLIEB: Newt...

The Precursor and Newt stare each other down, both without a sign of fear. That's the last thing Gottlieb sees before blacking out.

INT. SHATTERDOME MEDICAL BAY - NIGHT

Gottlieb slowly comes to. As he sits up, he groans, then turns to one side and retches.

A bin is already waiting there.

Gottlieb grabs his handkerchief, wipes his mouth, and notices a bin on his other side.

A snicker.

NEWT: I told the nurses to put one on each side.

Gottlieb frowns at Newt, who's in the bed next to his. Newt looks terrible-even worse than Gottlieb does, and even worse than after his first-ever drift.

GOTTLIEB: Newt. What did you do?

Newt trembles. He tries to stop it. Hide it.

NEWT: Oh, well, you know. I managed to get humanity some more time. So you can go home and have that peace and quiet you wanted for a while. You're welcome.

GOTTLIEB: My God.

NEWT: But you better come back quick. Because we'll probably need some math done and I can't be bothered to do all of it. I'm gonna be so bored. So bored, to-

He coughs out a laugh and trembles harder. Gottlieb observes him, thinking. Then he huffs. Newt scowls.

NEWT: Hey! What was that noise for, huh? Why don't you-

GOTTLIEB: I'm not leaving.

Newt's anger dissipates.

NEWT: Huh?

GOTTLIEB: Not yet, anyway. You helped me, so it's only right that I help you in return.

NEWT: Oh. That sounds like a thank you, so, no problem. Anytime.

A moment of quiet. Gottlieb considers what to say.

GOTTLIEB: Newt.

Newt looks at Gottlieb, tearful and shaking.

GOTTLIEB (cont'd): We thwarted the Precursors' plans once. We can do it again. We will do it again.

Newt pauses, surprised at Gottlieb's confidence. Then he laughs. It sounds a bit like a sob too, but it's mostly a laugh.

NEWT: Yeah. Yeah.

His trembling slowly starts to fade away.

NEWT (cont'd): We'll figure this thing out. Looks like K-Science is back in business.

Newt smiles and sticks his hand out for Gottlieb to fistbump. Unable to stop himself smiling too, Gottlieb does it.

Then Gottlieb spots something that makes his smile quickly fade: there's a large blood stain on Newt's top.

Another drop of blood falls and lands on the fabric.

Then another.

The drops blooming across to merge with each other, the stain now almost makes it seem like Newt has been stabbed in the chest.

With blood dripping from his nose, Newt looks at Gottlieb, his tremors now returned.

END.

Notes: Many ideas of what the Anteverse is like, ideas of images of it being superimposed, and seeing your neurons becoming damaged while a Precursor was focusing on you were taken from Pacific Rim: The Official Movie Novelization. It also heavily influenced the Precursor's personality and dialogue.

#alhamdulillah it's dooonee!!#thanks for the request and for being patient anoni!#i know this took a VERY long time #it was difficult figuring out how to write the precursor and i'm still a bit hgrjfdbsv idk if it worked #you can let me know what you think :)#sadly i'm not sure if i'll get to your other prompt but i've still left it in my inbox #if i wanna write maelstrom then i feel like i should figure out what to do with hannibal :)#Pacific Rim: Maelstrom #Pacific Rim #Newt Geiszler #my writing #Hermann Gottlieb #screenwriting #Christian-Latte-Anon

9 notes · View notes

swinging-stars-from-satellites · 2 years

Text

Up the Hill

for @christian-latte-anon, based on my response in this post

"What do you think about moving out of the city?" She asks, not hesitantly, but a little haltingly. Like she thinks he'll want to stay here, in their little apartment where they'd moved right after they got married, and she doesn't want to press it too hard. Neither of them has had one, solid place to stay for a very long time. Maybe it's time they did.

Raleigh's immediate, almost-before-she-finishes-her-sentence response is, "I've always wanted to build my own house."

Mako's whole face lights up, and then Raleigh mirrors her grin, and they're looking up properties for sale by evening. They don't care where it is, anywhere calm and safe where they can make a home. A place they can stay, for a very long time.

It's just outside a reasonably sized town, a place that looks like a snapshot picture taken long before the Kaiju War. The property is down a long driveway, up a long, mellow hill. It's fall when they sign the papers, and the leaves on the trees are vivid red as they drive through the valley. There's a foundation in place already, a framework in place for whatever they're going to build together.

They design it together, of course, with plans to build a detached garage later on — for tinkering, mostly Mako's, but to keep Raleigh's tools as well — and Raleigh starts building as soon as spring hits. He's always enjoyed this kind of work, though the majority of his experience is more industrial. Now, he's building using logs and timbers instead of metal beams and panels. It's different, but he likes it.

Mako climbs up onto the framework with him one day in the middle of the warmest summer he's experienced in years, and they eat lunch right there, looking down over the half-finished house the same way they'd looked out over Gipsy Danger in the Shatterdome almost five years before. How far, geographically, emotionally, relationally, they've come.

Raleigh has never been the best at domestics with anyone but his brother. There was an uncomfortable adjustment period, directly following their marriage, that neither of them had known what to do with a semi-normal life. They'd spent most of their time following the destruction of the Breach focused on cleanup and recovery efforts, still living in the Shatterdome for nearly a year afterwards.

Even when Raleigh had finally gotten up the guts to get down on one knee — which hadn't even surprised Mako, latent drift and all — they'd still been working out of one base or another, traveling around mostly together, but often not. The apartment was their first step back into a world where Jaeger pilots weren't needed any longer, and it was more like stepping down a set of stairs when you thought you were at the bottom already. Neither of them was prepared for what normalcy meant — grocery shopping, delegating household chores, Mako's twice-yearly need to rearrange all the furniture. It was intensely uncomfortable for about a month, before they finally, finally managed to relax into it, and into each other again.

Now, with a truck (and a car) packed full of boxes, ready to move in to a house that is solely, fully theirs, both of them are ready to tagteam making the bed, tidying the living room, checking for any final unwashed spoons (from sneaking ice cream) or mugs (late night tea) before sinking silently into bed. It's fall again, and according to the locals the first snow should hit soon — perfect timing for finishing a house. Raleigh convinces Mako halfway up the hill to let him carry her over the threshold.

His work building the house, along with past credentials that make a trail across coastal Alaska, catches the attention of some of the locals in town, and within another few months, Raleigh has a steady job working with a local construction company. Mako does not let him kiss her, or try to surprise hug her from behind — which doesn't work, anyway, he can't surprise her — until he's washed his hands. She's a hypocrite, the way her hands are often stained with grease from whatever vintage or otherwise car she's tinkering with, so half the time they both end up smeared with the residue of each other's labor.

They keep to themselves, there in their cabin up the hill, but they aren't hermits. Mako's mechanical engineering skills make her popular with the town's teenagers, particularly those looking for a skill to learn. If they're willing to drive — or, in some cases, bike — up the hill, they can fiddle around with her in the big detached garage with all her pieces and parts. One boy, a quiet, curious-eyed high schooler living with his aunt downtown, walks up the driveway in mid-September to show off a robotics project. That night, Mako sits at the kitchen island and makes a phone call to the school's principal.

"Do you have a robotics club?" She asks, not hesitantly, but unsure. She's still an outsider to many people here. She waves over her shoulder at Raleigh as he walks into the room, before he even says anything. When the principal says no, is there interest? Her face lights up and she replies, "I have interest in starting one."

So: Raleigh with his construction work to keep him from going stir-crazy and purposeless, Mako with her robotics club and a gaggle of teens around her — most of whom surpass her in height, which Raleigh takes far too much pleasure in pointing out and gets elbowed in the ribs over quite often — and a place they can stay for a very long time.

There's a secondhand shop in town, across the street from Raleigh's favorite grocery store. Their deal is that he does the grocery shopping, which Mako hates — "You take too long," she complains, "Just get what we need and be done!" — while she putters around the thrift store. The mantelpiece of their fireplace at home is cluttered with little trinkets and knickknacks.

Their second Christmas in the house they built up the hill, they drive out to a tree farm an hour away and pick a bushy, fragrant fir. Jake is coming for Christmas, Raleigh's invited Tendo too, and the fake tree they'd brought from the apartment and used last year currently resides in the garage for the robotics club kids to have a small celebration around. Mako has never had a live Christmas tree, and Raleigh suddenly feels as if he's failed her — so, a live tree they shall have.

It probably takes up too much space, but it fits, including a silver and gold star on the topmost point. Mako sits on Raleigh's shoulders to hook an absolutely ridiculous amount of ornaments — half of which were collected from the secondhand shop, little trinkets that probably meant something different to their original owners — to the upper section of branches. It isn't until a little too late that they realize they should have strung the lights around first.

"Save some for the kids to decorate the little tree," Raleigh says over his shoulder, heading into the kitchen to drop off empty hot cocoa mugs. He pauses, then, turns back. Mako is facing away from him, her hand hesitating over a branch, poised to hang another ornament. Her head is tipped to the side, as if she's thinking hard about something.

Something quiet prods at Raleigh's mind, but he can't discern it. Something about her kids, about the way he'd said it so casually — the kids are almost a constant presence, when they aren't holding meetings at the high school; both he and Mako have gotten used to the questions about Jaeger piloting by now — and it's playing along the edges of their remaining drift bond, a quiet loop that's more vague feeling than words.

Mako places the ornament, a silver and blue fish, on the tree, and Raleigh turns away again. He zones out a little bit, watching snow blow off the eaves just outside the kitchen window. Mako won't stay quiet if something is bothering her, but he doesn't think something is. For a moment, he considers refilling his cocoa cup, but it's probably not a good idea. He's driving to the airport in the morning to pick up Jake; a sugar high to keep him awake isn't much help.

Still, it's nearly midnight by the time the lights are strung — slightly tangled with ornaments — and the remainder of the decorations are safely in the garage, where the kids will spread glitter and goodwill on Christmas Eve night. Raleigh almost dozes off as soon as his head hits the pillow, the hot cocoa sugar high turning into a sugar crash, but that little thing is still bouncing around in his head. The kids; he'd said it unthinkingly, like a given — like he would talking about their kids, if they had any.

Mako is curled up asleep already against his side, and Raleigh is about to drift off and join her. He's going to pick up Jake in the morning, Tendo is coming the day after, the kids are going to decorate the little tree for Christmas Eve; it's going to be a busy week. The house up the hill is going to be slightly bustling in the way only holidays, no matter the amount of guests, can cause.

Neither of them has brought up the topic of starting a family yet, not hesitantly, not at all. Maybe it's time they did.

#love having two people who haven't really stayed still in A While actually try to settle down #it's SOOOOO hard #but so good!!!#have never written maleigh before but HHHHHHH i love them #also can you tell I'm extremely fond of the act of moving into a place? bc i am #also so fond of Christmas season I'm writing this in may but hey oh well #they deserve so much #also hhhsnsb raleigh tendo friendship brotp thanks and bye #also RIP i forgot i wanted to give them a big doggo until after i finished writing but like.#in the universe that lives in my head (way more detailed than this) they have a big bernese mountain dog #idk what his name is but i feel like tesla is a good one?? they're nerds ahddhsj #Lu writes #pacrim #pacific rim #mako mori #raleigh becket #maleigh

71 notes · View notes

crippleprophet · 2 years

Note

Hey, do you have any recommendations for books or fics (if there are any that aren't in your chronic pain fics folder on AO3) with characters with chronic pain or a disability?

Bonus if there's a hurt/comfort thing and bonus if it's shorter stories but anything really would be appreciated

oh goodness i am very flattered but i don’t think i’ve read anything that meets your bonus requests so i’ll just link everything i’ve got (in no particular order) and hopefully something will interest you! as far as like published books i really only read research/theory lol, not fiction, but if anyone has recs feel free to mention them in the reblogs/replies!

the folder anon mentioned of fics i’ve written about chronic pain is here for anyone interested!

whatever here that’s left of me by asifnotbound

12.7k, explicit, joe/nicky from the old guard

"Nicky is making himself a coffee, bleary-eyed from a fitful sleep, and trying to recall if Joe is drinking it this decade, and if he is then does he take it with sugar?, and he’s also thinking about The Odyssey, which is sitting in amongst a pile of books in the next room.

He’s thinking about a question written in the margins, scrawled in Booker’s handwriting: how long does it take for a man to return from war? Does he ever return, can he ever return, what does it mean to return home, when home is not home and he is no longer the same man?"

After Merrick, Nicky's right shoulder starts hurting, and it doesn't stop.

i’m not the cruel type, but they are, and that’s the secret by postcardmystery

2.5k, mature, newt/hermann from pacific rim

The world’s on fire and it’s time to, as he says, go big or go home. It’s just a patella, a femur, a tibia. The whole planet’s an open wound, and it’s your job to stitch it back together. You fit. You match. You’re going to get through this surgery if it kills you. You’ve given them everything, and you’re right, you know you are. You’re a cripple, and a genius, and both things notwithstanding, you’re going to save the bloody world. Now watch, or get out of the buggering way.

anything by @brittlebutch but i’ll link and the punchline to the joke is asking SOMEONE SAVE US

5.8k, teen, good omens

The fact of the matter is that Crowley was the first bitter cripple to limp across the face of this planet.

It's been 6000 years and things don't seem to have gotten much better.

a little child shall lead them by zetared

26.5k, teen, good omens

One minor difference in the fabric of history means that, when the time comes, Crowley can’t bring himself to deliver the antichrist. This is a “Raising Adam fic”.

the theory of harmony by @r0b0tb0y

11k, explicit, din djarin/cobb vanth from the mandalorian

Din Djarin goes back to Mos Pelgo to lay low. Cobb Vanth asks Din to teach him Tusken sign language, and Din has to decide which of his secrets are worth keeping. Since swearing the Creed, Din has never told anyone he’s deaf.

umm this orphaned pacific rim fic theory and chalk - warning for some lateral aggression ableism in the autism department but i think it does a really good job exploring the tension brought about by the danger of not being The Only One when the world wants to tokenize you

2.2k, teen, it says 1/9 chapters but it decently works on its own

Newt and Hermann blunder their way through 3 Shatterdomes' worth of arguments, tensions and misgivings. The PPDC is a bag of dicks, the Earth has a chronic illness, and time stops for no man. Or something. From one cranky disabled scientist to another: I detest you, but nobody else understands about the shower chair.

not to actively recommend riverdale content but i read homemade dynamite by @gaycinema the other day & thoroughly enjoyed it, not disability-centric by any means but features HoH jughead

37.5k, teen, archie/jughead

He has nothing to write. It's like the words are all stuck inside him, pushing and pushing but they just—can't get out. Like build up in a pipe. Empty bottles piled in the trash can. Empty empty empty. He has nothing important to say, nothing to wrap up The Story or keep it going, so one night he gives up and opens a new, blank document.

In the document, he starts: I think there's something wrong with me.

or: a ‘jughead half-way joins a gang, finds himself, makes friends, has an argument with but ultimately finds a kind-of boyfriend, too’ story in five parts

#asks #fic recs #representation #this is where y’all find out i barely read chronic pain content lol i just write it

21 notes · View notes

snackhobi · 4 years

Text

pairing: jungkook x reader / word count: 7.4k / genre: pacific rim au with brief smut (NSFW, 18+)

summary: there are no secrets in the drift. if jungkook were to see the mess inside your head and heart, laid utterly bare, he’d turn away from you.

warnings: sexually explicit content (briefly), unprotected sex (please be safe when you have sex) / reference to injuries but nothing graphic, giant robots powered by love punching big alien monsters

a/n: this is a birthday gift for the amazing @yeojaa. happy birthday, erin. this is completely self serving and is stuffed full with inside references that I hope you’ll enjoy. I wrote this in two days and it kicked my ass because I did so much reading and researching that turned out to not even come up in the story 👁👄👁 you know when I said I was studying? I lied. I was writing HAHAHAH ily I hope you like it hhhh (this is unbeta’ed so please forgive any mistakes it’s 1:30am as I’m scheduling this) (also summaries are so hard, I’m sorry)

Jeon Jungkook really is the perfect posterboy for a Jaeger pilot.

Broad across the shoulders and trim at the waist, all sharp punches and hard muscle, resilient and tough, with a face that’s the perfect balance of angles and softness; the cut of his jaw easing up and into his pretty mouth, the line of his brows subdued by his warm eyes—he’s a Goddamn vision, raw masculinity overlaid on rich veins of boyishness, glittering stratum that sparkle and shine even under the harsh lights of the Shatterdome.

He pouts when he thinks and his hair hangs a little in his big, big eyes and he has dimples that appear when he grins, teeth poking out onto his pretty pink lips, like someone took a rabbit and turned it into a man and packed on pounds of muscle alongside. Undeniably powerful and strong, but youthful and sweet, too.

Alongside Kim Taehyung—arresting and beautiful and somehow affable and approachable, all at the same time—they’re exactly what South Korea needs right now, propelling the country’s new look for their renewed assault against the kaiju. They’re the lucky new Rangers who’ve claimed ownership of the only Mark-5 that their homeland has produced, Bulletproof Striker, a fucking gorgeous Jaeger bristling with the latest and greatest technology that the world has produced.

But that doesn’t mean they’re the best that South Korea has to offer.

Cypher Zero is smaller, lighter, older, but she’s fierce. Just like her pilots. You and Yoongi might not be the burning beacons of hope that Jungkook and Taehyung are, polished and buffed to a squeaky shine, but you don’t need to be. You’re vicious and victorious and show no signs of stopping. The kaiju kills painted on your Mark-4’s shoulder are evidence enough of that, notches for each monster taken down, spray painted in one tiny corner of the huge swathe of burnished metal plating, the red edges of her midnight skin.

Bulletproof Striker is almost untouched, deployed just once since her recent launch, flawless exterior so at odds with Cypher Zero’s battered facade. Cypher’s beautiful, of course, but bears the history of your skirmishes, inside and out: scuffed paintwork, dented metal, rust dripping down from the ladder rungs dotted across her, melting into the obsidian of her hull.

Jungkook and Taehyung move in a way that’s practiced, disciplined motions of combat that their Jaeger echoes in turn. Her mechanical movements reflect those of the men inside her head, skilled and superb. Stunning. But you and Yoongi? You fight dirty, violent and rough; messy bar room brawls; shattered glass and clawing hands in beer soaked backrooms, tinged sulphur yellow under dirty lightbulbs; two kids who fought against a world that was against them.

(Two damaged people coming together in the Drift to make something even stronger than the sum of your parts.)

(Two damaged people who survived the rough hands of the Jaeger Academy, trying to take them, push them, shape them, break them.)

(Life isn’t kind. You’d learned that young, surrounded in the splintered remnants of your childhood home, the facade of family and happiness already gone, long long long ago, leaving you aching and lonely and cold. The prospect of fighting thousands of tons of alien hatred, lifting out of the depths of the uncaring, dark sea? At least you can see the kaiju coming. Broken households and loneliness? A little harder to lay your hands on.)

(But out of everything you lost, you’d gained one thing—Min Yoongi, another quiet, damaged thing, but with the biggest depths of warmth and love underneath that hard surface; your best friend, your brother-in-arms, growing alongside you, with you. Damaged kids turned bitter teenagers turned razor-edged adults, outcasts in solitude, but together. Not alone.)

(The deeper the bond, the better you fight. Falling into the Drift with Yoongi had been easy, years of tangled connection bleeding into the images that flashed across your brain. The same memories from different angles, overlaid with different emotions, undercurrents eddying under the surface that caught both of you and swept you up in its flow; the same mind, bridged by hundreds of tons of metal and technology and firepower underneath you, linked together in the silence of the Drift.)

There’s reverence, in the way these two new pilots look at you both, reverence and awe and respect alike: older Rangers, more experienced, history written across the worn edges of your Drivesuits, the paint flaking away from your battle armour, scuffs and scrapes on the once unblemished veneer; knowledge etched into the feline slant of Yoongi’s eyes, the turn of your shoulders and hips.

You know Jungkook’s track record. You know of the endless months of assessment and sparring and psych evals and Drift tests and simulation drops that every successful Ranger has to go through, and Jungkook had trumped them all, stood atop them like a conqueror surveying his hard-won lands—gifted, talented, some even said God-touched. And yet for all this indomitable talent and skill, there’s still humility at his core, a willingness to defer with respect.

That deference is obvious whenever he sees you. Jungkook’s dark eyes will touch your own, for a moment, dark and deep and bright—and then his gaze will skitter away, cockiness and bravado dissolving into something submissive, yielding. (Shy.) You’ve watched him orbit you, the younger ranger caught in your gravity, always nearby—the Shatterdome is only so big, for its magnitude and sprawling corridors—but never broaching that final gap, that little step, into Cypher Zero’s space, Yoongi’s space, your space. Keeping himself at arm’s length.

South Korea’s golden boy, less afraid of the Kaiju than he is of his sunbaenim.

Jungkook and Taehyung are both beautiful. But you and Yoongi are less so, unapproachable in ways that the younger pilots aren’t, private and prickly, like grasping a patch of stinging nettles with bare hands, stinging and burning.

As if Jungkook isn’t terrifying and gorgeous in his own ways. As if he doesn’t shine brighter than the sun himself. Taehyung moves through the world with a thoughtless, charismatic ease that Jungkook doesn’t share—but he’s still magnetic, bold and brilliant, monstrously skilled at everything he puts his mind to, training again and again and again to get it right, get it right, get it right.

To get it perfect.

But there’s no level of perfectionism that can surmount the twisted, unpredictable nature of the kaiju belched forth from the breach. No matter how good you are, how strong or fast, how smart or seasoned, sometimes you still get caught in that hurricane, even in a Jaeger.

It doesn’t matter how many engines are packed into each muscle strand. It doesn’t matter how fast the pistons and levers and gears shift and move. It doesn’t matter that the pilots in her cockpit are impeccable and incredible. Under the cloak of deepest night and pouring rain, blanketed in darkness and water from the heavens above and the sea below, movement is impossible to track—and when Steelbrute rises from the waves, no one sees the kaiju coming.

Bulletproof Striker takes the hit. Jungkook and Taehyung fight back but they’re blindsided and overwhelmed, and their Jaeger falls to her knees in the churn of the Pacific Ocean, salt water crashing over her in choppy waves as Steelbrute’s merciless maw gapes wide open.

Cypher Zero is 250ft tall and weighs 1410 tons. You and Yoongi are tiny specks of organic matter in a fearsome behemoth of titanium and tungsten and graphene and circuitry, commanders of a weapon that’s the same size as a skyscraper—and yet you wouldn’t think that for how fast you move. Zero hesitation. No verbal communication. Cypher’s legs cut through endless waves and gain momentum with each crashing step that slams into the seafloor before you leap forward in a flurry of motion and Drift powered fury.

Your motions in the Conn-Pod are ragged and incensed, your arms and legs moving in sync with Yoongi, with Cypher Zero, a snarl ripping out of your co-pilot’s usually quiet mouth as the kaiju lurches underneath you. The world narrows down to this: throwing yourself into the fray, jagged knuckles edged with plasma pummelled into Steelbrute’s skin in a scuffle that’s vicious, aggressive, until Bulletproof Striker regains her footing.

The sun is rising, grey and cold on the horizon when Steelbrute finally sinks into the sea, toxic blood flooding the water with neon blue. When you step out of the cockpit, Yoongi’s fringe is matted with sweat, and you can feel all the places the circuitry suit sticks to your skin—piloting a Jaeger is mentally and physically exhausting, every muscle and organ and bone working overtime for endless hours as you fight tooth and nail. Without the helmets in the way, there’s nothing stopping you bumping your foreheads together, heedless of the sweat slicked there; Yoongi’s hand rests at the back of your head, a familiar cradle.

“All good,” you say. Yoongi lets out a quiet bark of a laugh, rough and exhausted.

“I want a nap,” he says, like he always does, even if you’re a long way away from that, still fully suited and due to speak to the Marshalls. There are so, so many things separating you from the bliss of sleep.

One thing that’s not part of the normal routine, though, is the other pilots catching you, demanding your recognition, respectful (Taehyung) but insistent (Jungkook). You know that Yoongi doesn’t like attention or hero-worship, but there’s nothing except gratitude, here, bent heads and words of thanks. You’d saved their lives, after all. Saved their Jaeger from being torn apart, pain screaming through their own bodies of flesh and bone, connected to their metal monster. Of course they’re grateful.

You dismiss it with a hard cut of your hand.

“It’s nothing,” you say.

You’re speaking the words you know are in Yoongi’s head—years of friendship and shared Drifts leaving his thought processes wide open to you—although you know you’re sharper than he is, harsher than he is, even, for all that he looks like the cold one from the outside. Long lashes and silken hair don’t translate to something soft and feminine and pretty, and you’re all ragged edges and rough parts, bleeding into the delivery of your words. Yoongi rounds the words in his mouth and places them into the world with a rumble of quiet strength that belies his past, but you? Your tongue is cutting and terse and drips with distrust, even when you don’t mean it to, staring at these two boys, Jungkook’s eyes so brown and large when he stares back at you.

The truth is that you care about humanity, of course. You care about humanity and you care about the millions of people in the cities that line the coasts and further inland, and you care about your fellow pilots, skilled but soft-hearted as they are. You’re stronger. You have to be. That’s what Yoongi is, that’s what you are: fighters. You fight dirty because you fight to win, not to protect yourselves. You’ll fight and you’ll die for this, for them, even if there’s no friendship there. Not yet. You’re still too distant, for all that you’d thrown yourself in the line of fire to rip the kaiju from the younger Rangers.

And when Jungkook levels a look at you, there’s a flicker of something. A spark. All the glittering of his warm eyes comes together like the cascading sparks of molten fire that fall when metal is cut through— his eyes score through you, down down down, right to your core, underneath all the armour you’ve laid about yourself throughout your life. Your heart stutters. You’ve been watching Jeon Jungkook, and he’s all cocky Ranger bravado, or innocent brown eyes and shy, curving smiles, and yet.

And yet. You know he sees this soft part of you, somehow. Past the thorns and sharp leaves, past the hard husk, into the rich, bursting sweetness inside, oozing red gems of pomegranate that yield so easily to the fingers and mouth.

(He’s temerarious and modest and wickedly perceptive too, it seems.)

“That was our kill,” he says suddenly. Taehyung—the voice piece of the two, the one who’s been smiling and speaking, easy and slow—goes still at his side.

“What?” Yoongi’s eyes pierce through him, but Jungkook keeps his focus on you.

“Steelbrute. Our kill. It was a hit from our rockets that took him out,” Jungkook says, eyes still glinting with that sparkling shine. Slicing through you with an explosion of light. “Not your blades.”

Silence steals over you, for a breath. It’s never truly silent in the Shatterdome, an iron fortress that never sleeps, but for a second, there’s quiet. It wraps around you. Tight. Almost deafening.

But then you break that silence.

You laugh.

You laugh at the cheeky grin that pulls at Jungkook’s lips, the boyish lift to his face. You laugh at his shamelessness, the sudden 180 from his earlier fear. You laugh at the way he’s diluted this astonishing, formidable thing—humanity coming together to destroy alien predators that threaten the planet—into a competition.

“You’re a menace, Jeon Jungkook,” you say.

Stinging nettles you might be, but if you’re grabbed hard and fast by confident hands, you don’t wound. Jeon Jungkook defers to respect, avoids confrontation, bows his head and quiets his mouth, but he knows, now, that he can do this. That he can push you like this, and you’ll let him, sway against it, let yourself be pushed.

Yoongi slides you a glance out the corner of his eyes, a light touch, a tacit agreement to an unspoken question.

“You can have it. Steelbrute’s yours.” There’s the smallest curl to your lips as you speak for you both. There’s something weirdly easy and familiar to this, to this interaction, even if you’ve barely exchanged words before now, giving this triumph to the other pilots hand over fist.

(Giving it to Jungkook on a platter.)

You can see the flare of triumph in Jungkook’s eyes. You know it’s not for the notch of their first kill, one they can add to their Jaeger. It’s for something far harder to achieve, something far more ephemeral: digging down and past your cool veneer and lifting out a smile, spreading it across your lips like warm butter, liquid gold.

And he keeps making you smile.

Jeon Jungkook, you find, is a force of nature, relentless, an ocean. Sometimes he’s soft, loving waves of glittering blue that crash on pearly white beaches, playful and bright. Sometimes, he’s intense, the crashing waves of a storm tossed sea, powerful and unstoppable. Always, he’s striking, even when he’s not trying—even more so because of it, moving without thought or uncertainty, a silence settling over your thoughts whenever you see him like this. See him in this raw state, so unafraid where before he’d curbed his tongue and bent his head in front of you. Now, he’s just himself, without filter.

Taehyung is there too, of course. Both pilots join your small, fiercely private circle, not just a path from you to Yoongi any more. They become intertwining lines, a pattern that’s drawn between the four of you, pilots, friends. And you learn, that for all that you’d thought that Taehyung was the dominant one outside of their Jaeger, social and extroverted and unabashed, Jungkook isn’t quiet. Not when he’s comfortable.

(Not, now, when he’s with you.)

He’s a myriad of things, endlessly deep, so different from you, from Yoongi, but—the truth of it settles inside you, your joints, the marrow of your bones, the blood that pulses forth from your heart each time it beats in your chest, liquid life running through you.

Drift compatibility.

Not that it matters. You already have a partner. You’re never going to open yourself up to anyone that isn’t Yoongi, who’s seen every part of you already. There’d been no fear about letting Yoongi see inside your brain, your heart, the raw, bleeding parts of you—because he’d already known them. Just like you’d known his. Yoongi stands to your right, inside the Conn-Pod and out, a driving force, even in his silence.

But Jungkook is softer, sweeter, for all his raw power and skill, respect engraved into his every motion, even when he’s teasing and making you laugh. Even when he ignores the social guidelines that he should follow, does follow for others, everyone except you.

And you don’t mind. You don’t bite out insults at him when he slides into the quiet hollow you’ve scraped out, a small space with just enough room for the people you keep in your heart. You’re still barbed and spiked, warding away unwanted attention, but for Jungkook, the claws retract.

You’re still you, of course. Jungkook calls you mean, says that you bully him, even as he’s flopped across your bunk, eating your rations, shovelling coveted popcorn into his mouth. He might pout and sigh and cry oppression, but you’re soft on him and he knows it. That quiet hollow in your heart is a little larger, now, a little louder. Jungkook is brazen in his claim of this space, spreading each of his limbs wide as he fits himself into every part of it. He doesn’t know every piece of your past, and you don’t plan to let him see all the messy parts bundled in your chest, but. But he’s still there.

And you let him stay. You make a home for him inside you and let him take the key. He might tilt his head and goad you, might pretend there’s a genuine challenge in the set of his jaw, but you know it’s all tempered with admiration, veneration. Friendship.

(And where he clearly respects you, you admire him in turn. You’re reminded of your differences every second he moves and breathes and just exists in front of you, but you don’t have to be similar to someone to realise just how incredible they are.)

(But though you’re different, there are similarities. You’re not a mirrored image, a reflection, like you are with Yoongi. Instead, you’re a line drawn between two separate places, an isohel, sun lighting up your world for the same sweep of the clock even for how far apart you are. Sharing that same, tenuous thing, for all your contrasting parts.)

(This thing that’s growing, held in your hands. This soft, gentle thing, shimmering, frail, unfurling slowly but undeniably. Tinged with happiness, disbelief. Disbelief that you’ve found this, that you can see Jungkook across the echoing cavern of the Shatterdome’s main hall, so far in the distance, barely visible at the foot of his Jaeger—and something will settle in your chest. Featherlight, iridescent. Something comforting.)

When you fight the kaiju, now, it’s with a deeper reserve of desperation. Taehyung and Jungkook aren’t just fellow pilots, dongsaeng that you’re obliged to look after: they’re your friends, something more than that too, part of the rare handful of people in the world who understand, this overwhelming pressure to fight and win and protect the things you love. The people you love. They understand what it’s like to step into someone else’s head, to be connected to that person on a level that’s unfathomable, anchored in a depth of love that’s endless. You’re their aegis, now, their shield.

(Jungkook’s shield.)

Maybe that��s what’s to blame. Maybe that’s why you’re so sloppy, this time. Maybe that’s why you throw yourselves in the way of the blow that was meant for Bulletproof Striker. Maybe that’s why Ojousan shreds Cypher Zero’s chest apart, her head, why Yoongi is almost ripped from you, his fear and pain screaming through your neural connection. You feel everything he feels and more beside, your heart hammering in your throat as you scream, Jaeger’s arm swinging up and around in tandem with your own motions as you try to rip the kaiju away, anything to protect Yoongi, so scared of losing him, always always always, scared of being left alone.

But you’re not alone.

Bulletproof Striker lifts up like an avenging angel. Her horns roar a challenge, an echoing battle cry as the younger pilots move in. Heavier and stronger, keeping her balance even in the turbulence of a fight, she takes the hits, gives back her own, sends the kaiju down into the crashing waves, waits for it to rise. But the monster is crafty and quick and even as you’re lifting your left arm—Yoongi’s hurt, so hurt, you know this, feel this, but he moves with you to ready the plasma cannon buried in the mechanics of your Jaeger’s hand, even if he’s keening with pain—you watch as the other pilots, too, fall victim to the clawed tail of the kaiju, screeching through layers of alloys and across their Conn-Pod.

Terror strikes through every part of you and morphs into hate. You hate the kaiju, hate your own weakness, hate the pain that’s been saved from being written into your own body while Yoongi screams and sobs even though he still fights. Your motions are anguished and desperate as you battle to overcome this beast that’s almost taken away everything that matters to you—and Cypher Zero, Yoongi, as damaged and hurt as they are, come through. (Like they always do, for you, always.)

And somehow, despite everything, for all the self-hatred and pain and fear, you pull through. You pull through. Damaged and hurt but alive.

Barely.

Barely alive.

(One hand gives, the other takes away.)

It takes hours for them to pick Yoongi’s Drivesuit from his body, crumpled around him from Ojousan’s claws, cutting into the soft flesh of his body, body ruined further by the fighting he’d been forced into despite his injuries; so many of Taehyung’s bones are shattered, and when you finally see him awake and with his eyes open, there are burst blood vessels that cast red across the usually warm expression, his friendly eyes.

You should be grateful that they’re alive. You should be on your hands and knees, weeping, benedictions dripping from your graceless mouth as you thank whatever merciless God above decided to turn their gaze on you and grant you this leniency. So many pilots have died and will continue to die, you know this, but somehow your partners are still alive.

And you are grateful. You are. But there’s bitterness on your tongue, twisted across your palate, sour and acrid and filling you with its taste. You’d been foolish and reckless and you’d almost lost the things you cared about most, even if you’d destroyed the kaiju, torn it apart and left its fluorescent indigo blood to corrode the ocean.

That’s what’s important, isn’t it. Saving humanity. One person, two people, four people—you’re the tiniest cogs in a whirring engine of billions. Unimportant. Just a spinning part that keeps the machine going.

When you’re not with Yoongi or Taehyung, an unmoving presence from their hospital beds, a hovering gargoyle carved from stone, you’re with Jungkook. Always, always, always. Somehow you’d both escaped without the injuries inflicted on your partners—you’d manage to break your little finger, and Jungkook had a black eye and a twisted ankle, and the both of you had mottles of bruises cast across your skin, pulled muscles, an ache carved into your bones, but that was it. That was it. It was almost laughable, how unscathed you are.

You hate it.

(It should have been you.)

Your legs—unbroken, unharmed—hang over steel scaffolding, motionless as you watch the tiny specks of people scuttling across the catwalks that criss-cross Cypher Zero’s body. You can see under her skin, damage peeling back all the layers of metal that should be holding her together. Endless showers of sparks fall and scatter as she’s stitched back together. Your beautiful girl is so damaged, so disfigured.

(You’d caught Yoongi as he’d fallen from the harness, listened to the horrible noises that had torn out of his lips as he’d dripped blood and pain over your shaking hands.)

The bland food you’d scraped off your dinner tray settles fitfully in your stomach, still one second, nausea bubbling up your throat the next.

It’s one of the rare times you’ve been alone, since… since everything. You’ve been taking comfort in Jungkook’s presence, unwavering and understated, needing someone there when staring at Yoongi’s battered face proved too much. Even with his own upheaval Jungkook’s been there, at your side, always close. Eyes locked on you and taking everything in, the tired set to your face, the expression that tugs down your lips, and still, he stays.

But he’d disappeared after you’d eaten, a peculiar look on his face—you know him well enough now to recognise that look, that it means he’s got something in his head, some plan he means to unfold. It’s the first time you’ve seen it since Taehyung had been pulled out of the Conn-Pod. It’s some semblance of normality, an expression of something other than pale-faced dread and bone-shivering guilt.

(You feel it too, that survivor’s guilt. Taehyung and Yoongi will recover but it’ll take time and so much suffering and you wish you could take that from them, heft that burden onto your own shoulders.)

(You know Jungkook feels the same.)

(You see it written in the tense lines of his body. Hear it unspoken in the words he shares with you. The bruises on his skin melt from red to purple to blue to yellow, but even if his body heals, his brain and heart bear the scars of helplessness.)

Jungkook reappears, finds you at the heavy steel door that leads into your room, rusted and worn but silent as it swings open in front of you. His eyes are wide and he’s breathless, like he’s been running, chest heaving as he sucks in air through his parted lips, a flash of teeth and tongue as he smiles.

Despite everything, you smile back. Helpless for that smile, always, happier now for the sight of it, for how little you’ve seen it. You want to see that smile every day. You don’t want him to worry for anything. You want him to feel the same way you do, when you see him: that quiet, maybe selfish thought that things are okay.

Maybe he does. (His eyes are so warm.) He presses something into your hands, something soft and round like a well-practised secret, and then he’s gone. You can tell by the gait of his stride that he’s going back to Taehyung, giving you a moment of lonely reprieve to wash the grime and dirt off your useless body before you follow in his footsteps, stationed at Yoongi’s side.

The door swings shut behind you.

You lift your hand.

It’s an orange.

It’s a small, overripe thing, hard nub of the stem falling away from the skin with only the lightest brush of your fingers. You stare at the fruit, its brightness cutting through the muted sepia tones of your surroundings, a point of colour in an otherwise dull room.

You haven’t seen an orange in months. Rationing is tough on everyone, even Jaeger pilots. You’d mentioned in passing, so long ago, an old habit of yours. Before something else floated above it, more important and interesting, you’d made a fleeting statement that had flitted across the surface of the conversation: you liked eating oranges in the shower. Liked that nice, cool citrus sweetness in your mouth while the rest of your body was caught in the fall of warm water.

It’s such a small, tiny thing. Just the briefest lament—there are more important things than the fact you can’t have shower oranges any more, after all—and you’d forgotten you’d even mentioned it.

But Jungkook hadn’t.

It’s almost syrupy sweet, this orange. You savour each slice, pressing them between your teeth, feeling the rush of juice burst forth through the pith and skin, and it’s so good you could cry.

You do cry.

Your mouth is full of orange and your eyes are full of tears and your head is full of—of—something, something so all encompassing that it overwhelms you, water cascading down the aching planes of your body as you crumple inwards. Jungkook had protected you with the overwhelming power of Bulletproof Striker, and he’s protecting you now, soft and considerate and kind, vulnerable and human. Stripped of tons of metal and technology, Jungkook wears his beating heart on his sleeve and is none the weaker for it.

This seemingly small thing means so much, so so so much. You understand him, and he understands you too, knows that this gesture is indicative of support and care and nurturing, a tiny fragment of peace he can offer you in the tumult of everything out of your control.

A tiny fragment of peace that’s part of a greater whole, all the things that Jungkook gives to you.

When the Marshalls gather you and tell you the plan going forwards, you’re unsurprised.

It makes sense, of course. Four pilots down to two still leaves a pair, and Bulletproof Striker is nearly functional even if Cypher Zero will stay out of commission while she’s rebuilt. Simple maths. One Jaeger, two pilots. You and Jungkook.

You’re scared.

You know you’re Drift compatible. Every fight in the Kwoon Combat Room is evidence enough of that. A dialogue, each challenge is meant to be a dialogue to show physical compatibility, and it is: there’s perfect sync in how you each move to strike, even if your motions are so different, muscles burning and breaths coming faster each time you attack, parry, strike, block. It’s not about winning or losing. It’s a conversation, one that you and Jungkook fall into without thought.

And he would be the perfect partner. That much isn’t in doubt. Loyal and open and strong, honourable and brave and kind—and you know him, have grown to learn so much about this golden boy, this bright, brilliant boy. He’s fucking indomitable and anyone would be lucky to find themselves in the same Jaeger as Jeon Jungkook.

But there are no secrets in the Drift.

To let someone in, you have to trust them. And you do, you do trust Jungkook, probably far more than makes sense, some unspoken thing between you burning like a wildfire. But while you trust him, confident in his strength and his heart, you trust yourself less.

You’ll be flayed open, naked and defenceless. He’ll see right to the core of you, every dirty corner of your crumpled soul, every shameful part of your foundations, uneven brickwork layered into your shaky temperament; strong one second, weak the next. He’ll see that you’re hard inside, too, biting and acidic right down to your shrivelled heart. This nascent thing that you’ve been building with Jungkook, been keeping safe in the cradle of your careful hands, will sputter out and die.

“Baby.”

Yoongi’s voice is comforting, a familiar rumble that rolls through your ears as you rest your head in his lap.

“And I mean that you’re literally being a baby,” he continues, and you curl your lip back from your teeth in a small snarl, menacing.

Yoongi just continues to thread his hands through your hair.

You’ve Drifted with Yoongi often and long enough to know how every thread of thought unspools in that skull of his. You know he has every confidence in the unshakeable pillar of your soul. He’s a brother to you, a connection that thrums deep in your veins even without the intimacy of the Drift, and the love you hold for him is undying and true.

But whatever you have with Jungkook is so timorous in the face of that.

“It’s different.” Yoongi looks down at the twist of your face. You know his thoughts and he knows yours too, your face and heart an open book to him. “But different isn’t bad.”

You keep your mouth shut, keep the words swallowed down in your throat, shoved down to the pit of your stomach. Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

“Baby,” he says again, softer, lower. This time, you know it’s an endearment.

At the end of the day, no matter what fear grips cold and endless at your insides, you’ll do it. You’ll Drift with Jungkook. You’ll throw everything you have into the pyre, watch it burn and turn to ash, if it means you can keep everyone safe. To save Yoongi, Taehyung, Jungkook—you’ll open yourself up to the mortifying ordeal of opening up, laying yourself bare. You have to.

It’s chaotic, anyway. The day that your practice Drift is scheduled is the day the next kaiju rises out of the breach, that dreaded rift between our world and theirs, because why would you be allowed to breathe, even for a second?

It’s a scramble into the cockpit. There’s no time for trial runs or test Drifts. You fly or you fall. Everyone’s in a state of orderly upheaval as you’re suited up and left to stride forwards into a Conn-Pod that isn’t yours, in a Jaeger that isn’t yours.

(Left to stride forwards to stand next to someone who isn’t yours.)

Your Drivesuit is grey. Jungkook’s is white. There’s a subtle hologramatic sheen laid across the planes of his armour, leaving him a multicoloured vision that shines out under the flicker of the cockpit’s endless tiny buttons and lights. Your own suit is a matte, gunmetal with accents of burning scarlet, far more battered and worn. Dark and wild in the face of Jungkook’s radiance. He’s the perfect answer to the kaiju invasion. You, though, feel like an interloper in a space that wasn’t designed for you, this circle room that’s been home to Jungkook and his true, real partner.

But he’s looking at you like there’s no one else he’d rather have by his side.

He doesn’t care that everything about this moment just cements how he’s too good for you in every conceivable way, elevated above you. Doesn’t care that you’re just a temporary stop gap. There’s trepidation, of course, skittering nerves that dance across his face for this first Drift, surrounded by all the commotion that’s swallowing the world up outside the cockpit. But there’s also that fire in his eyes, one you’ve learned to expect: Jungkook is a wildfire and will surmount any obstacle in a blaze of white-hot light.

And he wants you along for the ride.

(Burns bright for it.)

“You ready?” He asks, and the tiny tremor in his words takes you off guard even as it soothes a balm over the rash of apprehension that prickles across your skin.

(Because he’s nervous, too.)

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” you answer, truly.

His eyes crinkle into a smile, crescents of happiness as his lip peels back from his teeth. It should be jarring, seeing his sweet bunny smile in the pit of a Jaeger, so at odds with the military polycarbonate that girds his body with protection, the masculine edges of his face—but it’s not. The world is just a backdrop to Jeon Jungkook, dropping away as you fall into his eyes, twinkling stars of brightness and warmth that hold you safe, even now.

Peace and contentment steals over you. You’re almost shocked by it, the way your own face softens into a smile, the rising beat of your heart. Every ragged messy edge in you is smoothed over by Jungkook’s presence and you glow for him.

When the Conn-Pod drops, there’s the familiar weightlessness, the sway of your body in the harness as you fall. Anticipation roils through you as Bulletproof Striker’s head locks into place, whirring mechanisms securing you to nearly 2000 tons of metal, so much heavier than your own Jaeger. You’ve taken Jungkook’s usual place and he’s taken Taehyung’s, the right hemisphere, the dominant pilot, familiar with this machine in a way you’re not.

Not yet, at least.

“We’ve got this.”

Jungkook’s voice cuts through the noise, the AI talking at you, a narration of events you’ve long grown used to. You turn your head to look at him. He’s already looking at you, intent and sincere. Like always.

“Yeah,” you say. “Yeah, we have.”

There’s no point being afraid. In a few seconds, Jungkook will be in your head, washing over every part of you—and you’ll be in his, pressing your ethereal touch into every facet that comes together to make Jeon Jungkook who he is.

Seconds pass. There’s a little hitch in his breath, a stiffness to his limbs, and he shuts his eyes. You breathe in deep, deep, deep, sucking in a harsh breath into your greedy lungs—

—the timer hits zero—

—and then the Drift slams into you all at once, all encompassing and consuming, threading your minds together.

(Drifting with Yoongi is easy, the familiarity of coming home after so much time away.)

(But this?)

(This is throwing yourself into a cold lake on a hot summer’s day, bracing and refreshing and breath-stealing all at once, shocking life into every one of your limbs, so sharp and fast you’re scared you might drown before you breach the surface, water holding onto you and not letting you go. This is driving reckless and fast down empty roads, watching the world pass you in a blur, laughing in delight at the pleasure of it all. This is scaling a cliffside with nothing but your own hands and determination, digging your fingers into the unyielding rock, pulling yourself up-up-up, never letting yourself fall.)

(This is having Jungkook beside you. This is having Jungkook diving into the lake with all the grace of an Olympian before he rises to the surface, tosses his hair carelessly out of his face, and spits a mouthful of water at you with laughter in his eyes. This is having Jungkook behind the driver’s wheel, shifting gears without thought, looking away from the road to watch the way your hair dances in the wind. This is having Jungkook climbing beside you, waiting for you at the top, holding a hand out to pull you up and over so you can sprawl out beside him, exhausted and exuberant at the top of this mountain, basking in the sun with Jungkook just a hair’s breadth away from you.)

(He takes one look at you. He takes one look at all the dark of your memories, the cascading mess of your insides, the hidden things that are open to him in the Drift, cut open and peeled back for his gaze—and he doesn’t look away.)

(He sees everything, past skin and muscle and bone and nerves, even deeper, right into your heart—)

(—all the torrents that eddy the deep waters of your soul—)

(—and he doesn’t look away.)

(He doesn’t look away.)

(Can’t look away.)

(Doesn’t want to.)

(Never wants to.)

(Jeon Jungkook takes one look at you, your whole being, and he knows you.)

(And he doesn’t want you any less.)

It’s just a second, a flicker, a breath, this first connection in this Drift, falling into each other. But it’s also a lifetime, two lifetimes, four lifetimes; your memories, Jungkook’s memories, Yoongi’s memories in yours, Taehyung’s memories in Jungkook’s. Layers and layers and years and years piled over one another, a tumbling sprawl—but it’s easy. It’s easy, so easy, Jungkook seeing you, you seeing him, everything he is, everything you are, everything you are to each other, with each other, for each other. The important things. The things you need to know to navigate this together, in sync even before now, reading each other to a level neither had even realised.

And when you’ve killed the kaiju. When you’ve walked Bulletproof Striker back to shore, brought her back to the Shatterdome, back home, it doesn’t end. You lift out of the Drift, step out of your Drivesuits, as different as they are (as different as you are), and it doesn’t end.

Jungkook’s eyes linger, as heavy as a physical touch, and even as congratulations for a successful drop are bandied about you, he doesn’t leave your side. He keeps his hand against yours—not intertwined, but brushing, the curl of his fingers against your own. Touching. You’re not the protector here. He’s protecting you, in a way that doesn’t leave you feeling inferior or weak. You feel soft and warm and small and safe, pulled inexorably towards him, supported, buoyed up, and you don’t feel selfish for it.

Because he wants this.

He wants to be your comfort and your support.

He doesn’t want it to end.

(You don’t want it to end.)

And when you finally break away from those crowds, released from the shackles of responsibility and expectation—when you’re finally left alone, the two of you with each other, there’s no hesitation when you come together.

He lays you out beneath him and has you sobbing, back arching into the pleasure he draws out of your body, playing you like a maestro. Because he knows you, after all. He knows exactly how to trail his lips across your skin, your neck and stomach and thighs, painting marks across your body like it’s his personal canvas. He knows exactly how to have you twisting underneath him, how to pull those pretty sounds from your lips, fucking you with his fingers and his tongue until you’re a shaking mess. He kisses you sweet, merciless, letting you claw at his skin as you beg for more, more more more, wanting it, needing it, wanting him, needing him.

And you know he’ll give it to you. He’ll give himself to you, give you everything you ask for. You know how he wants to see you fall apart and you know how to move your body to have him gritting his teeth and staring in awe. You know how desperate he is to worship you, to show you his adoration and reverence, and you open up for him, unfurl like a flower, dripping nectar. When he finally presses into you, hot and long and thick, it’s so good you could cry. You draw him in-in-in, into your body and arms and heart, pressing your lips to the sweat at his brow, the taste of skin and salt and Jungkook bursting across your tongue.

There’s no Drift here, no curl of memories and unspoken thoughts between you. It’s physical and human, the crash of your bodies against each other, skin on skin, the thrust of his cock pressing into the dripping folds of your cunt. It’s the other half of that connection, the final piece, this thing you have with Jungkook, this perfect balance you have with him. It sears itself across your body and into your soul: it’s pleasure and passion and devotion carved into each touch of your lips and fingers, each roll of your hips, each time Jungkook makes you cum, gasping for him.

When he’s finally come apart inside you, spilling into your willing heat as you shake beneath him, arms and legs wrapped around his body as you pull him as close as you can, unwilling to let go—it still doesn’t end. You’re so wrapped up in Jungkook, in his arms, his heart, and you know he won’t let you go, either. He presses his lips against yours, chases those kisses, quiet and chaste to open-mouthed and dirty as the mood takes you, and then Jungkook rolls over you again, a spark in his eyes as he decides he’s still hungry for you.

You know, now, that all that time ago, when you carved that space for him into your chest, he’d done the same for you. He’d laid his heart at your feet and waited there, kneeling, for you to accept it, patient and willing. Staring at you with all the deep love you never thought you deserved, never thought you’d receive. But here he is. Here he is, love burning in his dark brown eyes. Eyes that have seen all the damaged, aching parts of you and love you anyway.

“I’m yours.”

Jungkook shines so bright at your words, a supernova of joy. His smile is so wide and his gaze is so soft, for you, for you, for you.

“Everything I am is for you,” he murmurs, letting the words curl into the air, settle across your skin, sink deep inside your chest. Your eyes flutter shut as you feel this touch of him inside you, wrapped around your heart.

And when you lift your hands, he comes so easily. He presses his cheek into the curve of your fingers, lets you hold him, lets you cup those lovely cheeks in your palms.

“I love you,” he says.

Right now, in this instant, there’s nothing but him. No kaiju, no Jaegers, no crumbling world, nothing. There’s only him, and you, together.

“I love you too,” you reply—and when you smile, gentle and tender, Jungkook falls in love all over again.

Burns bright for you.

1K notes · View notes