This isn't our parade, Pacific Rim, Mako Mori/Raleigh Becket, NC17
This isn't our parade
Pacific Rim, Mako Mori/Raleigh Becket
It’s been a year since the Human-Kaiju War ended. There were celebrations in the aftermath, parades and hero’s welcomes and ticker-tape in the streets of cities flooded with noise and color. Hong Kong and Sydney were rebuilt, new proposals and defensive measures bandied about with the skeletons of giants salvaged from the Jaeger program. The Hong Kong Shatterdome was closed for the time being while budgets were recalibrated and oversight committees took votes. Since then an old farmhouse was purchased in a quiet corner of Alaska, with an old pick-up truck in the drive-way and a small collection of stray dogs sleeping at the fire place.
The truck was Raleigh’s. Mako hated it, thought it smelled and made weird noises. The dogs were Mako’s; Raleigh could say the same about them. There were compromises made, with designated coffee mugs and sweaters that always ended up in Mako’s dresser-drawer instead of Raleigh’s whenever she did the laundry. Plans were drafted for futures that there would be time for, now, without monsters breathing on the back door.
Then again, monsters had a nasty habit of cropping up when one least expects them to.
--
The helicopter lands on what Raleigh considers the front yard, outside the tiny farmhouse sitting on two acres of Alaskan wilderness. It’s not even dawn when Mako wakes to the thunder of propellers shaking every nail and stud in the house, nearly vibrating them out of the bed. Herc is the one who steps out of the helicopter this time, as Raleigh pulls on his coat and Mako is already marching out across the snow in a stolen shirt under her jacket.
Herc doesn’t say anything at first, but she knows. She knows because she knew Chuck when they were both too young for the world they found themselves dropped into, by things much larger than themselves. She knows because they both buried someone the last time this happened, and Herc wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t serious.
“When?” is all she needs to know.
“Six hours ago,” is all he needs to tell her. “It’s a new site, seventeen miles from the last breach. Geologists wrote it off as seismic activity at first, but we’re getting the same readings as they did in 2013. Something’s trying to punch a hole from the other side.”
Mako and Raleigh have enough time to pack one bag and make arrangements for the dogs before they’re over the ocean, waiting for something to come out. When the war begins again, there are no parades or ticker-tape. There’s just a job to be done.
--
The PPDC rebuilds Gipsy, because it only seems right. She’s better than she was before, faster and stronger, the first Mark VI to roll off the production line. Her heart is a brand new when the maintenance crew opens up her chest in the hangar bay, abandoning the nuclear vortex turbine for a safer non-analog system. Inside the conn-pod, however, it’s still just like coming home again.
--
They have plans, before. Fix up the farmhouse, save up some money, try to be normal people for a while. Like most things, their plans go away for a while, swept aside by the war effort. These things are tucked away on the shelf with books and photos held together by rubber bands and twine. Alaska fades into memory as home becomes the barracks of the renovated Hong Kong Shatterdome, with just enough room for clothes, a few knick-knacks and pictures for the wall. The bed is too small to share, the water in the shower never quite hot, the walls echoing with the human traffic filling the corridors all day and night. It’s familiar, almost comforting, because at least this they understand. This they know and can navigate.
Someone on the hangar crew asks why they bunk together. It’s not an unreasonable question. Of course the reasons aren’t in their personnel files, and Raleigh knows his probably hasn’t even been updated since Anchorage. That would involve paperwork at the court house (which is not off the table) and the ring Raleigh’s been thinking about buying whenever he passes the jeweler’s shop window in town (which he already knows she knows about). It has everything to do with plans, and nothing to do with wars or agendas or temporary detours.
“Because she’s my co-pilot,” is all he says when asked of it, like it’s some universal truth or a mantra to live by.
The deeper the bond, the better you fight.
--
Something stirs at the bottom of the sea. The alarms sound at three am. A shadow surges from the darkness off the coast of the Palau Islands and in an instant the war starts all over again. It’s the first time they’ve gone hunting together since the first war ended, the first time they’ve Drifted. Even for it, it comes to them like breathing, and in the Drift there is only silence.
--
It takes time to find suitable pilot candidates, to train them, to break them in. Herc puts Mako at the head of the candidate program, sifting through psychological tests and synch evaluations, drills and simulation data, finding the proper variables to balance the equation required to pilot a Jaeger. The training program falls to Raleigh, by virtue of being the most experienced active-duty Ranger left standing. It’s not how they imagined spending their lives together, but, day by day, they assemble a squadron worth its salt.
Most days they see each other only in passing, from opposing doorways down corridors between meals or drills or briefings. There’s hardly time to stop or talk or spend time together. Still, if their hands happen to brush as they pass each other, in a fleeting touch of outstretched fingers, it makes it all the more meaningful.
--
Three events inside of six months. Three deployments, three kills. Something big is happening on the other side, but it just gets easier every time. The new normal all over again, sleeping in a tiny bunk and thinking about the future. Nothing can be bigger than that.
--
Training passes the time in the hurry-up-and-wait. They spend more time in the Kwoon than either of them have before, a useful routine to break up the monotony amid crises. Between them these things have become something of a game now, like the countless rounds of chess Raleigh used to play with Yancy that ended in stalemate after stalemate. Somewhere in the second or third hour it always likens itself to a dance, step for step, yield for yield. Him under her skin and her his, anticipating, reassessing. Time gets lost like that. Sometimes it just needs to stay that way.
It almost always ends the same, when she has him pinned to the mat. When their bodies touch through clothes warmed by sweat, skin on skin, breath on breath. She likes to win, probably more than he does. It’s when Mako’s focus is diamond-sharp and she’s beyond compromise that Raleigh gets her by the back of the neck and kisses her. Slowly, softly, a sudden shift from controlled combat to familiar affection.
“That’s cheating,” she says, even if she doesn’t mean it.
For it, he smirks. “No, that’s strategy.”
“It’s not winning if you have to cheat,” she tells him, offering a hand to help him up from the floor.
“You’re just mad that you keep falling for it.”
She insults him in Japanese, well-aware that he can understand her. Ignoring his amused little chuckle, she moves to pick up her forgotten staff. “You better not be teaching my recruits to kiss their opponents.”
“Pretty sure that goes against protocol,” he offers with a shrug. “Otherwise I would’ve tried that one out sooner.”
“Pentecost would have killed you where you stood.”
“Yeah, probably.”
It has to be after nine o’clock by now. The day starts at five-thirty am, and Mako is quick to gather her shoes and sweater from the edge of the mat. She goes to bed early, wakes up early; Raleigh stumbles to bed whenever he feels like it and still manages to be up before the sun. The too-small bed in their bunk makes it difficult for him to keep weird hours without waking her, so he gathers up his things to follow after. Or he tries to, when he reaches out for her wrist at the doorway to pull her in close, and decides to do something else instead.
“Hey.”
“Hey, what?”
“You want me to make it up to you?” he asks.
She tilts her head. “Why? Are you feeling guilty?”
“Never. And do you want me to?” He lets his eyes drift down to her mouth and back up. His voice gets a little heavy like this, when his adrenalin’s been going and he can’t help himself. They don’t get a lot of time together these days, and he likes to make it count. “The way you like?”
Her hand at his belt tugs him in closer, keeps him there. She doesn’t kiss him, just affords herself the beginnings of a smile where their mouths don’t quite touch. “You like it, too.”
He laughs at that. “Yeah, I do actually.”
Back in their bunk he kisses her again, all lips and tongue like he means it this time, as she pulls his t-shirt over his head to leave on the floor. She’s the one who gets them to bed, tugging him along by his belt buckle so that when she drops down on the mattress he follows. Pushing her onto her back and pouring over her with his big hands and attentive mouth, he pulls her belt open and out, tossing it. Even when she smiles she’s all but squirming under him, biting her lip as she watches him undo her black fatigues and pull them off. He kisses her once more before he slides down the mattress to settle between her knees, watching her watching him. This, too, helps to pass the time.
Already he can hear her breathing change as he pulls her underwear down to leave forgotten at the foot of the bed. He hooks his arms under her knees to put them over his shoulders the way he likes, with her thighs warm around his face. Kissing them softly, along the seams where they meet her hips, nipping at the skin until she lets out that first little sigh. The muscles tighten in her stomach, her pelvis, her legs, her hand soothing over his scalp to rest on his shoulders. He takes his time then, letting his breath sigh over the soft thatch of pubic hair, the day’s stubble grazing her inner thighs. It’s the anticipation that he likes, lifting a hand to part her lips with the broad pad of his thumb, feeling how warm she is, how soft. The look under her lidded eyes tells him how much she loves him, but he’s already got a head full of memories that tells him everything he needs to know.
When he’s ready he licks her in a slow and careful stripe, south to north and back again, following a map made from muscle-memory and intuition. Just to get the taste of her, the texture, the way she starts to swell under his tongue. He licks her feather-light and in-control, sweeping over her clit, above it and around it, exploring every part of her. With that she whimpers, eyes closed, mouth open, no longer so quiet as his free hand wanders up her stomach to squeeze her breast through her shirt and bra. When she’s swollen and wet and ready, he dives in to fuck her with his tongue. Softly at first and then firmly, finding the rhythm and the pressure that makes her moan, her hips flexing, her fingers gripping him tight enough to bruise.
This is the part he likes best, he finds, when she lifts her hips to press herself into his mouth. Pushing his tongue in deeper, pulling him close and keeping him there, telling him what she wants. She starts to tighten on him and he knows she’s getting close so he backs off, switches gears. Licks her clit instead, hard when he flattens his tongue against it, throbbing like her pulse when he takes it between his lips to suck the way he knows she loves. It’s in the way her breathing picks up, her heart racing through her ribs, the muscles in her thighs trembling against his cheek. It comes from knowing what’s in her head and under her skin, from practice and training and listening.
This is how he knows when to slip a finger inside of her, then another. Feels her tighten on him again before he slides them out and in, filling her up. Licking and sucking and fucking her with his fingers, until orgasm finally catches her in its grip, that silent little gasp and the waves of tremors that he can feel inside her before they reverberate out. She grabs onto him with both hands, brings her legs closed around his head, cradling him there as it rolls over her and eventually fades. Before it does he can’t help but lave his tongue against her one last time, gently and just for his own enjoyment. He knows from the way her whole body shudders she’s too sensitive, too wrung-out for anything more adventurous than his need to taste her, but he can still stop to appreciate it.
It doesn’t last long because soon she’s wriggling out from under him, a hand on her forehead, her eyes glassy and near-black. He moves to lie down next to her and scoops her up to kiss her again, lazy and full and slow. Her panting into his mouth as her breathing begins to slow, her taste on his tongue, her arms around his shoulders to close the connection of their bodies. Tucking her head under his chin, she sighs.
“You’re really good at that.”
For that, he laughs softly into her hair. “Well. I had a good teacher.”
In the morning they will have to get up for training drills and simulations, reports and number-crunching, but in their tiny bunk, this is everything.
Pacific Rim, Mako Mori/Raleigh Becket
It’s been a year since the Human-Kaiju War ended. There were celebrations in the aftermath, parades and hero’s welcomes and ticker-tape in the streets of cities flooded with noise and color. Hong Kong and Sydney were rebuilt, new proposals and defensive measures bandied about with the skeletons of giants salvaged from the Jaeger program. The Hong Kong Shatterdome was closed for the time being while budgets were recalibrated and oversight committees took votes. Since then an old farmhouse was purchased in a quiet corner of Alaska, with an old pick-up truck in the drive-way and a small collection of stray dogs sleeping at the fire place.
The truck was Raleigh’s. Mako hated it, thought it smelled and made weird noises. The dogs were Mako’s; Raleigh could say the same about them. There were compromises made, with designated coffee mugs and sweaters that always ended up in Mako’s dresser-drawer instead of Raleigh’s whenever she did the laundry. Plans were drafted for futures that there would be time for, now, without monsters breathing on the back door.
Then again, monsters had a nasty habit of cropping up when one least expects them to.
--
The helicopter lands on what Raleigh considers the front yard, outside the tiny farmhouse sitting on two acres of Alaskan wilderness. It’s not even dawn when Mako wakes to the thunder of propellers shaking every nail and stud in the house, nearly vibrating them out of the bed. Herc is the one who steps out of the helicopter this time, as Raleigh pulls on his coat and Mako is already marching out across the snow in a stolen shirt under her jacket.
Herc doesn’t say anything at first, but she knows. She knows because she knew Chuck when they were both too young for the world they found themselves dropped into, by things much larger than themselves. She knows because they both buried someone the last time this happened, and Herc wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t serious.
“When?” is all she needs to know.
“Six hours ago,” is all he needs to tell her. “It’s a new site, seventeen miles from the last breach. Geologists wrote it off as seismic activity at first, but we’re getting the same readings as they did in 2013. Something’s trying to punch a hole from the other side.”
Mako and Raleigh have enough time to pack one bag and make arrangements for the dogs before they’re over the ocean, waiting for something to come out. When the war begins again, there are no parades or ticker-tape. There’s just a job to be done.
--
The PPDC rebuilds Gipsy, because it only seems right. She’s better than she was before, faster and stronger, the first Mark VI to roll off the production line. Her heart is a brand new when the maintenance crew opens up her chest in the hangar bay, abandoning the nuclear vortex turbine for a safer non-analog system. Inside the conn-pod, however, it’s still just like coming home again.
--
They have plans, before. Fix up the farmhouse, save up some money, try to be normal people for a while. Like most things, their plans go away for a while, swept aside by the war effort. These things are tucked away on the shelf with books and photos held together by rubber bands and twine. Alaska fades into memory as home becomes the barracks of the renovated Hong Kong Shatterdome, with just enough room for clothes, a few knick-knacks and pictures for the wall. The bed is too small to share, the water in the shower never quite hot, the walls echoing with the human traffic filling the corridors all day and night. It’s familiar, almost comforting, because at least this they understand. This they know and can navigate.
Someone on the hangar crew asks why they bunk together. It’s not an unreasonable question. Of course the reasons aren’t in their personnel files, and Raleigh knows his probably hasn’t even been updated since Anchorage. That would involve paperwork at the court house (which is not off the table) and the ring Raleigh’s been thinking about buying whenever he passes the jeweler’s shop window in town (which he already knows she knows about). It has everything to do with plans, and nothing to do with wars or agendas or temporary detours.
“Because she’s my co-pilot,” is all he says when asked of it, like it’s some universal truth or a mantra to live by.
The deeper the bond, the better you fight.
--
Something stirs at the bottom of the sea. The alarms sound at three am. A shadow surges from the darkness off the coast of the Palau Islands and in an instant the war starts all over again. It’s the first time they’ve gone hunting together since the first war ended, the first time they’ve Drifted. Even for it, it comes to them like breathing, and in the Drift there is only silence.
--
It takes time to find suitable pilot candidates, to train them, to break them in. Herc puts Mako at the head of the candidate program, sifting through psychological tests and synch evaluations, drills and simulation data, finding the proper variables to balance the equation required to pilot a Jaeger. The training program falls to Raleigh, by virtue of being the most experienced active-duty Ranger left standing. It’s not how they imagined spending their lives together, but, day by day, they assemble a squadron worth its salt.
Most days they see each other only in passing, from opposing doorways down corridors between meals or drills or briefings. There’s hardly time to stop or talk or spend time together. Still, if their hands happen to brush as they pass each other, in a fleeting touch of outstretched fingers, it makes it all the more meaningful.
--
Three events inside of six months. Three deployments, three kills. Something big is happening on the other side, but it just gets easier every time. The new normal all over again, sleeping in a tiny bunk and thinking about the future. Nothing can be bigger than that.
--
Training passes the time in the hurry-up-and-wait. They spend more time in the Kwoon than either of them have before, a useful routine to break up the monotony amid crises. Between them these things have become something of a game now, like the countless rounds of chess Raleigh used to play with Yancy that ended in stalemate after stalemate. Somewhere in the second or third hour it always likens itself to a dance, step for step, yield for yield. Him under her skin and her his, anticipating, reassessing. Time gets lost like that. Sometimes it just needs to stay that way.
It almost always ends the same, when she has him pinned to the mat. When their bodies touch through clothes warmed by sweat, skin on skin, breath on breath. She likes to win, probably more than he does. It’s when Mako’s focus is diamond-sharp and she’s beyond compromise that Raleigh gets her by the back of the neck and kisses her. Slowly, softly, a sudden shift from controlled combat to familiar affection.
“That’s cheating,” she says, even if she doesn’t mean it.
For it, he smirks. “No, that’s strategy.”
“It’s not winning if you have to cheat,” she tells him, offering a hand to help him up from the floor.
“You’re just mad that you keep falling for it.”
She insults him in Japanese, well-aware that he can understand her. Ignoring his amused little chuckle, she moves to pick up her forgotten staff. “You better not be teaching my recruits to kiss their opponents.”
“Pretty sure that goes against protocol,” he offers with a shrug. “Otherwise I would’ve tried that one out sooner.”
“Pentecost would have killed you where you stood.”
“Yeah, probably.”
It has to be after nine o’clock by now. The day starts at five-thirty am, and Mako is quick to gather her shoes and sweater from the edge of the mat. She goes to bed early, wakes up early; Raleigh stumbles to bed whenever he feels like it and still manages to be up before the sun. The too-small bed in their bunk makes it difficult for him to keep weird hours without waking her, so he gathers up his things to follow after. Or he tries to, when he reaches out for her wrist at the doorway to pull her in close, and decides to do something else instead.
“Hey.”
“Hey, what?”
“You want me to make it up to you?” he asks.
She tilts her head. “Why? Are you feeling guilty?”
“Never. And do you want me to?” He lets his eyes drift down to her mouth and back up. His voice gets a little heavy like this, when his adrenalin’s been going and he can’t help himself. They don’t get a lot of time together these days, and he likes to make it count. “The way you like?”
Her hand at his belt tugs him in closer, keeps him there. She doesn’t kiss him, just affords herself the beginnings of a smile where their mouths don’t quite touch. “You like it, too.”
He laughs at that. “Yeah, I do actually.”
Back in their bunk he kisses her again, all lips and tongue like he means it this time, as she pulls his t-shirt over his head to leave on the floor. She’s the one who gets them to bed, tugging him along by his belt buckle so that when she drops down on the mattress he follows. Pushing her onto her back and pouring over her with his big hands and attentive mouth, he pulls her belt open and out, tossing it. Even when she smiles she’s all but squirming under him, biting her lip as she watches him undo her black fatigues and pull them off. He kisses her once more before he slides down the mattress to settle between her knees, watching her watching him. This, too, helps to pass the time.
Already he can hear her breathing change as he pulls her underwear down to leave forgotten at the foot of the bed. He hooks his arms under her knees to put them over his shoulders the way he likes, with her thighs warm around his face. Kissing them softly, along the seams where they meet her hips, nipping at the skin until she lets out that first little sigh. The muscles tighten in her stomach, her pelvis, her legs, her hand soothing over his scalp to rest on his shoulders. He takes his time then, letting his breath sigh over the soft thatch of pubic hair, the day’s stubble grazing her inner thighs. It’s the anticipation that he likes, lifting a hand to part her lips with the broad pad of his thumb, feeling how warm she is, how soft. The look under her lidded eyes tells him how much she loves him, but he’s already got a head full of memories that tells him everything he needs to know.
When he’s ready he licks her in a slow and careful stripe, south to north and back again, following a map made from muscle-memory and intuition. Just to get the taste of her, the texture, the way she starts to swell under his tongue. He licks her feather-light and in-control, sweeping over her clit, above it and around it, exploring every part of her. With that she whimpers, eyes closed, mouth open, no longer so quiet as his free hand wanders up her stomach to squeeze her breast through her shirt and bra. When she’s swollen and wet and ready, he dives in to fuck her with his tongue. Softly at first and then firmly, finding the rhythm and the pressure that makes her moan, her hips flexing, her fingers gripping him tight enough to bruise.
This is the part he likes best, he finds, when she lifts her hips to press herself into his mouth. Pushing his tongue in deeper, pulling him close and keeping him there, telling him what she wants. She starts to tighten on him and he knows she’s getting close so he backs off, switches gears. Licks her clit instead, hard when he flattens his tongue against it, throbbing like her pulse when he takes it between his lips to suck the way he knows she loves. It’s in the way her breathing picks up, her heart racing through her ribs, the muscles in her thighs trembling against his cheek. It comes from knowing what’s in her head and under her skin, from practice and training and listening.
This is how he knows when to slip a finger inside of her, then another. Feels her tighten on him again before he slides them out and in, filling her up. Licking and sucking and fucking her with his fingers, until orgasm finally catches her in its grip, that silent little gasp and the waves of tremors that he can feel inside her before they reverberate out. She grabs onto him with both hands, brings her legs closed around his head, cradling him there as it rolls over her and eventually fades. Before it does he can’t help but lave his tongue against her one last time, gently and just for his own enjoyment. He knows from the way her whole body shudders she’s too sensitive, too wrung-out for anything more adventurous than his need to taste her, but he can still stop to appreciate it.
It doesn’t last long because soon she’s wriggling out from under him, a hand on her forehead, her eyes glassy and near-black. He moves to lie down next to her and scoops her up to kiss her again, lazy and full and slow. Her panting into his mouth as her breathing begins to slow, her taste on his tongue, her arms around his shoulders to close the connection of their bodies. Tucking her head under his chin, she sighs.
“You’re really good at that.”
For that, he laughs softly into her hair. “Well. I had a good teacher.”
In the morning they will have to get up for training drills and simulations, reports and number-crunching, but in their tiny bunk, this is everything.