Thousandth Time and Even Bolder, for pseudo_shigure
Title: Thousandth Time and Even Bolder
For: pseudo_shigure
Word count: 6540
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: mention of character death, mild violence, multiple point of views, unbeta'd
Summary: There are things you can't fight - acts of God. You see a hurricane coming, you get out of the way. But when you're in a Jaeger, you can finally fight the hurricane. You can win. This hurricane bears the name Yixing and Yifan's not very sure if a Jaeger could help but he tries.
Haze. It’s all he tastes, thick on his tongue and making his eyes water. Kris had gotten used to it since the first attack in 2013 but there are days when he wakes up wishing his eyes didn’t water. It’s approximately five years since the first attack, and Jaeger Tech has long since evolved to become something more than the robots they started out with.
He rolls over, staring at the neon numbers on his bedside table. 03:24 a.m., it reads, and the ringing of the alarm is insistent.
“Category two, paging for Koyamada. Category two, paging for Koyamada.” Kris stares at the ceiling for a moment, tempted to visit the command centre and watch Tacit Ronin’s deployment but there are more important things.
Like how tomorrow is the day he finally tests for a neural handshake compatibility. With 41 kills on the simulator, Kris knows he’s one of the Nagasaki Shatterdome’s most promising Rangers. The others probably included Pang So-yi and Zhang Yixing.
And Zhang Yixing doesn't really count as a ranger. He's a veteran more than anything else.
☢
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Kris is an astonishing six foot two to his mother's five foot nine, and they work fine together. His mother runs the lint roller over his broad shoulders and for a moment, the smallest moment, he doesn't want to join the Pan Pacific Defence Corps after all.
"I'm very sure, ma." He turns around to look at her once last time. His mother has been nothing but strong from the moment their father left, has always provided him with all the support he needed.
"You don't have to do this for me Jia Heng." She caresses his face and he leans in, smiling briefly.
"You've done so much for me, at least permit me to do this for you, ma."
She sighs. The sound lingers. "You have my blessing. You know where to find me when you can't see me, in the-"
"Galaxy." He cuts. "I'll find you in the galaxy and in the drift." It’s weird but he’s always seen his mother in the stars. For no matter where you are, the sky and stars are the same.
Kris didn't want to die knowing that he'd done nothing to, at the very least, protect his mother. With the PPDC, he could do that. Family members of the rangers were moved to safer ground, not fully assured of being safe from a Kaiju attack but had a higher chance of surviving. He shoulders his bag and kisses her forehead, lingering at the door when he sees the grooves cut into the wood, marking his height all the way up to 175. If he got in, this house would be a ghost.
His mom would be moved off to a Shatterdome and the house would never be used by anyone else because of its proximity to the ocean. He still remembers how the Kaiju blue stained his fingers, and how it wasn't as easy to wash off as the trace of blood.
"Goodbye, ma." She smiles, eyes shimmering with tears.
"I love you, Kevin."
☢
"All candidates for Nova Hyperion please make your way to the command centre." Marshall Jonghyun's voice rings across the intercom.
There's an urge to bail building in Kris's gut, swirling and raging. Simulators are very different from the real thing, right down to the suits.
"Ranger Wu, Ranger Zhang, the algorithm has paired the two of you together." Jongdae's one of the newer LOCCENT officers but he climbed ranks fast, and the Koyamadas were fine with him.
"Ready, Kris?" Yixing is all smiles and the elder wants to ask how it feels like to lose Lu Han.
He doesn't.
Pang So-Yi is paired up with An Yuna and Kris watches as they suit him up. He's the one going into the Conn-Pod of an actual Jaeger this time. Yixing walks in with his circuitry suit on and Kris's throat dries up marginally.
How is he supposed to drift with someone whom he's highly attracted to?
Jongdae pats him on the shoulder, "This is going to shock you a little," he says as he slots the spinal clamp in.
"Don't listen to Jongdae; he's lying about the drive suits. They don't hurt the slightest bit." Yixing says.
He's smiling serenely and Kris wants to know if it's necessary to constantly smile like that, to be so calm, to derail his thought process.
They watch So-yi and Yuna Drift, and Nova Hyperion becomes one with them. There's no glitch, no chasing the rabbit. Marshall Jonghyun looks pleased with them and Kris only hopes that the Marshall will think of Yixing and him the same way.
"Ready?" Jongdae asks, grinning. Kris swallows, Yixing pats his back.
He takes a deep breath. "Ready as I'll ever be."
They're strapped into the Conn Pod easily enough, Nova Hyperion's engines humming. Kris is struck by how alive the machine is, how it seems to respond like a human would. He's in awe; all that dreaming all that wondering all that hoping leading down to this very moment.
He hopes he doesn't fuck up.
Him and every other pilot before him.
"Pilots, engage neural handshake."
Hook. Lurch.
Kris's name change, Yixing laughing with Luhan. Kris making his fortieth kill on the simulator. Yixing killing his first Kaiju. Kris's mother hugging him tightly, kissing his forehead. Yixing's reunion dinner with his family. Vancouver.
Kris finds himself in the last place he expected to be. Canada, 2013, a few months after the first Kaiju attack. He laughs when the ball hits Zitao in the face, when the younger boy whines. The other boys laugh and the youngest pouts. Kris has long since turned immune to the pout but its clear Henry is still a sucker for it.
"Time out," Henry calls and the other boys drop to the sand like flies. By some miracle, it's not cold and the sun is out and all of that justifies a round of beach volleyball. Kris thinks it's an excuse just so the guys can show their bodies off shirtless. He walks to the edge of the water where the foam and salt and water lap at his feet. In his (short) lifespan he's seen a fair share of oddities but the way the ocean laps at his feet has him mesmerized.
The water's blue; not ocean blue but rather phosphorescent blue, glowing. It takes a while before he registers it as Kaiju blue, until Zitao's girly screams pierce the air. He laughs, turning around to ask if he'd seen a Kaiju.
"Kris!" his mom shouts, and he watches the blue turn to red, watches the blood drain out of Zitao, watches.
The bullets rip through his childhood friend and he screams. It feels like a year before he recognizes the futile efforts of fighter jets trying to stop the Kaiju from approaching them. It’s still a long way off, enough time to run to their home, enough time to hide in their basement. Kris and Henry half run, half drag Zitao along with them, panting as Kris’s mom shoos them into the basement.
Kris stares at his hands in the dim lighting.
Blue and red.
Blue and red. He clenches his fists.
Yixing screams through the Drift, Jongdae screams through the intercom, Jonghyun barks orders to the staff. No one can reach Kris; he’s gone too far, chased the rabbit down the hole and into Wonderland. No one is surprised when Nova Hyperion’s canons are engaged; even the best pilots chase the rabbit.
Jonghyun spits out the order for the connection to be broken, knuckles white, and Jongdae rushes to pull the power off. Kris is brought back to Earth before he can watch Zitao die all over again, before he watches Brawler Yukon take down Karloff, before he goes through the pain all over again.
“Neural handshake disengaged, neural handshake disengaged,” Jaeger Al’s voice repeats monotonously as he’s released from the Conn Pod, knees weak and resolve weaker. That has never happened in any simulation before.
He walks out unsteadily. All his dreams crashing down in a matter of seconds, simply because he did what the Defence Corps told every ranger to not do: he chased the rabbit.
“Are you mad?” So-yi asks.
Kris flushes, he doesn’t know what happened.
“Yifan-ge!” Yixing calls out. Kris stares at Yixing for a moment before bolting, jogging to his room.
☢
He'd spent three days dodging around the Shatterdome, training when everyone was asleep, running the simulator with Tech Support, listening to Jongdae talk about the Kaiju Research head Oh Sehun and avoiding Yixing at all costs.
Yixing didn't need a co-pilot like him, not after he had a co-pilot like Luhan. Luhan and Yixing had been Asia's dream team; friends and brothers, so much more than what he was. In the face of an actual Kaiju, Kris would shit himself and cry for his mother.
Antares Kitsune, the newly commissioned Mach 3 Jaeger sits in a corner of the Shatterdome that isn't surrounded by so much noise and more importantly, people. It's just nice, something like Kris's kind of place. It's sad how the Jaeger probably won't go out, not after his failed drift with Yixing.
Yixing.
Kris had the biggest crush on Yixing when he first laid eyes on him, and who wouldn't. Yixing was nice and kind to all the rangers, with his dimples deep and training alongside them even though he had the experienced. When asked he'd laugh and say no amount of training would ever be enough. Falling in love with Yixing is something like breathing and if you stop, you die. It's that simple. He wants something more than he should get from Yixing and it makes him feel undeserving.
Yixing deserved more than Kris, whose core was all selfishness. And he's not sure how much of Kris Yixing had seen in the Drift but the younger had probably seen enough to want to stay away. Algorithms lied, Yixing and Kris couldn't drift and he was scared.
"Knew I'd find you here." Yixing's hand is on his back.
From Antares Kitsune's shoulder, the Shatterdome looks tiny. And Raleigh Beckett's words come to mind; there are things you can't fight - acts of God. You see a hurricane coming; you get out of the way. But when you're in a Jaeger, you can finally fight the hurricane. You can win.
Kris doesn't feel like a winner.
"Have you ever felt small? Insignificant?" Kris asks, toying with the hem of his jacket.
"When Luhan died," Yixing begins. "I was lost for the longest time. Ask any pilot who’s lost their partner and they'll tell you how a Ghost drift really works. Sometimes I say things, things that I myself wouldn't say but Luhan would. And then I realised, I wouldn't be honouring Luhan by sitting around doing nothing. I'd be honouring Luhan by being a pilot again, and a damn good one at that. And he piloted with Chanyeol for some time before they figured out he was ill. You'll be okay."
Kris turns to look at Yixing and the younger is smiling wistfully.
"Does it hurt losing your co-pilot?"
He stares at Yixing.
"A lot." Yixing admits.
The temptation is strong.
"Is it bad that I chased the rabbit?"
He wants to kiss Yixing.
"Better pilots have failed." The younger supplies.
Kris isn't a better pilot and that's what he hates the most. He stares at the floor, pouting.
Yixing laughs at him, "You're so cute when you pout."
Kris is mildly stunned.
"Me? Cute? Have you seen your dimples?" He blurts out.
"Yes, I have. Plenty of times." They sit in silence on the shoulder of a Jaeger, observing the world beneath them. From here, everything is small. And for a second, they pretend they are small too as forgiveness and understanding plants its roots around their hearts.
☢
"I'm sorry I messed up." Kris mumbles for the umpteenth time, staring at the ground. Yixing isn't the slightest bit phased because it was, after all, Yifan's first time.
First times go really bad or really good.
☢
"Here," Yixing tosses Kris a sparring stick which he catches easily.
Sparring permits pilots in training to build a bond, to analyse where one lacks and subsequently, protect the weak spots when they're in their Jaeger. Yixing knows his weak spot is his neck. By extension, his Jaeger's weak spot is its neck.
Kris twirls the stick, swinging it down and promptly hits himself in the ankle, hopping around and clutching his foot to his chest.
Laughter bubbles up but Yixing holds it in him; he doesn't want to hurt Kris's pride more than it has been hurt. He presses his lips together, hand fluttering awkwardly over his stomach. He doesn't know if he should try to help or if he should laugh it out.
"I'm not laughing at you." Yixing insists. It's more to assure himself that he isn't going to start laughing more than anything else.
Kris scowls at Yixing from his place on the mat and Yixing cracks.
"Okay, I'm laughing at you." he says, cackling obnoxiously as he sits down next to Kris.
Kris smiles and Yixing can't help but notice that this smile is different, more gums and it makes Kris look less like a sculpture and more human, more attainable. There was a fear and loneliness in Kris's head that Yixing had found, locked under a different part of Kris, where Kris was Yifan and his mother's son. He knows it's too soon to mention to the elder, too soon to push at the boundaries but maybe he could break it.
Yixing's laughter seems to set Kris off and between points A and B, Kris is lying on the mat, laughing alongside Yixing.
"I have a kind of crush on you." Kris says out of the blue.
Yixing stills. He'd figured that much from being in the brunette's head; there was more than just respect there.
"You're kind of cute." He says offhandedly.
"Really?"
"Yes." Yixing sits up, heart racing. "Eleven o'clock tomorrow, in Simulator Room Three. It's a date so don't be late, Kris."
Kris stammers, looking very much like a fish out of water. Yixing high tails out, sliding down the wall when he's sure Kris isn't going to follow him.
Saying that a simulation practice is a date might have been the boldest thing he's ever done, not counting the time Luhan made him sass Marshall Byun. The result of that was mildly terrifying. There's something. There's something between Kris and him, something he can't put his finger on but something big, something special.
And Yixing isn't going to sit around and wait.
☢
Yixing paces inside the room, the monitor showing the Japanese coastline. Category Two is the highest level of Kaiju they've encountered so far and Onibaba is by far, the biggest. The half-crustacean Kaiju is snarling and snapping it's pincers on the screen.
He checks his watch; there's five minutes to eleven and all the time he's observed Kris, he knows the elder is punctual.
Kris jogs in, hair damp and sticking to his face. His jacket is dotted with raindrops and Yixing wishes he didn't notice all these things.
"Sorry I'm late." Yifan half-smiles, hanging up his jacket.
"You're just on time, Yifan." Yixing says, then licks his lip when he realises his mistake.
"You're alright with being called Yifan, right?"
"Yeah. You can call me Jiaheng I don't mind that either, I bet you saw the whole name thing." Yifan begins strapping himself into the pod, hooking up the lines expertly.
It's sad in a way, shows how much time Yifan spends in the simulator opposed to an actual Jaeger. Yixing's been in one and he can speak from experience of the thrill, the rush.
"I picked Onibaba, if it's okay?"
"Marshall Pentecost's battle?"
"Yes, the one he lost Tamsin in." Yixing begins strapping himself in.
When using the simulator without algorithm paired pilots, the results aren't very clear, affected by factors such as the lack of a strong neural handshake. Sometimes it resulted in a weak Jaeger-Pilot bond. Bonds were important in the war they waged against the Kaiju. The mock handshake they form is strong, and the monitors react positively. He knows why they were paired algorithmically; they've both experienced loss at the hands of the Kaiju.
Yifan with his friend and Yixing with his father.
"Launch canons," Yifan shouts and Yixing keys in the command.
All Kaiju have the tendency to run face first into their opponents and Onibaba is no different. Yixing knows what Yifan intends to do before he does it; as the Kaiju pounces on them, he fires the canons.
It groans, pulling away to grip the neck of the Jaeger in its pincers. Yixing flinches but Yifan has his back, already deploying the fang blades and driving it into the side of Onibaba's neck.
"Bastard just won't give up will it," Yifan curses.
Yixing grins at the thought in Yifan's head, deciding to act it out. They pick up a trailer lying on the road, hitting the Kaiju across the head with it.
Immediately after, they deploy their fang blades again, ripping into its neck and effectively beheading it.
"20 minutes." Yixing pants. They're both soaked in sweat; simulators mirrored the exact setting of the Jaeger and battle.
"That's not so bad." Yifan looks tired, staring at the ceiling.
"Heard the announcement about Antares Kitsune?"
"They want us to pilot it; they'll be running trials again this weekend aren’t they?"
"Yeah they are." Yixing runs a hand through his hair.
"You like beheading your Kaiju don't you?" The elder asks unsuppressed curiosity in his voice.
"It's something I developed with Luhan. We always..."
He trails off, uncertain.
☢
“Are you ready?” Luhan asks, playing with the controls. Yixing is all smiles; eager, excited.
"Pilots, engage neural handshake." Minseok says. Yixing is prepared for the hook pulling him in.
Luhan kisses Chanyeol. Yixing plays his guitar. The ghost drift between Luhan and Chanyeol. Yixing's grandmother crying as they bury his father's body in the Shanghai attack. Luhan and Yixing dancing, turned to training, turned to piloting. They're yanked back into the present.
“LOCCENT, this is Inferno Kaiser ready for drop.” Yixing says.
“LOCCENT, copy, over.” The head drops and they lurch forward, the hissing of engines filling the air. Mach 1 Jaegers are slow.
Yixing is constantly aware of Luhan's thoughts as they trudge through the Pacific. LOCCENT had said that the Kaiju was -
The intercom crackles.
"Inferno Kaiser, Kaiju has been categorized as Category 1, code name: Scissor, headed to Sydney. Your job is to prevent the Kaiju from breaching the city. Over."
"Copy that LOCCENT, activating sword." Yixing keys in the command, standing on the defence. Luhan mirrors him seamlessly.
"Radar's picking something up." Luhan yells, flipping the switches. Instead, they're greeted by the sight of fighter jets attempting to bomb Scissure.
Yixing whistles through his teeth. "That's a big one."
"We'll burn the motherfucker down, Yixing, believe me."
As soon as they get into a ten mile radius of the Kaiju, the beast doesn't ever bother with the fighter jets. It charges straight towards them, jaw wide open with claws ready to rip the Conn Pod out of their Jaeger.
Luhan and Yixing brace for the onslaught as one, absorbing the force of Scissure's impact and using it to throw the Kaiju off. For some reason the sky looks bluer. They can't avoid laying waste to the city; the jets have already done that but they can contain the Kaiju.
Scissure snaps its jaw close to the head, and Yixing lands an uppercut. Luhan cheers, deploys their sword and hacks repeatedly at the smooth belly of the animal. It snarls before its claws tighten around the arm of Inferno Kaiser. Yixing and Luhan both scream, the pain is there as the Kaiju attempts to snap their arm.
The Kaiju flaps its arms, lifting the Jaeger by its arms for a few second before dropping it.
"Motherfucker can fly." Luhan curses.
"Jaeger Al, engage magma sword." Yixing commands.
"Engaged," the smooth voice of the computer says.
"Ready to kill it?" Yixing ask, arms held in a ready stance.
They drive the sword into the Kaiju's throat and rip it sideways. There's delight in watching the Kaiju blue spill onto the remains of the once urban landscape. Category One Kaiju's were easy to kill.
All's fair in war, he supposes.
Everything seems to slow down when the Kaiju drops to the ground, jets still lingering in the air, missiles ready to fire if the Kaiju shows any sign of surviving the magma sword.
"Do you want to fire the canon at it?"
Yixing raises an eyebrow in amusement.
"For fun," Luhan amends.
"No, Luhan." Yixing laughs as they return to the Shatterdome, high off their kill.
"That was good work out there, Rangers." Marshall Byun claps him on his back and Yixing laughs nervously. No one knows how someone so young, someone so slight, became Marshall so fast.
He's ever aware of Luhan out of the corner of his eye. The way Luhan had collapsed after stepping out from the Conn Pod wasn't normal, something was off. He has a split second warning.
"Luhan!" Yixing screams as his co-pilot crumbles, blood oozing from his nose.
"Cancer," Yixing repeats dully, a few hours later.
"How?" Luhan's breathing is even as the monitors beep around him.
"Prolonged exposure to his Mach 1 Jaeger. He's been piloting it a lot longer than you have son, and I don't advise you to step foot in a Mach 1 ever again, at least while they are other available options."
"Cancer." Yixing says, stroking Luhan's hair back gently.
The doctor leaves quietly, his expression akin to pity that Yixing doesn't want, nor is it deserved by Luhan.
☢
The walk back to the dorms is quiet, punctuated only by polite questions about each other. Yixing is still running the differences of Luhan and Yifan in his head; they're both very different.
That doesn't change the fact that he craves Yifan badly.
"I'm afraid for our second trial," Yifan confesses outside the door to Yixing's room.
"Come in." Yixing invites, unlocking the door and tugging gently on Yifan's hand. He looks like a fish out of water, glub glub glub, like he'd never been in close quarters with someone else before.
Yixing finds the idea slightly laughable, and finds the courage for what he's about to do somewhere deep in himself. He isn't usually this bold, but Yifan brings out the worst (best) of him.
“A kiss for strength." Yixing kisses Yifan's forehead.
"A kiss for courage." His lips find the soft skin of Yifan's cheek.
"And a kiss for me." Yifan's lips are chapped and where Yixing has thin ones, Yifan's are thick. It's also awkward, what with Yifan being much much taller.
"That was awkward." Yifan comments with a shy smile.
Yixing tiptoes and kisses him again, gasping when Yifan slides a hand around his waist, gentle, ever so gentle. Sometimes Yixing thinks Yifan is afraid of breaking him. Yixing is surprised when Yifan doesn't attempt to stick his tongue down the younger's throat, instead, the elder runs his fingers up and down Yixing's spine.
"May I?" Yixing asks hesitantly, fingering the hem of Yifan's shirt. The warmth from the skin underneath is tempting. It's clear the elder is afraid and Yixing doesn't want that, that fear has no place between the two of them.
"I'm not-" Yifan's voice cracks. "I'm not sure if I look good without a shirt." He refuses to make eye contact, and the silhouette of his jaw against the light is exquisite.
"Do you want it? Yixing asks seductively, stripping himself of his jacket and shirt.
There's apprehension in the air, and a whole lot of other things.
Yifan swallows, takes off his shirt, huge, huge hands curling around Yixing's waist. Yixing kisses Yifan like he's the air he breathes, kisses to consume, hoping, just hoping that Yifan will lose his careful control.
It causes a Pavlovian effect when Yixing walks backwards. Yifan's follows his mouth, still kissing, reluctant to break apart. A few short, sweet kisses. Pants being discarded. Walking backwards, knees knocking into the bed, falling backwards with Yifan on top of him.
He uses his weight and training to roll them over, settling on Yifan's stomach. He presses a kiss to the brunette's collarbone, delighting in the guttural moan Yifan makes. He sucks a nipple, tonguing and teething, grinding on Yifan's leg. There's a need to be as close as physically possible to Yifan.
Yixing finds himself on his back again, jumpy and nervous. Something digs into his shoulder and Yixing chuckles when he pulls it out. Yifan smiles at it; the well-used bottle of lube Yixing kept for nights alone (read: every night.) He feels nervous with Yifan, waiting, until Yifan kisses him again and his legs fall open.
Yifan doesn’t hesitate to tease him, rubbing the pad of his finger over Yixing's entrance with liberal amounts of lube, pushing, almost going in before moving away. Yixing chokes on a moan, hips undulating, wanting more.
“I want more,” he demands breathlessly, trying to grind down against Yifan's fingers. Yifan's long, exquisite fingers.
"You won't break me." Yifan pulls away to dribble lube on his fingers and continue his teasing, making Yixing's blood boil and his vision blur. There's a look of concentration on Yifan's face that is one part amusing and one part assuring.
“Are you okay with this?” he asks, gentle as always. Yixing nods frantically; wanting, no, needing so badly.
At the insistent press of Yifan’s fingers, Yixing tenses up, body tight like a bowstring.
“You're so beautiful.” Yifan says reverentially, sliding a finger in and Yixing lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.
“Another.” He whines when Yifan chooses to stay still instead of moving.
Yifan finally acquiesces to his pleading with a smile, pushing in another and Yixing bucks. Yifan's not moving his fingers at all and all the younger wants is satisfaction, something, some friction.
He moans when Yifan finally gives in and moves his fingers, hand dropping to clutch onto the bed sheets. Yifan dribbles more lube and slides a third finger, scissoring and pulling a cry out of Yixing's throat, gentle, gentle, gentle.
Yifan slathers his free hand with lube, stroking Yixing's cock with a speed that opposes the slow pace set by his fingers and Yixing feels like he's going insane. All he could do was crave and hope Yifan would satisfy him instead of treating him like glass because there was this animal in him, this animal that craved the release.
“Yifan,” Yixing whimpered, clenching around fingers. The elder glanced up; sweat glistening on his bare shoulder and shining on his brow. He looked gorgeous.
“Fuck me, please.” Yifan curses as he lubes his dick and bottoms out slowly, everything Yixing craved from the start.
Yixing cried out with every thrust of Yifan’s hips, Yifan fucking into him slow and deep. It never bored him, the way Yifan looks with his eyebrows knitted in concentration, angling to please Yixing. It was simply just Yifan and just Yifan had Yixing’s heart racing.
Yifan shifts his hips; changing the angle he thrust into Yixing as each cry became a dry sob, littering kisses on Yixing’s neck. Yixing ’s hands find purchase on Yifan’s back, scratching and clawing, marking Yifan as his his his, possessive and desperate all at once.
“Yifan,” Yixing whimpers. Yifan Yifan Yifan Yifan an endless litany.
Yifan gives him what he needs, fucking him harder, bodies flush, strong thighs slapping the underside of Yixing’s. His skin burned with need as Yixing pushed his hips back.
Yixing clenches around Yifan and leans up to kiss him, to suck on his earlobe, moaning when Yifan came, still fucking into Yixing. Yifan wraps his hands around Yixing’s cock, pumping quickly and Yixing’s mind blanks when he reaches orgasm, aware of Yifan and Yifan alone.
God knows how they started with innocent kisses and ended up here but as Yifan murmurs how amazing Yixing is, as Yifan litters kisses across his chest, Yixing knows that every second leading up to this had been worth it.
He sighs when Yifan pulls away to get a washcloth; the room is cold and the elder is warm. He's wiped down like he's made of porcelain and there it is again, there's Yifan's fear of breaking him.
"I won't break," he whispers.
Yifan hides his face. "It's why I treat you like this."
Yixing pouts and holds out his arms, happy when Yifan curls into his side. The space is too small but Yixing will take what he can get if it means Yifan filling up the cold, empty spaces.
They drift off into sleep, Yifan's breathing turning into the soundtrack of his dreams.
"Paging for Wu and Zhang, paging for Wu and Zhang." Yixing wakes up with a jolt, happy to find Yifan's comfortable weight still next to him. The standard issue beds are small and Yifan is big but the ways he's forced himself into the space has Yixing's heart thudding double time.
"Yifan," he shakes the elder. "Yifan." He hisses.
The elder tosses his arm over his face, rolling into the corner.
"God damn it Wu Yifan wake up this instance they're paging for us." Yixing huffs out, hitting Yifan repeatedly.
He'd seen this in the drift, seen memories of Yifan being roused by his mother and now, he was experiencing it first-hand.
The alarms sound again and this time, it's accompanied by Jongdae calling out for them.
"Kris Wu and Zhang Yixing, please report to LOCCENT immediately, this is an emergency, Category Three Kaiju along the Busan coastline."
Yifan sits bolt upright and Yixing groans out, "Finally."
"How did we miss the first alarm?" Yifan asks groggily.
Yixing shrugs. How not to miss the first alarm, when being in bed with Yifan was so comfortable, so natural. He comes to the realisation that this is that feeling bordering on the edges of Luhan's thoughts every time it came to Chanyeol, that this fuzzy blur in his mind fell along the lines of love.
It's not that hard to fall in love with your co-pilot, there's always some sort of love there. Luhan and he had a brotherly love, So-yi and Yuna were clearly lovers, and the Koyamadas were married.
All neural handshakes were based on love, and there was no truer love, or at least, in Yixing's opinion, than being able to form a strong neural handshake.
It's with that in mind that he grips Yifan's too big hands in his too small ones when the older starts breathing heavily, looking like he's on the verge of tears.
"Yixing, I can't do this." He says in a strained voice, gripping Yixing's wrist.
It hurts, but he doesn't say anything.
"How fast did we take to bring that Kaiju down on the simulator?" Yixing asks, kissing Yifan's hands reassuringly.
"20 minutes." He replies surely.
"You can do this Yifan, you're with me now, a big part of me. And I know you and I, we can slay that demon from hell."
Yifan looks at him with teary eyes. Yixing's heart breaks in ten different ways. "Can we really?"
"Paging for Ranger Wu and Ranger Zhang, paging for Ranger Wu and Ranger Zhang." Jongdae screams over the intercom.
"Suit up." Is all Yixing says.
They run to the control room, barely flinching when Marshall Jonghyun barks at them as they're suited up. Yixing doesn't really listen, only catches a few words like "irresponsible" and "rangers these days". He bites his tongue, he doesn't want to point out that he's not exactly a ranger from these days. He hisses when they slot in the spinal clamp, it never was the most pleasant thing.
☢
"Engage neural handshake," Marshall Jonghyun calls out over the speaker.
Kris shudders as he's pulled into the drift; the flow of memories between Yixing and him going too fast, faster than he'd like.
They're dragged into a bright room, white walls, white light, white Luhan. The only splash of colour is from the green of the heart monitor, and the brown of a guitar against the bed. Flashes of colour. Yixing singing. Yifan winning his first basketball match. The first drift with Luhan. Kaiju blue and blood red. Yixing’s smile lighting up the dark. Kris’s side profile. Interlocked fingers.
They’re jerked forward; the handshake is strong as shown by the monitors and this time, this time they can win. They can take down anything.
☢
Piloting a simulator and piloting a Jaeger with Kris -- Yifan, Yixing realises, are two very different things. There's a noticeable difference from their first drift; the edge of fear isn't present in Yifan's thoughts. It's calmer, more understanding and there are more flashes of Yixing there than LOCCENT would like to see. He suppresses a laugh at that thought.
"Stop digging through my head," Yifan works the legs of Antares Kitsune and Yixing moves along seamlessly.
"Were you really afraid of farting while you made out with me?"
"You're not my style, Zhang Yixing." Yixing laughs, spots the smile tugging at Yifan's lips as he programs their coordinates. The Kaiju is near Busan, and Nova Hyperion was disabled. The Koyamadas would have been a better pick but Hector had broken his arm; leaving it up to the veteran and rookie pilot.
There were a lot of hopes riding on their Jaeger, Yixing thinks belatedly.
☢
"Category Three Kaiju, biggest one yet, weighing at 2500 tonnes. All we know is that its saliva releases some sort of corrosive discharge; that's what compromised Nova's hull. Code name: Yamarashi."
Yifan is afraid. In one week, he's gone from being completely ignored by Zhang Yixing to something Yixing's boyfriend-- or one night stand, whatever it was.
Moving in a simulator is different from moving in a Jaeger. For one, there's a lot more effort evolved.
"Preparing for submersion." Jaeger Al carries out the order, as Antares Kitsune submerges and draws closer to the coordinates of Yamarashi. Yifan is quiet but he's screaming a lot at Yixing in his head.
They emerge from the water when the radar picks up the slightest signal, slightly less than 5 miles away from them.
"So-yi, Yuna, is Nova okay? Are you guys okay?" Yixing asks.
Yifan keeps a close eye on the perimeter, watching for signs of any Kaiju.
So-yi comes on, crackling with static. "Nova's hull has been compromised, we have water leaking in and a crippled left leg. Yuna can't hold herself together, only defence left is our sword. We're holding out but this guy is big. Like Satan decided to fuck with Mount Everest."
Yifan snorts and at that moment, the radar starts beeping rapidly. Yifan can see Nova, and they stand on offense, ready to attack at the first sign.
"You'd think something this big would-" Yamarashi flies out of the water, launching itself at Antares's side. It looks like a shark and an ugly dinosaur.
"Searching for weak spots!" Yixing yells hoarsely as he runs a diagnostic.
They recover from the blow, Yifan throttling the creature. Yamarashi pulls them underwater, jaws snapping as they struggle. When they emerge again, Yifan's sure to keep the back of the Kaiju facing Nova, where they attempt to shoot missiles at it.
☢
"Deploy sword." Yixing commands.
"Sword deployed." The metal of Kitsune's left arm, his left arm, reforms itself as a blade. They attempt to pierce through its skin, and Yixing can taste Yifan's fear in the back of his mind when Busan port comes into view.
Every effort to stab the creature is in vain, the sword deflecting off its body. Yamarashi pushes back and Kitsune crashes into port. They get tangled and the Kaiju takes advantage of their situation to jump on them. Yifan groans, and Yixing knows his weak spot is right leg.
☢
"Weakness detected: neck. Weakness detected: neck." Jaeger Al repeats insistently. Yifan punches the side of the Kaiju, grappling with it and narrowly missing the snap of its jaw. Your Jaeger is connected to you is their first lesson and Yifan doesn't want Kitsune to go through any pain if he can avoid it.
It's by chance that they grab onto the crane wire, and with a look at Yixing, they know their next move. They bring up their knee, kicking Yamarashi onto its back. They run over, looping the wire around Yamarashi's neck. It trashes around, causing the wire to cut through easier. Yamarashi pulls itself upright by some miracle and it takes all the strength in them to keep it down.
It snarls, sounding like something out of Jurassic Park as it spits. Yifan watches with a detached interest as everything Yamarashi's saliva touches turns to a lump of its former glory.
"Pull," Yifan says.
They brace their weight on the legs of the Kaiju, pulling as hard as they can.
"Any last words, bastard?" Yifan shouts as he tugs, all adrenaline rushing through him, setting him on fire.
It moves its arm in an attempt to displace the wire around its neck. Yifan thinks of Zitao and how his mother has to be kept safe, of Luhan and how he didn't deserve to die in vain, of Yixing's father, who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time and most of all, he thought of Yixing. It was almost as if the thought, and Yixing's silent encouragement gave him the strength. They pull.
Yamarashi is beheaded, the head falling off with a dull thud onto a container, body falling.
☢
The Kaiju crashes into the ocean, waves rising high and Yixing breathes a sigh of relief. He’d forgotten just how tiring piloting a Jaeger was, forgotten how there was so much flooding you at the same time. Yifan’s joy floods through him like the ecstasy of a high and he wonders: what’s it like having sex connected in a neural handshake? Must be mind-blowing.
☢
Yifan understands what Rayleigh meant by defeating the hurricane. In all his years with the PPDC, it’s the first time he feel satisfied. His bones ache, he wants to sink into his too hard bed and he wants to cry into Yixing’s shoulder. Being in someone’s head forms a bond that runs slightly deeper than most. He’s seen Yixing’s strengths and fears and consequently, Yixing has seen his own fears and strengths.
“You killed your first Kaiju,” Yixing says.
“Feels so much better than killing one on the simulator.” Yifan flexes his fist, grinning when Antares Kitsune moves with him.
“There there, tiger.”
They trudge back to the Shatterdome, high with their first victory. Or maybe, in Yixing’s case, his seventh. The bigger victory however lies in how Yifan has gotten over his fear and maybe, just maybe, how he can finally look Yixing in the eye without fighting the urge to cry.
Author's Notes: I'm sorry I couldn't do the prompt justice, and I'm sorry I spent more time researching on the canon!verse of Pacific Rim and rewatching it seven times in the name of writing this fic. Thank you L, L, R, R and B. You know your roles. Especially to L, who pulled me out when I was stuck in the rut.
For: pseudo_shigure
Word count: 6540
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: mention of character death, mild violence, multiple point of views, unbeta'd
Summary: There are things you can't fight - acts of God. You see a hurricane coming, you get out of the way. But when you're in a Jaeger, you can finally fight the hurricane. You can win. This hurricane bears the name Yixing and Yifan's not very sure if a Jaeger could help but he tries.
Haze. It’s all he tastes, thick on his tongue and making his eyes water. Kris had gotten used to it since the first attack in 2013 but there are days when he wakes up wishing his eyes didn’t water. It’s approximately five years since the first attack, and Jaeger Tech has long since evolved to become something more than the robots they started out with.
He rolls over, staring at the neon numbers on his bedside table. 03:24 a.m., it reads, and the ringing of the alarm is insistent.
“Category two, paging for Koyamada. Category two, paging for Koyamada.” Kris stares at the ceiling for a moment, tempted to visit the command centre and watch Tacit Ronin’s deployment but there are more important things.
Like how tomorrow is the day he finally tests for a neural handshake compatibility. With 41 kills on the simulator, Kris knows he’s one of the Nagasaki Shatterdome’s most promising Rangers. The others probably included Pang So-yi and Zhang Yixing.
And Zhang Yixing doesn't really count as a ranger. He's a veteran more than anything else.
☢
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Kris is an astonishing six foot two to his mother's five foot nine, and they work fine together. His mother runs the lint roller over his broad shoulders and for a moment, the smallest moment, he doesn't want to join the Pan Pacific Defence Corps after all.
"I'm very sure, ma." He turns around to look at her once last time. His mother has been nothing but strong from the moment their father left, has always provided him with all the support he needed.
"You don't have to do this for me Jia Heng." She caresses his face and he leans in, smiling briefly.
"You've done so much for me, at least permit me to do this for you, ma."
She sighs. The sound lingers. "You have my blessing. You know where to find me when you can't see me, in the-"
"Galaxy." He cuts. "I'll find you in the galaxy and in the drift." It’s weird but he’s always seen his mother in the stars. For no matter where you are, the sky and stars are the same.
Kris didn't want to die knowing that he'd done nothing to, at the very least, protect his mother. With the PPDC, he could do that. Family members of the rangers were moved to safer ground, not fully assured of being safe from a Kaiju attack but had a higher chance of surviving. He shoulders his bag and kisses her forehead, lingering at the door when he sees the grooves cut into the wood, marking his height all the way up to 175. If he got in, this house would be a ghost.
His mom would be moved off to a Shatterdome and the house would never be used by anyone else because of its proximity to the ocean. He still remembers how the Kaiju blue stained his fingers, and how it wasn't as easy to wash off as the trace of blood.
"Goodbye, ma." She smiles, eyes shimmering with tears.
"I love you, Kevin."
☢
"All candidates for Nova Hyperion please make your way to the command centre." Marshall Jonghyun's voice rings across the intercom.
There's an urge to bail building in Kris's gut, swirling and raging. Simulators are very different from the real thing, right down to the suits.
"Ranger Wu, Ranger Zhang, the algorithm has paired the two of you together." Jongdae's one of the newer LOCCENT officers but he climbed ranks fast, and the Koyamadas were fine with him.
"Ready, Kris?" Yixing is all smiles and the elder wants to ask how it feels like to lose Lu Han.
He doesn't.
Pang So-Yi is paired up with An Yuna and Kris watches as they suit him up. He's the one going into the Conn-Pod of an actual Jaeger this time. Yixing walks in with his circuitry suit on and Kris's throat dries up marginally.
How is he supposed to drift with someone whom he's highly attracted to?
Jongdae pats him on the shoulder, "This is going to shock you a little," he says as he slots the spinal clamp in.
"Don't listen to Jongdae; he's lying about the drive suits. They don't hurt the slightest bit." Yixing says.
He's smiling serenely and Kris wants to know if it's necessary to constantly smile like that, to be so calm, to derail his thought process.
They watch So-yi and Yuna Drift, and Nova Hyperion becomes one with them. There's no glitch, no chasing the rabbit. Marshall Jonghyun looks pleased with them and Kris only hopes that the Marshall will think of Yixing and him the same way.
"Ready?" Jongdae asks, grinning. Kris swallows, Yixing pats his back.
He takes a deep breath. "Ready as I'll ever be."
They're strapped into the Conn Pod easily enough, Nova Hyperion's engines humming. Kris is struck by how alive the machine is, how it seems to respond like a human would. He's in awe; all that dreaming all that wondering all that hoping leading down to this very moment.
He hopes he doesn't fuck up.
Him and every other pilot before him.
"Pilots, engage neural handshake."
Hook. Lurch.
Kris's name change, Yixing laughing with Luhan. Kris making his fortieth kill on the simulator. Yixing killing his first Kaiju. Kris's mother hugging him tightly, kissing his forehead. Yixing's reunion dinner with his family. Vancouver.
Kris finds himself in the last place he expected to be. Canada, 2013, a few months after the first Kaiju attack. He laughs when the ball hits Zitao in the face, when the younger boy whines. The other boys laugh and the youngest pouts. Kris has long since turned immune to the pout but its clear Henry is still a sucker for it.
"Time out," Henry calls and the other boys drop to the sand like flies. By some miracle, it's not cold and the sun is out and all of that justifies a round of beach volleyball. Kris thinks it's an excuse just so the guys can show their bodies off shirtless. He walks to the edge of the water where the foam and salt and water lap at his feet. In his (short) lifespan he's seen a fair share of oddities but the way the ocean laps at his feet has him mesmerized.
The water's blue; not ocean blue but rather phosphorescent blue, glowing. It takes a while before he registers it as Kaiju blue, until Zitao's girly screams pierce the air. He laughs, turning around to ask if he'd seen a Kaiju.
"Kris!" his mom shouts, and he watches the blue turn to red, watches the blood drain out of Zitao, watches.
The bullets rip through his childhood friend and he screams. It feels like a year before he recognizes the futile efforts of fighter jets trying to stop the Kaiju from approaching them. It’s still a long way off, enough time to run to their home, enough time to hide in their basement. Kris and Henry half run, half drag Zitao along with them, panting as Kris’s mom shoos them into the basement.
Kris stares at his hands in the dim lighting.
Blue and red.
Blue and red. He clenches his fists.
Yixing screams through the Drift, Jongdae screams through the intercom, Jonghyun barks orders to the staff. No one can reach Kris; he’s gone too far, chased the rabbit down the hole and into Wonderland. No one is surprised when Nova Hyperion’s canons are engaged; even the best pilots chase the rabbit.
Jonghyun spits out the order for the connection to be broken, knuckles white, and Jongdae rushes to pull the power off. Kris is brought back to Earth before he can watch Zitao die all over again, before he watches Brawler Yukon take down Karloff, before he goes through the pain all over again.
“Neural handshake disengaged, neural handshake disengaged,” Jaeger Al’s voice repeats monotonously as he’s released from the Conn Pod, knees weak and resolve weaker. That has never happened in any simulation before.
He walks out unsteadily. All his dreams crashing down in a matter of seconds, simply because he did what the Defence Corps told every ranger to not do: he chased the rabbit.
“Are you mad?” So-yi asks.
Kris flushes, he doesn’t know what happened.
“Yifan-ge!” Yixing calls out. Kris stares at Yixing for a moment before bolting, jogging to his room.
☢
He'd spent three days dodging around the Shatterdome, training when everyone was asleep, running the simulator with Tech Support, listening to Jongdae talk about the Kaiju Research head Oh Sehun and avoiding Yixing at all costs.
Yixing didn't need a co-pilot like him, not after he had a co-pilot like Luhan. Luhan and Yixing had been Asia's dream team; friends and brothers, so much more than what he was. In the face of an actual Kaiju, Kris would shit himself and cry for his mother.
Antares Kitsune, the newly commissioned Mach 3 Jaeger sits in a corner of the Shatterdome that isn't surrounded by so much noise and more importantly, people. It's just nice, something like Kris's kind of place. It's sad how the Jaeger probably won't go out, not after his failed drift with Yixing.
Yixing.
Kris had the biggest crush on Yixing when he first laid eyes on him, and who wouldn't. Yixing was nice and kind to all the rangers, with his dimples deep and training alongside them even though he had the experienced. When asked he'd laugh and say no amount of training would ever be enough. Falling in love with Yixing is something like breathing and if you stop, you die. It's that simple. He wants something more than he should get from Yixing and it makes him feel undeserving.
Yixing deserved more than Kris, whose core was all selfishness. And he's not sure how much of Kris Yixing had seen in the Drift but the younger had probably seen enough to want to stay away. Algorithms lied, Yixing and Kris couldn't drift and he was scared.
"Knew I'd find you here." Yixing's hand is on his back.
From Antares Kitsune's shoulder, the Shatterdome looks tiny. And Raleigh Beckett's words come to mind; there are things you can't fight - acts of God. You see a hurricane coming; you get out of the way. But when you're in a Jaeger, you can finally fight the hurricane. You can win.
Kris doesn't feel like a winner.
"Have you ever felt small? Insignificant?" Kris asks, toying with the hem of his jacket.
"When Luhan died," Yixing begins. "I was lost for the longest time. Ask any pilot who’s lost their partner and they'll tell you how a Ghost drift really works. Sometimes I say things, things that I myself wouldn't say but Luhan would. And then I realised, I wouldn't be honouring Luhan by sitting around doing nothing. I'd be honouring Luhan by being a pilot again, and a damn good one at that. And he piloted with Chanyeol for some time before they figured out he was ill. You'll be okay."
Kris turns to look at Yixing and the younger is smiling wistfully.
"Does it hurt losing your co-pilot?"
He stares at Yixing.
"A lot." Yixing admits.
The temptation is strong.
"Is it bad that I chased the rabbit?"
He wants to kiss Yixing.
"Better pilots have failed." The younger supplies.
Kris isn't a better pilot and that's what he hates the most. He stares at the floor, pouting.
Yixing laughs at him, "You're so cute when you pout."
Kris is mildly stunned.
"Me? Cute? Have you seen your dimples?" He blurts out.
"Yes, I have. Plenty of times." They sit in silence on the shoulder of a Jaeger, observing the world beneath them. From here, everything is small. And for a second, they pretend they are small too as forgiveness and understanding plants its roots around their hearts.
☢
"I'm sorry I messed up." Kris mumbles for the umpteenth time, staring at the ground. Yixing isn't the slightest bit phased because it was, after all, Yifan's first time.
First times go really bad or really good.
☢
"Here," Yixing tosses Kris a sparring stick which he catches easily.
Sparring permits pilots in training to build a bond, to analyse where one lacks and subsequently, protect the weak spots when they're in their Jaeger. Yixing knows his weak spot is his neck. By extension, his Jaeger's weak spot is its neck.
Kris twirls the stick, swinging it down and promptly hits himself in the ankle, hopping around and clutching his foot to his chest.
Laughter bubbles up but Yixing holds it in him; he doesn't want to hurt Kris's pride more than it has been hurt. He presses his lips together, hand fluttering awkwardly over his stomach. He doesn't know if he should try to help or if he should laugh it out.
"I'm not laughing at you." Yixing insists. It's more to assure himself that he isn't going to start laughing more than anything else.
Kris scowls at Yixing from his place on the mat and Yixing cracks.
"Okay, I'm laughing at you." he says, cackling obnoxiously as he sits down next to Kris.
Kris smiles and Yixing can't help but notice that this smile is different, more gums and it makes Kris look less like a sculpture and more human, more attainable. There was a fear and loneliness in Kris's head that Yixing had found, locked under a different part of Kris, where Kris was Yifan and his mother's son. He knows it's too soon to mention to the elder, too soon to push at the boundaries but maybe he could break it.
Yixing's laughter seems to set Kris off and between points A and B, Kris is lying on the mat, laughing alongside Yixing.
"I have a kind of crush on you." Kris says out of the blue.
Yixing stills. He'd figured that much from being in the brunette's head; there was more than just respect there.
"You're kind of cute." He says offhandedly.
"Really?"
"Yes." Yixing sits up, heart racing. "Eleven o'clock tomorrow, in Simulator Room Three. It's a date so don't be late, Kris."
Kris stammers, looking very much like a fish out of water. Yixing high tails out, sliding down the wall when he's sure Kris isn't going to follow him.
Saying that a simulation practice is a date might have been the boldest thing he's ever done, not counting the time Luhan made him sass Marshall Byun. The result of that was mildly terrifying. There's something. There's something between Kris and him, something he can't put his finger on but something big, something special.
And Yixing isn't going to sit around and wait.
☢
Yixing paces inside the room, the monitor showing the Japanese coastline. Category Two is the highest level of Kaiju they've encountered so far and Onibaba is by far, the biggest. The half-crustacean Kaiju is snarling and snapping it's pincers on the screen.
He checks his watch; there's five minutes to eleven and all the time he's observed Kris, he knows the elder is punctual.
Kris jogs in, hair damp and sticking to his face. His jacket is dotted with raindrops and Yixing wishes he didn't notice all these things.
"Sorry I'm late." Yifan half-smiles, hanging up his jacket.
"You're just on time, Yifan." Yixing says, then licks his lip when he realises his mistake.
"You're alright with being called Yifan, right?"
"Yeah. You can call me Jiaheng I don't mind that either, I bet you saw the whole name thing." Yifan begins strapping himself into the pod, hooking up the lines expertly.
It's sad in a way, shows how much time Yifan spends in the simulator opposed to an actual Jaeger. Yixing's been in one and he can speak from experience of the thrill, the rush.
"I picked Onibaba, if it's okay?"
"Marshall Pentecost's battle?"
"Yes, the one he lost Tamsin in." Yixing begins strapping himself in.
When using the simulator without algorithm paired pilots, the results aren't very clear, affected by factors such as the lack of a strong neural handshake. Sometimes it resulted in a weak Jaeger-Pilot bond. Bonds were important in the war they waged against the Kaiju. The mock handshake they form is strong, and the monitors react positively. He knows why they were paired algorithmically; they've both experienced loss at the hands of the Kaiju.
Yifan with his friend and Yixing with his father.
"Launch canons," Yifan shouts and Yixing keys in the command.
All Kaiju have the tendency to run face first into their opponents and Onibaba is no different. Yixing knows what Yifan intends to do before he does it; as the Kaiju pounces on them, he fires the canons.
It groans, pulling away to grip the neck of the Jaeger in its pincers. Yixing flinches but Yifan has his back, already deploying the fang blades and driving it into the side of Onibaba's neck.
"Bastard just won't give up will it," Yifan curses.
Yixing grins at the thought in Yifan's head, deciding to act it out. They pick up a trailer lying on the road, hitting the Kaiju across the head with it.
Immediately after, they deploy their fang blades again, ripping into its neck and effectively beheading it.
"20 minutes." Yixing pants. They're both soaked in sweat; simulators mirrored the exact setting of the Jaeger and battle.
"That's not so bad." Yifan looks tired, staring at the ceiling.
"Heard the announcement about Antares Kitsune?"
"They want us to pilot it; they'll be running trials again this weekend aren’t they?"
"Yeah they are." Yixing runs a hand through his hair.
"You like beheading your Kaiju don't you?" The elder asks unsuppressed curiosity in his voice.
"It's something I developed with Luhan. We always..."
He trails off, uncertain.
☢
“Are you ready?” Luhan asks, playing with the controls. Yixing is all smiles; eager, excited.
"Pilots, engage neural handshake." Minseok says. Yixing is prepared for the hook pulling him in.
Luhan kisses Chanyeol. Yixing plays his guitar. The ghost drift between Luhan and Chanyeol. Yixing's grandmother crying as they bury his father's body in the Shanghai attack. Luhan and Yixing dancing, turned to training, turned to piloting. They're yanked back into the present.
“LOCCENT, this is Inferno Kaiser ready for drop.” Yixing says.
“LOCCENT, copy, over.” The head drops and they lurch forward, the hissing of engines filling the air. Mach 1 Jaegers are slow.
Yixing is constantly aware of Luhan's thoughts as they trudge through the Pacific. LOCCENT had said that the Kaiju was -
The intercom crackles.
"Inferno Kaiser, Kaiju has been categorized as Category 1, code name: Scissor, headed to Sydney. Your job is to prevent the Kaiju from breaching the city. Over."
"Copy that LOCCENT, activating sword." Yixing keys in the command, standing on the defence. Luhan mirrors him seamlessly.
"Radar's picking something up." Luhan yells, flipping the switches. Instead, they're greeted by the sight of fighter jets attempting to bomb Scissure.
Yixing whistles through his teeth. "That's a big one."
"We'll burn the motherfucker down, Yixing, believe me."
As soon as they get into a ten mile radius of the Kaiju, the beast doesn't ever bother with the fighter jets. It charges straight towards them, jaw wide open with claws ready to rip the Conn Pod out of their Jaeger.
Luhan and Yixing brace for the onslaught as one, absorbing the force of Scissure's impact and using it to throw the Kaiju off. For some reason the sky looks bluer. They can't avoid laying waste to the city; the jets have already done that but they can contain the Kaiju.
Scissure snaps its jaw close to the head, and Yixing lands an uppercut. Luhan cheers, deploys their sword and hacks repeatedly at the smooth belly of the animal. It snarls before its claws tighten around the arm of Inferno Kaiser. Yixing and Luhan both scream, the pain is there as the Kaiju attempts to snap their arm.
The Kaiju flaps its arms, lifting the Jaeger by its arms for a few second before dropping it.
"Motherfucker can fly." Luhan curses.
"Jaeger Al, engage magma sword." Yixing commands.
"Engaged," the smooth voice of the computer says.
"Ready to kill it?" Yixing ask, arms held in a ready stance.
They drive the sword into the Kaiju's throat and rip it sideways. There's delight in watching the Kaiju blue spill onto the remains of the once urban landscape. Category One Kaiju's were easy to kill.
All's fair in war, he supposes.
Everything seems to slow down when the Kaiju drops to the ground, jets still lingering in the air, missiles ready to fire if the Kaiju shows any sign of surviving the magma sword.
"Do you want to fire the canon at it?"
Yixing raises an eyebrow in amusement.
"For fun," Luhan amends.
"No, Luhan." Yixing laughs as they return to the Shatterdome, high off their kill.
"That was good work out there, Rangers." Marshall Byun claps him on his back and Yixing laughs nervously. No one knows how someone so young, someone so slight, became Marshall so fast.
He's ever aware of Luhan out of the corner of his eye. The way Luhan had collapsed after stepping out from the Conn Pod wasn't normal, something was off. He has a split second warning.
"Luhan!" Yixing screams as his co-pilot crumbles, blood oozing from his nose.
"Cancer," Yixing repeats dully, a few hours later.
"How?" Luhan's breathing is even as the monitors beep around him.
"Prolonged exposure to his Mach 1 Jaeger. He's been piloting it a lot longer than you have son, and I don't advise you to step foot in a Mach 1 ever again, at least while they are other available options."
"Cancer." Yixing says, stroking Luhan's hair back gently.
The doctor leaves quietly, his expression akin to pity that Yixing doesn't want, nor is it deserved by Luhan.
☢
The walk back to the dorms is quiet, punctuated only by polite questions about each other. Yixing is still running the differences of Luhan and Yifan in his head; they're both very different.
That doesn't change the fact that he craves Yifan badly.
"I'm afraid for our second trial," Yifan confesses outside the door to Yixing's room.
"Come in." Yixing invites, unlocking the door and tugging gently on Yifan's hand. He looks like a fish out of water, glub glub glub, like he'd never been in close quarters with someone else before.
Yixing finds the idea slightly laughable, and finds the courage for what he's about to do somewhere deep in himself. He isn't usually this bold, but Yifan brings out the worst (best) of him.
“A kiss for strength." Yixing kisses Yifan's forehead.
"A kiss for courage." His lips find the soft skin of Yifan's cheek.
"And a kiss for me." Yifan's lips are chapped and where Yixing has thin ones, Yifan's are thick. It's also awkward, what with Yifan being much much taller.
"That was awkward." Yifan comments with a shy smile.
Yixing tiptoes and kisses him again, gasping when Yifan slides a hand around his waist, gentle, ever so gentle. Sometimes Yixing thinks Yifan is afraid of breaking him. Yixing is surprised when Yifan doesn't attempt to stick his tongue down the younger's throat, instead, the elder runs his fingers up and down Yixing's spine.
"May I?" Yixing asks hesitantly, fingering the hem of Yifan's shirt. The warmth from the skin underneath is tempting. It's clear the elder is afraid and Yixing doesn't want that, that fear has no place between the two of them.
"I'm not-" Yifan's voice cracks. "I'm not sure if I look good without a shirt." He refuses to make eye contact, and the silhouette of his jaw against the light is exquisite.
"Do you want it? Yixing asks seductively, stripping himself of his jacket and shirt.
There's apprehension in the air, and a whole lot of other things.
Yifan swallows, takes off his shirt, huge, huge hands curling around Yixing's waist. Yixing kisses Yifan like he's the air he breathes, kisses to consume, hoping, just hoping that Yifan will lose his careful control.
It causes a Pavlovian effect when Yixing walks backwards. Yifan's follows his mouth, still kissing, reluctant to break apart. A few short, sweet kisses. Pants being discarded. Walking backwards, knees knocking into the bed, falling backwards with Yifan on top of him.
He uses his weight and training to roll them over, settling on Yifan's stomach. He presses a kiss to the brunette's collarbone, delighting in the guttural moan Yifan makes. He sucks a nipple, tonguing and teething, grinding on Yifan's leg. There's a need to be as close as physically possible to Yifan.
Yixing finds himself on his back again, jumpy and nervous. Something digs into his shoulder and Yixing chuckles when he pulls it out. Yifan smiles at it; the well-used bottle of lube Yixing kept for nights alone (read: every night.) He feels nervous with Yifan, waiting, until Yifan kisses him again and his legs fall open.
Yifan doesn’t hesitate to tease him, rubbing the pad of his finger over Yixing's entrance with liberal amounts of lube, pushing, almost going in before moving away. Yixing chokes on a moan, hips undulating, wanting more.
“I want more,” he demands breathlessly, trying to grind down against Yifan's fingers. Yifan's long, exquisite fingers.
"You won't break me." Yifan pulls away to dribble lube on his fingers and continue his teasing, making Yixing's blood boil and his vision blur. There's a look of concentration on Yifan's face that is one part amusing and one part assuring.
“Are you okay with this?” he asks, gentle as always. Yixing nods frantically; wanting, no, needing so badly.
At the insistent press of Yifan’s fingers, Yixing tenses up, body tight like a bowstring.
“You're so beautiful.” Yifan says reverentially, sliding a finger in and Yixing lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.
“Another.” He whines when Yifan chooses to stay still instead of moving.
Yifan finally acquiesces to his pleading with a smile, pushing in another and Yixing bucks. Yifan's not moving his fingers at all and all the younger wants is satisfaction, something, some friction.
He moans when Yifan finally gives in and moves his fingers, hand dropping to clutch onto the bed sheets. Yifan dribbles more lube and slides a third finger, scissoring and pulling a cry out of Yixing's throat, gentle, gentle, gentle.
Yifan slathers his free hand with lube, stroking Yixing's cock with a speed that opposes the slow pace set by his fingers and Yixing feels like he's going insane. All he could do was crave and hope Yifan would satisfy him instead of treating him like glass because there was this animal in him, this animal that craved the release.
“Yifan,” Yixing whimpered, clenching around fingers. The elder glanced up; sweat glistening on his bare shoulder and shining on his brow. He looked gorgeous.
“Fuck me, please.” Yifan curses as he lubes his dick and bottoms out slowly, everything Yixing craved from the start.
Yixing cried out with every thrust of Yifan’s hips, Yifan fucking into him slow and deep. It never bored him, the way Yifan looks with his eyebrows knitted in concentration, angling to please Yixing. It was simply just Yifan and just Yifan had Yixing’s heart racing.
Yifan shifts his hips; changing the angle he thrust into Yixing as each cry became a dry sob, littering kisses on Yixing’s neck. Yixing ’s hands find purchase on Yifan’s back, scratching and clawing, marking Yifan as his his his, possessive and desperate all at once.
“Yifan,” Yixing whimpers. Yifan Yifan Yifan Yifan an endless litany.
Yifan gives him what he needs, fucking him harder, bodies flush, strong thighs slapping the underside of Yixing’s. His skin burned with need as Yixing pushed his hips back.
Yixing clenches around Yifan and leans up to kiss him, to suck on his earlobe, moaning when Yifan came, still fucking into Yixing. Yifan wraps his hands around Yixing’s cock, pumping quickly and Yixing’s mind blanks when he reaches orgasm, aware of Yifan and Yifan alone.
God knows how they started with innocent kisses and ended up here but as Yifan murmurs how amazing Yixing is, as Yifan litters kisses across his chest, Yixing knows that every second leading up to this had been worth it.
He sighs when Yifan pulls away to get a washcloth; the room is cold and the elder is warm. He's wiped down like he's made of porcelain and there it is again, there's Yifan's fear of breaking him.
"I won't break," he whispers.
Yifan hides his face. "It's why I treat you like this."
Yixing pouts and holds out his arms, happy when Yifan curls into his side. The space is too small but Yixing will take what he can get if it means Yifan filling up the cold, empty spaces.
They drift off into sleep, Yifan's breathing turning into the soundtrack of his dreams.
"Paging for Wu and Zhang, paging for Wu and Zhang." Yixing wakes up with a jolt, happy to find Yifan's comfortable weight still next to him. The standard issue beds are small and Yifan is big but the ways he's forced himself into the space has Yixing's heart thudding double time.
"Yifan," he shakes the elder. "Yifan." He hisses.
The elder tosses his arm over his face, rolling into the corner.
"God damn it Wu Yifan wake up this instance they're paging for us." Yixing huffs out, hitting Yifan repeatedly.
He'd seen this in the drift, seen memories of Yifan being roused by his mother and now, he was experiencing it first-hand.
The alarms sound again and this time, it's accompanied by Jongdae calling out for them.
"Kris Wu and Zhang Yixing, please report to LOCCENT immediately, this is an emergency, Category Three Kaiju along the Busan coastline."
Yifan sits bolt upright and Yixing groans out, "Finally."
"How did we miss the first alarm?" Yifan asks groggily.
Yixing shrugs. How not to miss the first alarm, when being in bed with Yifan was so comfortable, so natural. He comes to the realisation that this is that feeling bordering on the edges of Luhan's thoughts every time it came to Chanyeol, that this fuzzy blur in his mind fell along the lines of love.
It's not that hard to fall in love with your co-pilot, there's always some sort of love there. Luhan and he had a brotherly love, So-yi and Yuna were clearly lovers, and the Koyamadas were married.
All neural handshakes were based on love, and there was no truer love, or at least, in Yixing's opinion, than being able to form a strong neural handshake.
It's with that in mind that he grips Yifan's too big hands in his too small ones when the older starts breathing heavily, looking like he's on the verge of tears.
"Yixing, I can't do this." He says in a strained voice, gripping Yixing's wrist.
It hurts, but he doesn't say anything.
"How fast did we take to bring that Kaiju down on the simulator?" Yixing asks, kissing Yifan's hands reassuringly.
"20 minutes." He replies surely.
"You can do this Yifan, you're with me now, a big part of me. And I know you and I, we can slay that demon from hell."
Yifan looks at him with teary eyes. Yixing's heart breaks in ten different ways. "Can we really?"
"Paging for Ranger Wu and Ranger Zhang, paging for Ranger Wu and Ranger Zhang." Jongdae screams over the intercom.
"Suit up." Is all Yixing says.
They run to the control room, barely flinching when Marshall Jonghyun barks at them as they're suited up. Yixing doesn't really listen, only catches a few words like "irresponsible" and "rangers these days". He bites his tongue, he doesn't want to point out that he's not exactly a ranger from these days. He hisses when they slot in the spinal clamp, it never was the most pleasant thing.
☢
"Engage neural handshake," Marshall Jonghyun calls out over the speaker.
Kris shudders as he's pulled into the drift; the flow of memories between Yixing and him going too fast, faster than he'd like.
They're dragged into a bright room, white walls, white light, white Luhan. The only splash of colour is from the green of the heart monitor, and the brown of a guitar against the bed. Flashes of colour. Yixing singing. Yifan winning his first basketball match. The first drift with Luhan. Kaiju blue and blood red. Yixing’s smile lighting up the dark. Kris’s side profile. Interlocked fingers.
They’re jerked forward; the handshake is strong as shown by the monitors and this time, this time they can win. They can take down anything.
☢
Piloting a simulator and piloting a Jaeger with Kris -- Yifan, Yixing realises, are two very different things. There's a noticeable difference from their first drift; the edge of fear isn't present in Yifan's thoughts. It's calmer, more understanding and there are more flashes of Yixing there than LOCCENT would like to see. He suppresses a laugh at that thought.
"Stop digging through my head," Yifan works the legs of Antares Kitsune and Yixing moves along seamlessly.
"Were you really afraid of farting while you made out with me?"
"You're not my style, Zhang Yixing." Yixing laughs, spots the smile tugging at Yifan's lips as he programs their coordinates. The Kaiju is near Busan, and Nova Hyperion was disabled. The Koyamadas would have been a better pick but Hector had broken his arm; leaving it up to the veteran and rookie pilot.
There were a lot of hopes riding on their Jaeger, Yixing thinks belatedly.
☢
"Category Three Kaiju, biggest one yet, weighing at 2500 tonnes. All we know is that its saliva releases some sort of corrosive discharge; that's what compromised Nova's hull. Code name: Yamarashi."
Yifan is afraid. In one week, he's gone from being completely ignored by Zhang Yixing to something Yixing's boyfriend-- or one night stand, whatever it was.
Moving in a simulator is different from moving in a Jaeger. For one, there's a lot more effort evolved.
"Preparing for submersion." Jaeger Al carries out the order, as Antares Kitsune submerges and draws closer to the coordinates of Yamarashi. Yifan is quiet but he's screaming a lot at Yixing in his head.
They emerge from the water when the radar picks up the slightest signal, slightly less than 5 miles away from them.
"So-yi, Yuna, is Nova okay? Are you guys okay?" Yixing asks.
Yifan keeps a close eye on the perimeter, watching for signs of any Kaiju.
So-yi comes on, crackling with static. "Nova's hull has been compromised, we have water leaking in and a crippled left leg. Yuna can't hold herself together, only defence left is our sword. We're holding out but this guy is big. Like Satan decided to fuck with Mount Everest."
Yifan snorts and at that moment, the radar starts beeping rapidly. Yifan can see Nova, and they stand on offense, ready to attack at the first sign.
"You'd think something this big would-" Yamarashi flies out of the water, launching itself at Antares's side. It looks like a shark and an ugly dinosaur.
"Searching for weak spots!" Yixing yells hoarsely as he runs a diagnostic.
They recover from the blow, Yifan throttling the creature. Yamarashi pulls them underwater, jaws snapping as they struggle. When they emerge again, Yifan's sure to keep the back of the Kaiju facing Nova, where they attempt to shoot missiles at it.
☢
"Deploy sword." Yixing commands.
"Sword deployed." The metal of Kitsune's left arm, his left arm, reforms itself as a blade. They attempt to pierce through its skin, and Yixing can taste Yifan's fear in the back of his mind when Busan port comes into view.
Every effort to stab the creature is in vain, the sword deflecting off its body. Yamarashi pushes back and Kitsune crashes into port. They get tangled and the Kaiju takes advantage of their situation to jump on them. Yifan groans, and Yixing knows his weak spot is right leg.
☢
"Weakness detected: neck. Weakness detected: neck." Jaeger Al repeats insistently. Yifan punches the side of the Kaiju, grappling with it and narrowly missing the snap of its jaw. Your Jaeger is connected to you is their first lesson and Yifan doesn't want Kitsune to go through any pain if he can avoid it.
It's by chance that they grab onto the crane wire, and with a look at Yixing, they know their next move. They bring up their knee, kicking Yamarashi onto its back. They run over, looping the wire around Yamarashi's neck. It trashes around, causing the wire to cut through easier. Yamarashi pulls itself upright by some miracle and it takes all the strength in them to keep it down.
It snarls, sounding like something out of Jurassic Park as it spits. Yifan watches with a detached interest as everything Yamarashi's saliva touches turns to a lump of its former glory.
"Pull," Yifan says.
They brace their weight on the legs of the Kaiju, pulling as hard as they can.
"Any last words, bastard?" Yifan shouts as he tugs, all adrenaline rushing through him, setting him on fire.
It moves its arm in an attempt to displace the wire around its neck. Yifan thinks of Zitao and how his mother has to be kept safe, of Luhan and how he didn't deserve to die in vain, of Yixing's father, who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time and most of all, he thought of Yixing. It was almost as if the thought, and Yixing's silent encouragement gave him the strength. They pull.
Yamarashi is beheaded, the head falling off with a dull thud onto a container, body falling.
☢
The Kaiju crashes into the ocean, waves rising high and Yixing breathes a sigh of relief. He’d forgotten just how tiring piloting a Jaeger was, forgotten how there was so much flooding you at the same time. Yifan’s joy floods through him like the ecstasy of a high and he wonders: what’s it like having sex connected in a neural handshake? Must be mind-blowing.
☢
Yifan understands what Rayleigh meant by defeating the hurricane. In all his years with the PPDC, it’s the first time he feel satisfied. His bones ache, he wants to sink into his too hard bed and he wants to cry into Yixing’s shoulder. Being in someone’s head forms a bond that runs slightly deeper than most. He’s seen Yixing’s strengths and fears and consequently, Yixing has seen his own fears and strengths.
“You killed your first Kaiju,” Yixing says.
“Feels so much better than killing one on the simulator.” Yifan flexes his fist, grinning when Antares Kitsune moves with him.
“There there, tiger.”
They trudge back to the Shatterdome, high with their first victory. Or maybe, in Yixing’s case, his seventh. The bigger victory however lies in how Yifan has gotten over his fear and maybe, just maybe, how he can finally look Yixing in the eye without fighting the urge to cry.
Author's Notes: I'm sorry I couldn't do the prompt justice, and I'm sorry I spent more time researching on the canon!verse of Pacific Rim and rewatching it seven times in the name of writing this fic. Thank you L, L, R, R and B. You know your roles. Especially to L, who pulled me out when I was stuck in the rut.