[Fic] Disconnect
Title: Disconnect
Pairing: Zhou Mi/Kyuhyun
Rating: PG
Genre AU, Pacific Rim AU
Summary: Not every desire was aptitude, and without an other, he was only half an equation.
For vintagentleman and based on this tumblr post.
***
Kyuhyun had incredible tactical genius, so they said. If he was not the best, he had still been recruited in his teens, shuttled and taught and encouraged by his parents. He’d been trained as a pilot, and then locked away. And yet still, Kyuhyun had fought. He had clawed for the opportunity, plotted for the right to make his own choices. To move out of Operations, away from the screen that flashed information - attacks, names of the dead, types of damage to both jaegers and kaiju alike, and the people who protected them.
They told him that his brain would get him nowhere, that if he was lost in a fight, it would be a shame. But he did need much more. It was possible that his brain would be the only thing that kept his partner from sure and terrible death. Logically, he also realized his mistakes could be causative as well, but it did not sway him.
Kyuhyun sat up many hours in the middle of the night, only the faint whir of computer fans as his music, and thought of After. After the breach was sealed, after the threat was gone, just After. He knew there would be one, believed it, felt it had to be in his lifetime or- He couldn't contemplate the alternative. How it would be done, he hadn't figured out. But he thought of the jaegers in their simplicity, their complexity. He knew that what had once fought would be obsolete, the people who moved them with their bodies and their minds cut off. He wondered if they could be used other ways. To rebuild. A cynical part of his mind suggested that once the fear and danger was gone, someone would find a way to make them an instrument of fear instead of hope and protection. And he had to know. He could not sit in a chair and theorize, and imagine what the jaegers could do, what he could do with a partner in one.
To be more than himself, to expand his knowledge.
So he found his partner, and his jaeger.
And he lost them both, and all possibilities. Or so he thought. Until his transfer request had come through, and he looked away from the disappointed face of his father. He hadn’t done enough.
***
Zhou Mi’s chin rose when Kyuhyun smirked at the name, their Valkyrie Prime.
Zhou Mi fought for his mother, for the fear on her face, for the friends she had lost.
Kyuhyun nearly fell into his arms, sheet white and mouth bloody. The forced disconnect had him shaking, waiting for help.
Zhou Mi screamed as the kaiju’s tail nearly broke them free. Kyuhyun didn’t know if it was in his mind or in his ears. Together they grabbed that tail, and watched it fly.
Kyuhyun waited at a desk, a bank of monitors. Is it easier there? Zhou Mi wondered.
***
Silence.
Zhou Mi waited for a partner. Without one, he felt as though he were in a bubble, in a group of schooling fish that darted at whim. Forever evaluated, forever watching. Watching new jaegers completed, new pilots christened. There were teams of men, teams of women, and both. Teams from the same country, from countries far apart. Not every desire was aptitude, and without an other, he was only half an equation. They tested him, and time and again he failed to connect. He had not seen his parents in nineteen months, ten days. He counted that as strictly as he did between attacks. He watched pilots lose limbs, lose lives, lose partners, and still he waited.
Kyuhyun stared at him, as though every word that Zhou Mi said was being processed through his brain. When he spoke Mandarin, very precise, Zhou Mi's eyebrows rose. It was not perfect, but Zhou Mi suspected that Kyuhyun knew more languages than that. An Operations agent, even with the help of sophisticated translation programs, needed that. The things Kyuhyun knew, had seen, beyond what Zhou Mi in his eternal waiting, had to have been immense. Zhou Mi did not know if he could take that sheer amount of knowing into his head. And he would have to.
Zhou Mi circled him, knowing what an ass he had to seem, like he was a hungry bear. But Kyuhyun watched, and Kyuhyun stopped him.
They had been matched. They had been tested. They had been approved.
It was Kyuhyun’s laughter he heard in his head, eyes on Kyuhyun was they were fitted for their drivesuits.
It was possible they would die. It was possible their jaeger would become inoperable. It was possible they would take down a dozen kaiju, save thousands of lives.
“I looked you up,” Zhou Mi said, and they sat knee to knee, the backs of their knuckles brushing, their breathing in sync. “Your former partner-“
“Is alive,” Kyuhyun interrupted him. “No one can do this forever.”
“I don’t want to be your former anything.”
And Kyuhyun met his eyes with something like wonder.
***
To see a giant hand move at their whim. To wade into waters deep enough to kill them. To walk into something unknown, adrenaline singing at the white-blue death.
Their Headspace was shared and welcome, the puzzle of curiosity, questions felt but not heard, the swing of their gaze and brush of memories edged away. They killed, so they would not be killed. Two in their first week and Zhou Mi had been laid out, glassy eyed and drunk as Kyuhyun babbled at him, head on his thigh.
He was a Ranger, and he had done his duty, and his hand closed around Kyuhyun’s, on the glass they had both reached for, and he laughed.
***
Zhou Mi believed that Kyuhyun would discover so many things, leading them as he ceded - never fully, or they would not be partners.
Kyuhyun believed Zhou Mi to be a rock, something immovable, almost horrifyingly so, a resolve that would lead them to their end or save them from it.
Valkyrie Prime, damage, rebirth, protection, danger. Equal parts cradle and liability.
He did not stare death in the face with a smile.
Knowledge would not protect him.
They had done enough running, enough retreat.
They were ready to fight.
***
Pairing: Zhou Mi/Kyuhyun
Rating: PG
Genre AU, Pacific Rim AU
Summary: Not every desire was aptitude, and without an other, he was only half an equation.
For vintagentleman and based on this tumblr post.
***
Kyuhyun had incredible tactical genius, so they said. If he was not the best, he had still been recruited in his teens, shuttled and taught and encouraged by his parents. He’d been trained as a pilot, and then locked away. And yet still, Kyuhyun had fought. He had clawed for the opportunity, plotted for the right to make his own choices. To move out of Operations, away from the screen that flashed information - attacks, names of the dead, types of damage to both jaegers and kaiju alike, and the people who protected them.
They told him that his brain would get him nowhere, that if he was lost in a fight, it would be a shame. But he did need much more. It was possible that his brain would be the only thing that kept his partner from sure and terrible death. Logically, he also realized his mistakes could be causative as well, but it did not sway him.
Kyuhyun sat up many hours in the middle of the night, only the faint whir of computer fans as his music, and thought of After. After the breach was sealed, after the threat was gone, just After. He knew there would be one, believed it, felt it had to be in his lifetime or- He couldn't contemplate the alternative. How it would be done, he hadn't figured out. But he thought of the jaegers in their simplicity, their complexity. He knew that what had once fought would be obsolete, the people who moved them with their bodies and their minds cut off. He wondered if they could be used other ways. To rebuild. A cynical part of his mind suggested that once the fear and danger was gone, someone would find a way to make them an instrument of fear instead of hope and protection. And he had to know. He could not sit in a chair and theorize, and imagine what the jaegers could do, what he could do with a partner in one.
To be more than himself, to expand his knowledge.
So he found his partner, and his jaeger.
And he lost them both, and all possibilities. Or so he thought. Until his transfer request had come through, and he looked away from the disappointed face of his father. He hadn’t done enough.
***
Zhou Mi’s chin rose when Kyuhyun smirked at the name, their Valkyrie Prime.
Zhou Mi fought for his mother, for the fear on her face, for the friends she had lost.
Kyuhyun nearly fell into his arms, sheet white and mouth bloody. The forced disconnect had him shaking, waiting for help.
Zhou Mi screamed as the kaiju’s tail nearly broke them free. Kyuhyun didn’t know if it was in his mind or in his ears. Together they grabbed that tail, and watched it fly.
Kyuhyun waited at a desk, a bank of monitors. Is it easier there? Zhou Mi wondered.
***
Silence.
Zhou Mi waited for a partner. Without one, he felt as though he were in a bubble, in a group of schooling fish that darted at whim. Forever evaluated, forever watching. Watching new jaegers completed, new pilots christened. There were teams of men, teams of women, and both. Teams from the same country, from countries far apart. Not every desire was aptitude, and without an other, he was only half an equation. They tested him, and time and again he failed to connect. He had not seen his parents in nineteen months, ten days. He counted that as strictly as he did between attacks. He watched pilots lose limbs, lose lives, lose partners, and still he waited.
Kyuhyun stared at him, as though every word that Zhou Mi said was being processed through his brain. When he spoke Mandarin, very precise, Zhou Mi's eyebrows rose. It was not perfect, but Zhou Mi suspected that Kyuhyun knew more languages than that. An Operations agent, even with the help of sophisticated translation programs, needed that. The things Kyuhyun knew, had seen, beyond what Zhou Mi in his eternal waiting, had to have been immense. Zhou Mi did not know if he could take that sheer amount of knowing into his head. And he would have to.
Zhou Mi circled him, knowing what an ass he had to seem, like he was a hungry bear. But Kyuhyun watched, and Kyuhyun stopped him.
They had been matched. They had been tested. They had been approved.
It was Kyuhyun’s laughter he heard in his head, eyes on Kyuhyun was they were fitted for their drivesuits.
It was possible they would die. It was possible their jaeger would become inoperable. It was possible they would take down a dozen kaiju, save thousands of lives.
“I looked you up,” Zhou Mi said, and they sat knee to knee, the backs of their knuckles brushing, their breathing in sync. “Your former partner-“
“Is alive,” Kyuhyun interrupted him. “No one can do this forever.”
“I don’t want to be your former anything.”
And Kyuhyun met his eyes with something like wonder.
***
To see a giant hand move at their whim. To wade into waters deep enough to kill them. To walk into something unknown, adrenaline singing at the white-blue death.
Their Headspace was shared and welcome, the puzzle of curiosity, questions felt but not heard, the swing of their gaze and brush of memories edged away. They killed, so they would not be killed. Two in their first week and Zhou Mi had been laid out, glassy eyed and drunk as Kyuhyun babbled at him, head on his thigh.
He was a Ranger, and he had done his duty, and his hand closed around Kyuhyun’s, on the glass they had both reached for, and he laughed.
***
Zhou Mi believed that Kyuhyun would discover so many things, leading them as he ceded - never fully, or they would not be partners.
Kyuhyun believed Zhou Mi to be a rock, something immovable, almost horrifyingly so, a resolve that would lead them to their end or save them from it.
Valkyrie Prime, damage, rebirth, protection, danger. Equal parts cradle and liability.
He did not stare death in the face with a smile.
Knowledge would not protect him.
They had done enough running, enough retreat.
They were ready to fight.
***