#how long ago did i watch pacific rim? i feel like it might have been last year but i finally drew this lmao | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

snackhobi · 4 years

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To get it perfect.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You dismiss it with a hard cut of your hand.

“It’s nothing,” you say.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But then you break that silence.

You laugh.

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

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

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

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

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

(Giving it to Jungkook on a platter.)

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

And he keeps making you smile.

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

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

(Not, now, when he’s with you.)

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

Drift compatibility.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Jungkook’s shield.)

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

But you’re not alone.

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

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

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

Barely.

Barely alive.

(One hand gives, the other takes away.)

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

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

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

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

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

You hate it.

(It should have been you.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

(You know Jungkook feels the same.)

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

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

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

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

The door swings shut behind you.

You lift your hand.

It’s an orange.

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

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

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

But Jungkook hadn’t.

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

You do cry.

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

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

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

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

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

You’re scared.

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

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

But there are no secrets in the Drift.

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

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

“Baby.”

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

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

Yoongi just continues to thread his hands through your hair.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And he wants you along for the ride.

(Burns bright for it.)

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

(Because he’s nervous, too.)

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

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

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

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

Not yet, at least.

“We’ve got this.”

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

“Yeah,” you say. “Yeah, we have.”

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

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

—the timer hits zero—

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

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

(But this?)

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

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

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

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

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

(—and he doesn’t look away.)

(He doesn’t look away.)

(Can’t look away.)

(Doesn’t want to.)

(Never wants to.)

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

(And he doesn’t want you any less.)

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

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

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

Because he wants this.

He wants to be your comfort and your support.

He doesn’t want it to end.

(You don’t want it to end.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m yours.”

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

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

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

“I love you,” he says.

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

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

Burns bright for you.

1K notes · View notes

beansbeware · 3 years

Text

Beans’ Bagginshield Recs

Here it is! My first rec list eight years since I first started shipping Bagginshield. When this lockdown started (and ended and started again) I found myself re-reading OG/classics and discovering new ones. Sifting through my AO3 history I realized I have read and already forgotten so much fic over the years. For a while, I though the ship had run its course but as we can see now, Bagginshield lives! Check back for updates as I discover (and remember) more fics. Pay attention to the tags and trigger warnings!

I Sang In My Chains Like The Sea by orphan_account for lincesque, IronPanda

In which Bilbo is a Jaeger pilot candidate, and Middle Earth stands on the brink of destruction. (Pacific Rim AU) [Wasn’t sure how this one worked but man it did]

At the Turn of the Year by northerntrash

They say that strange things live in the woods, fair folk and things more spirit than man; don't step between the old oaks, parents mutter to their children, or they might find you, and eat you. Thorin never believed that, but now winter is settling into his bones, the shadows are growing longer through the hoar frost, and he is lost among the trees.

And it was there that Thorin met him, that strange, laughing creature, walking barefoot through the bracken.

Canon-ish

Homeward Bound by perkynurples for 61Below

His life slips away from him on an elven boat carrying him overseas, and there is one last journey Bilbo Baggins must take if he truly means to arrive home.

Sansûkh by determamfidd

The battle was over, and Thorin Oakenshield awoke, naked and shivering, in the Halls of his Ancestors.

The novelty of being dead fades quickly, and watching over his companions soon fills him with grief and guilt. Oddly, a faint flicker of hope arises in the form of his youngest kinsman, a Dwarf of Durin's line with bright red hair.

(Follows the story of the War of the Ring).

The Great Shire Conspiracy by Avelera for Emsiecat

Ten years later, Bilbo can't even go to the Green Dragon without a dwarven tourist buying him a beer and sobbing over Bilbo's great tragic love affair with Thorin Oakenshield. Which would all be quite touching and heartbreaking, if not for one little thing...

Dark (generally not a fan but this one made the cut)

Pain-Bearer by lilithiumwords (unfinished)

In an alternate reality, Erebor was never taken by Smaug, and the War of Dwarves and Orcs never happened. The Orcs invaded the Shire, slaughtering hundreds and taking countless more as slaves. Bilbo is slave to Azog, the Dwarf King's mortal enemy... until the Dwarf King rescues him.

Dwarves! in the Shire

Selling to Hobbits by HildyJ

Exiled from his kingdom and living on the mercy of others, Thorin is determined to make his own way in the world for him and his family. And the annual Summer Fair in Hobbiton sounds like the best place to sell enough of his crafted goods to do just that.

Oak and Mistletoe by HildyJ (series)

After a life dominated by a strange form of sickness, Thorin is sent to the Shire to seek a cure only Bilbo Baggins can offer.

Erebor - Nope, Never Fell

A Most Sensible Idea by HildyJ

Bilbo Baggins isn't sure about this. Not one bit.

Frodo is definitely too young to enter into an arranged marriage with a dwarven king called Thorin Oakenshield. It's a good thing that Bilbo is there to chaperone him through their courtship.

After all, there's no chance that a fussy hobbit bachelor would ever catch the eye of a king.

Signs and Meanings by HildyJ

It shouldn't matter to Thorin that the visiting hobbit cook doesn't speak his language. But it does.

Per Aspera by northerntrash

Deep in the dungeons of the Kingdom of Erebor, in an old, unused storeroom, lived a Hobbit.

In which Bilbo Baggins, a strangely successful thief, makes a mistake, and meets a Prince.

Erebor - Rebuilding

Mother-Tongue by northerntrash for HildyJ

Forget-me-not: a small flower, with four petals, which are normally found in shades of blue with a pink or white centre. These are traditional flowers of intent in the Shire, used to express true love, and remembrance.

In which Bilbo plans to leave Erebor, and Thorin tries to understand why.

Previous Engagements by Lunarflare14

After the Battle of Five Armies Thorin and Company have a new task: rebuilding their reclaimed home. Suddenly Bilbo finds himself up to his ears in responsibility and he surprises himself with how well he can navigate negotiations with elf dignitaries, farmers in Dale, and a dwarf king who has patience for neither.

But as Spring approaches a caravan from the Blue mountains brings something everyone had nearly forgotten: the dwarf woman Thorin promised his hand to many years ago.

Which is fine. It's all fine. It wasn't like Bilbo was falling in love with the king or anything.

That would be tragic.

And I'm Your Lionheart by Lee_Whimsy

Bilbo lingers in Erebor while Thorin recovers from his wounds, and soon finds himself caught up in politics, romance, and the occasional kidnapping. Ensemble cast. AU. Eventually Thorin/Bilbo.

Fix-Its (Gawd we need them)

An Expected Journey by MarieJacquelyn

For years Bilbo has written about his adventures and told stories about his dealings with dwarves and dragons. To most it seemed like fanciful nonsense but to Bilbo it was all very real. A weight followed him home from his travels, one called regret. Now in his final moments Bilbo has a choice to make – go quietly into death’s embrace or go back again and face all the fear and pain for the chance to make things right?

Of course, change is a fickle thing and not everything can be done again as Bilbo is about to find out. In the end, it may not only be salvation that he’s fighting for.

though the stars walk backward by baggvinshield, killaidanturner

Bilbo wakes, always in Erebor, with dark shadows to one side and the first light of a terrible dawn to the other.

An Expected Journey by MarieJacquelyn

Of course, change is a fickle thing and not everything can be done again as Bilbo is about to find out. In the end, it may not only be salvation that he’s fighting for.

Over Your Shoulder by northerntrash

The battle is over, and the lost have been counted. There is too much death, too much blood, and in the middle of it sits one small Hobbit, left quite alone but for a body on the ground and the memory of what might have been. But he is a tenacious creature, and if there is one thing that he has learnt, it is not to give up hope.

In which Bilbo Baggins goes on one last journey, and doesn't come back alone.

Historical Setting

The Ghost And Mr Baggins by perkynurples

They say that everything can be cured by saltwater - sweat, tears or the sea. Bilbo Baggins chooses the last option, taking his recently orphaned nephew and moving to the charming Oak Cottage, overlooking England’s grislier shores. The house charms him instantly, and though he knows nothing at all about the sea, or about making ends meet on his own so far from everything he’s known his whole life for that matter, he’s quite determined to stay, and see his nephew get better, odd sounds in the night be damned. He’s living in a modern world, after all, and the nonsense he’s been hearing about the house being haunted by its former owner, the mysterious Captain Durin, is just silly superstition… isn’t it?

Hobbit! Thorin

I've Grown a Hedge Around My Heart by pibroch (littleblackdog)

Thorin Brandybuck, just recently come of age, still lives in his family’s smial in Buckland, with his parents and two younger siblings. Thorin is an odd duck amongst his relations and neighbours-- unsociable, grumpy, shy, and awkward. And beyond that, he looks rather strange even for a Bucklander, strongly favouring the thick, dark haired build of his Stoorish blood.

It defies all sense and reason why Bilbo Baggins, an exemplar of all the respectable traits Thorin lacked, would ever desire a friendship with him.

Bilbo, as Thorin discovers, is not always as sensible as he appears.

Marriage (or something like it)

An Unexpected Proposal by Eareniel

As Bilbo sat smoking in his empty hobbit hole, he couldn’t help but wonder – when did his life become so boring? Or better yet – when did his old life stop being enough?

He suspected the answer to that question lay somewhere around the time when he had refused Thorin Oakenshield’s offer of marriage.

Something Blue by Lapin

Thorin marries Bilbo after the Battle of Five Armies, a marriage of convenience, not love. Slowly, they must come to make the best of it, Bilbo resolves. After all, he's a Hobbit. They make the best of things.

Magical/Super Powers

On Adventures and Other Forms of Conduct Unbecoming of a Wizard by manic_intent for beingevil

For as long as even the old Gaffer could remember there had been a wizard living in the hill at Bag End, overlooking the Shire. As wizards went, this one wasn't the wandering sort, always out to lure gentle folk out onto nasty adventures, or even the powerful kind, the sort that lived in high towers, reaching out into the ways of the world.

Modern Setting

Old Stone, New Fires by northerntrash

Bilbo was not sure what he had expected when he had agreed to supervise the restoration of Erebor House, on the lonely tidal island in the North sea, but it was not this. The winters up here are cold and harsh, and there is a strange feeling on the air, thick with the brine of the sea and secrets to which he is not privy; there is some part of the long and troubled history of the place that has not been spoken of, a shadow between the broken family gravestones and the caves beneath the cliffs, dark and dangerous.

Perhaps it is all in Bilbo’s mind, but as the nights grow longer, he starts to doubt it, and as Thorin sinks ever deeper into black and incalculable moods, he will have to find what has been lost, before it takes them all.

For This by northerntrash

Thorin Durin had lived in his new flat for approximately eighty four minutes when things started to go terribly, terribly wrong. The wrongness came in the form of a package, delivered to his door, wrapped in brown paper and string, with a small tag wishing him a very sincere welcome to the building.

Nothing Gold Can Stay by perkynurples

Bilbo Baggins led a rather peaceful life, thank you very much, until an old acquaintance decided to turn it upside down, and he found himself agreeing to take a job that’s… let’s say not exactly up his alley, and might eventually cost him a little more than his treasured cozy lifestyle. Who would have thought tutoring a slightly menacing monarch’s more than slightly overbearing nephew could prove to be such an adventure?

Love-In-Idleness by perkynurples

Taking Bilbo Baggins, a successful movie actor who is only just getting used to the perks and intricacies of becoming A Face People Want To See, and putting him together with Thorin Oakenshield, with his very traditional (read: slightly backwards) ideas about what constitutes Real Art and Real Talent, might very well be viewed as just some clothead’s idea of a joke. But there are jokes, and then there are carefully calculated risks the size of controversial reproductions of classic Shakespearean plays - for Bilbo, it is the chance of a lifetime to prove himself to all those who have ever deemed him too one-dimensional to even attempt stage, while Thorin has the opportunity to get out of the rut that’s been hindering his career for so long now, and shine in a role worthy of his talent once again. That is if the two learn how to share the same space for more than ten minutes without wanting to tear each other’s hair out. The course of true love never did run smooth, after all…

If There Were Water by stickman

Bilbo Baggins might be in over his head. He’s purchased an old stone house atop a hill overlooking a city he doesn’t know, and plans to live quietly, largely ignoring the rest of the world. But it’s early April, the rainy season, and the roof leaks, and there's something strange about Bywater House that he can't quite figure out.

Thorin Oakenshield is in his fourth month of trying to reconcile his own grief with his failures at anything remotely resembling a competent single parent, living out of a shoebox flat with Fíli (seven, sullen, and stubborn as hell) and Kíli (five, resilient but cracking), working crap jobs and hating everything including himself.

Under the cover of rainy afternoons and sleepless nights, roof repairs and building restoration, Bilbo and Thorin try to figure out how one navigates isolation, and how one breaks out of it. Every step they manage to take forward finds them dragged back again; every question asked has too many answers, or too few. This is a story about living in a world where everyone is on their own, always, and how things go on.

How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us by stickman

Bilbo is a harried 1st year British literature Ph.D. (early 20th century fiction) who happens to have an interest in spatial narrative structures, a lack of time-management skills, and a tiny apartment with a lot of books and very little furniture. He’s stressed, always, and doesn't quite know where he belongs. He tells himself that really, this is, in fact, what he wants to be doing. But sometimes, as much as he loves books, he gets an urge to do something with his hands.

Thorin is a disgruntled M.Arch. 1 in his last year who can’t be arsed to shave and frightens his students, and, frankly, his profs, but his work is top-notch so no one can really say much. They can, however, bully him into running a hands-on design workshop on Saturday mornings, which is complete crap, because he’s used to drinking his Friday nights into oblivion so showing up at Milstein at 7:45 the next morning and trying to teach in a room of wall-to-wall windows as the sun rises is not at the top of his list. Besides, no one ever shows up.

Except one morning, someone does.

The Boy You Met (At The Coin Laundry) by Lee_Whimsy

Bilbo accidentally spends a summer in Ireland. One rainy day, Thorin appears in the hotel laundry room, naked and dripping wet and about to propose. (But not, unfortunately, to Bilbo.)

Gandalf, Thranduil, and a handful of Spanish footballers all guest-star.

Hooked On You by Chamelaucium

Thorin should have learnt not to trust his brother and sister by now.

Come with us on holiday, they’d said. It’ll be fun, they’d said. A nice break from work.

Yeah right. All this holiday had brought him was being knocked around the head, acute hay-fever, and the biggest, most ridiculous crush ever on the cute, golden-haired fishing instructor.

One-Sided Conversations by northerntrash

"Thank you for listening," Thorin said, getting to his feet. "I hope to be able to return the favour, one day."

The man on the bed didn't respond, but since he'd been in a coma for longer than Thorin had known him, that wasn't entirely surprising.

“One”/Soulmates

you lick your lips (you taste like years of being alone) by perkynurples for stopchasingflowers

Thorin Oakenshield was born without the longing, and has spent his whole life merely observing others as they pursued a feeling unknown to him until they finally found their One. He has made his peace with the prospect of being alone, and has been faring well enough, but little does he know the fates have a different story in store for him.

Things We Grow Together by serenbach

Dwarves are born with a bone-deep knowledge of their One, but Thorin stops feeling the pull of his after the dragon attacks Erebor. Needless to say, he is surprised, and not initially pleased, to find his One living behind a round green door decades later.

Hobbits find a seed that represents their innermost self and can offer it to someone else to plant. This creates a bond as strong as deep roots in the earth between them. It is just like Bilbo, after years of thinking that no one would want his, to offer his soul-seed to a dwarf that does not understand gardening metaphors.

But just because they have found each other does not make the quest to reclaim Erebor any easier, and in the end a sacrifice is still made.

Thorin has to trust in the strength of the bond between himself and his One, because otherwise he will never believe that the sacrifice was worth it.

Colour-struck by northerntrash

Soul mates are like adventures, Bilbo had often consoled himself. Nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things that made you late for dinner. It was no great hardship that he had never met his, even if he couldn't tell which of his petunias were blue and which were purple.

Quest-ions

Discovering Mr Baggins by Eareniel

The story of a Hobbit, told through the eyes of the dwarves.

Thorin Oakenshield's Majestic Diary by Fruitsie

Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain and Totally Majestic Badass of Middle Earth, does not have a raging hard-on for Bilbo Baggins.

No, seriously.

Just read his diary.

Call You Home by northerntrash

In which the Company are entirely too nosy about matters that are supposed to be a secret, and Bilbo learns that being concerned about propriety is overrated when you could be making friends instead.

Time Travel (because walking Middle Earth is not enough)

Of an Arcane Binding by Salvia_G

An inexplicable magic ties Bilbo Baggins, hobbit of the Shire, to Thorin, dwarven prince of Erebor

#bagginshield #thorin x bilbo #the hobbit #fic rec #bilbo baggins #thorin oakenshield

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sakuatsu · 4 years

Note

YELL 2 ME ABT SAKUATSU FIC RECS PLS

oh boy. oh boy do i have much to talk about

here’s a list of my sakuatsu must-reads under the cut! complete with links, word count, ratings, and occasional commentary because i’m incapable of shutting up. this isn’t in any particular order either

(keeping this sfw and organized into canonverse/AUs. a * means i am on my hands and knees begging for you to read this)

i’ll try to update this somewhat regularly :]

most recently updated august 25, 2020!

canonverse:

*your highs and lows (series) by astroeulogy

a post-time skip canonverse series born from these two questions:

1. what if sakusa kiyoomi, known too-blunt jerk, is equally straightforward about his soft, tender feelings?

2. what if miya atsumu, resident big fat jerk who doesn't care if his teammates hate him, is too emotionally stunted to notice when his one of his teammates actually likes him?

this is like the sakuatsu series but it’s blasphemous to not recommend. the first fic in the series is all that you were (4.6k, T). mind the ratings on a few of the fics, but my personal favorite is #3: a masterpiece of domesticity called you have tamed me (5.7k, T). these make me ACHE

*sakuatsu domesticity simulator by pseudoanalytics (T)

a vaguely interactive mixture of fic, art, and html, where you too can experience the inherent romance of a big fat jerk and a too-blunt jerk attempting intimacy

this fic...this fic...op is literally one of my favorite artists of all time but Did You Know that their writing is also off the charts. what a wonderful use of second person and the pacing is so good. too much skill in one person

*The MSBY Black Jackals Read Thirst Tweets by isaksara (11.4k, M)

Sakusa’s eyes are very dark naturally, sucking in all surrounding rays of light and crushing them in his pupils. For an athlete, he is rather pale. His lips look very pink in comparison. Atsumu is suddenly catastrophically aware that in this instance, ‘accent’ is a euphemism. “Good enough for your Olympic-size ego, Miya?”

(In which Atsumu realizes that he is attracted to Sakusa Kiyoomi in the most inconvenient way possible.)

i think this is the fic that got me into sakuatsu in the first place lol i was looking very specifically for msby socmed fics and now here we are. this fic is unbelievably funny

*liminal spaces by hhatsuna (25.9k, T)

Fuck you, Atsumu thinks, pointing at the pixelated Sakusa in the grainy team photo on his bedside table.

It’s easier than you’d think to ignore loving your teammate.

*Better For Us Both by abrandnewheart (15.7k, M)

Where “You already make me the happiest guy alive, babe," gives way to, “I’ve not been happy for a while now.”

Alternatively known as the ‘mug fic’.

yes this is a breakup fic. yes im going to recommend it anyway. breakup fics usually scare me a lot but this one is too good for me to not say anything about. nuanced and delicious. i look at the mug on my desk and feel pain

dog eat dog eat dog world by perennials (8.4k, T)

You are your first and only line of defense against the universe.

Koi no Yokan; 恋の予感 by ymra (15.3k, unrated)

Wherein Sakusa dreams of his future selves and discovers a little something along the way.

autumn ends, but we remain by wolfsbvne (5.3k, T)

atsumu stares at his ceiling at 2am. he stares until he can make out designs in his popcorn ceiling. a cat there, an onigiri here, and then something that suspiciously looks like a mop of hair, triangle eyebrows, and oh those two bumps are moles right above what atsumu just mapped out as an eye.

(or, atsumu is in kind of in love. sakusa is maybe in like.)

your fingertips, branding irons by Ceryna (5.8k, T)

Between the accidental touches he's reconciled, the deliberate ones he's endured, and, from those he's built years of trust with, obliged– Kiyoomi has never wanted to let someone indulge.

Never, until Atsumu.

take what’s yours and make it mine by claudusdiei (5.9k, T)

atsumu falls in love four times in his life

(or: in which atsumu gets his heart broken twice, has the self-awareness of a sober mule and really likes yellow tulips)

every action has an equal and opposite reaction by akanemnida (10.4k, T)

Miya Atsumu gets a modeling contract with Calvin Klein, which sets Kiyoomi's heart in motion.

(Or: Sakusa Kiyoomi realizes that the rules governing the universe are absolute rubbish at explaining matters of the heart.)

*where i want to be by tookumade (8.8k, G)

In the time they’ve been teammates at the MSBY Black Jackals, Sakusa has never been to Atsumu’s place, and Atsumu has only been to Sakusa’s a few times. There’s an unspoken understanding here: that Atsumu knows him well enough to know that nobody’s house or apartment would ever really meet his ridiculously high standards, and he is most comfortable in the home he’s made for himself.

That, and, Atsumu being over at Sakusa’s means that he has to host him and do the cleaning afterwards, while Atsumu can just flit off back to his own place. So. There’s that.

Tonight. Tonight is not business as usual. Tonight is not familiar.

*san'yō expressway, 6:17 pm by yamabato (8.1k, T)

Atsumu tilts his head to watch a slice of orange light bend over the impassive planes of Sakusa’s face. He is absolutely, ruthlessly beautiful. It makes Atsumu want to punch something—put his foot through the windshield—scream, maybe.

Kiss him again, maybe.

They have 344 kilometers to figure this one out.

parallax error: angle of inclination by min_mintobe (10.8k, T)

But now there's the one person Atsumu'd promised himself never to touch. His eyes leave Atsumu breathless with guilt at seventeen, and he spends the next six years safe in the satisfaction of making things right.

Feelings, of the physical kind, and one kiss.

ft. competitive spirit, childishness, and late night conversations.

Atsumu POV.

four leaf clover by vicari_us (5.9k, T)

Once, Ushijima claimed that they ‘got lucky’. If properly honed, their body types could become near invincible weapons.

However, unlike Ushijima, Kiyoomi’s weapon required a bit more care over the years to reach the condition it had become. He was born iron, not yet forged into steel.

Exploring what it might have taken to turn a genetic mistake into an athletic miracle.

*the 28 postcards you left me by wheelspokes (8.3k, T)

Atsumu takes texting your ex to a new level by sending Sakusa postcards in Animal Crossing instead.

such a unique premise & this is so beautifully structured. stunning flow and who knew animal crossing could convey so much longing...

AUs:

Pas De Deux by hhatsuna (dancer!sakusa au: 19.0k, T)

The mystery athlete gives Kiyoomi a once over in the mirror. “Yer pretty tall,” he observes, and the twang of an accent rasps low in his throat. His brazen eyes drift to Kiyoomi’s legs, and something like exhilaration glints gold in his gaze. “Good quads, too. Ya ever played volleyball?” Ah. So it’s volleyball.

“I’m a dancer. Ballet and contemporary, mostly.”

*my love, take your time by bastigod (archaeologist!sakusa au: 9.0k, T)

There was something sublime about wandering around an empty museum. Nothing could compare to the sound of his shoes clacking against the marble floor, the morning sunlight gently streaming through the lofty windows and the peaceful solitude of ancient stone kings overseeing their silent kingdoms.

A day in the life of Doctor Kiyoomi Sakusa, Archaeologist.

i’ve literally been thinking about this fic every day since it came out. you will not find a story like this anywhere else, i guarantee you. what a clear labor of love this fic is it’s truly something so special

three roses and a smile by strawberrycitrus (surgeon!sakusa & microbiologist!atsumu au: 19.7k, T)

“I just got this job, I’m not givin’ it up for some moral boost ‘cause I actually need to pay my rent, ya insensitive -” Atsumu waves his hands around, trying and failing to come up with the right word to convey the amount of injustice that this gaunt motherfucker has brought into his relatively simple life thus far.

“If you can’t pay your rent, go get a job at the McDonald’s over by 8th Street,” Sakusa growls, “it’ll pay more than your researcher position.”

If you even attempt assault on a coworker, forget teaching about cells - you’ll fucking be in one, Atsumu.

*Dance of the Parallax by astroeulogy (ogre spirit!sakusa au: 6.7k, T)

For the last twenty years, Atsumu’s done all that he can to break his betrothal to the ogre spirit Sakusa. If he can just make it through one more night, he’ll be free.

honestly, just read everything by astroeulogy. i’m recommending this fic in particular because it has such an ethereal voice to it. magical

across oceans, across centuries by starstrikes (pacific rim au: 20.0k, T)

Six days ago, Osamu died and left Atsumu with this: Atsumu, you have to—

(Namikira rises with the tides and rips Osamu and Vulpis Empress away in one fell swoop. Six days later, Atsumu wakes up alone in a hospital bed and learns how to swim.)

you don’t actually need to know pacrim to appreciate this. a wonderful exploration of grief and recovery. also it’s exactly 20k words which is both satisfying and terrifying

*Notte Stellata by awkwardedgeworth (ice skating/dancing au: 20.8k, T)

"Your partner doesn't need to hold anyone's hand other than yours," Sakusa's father crouches, "And you can wear gloves."

Sakusa ponders. He hears the other skaters of rink two whiz past as they launch themselves into lifts.

"Alright," He looks up from the ice, not knowing how he'll dedicate the next couple of decades to this sport, this partnership, this boy.

what a stunning fic. a beautiful progression of sakusa & atsumu’s relationship, rife with references to real skating programs, beautifully written and structured. so full of longing i’m in mild physical pain

#if anyone else has recs feel free to drop them in the replies mwah #sakuatsu fic is SO high quality you can literally just look at the tag and blindly press and find something stunning #these are just my personal favorites #basically just my ao3 bookmarks and then some #sakuatsu #sakusa kiyoomi #miya atsumu #sakuatsu fic #haikyuu fic #ask #reynegades #thank you for asking.....ive been dying to make a fic rec post i just needed a push lol #fic

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crispmarshmallow · 4 years

Note

If you're still taking fic ideas, I *need* Satine & Anakin BroTP!! How about: while she's on a diplomatic trip to Coruscant, Anakin is surprised to find out something rather un-duchess-like about Satine. Genre is author's choice: humor, angst, action, whatever you want!

Okay, so I started by answering your ask and then it started taking a life of its own. I had to stop myself from making it even longer. I hope you like it. It took a long time to come up with. And so sorry for such a late reply.

Anakin is playing Sabaac with the Duchess of Mandalore. Satine Kryzé.

Or rather Anakin is losing spectacularly at Sabaac against the Duchess of Mandalore.

He doesn’t even know how he ended up doing this. Actually, he does. However, it is the last thing that he thought he would end up doing.

It started with Obi-Wan - on behalf of the Council - interrupting his patrols upon the Resolute around the Outer Rim to inform him that he is to return to Coruscant with the Duchess in tow. Senator Organa and Padmé are hosting an event for the refugees on both sides of the War and the Duchess is to be an esteemed attendee.

Anakin - ever the obedient Jedi Knight - informed Obi-Wan that he would do as told. However, not without getting in a cheeky quip or two of his own. His former Master had ended the transmission with a highly unimpressed glare.

Anakin might have said something along the lines of I’ll make sure your girlfriend makes it to the Coruscant - safe and sound.

After which he left the Resolute under the charge of Yularen and Ahsoka and made for Mandalore on the Twilight. He picked up the Duchess and her Guard. And set course for Coruscant.

He joined her in the lounging area of the ship, and tried to come up with something to say.

Anakin wanted to know the Duchess better. It bothered him that he didn’t.

The Duchess Satine is an important person to Obi-Wan - even if he denies it. And Obi-Wan is beyond important to Anakin.

So he feels that he should know the woman that captured Obi-Wan’s heart. After all, Obi-Wan knows Padmé very well.

He wanted to know what was beneath all the righteousness and pacifism and politics.

However, Anakin has never really been talented when it comes to conversations with women that are not Padmé or women that don’t violently dismantle battle droids for a living.

He cleared his throat. “I’m afraid I’m not much company, your highness.” He couldn’t help adding, “Obi-Wan has always been better at this sort of thing.” He sneaks a glance at Satine. Oh, he didn't know her well enough to know how she would take that.

He was pleasantly surprised to find that she seemed to be fighting a small smile at his comment. “Please, Master Skywalker. You overestimate Obi-Wan’s skills.” She put down the datapad she had been scrolling through. “Had the Jedi Master been here, I do believe we would have devolved into one of our shouting matches..”

Anakin let out a laugh. Yes, that did sound about right. He had witnessed one of those on the Cornet. And to be fair, that had been the highlight of that particular mission - Obi-Wan and Satine trying to act as though they don’t want to do unspeakable things to each other by shouting at each other.

“In his defense, Obi-Wan only does that with you.” He tried and failed to keep out the suggestiveness out of his word.

“I’m sure.” Satine looked amused, and Anakin knew that she knew what he was doing.

He continued. “Obi-Wan does not lose his cool easily.” He gestured to himself. “I would know.”

“I can imagine that you were a menace to raise, Master Skywalker.”

He grinned. He had been.

Satine looked thoughtful for a moment. “However, I do remember Senator Amidala mentioning that you are often her Jedi protector.”

Anakin froze. Yes. He made sure of that.

“What do you do to keep her company?”

Uh. Anakin’s mind froze. He could improvise when he faced death, but otherwise, he was really bad at it. Satine would not want to know what he and Padmé got up to in their free time if she had a clue.

“We..” His eyes fell onto the box of Sabaac cards that were under the lounge table. He and Ahsoka and Obi-Wan often played it to kill time. He doesn’t know how the tradition began, but it was something they did for fun. Fun is in short supply these days. “We play Sabaac.”

Satine looked at him funnily before asking. “Sabaac?”

Anakin nodded. Maybe too eagerly.

Her eyes fell on the box of Sabaac cards, and her eyes lit up with mischievousness.

“I don’t see why we shouldn’t do the same.”

Anakin blanched. The Duchess played Sabaac?

ii.

And that is how he found himself losing to her.

She played and she played well.

Anakin thinks he should take a few notes as he loses yet another round.

Satine does not hide behind a mask of indifference like Obi-Wan - who admittedly Anakin has never won against - she is a lot like Anakin truthfully. Loathe he may admit it - just smarter.

She tries to intimidate her opponents, and it often works. She always looks so confident that it is unnerving. However, she does not let emotion take over. She does not panic like Anakin does from time to time.

“You’re far too good at this game, Duchess. Are you cheating somehow?”

Satine laughs. “And I would have thought Obi-Wan taught you how to play better.”

Anakin shrugs. “Obi-Wan didn’t teach me.”

“Padmé then?”

Force, no. He sighs. “I learned it on Tatooine.”

She looks surprised. “You’re from Tatooine?”

Anakin wishes he hadn’t brought that up. It brings back bad memories. It brings back the rage. He nods, clenching his jaw.

Satine must have noticed because she tries to steer the topic away from his home planet, but he knows that she is curious. A lot of people are curious about his past.

However, Anakin does not want the Duchess to mistake his reluctance to speak of it as weakness so he divulges a little bit more.

“I watched and learned from the pilots that dropped by at the shop I used to work at.”

Work. Satine must have caught on what he meant. Anakin was brought to the Temple as a child, and he must have been a child when he worked. And often children on Tatooine worked because they had no choice but.

She doesn’t look away. She just slightly deflates at the mention. “I learned it from my sister a long time ago. She learned it from who knows where.” Something in her voice sounds wistful as she speaks of her sister.

They continue their game. At first, it is as if a shadow has been cast upon them. Shadows from their pasts. Nonetheless, they slowly come out of it.

Anakin tries desperately to win. He has always won except against Obi-Wan and he wants to keep it that way if he can help it. Defeating Obi-Wan, Anakin is never sure if he’ll get that good.

They know each other inside and out, but Obi-Wan is not rash like Anakin.

He doesn’t hold back his whining as Satine wins and wins.

She lets loose as they go round by round. She laughs. She smirks. She even curses eloquently under her breath whenever Anakin does catch a rare win.

Anakin wonders if this is who Obi-Wan fell for. He thinks he would understand better if it was.

Unsurprisingly, and to Anakin’s chagrin, Satine wins. She gleefully gathers Anakin’s stack of chips. Her eyes twinkled from the win.

“I remain to be undefeated by anyone when it comes to Sabaac.”

Anakin scowls, though it slowly turns into a smirk. “I would like to see you try playing against Obi-Wan.”

“Oh. I have played against Master Kenobi.” Satine smirks right back at him. “Who do you think taught him?”

iii.

Anakin Skywalker is an interesting person.

Satine thinks as she and he make their way to enter the banquet hall. Apparently, the Jedi Knight had been invited too. Something about being the face of the Republican effort.

She had wanted to get to know him better. Obi-Wan has practically raised the boy and she wanted to see what he had grown up to be.

She knows that Skywalker resorts to unsavory measures when dealing with conflict. He has little regard for the lives of those on the enemy side. She had witnessed that on the Cornet. And she still has a lot to say about it.

However, she decides she quite likes him. He is nice company even if he denies so.

He is a decent Sabaac player too. Just no match for Satine.

It has been ages since she has even played the game. She thinks the last time was with Bo - before everything collapsed upon the two.

She had enjoyed herself during those hours upon the Twilight. And lately, Satine has enjoyed very little - with the Republic and CIS trying to coax her into picking a side, and the Death Watch gaining momentum within her system.

She finally let herself breathe a little. She wonders if Anakin has the same effect on Obi-Wan. The Jedi Master sometimes forgot to look after his own well-being. He had made a habit of it long ago. Maybe he had been born with it.

She shakes off these thoughts as they enter the banquet hall that is full of Senators and Generals and anyone of import. She knows better than to let her mind linger on Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Anakin and Satine had made straight for the ball once they landed, having prepared themselves for their appearance upon the Twilight.

“Duchess Satine!” Bail Organa comes rushing to the pair of them, taking Satine’s hand into his and pressing a light kiss on it. She smiles.

“Senator Organa. It is truly a beautiful event that you have organized and for a very noble cause.”

“We do what we can, Duchess.” He says modestly. He turns his attention to Anakin. “Master Skywalker. We are glad that you could make it.”

Anakin nods his head. “As the Duchess said, it is for a noble cause.”

Satine and Bail continue to exchange pleasantries as Anakin stays quiet beside her - his eyes seem to be scanning the crowd. They continue to do so after Bail leaves and Satine and Anakin venture further into the gathering.

However, they do stop when the Senator Amidala joins them.

“Satine. You made it.” She says as she embraces her tightly. Satine does not often show such affection in public, but she has a soft spot for the Senator. She is a good friend.

“Of course, I did.”

Padmé turns to Anakin, and Satine sees the way her eyes soften - how they seem to glean with something Satine knows better than to name.

“General Skywalker. It is always good to see you.”

He bows. His eyes are as soft as Padmé’s. “And to see you, milady.”

Satine has to suppress a snort. Who does Anakin think he is fooling?

They fall into conversation after that. She does not miss how the eyes of the Senator and Jedi keep seeking each other out.

Satine grabs a glass of champagne from a serving droid. “Oh, and Padmé, do tell me when you are free. I would love to test your skills in Sabaac.”

She sees Anakin stiffen beside her. Padmé regards Satine in confusion. “Satine. I must disappoint you, but I do not even know how to play Sabaac.”

Satine has to hide her sly smile behind her glass as her eyes dart towards Skywalker who has an expression of a child caught doing something he should not be doing.

“Is that so?”

Before Anakin can fumble for an explanation, Senator Chuchi drops by and pulls Satine away. Once she is free, she finds Anakin and Padmé standing a few feet away from her, whispering to each other without looking suspicious as much as possible.

Padmé has an expression of amusement and exasperation and worry.

Satine wonders what Padmé expected. Anakin is the last thing from subtle from what she has seen. She had noticed the way Anakin blushed and fumbled for words when she mentioned Padmé on the Twilight. And she saw the way he was grappling for an explanation when his eyes fell on the Sabaac cards under the table.

Satine is not a politician for nothing. She has not survived this long for nothing.

She continues to study them from afar. She wonders if that was what she and Obi-Wan looked like when they were young and in love.

As if her thoughts conjured the very being, her eyes fall onto Kenobi who is speaking to Senator Mothma.

As if sensing her gaze, he whips his head to her direction. His eyes softened at the sight of her. She is sure hers did the same. She raises her glass in acknowledgment and he smiles at her.

She hesitates before she makes up her mind. After seeing Anakin and Padmé look so content with each other by their side, she decides that she can let herself have that for a short moment or two.

She walks towards Obi-Wan. He notices and excuses himself from the Senator of Chandrilla and makes his own way to her.

“Duchess.” He says, bending to press a kiss on her hand, letting his lips linger a second too long.

“Master Kenobi.” She says, her lips settling into a smile.

“I hope Anakin did not trouble you on your trip here.”

She chuckles. “Of course not.” She pauses before adding. “It is a fine young man that you have raised, Obi-Wan.” She isn’t lying either.

Obi-Wan’s eyes gleam with pride. She knows he is trying hard to hide it, but she knows that Obi-Wan is proud of the man that Anakin Skywalker has become.

“I try.” He simply answers.

Her eyes travel back to Anakin and Padmé. Skywalker has seemed to drag Amidala onto the dance floor - holding her a little too close to be deemed innocent.

“I think that Senator Amidala would agree with me.” She doesn’t hide her smile this time. She sneaks a glance at Obi-Wan. He has his eyes on the pair too.

“A little too much of you ask me.” He is trying to restrain his own smile.

She wonders if Obi-Wan sees them in the young pair.

After a few moments of comfortable silence, Obi-Wan nervously wipes his palms on his robes before offering her his own hand.

“Can I interest the Duchess with a dance?”

Satine looks at his hand for a few moments.

She and Obi-Wan made their choices years ago. However, who could blame them for letting themselves have these little moments?

She puts her hand in his.

And then Anakin proceeds to adopt Satine into his list of favorite people and so he joins Obi-Wan on his mission to Mandalore. Both of them save Satine and Anakin proceeds to beat the shit out of Maul for going after her and Obi-Wan. Maul lets it slip that Palpatine is a Sith Lord in hops of saving his life. And thus, Anakin and Obi-Wan and Satine and Padmé and Ahsoka and the 501st and 212th proceed to kick Palpatine’s ass out of existence.

#anakin skywalker #Satine Kryzé #star wars #the clone wars #tcw #obi-wan kenobi #Padmé amidala #ahsoka tano #Palpatine #bail Organa #asks #Duchess of mandalore #darth vader #OBITINE #Anidala

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ishouldreallybeelsewhere · 3 years

Text

okay so that loki video essay thing was going well, and then like a day into writing it i lost the hyperfixation so it's never gonna be finished. i still think it's alright, completely unedited, entirely a train of thought, i hope you like commas and pacific rim, it's only 2.8k

btw if something doesn't make sense, i was writing this while watching some video essays, and also haven't read it

Introduction

Loki is a show, well you know that, but a show that does everything right, until it doesn’t (crazy, I know). If you’re here, I assume you’ll already know a fair bit about it, but if you don’t, here’s a quick refresher. Spoilers for everything MCU.

Loki begins in 2012, technically, just after the Avengers go back through time from Endgame to meet themselves and grab the infinity stones. Unfortunately, the plan goes awri, and Loki ends up in possession of the Tesseract, the mind stone. With this, he teleports to a desert in [a place] and is quickly arrested and apprehended by the Time Keepers for ‘Crimes Against the Sacred Timeline.’ Sounds a bit cult-y if you ask me, and given that you’re stuck here, you will ask me. Essentially, his actions (taking the tesseract) were not supposed to happen. They created a branch, a new timeline, and, according to the TVA, if left unchecked, the timeline could cause a multiversal war that would result in the end of time. This is, to put it simply, a very interesting premise, and the first two episodes do a wonderful job of exploring the TVA and searching for the mysterious Loki variant who causes chaos and mischief, all while evading the time cops.

What is the TVA? Well, it’s the Time Variance Authority, which clears up nothing to those who haven’t seen the show. I would let a clip explaining it play, but I think I’d get a copyright strike, even though I’m fairly sure it’s within fair use. Regardless, the TVA is an organisation supposedly created by the Time Keepers, space lizards who brought together all of time into a singular sacred timeline. Had they not done this, time itself would have ended, how they did this is unexplained, and likely either impossible, or they are greater than gods in their power. Loki is immediately doubtful, but can’t deny that they must hold some power, because not only does his magic not work in the TVA, but infinity stones are useless too. Time is also stranger there too, more an idea as opposed to a set part of their reality. Many theorise that they reside within the quantum realm, which makes sense, as that is how one travels through time, at least in the marvel universe, but we can’t be sure until we get an explanation. Of course, I’m writing this long before I’ll see the finale, so who knows, perhaps I’ll have to rewrite it.

Now I’ve said all that without explaining what the TVA actually does. It’s pretty simple, similar to Stephen Hawking’s (???) ideas of the multiverse, every decision you make has the ability to make another timeline, one that is not part of the sacred way of time, and therefore must be pruned by the TVA before it grows enough to cause another multiversal war, despite multiverses being well-established in the MCU, but I know that’s different. Or perhaps the Time Keepers are lying (spoiler, they are, just not exactly in that way). Anyway, when someone makes a decision or takes an action that creates a new timeline, the TVA arrives. Minutemen arrest the ‘Variant’ responsible, despite their lack of intentional crime, and prune the new timeline, which we are told destroys it. Then Variants must stand trial for their crimes, in which they can either plead guilty or not, but really, that doesn’t make much difference, as they’re unable to make a case, let alone get away as innocent. Before they reach the court, however, Variants are dressed in TVA jumpsuits, have to sign off every word they’ve ever said, and a snapshot of their temporal aura is taken, for some reason. Yeah, it’s not really ever explained why they have to go through all that, like, why don’t they just prune them all, or just send them straight to court. It seems like they’re putting on a big show for nothing. Of course, if you have to go through all that, you probably won’t have time to think about the whys of your situation, which I’m sure the TVA uses to their advantage.

Now, we’re heading into real spoiler-y stuff, just in case anyone here hasn't watched episode three. If you haven’t, why are you here? Go, finish the whole series, and then come back. Alrighty. Now that everyone’s seen it all (apart from me at this point) we can continue.

Everyone working at the TVA is a Variant, and they don’t know it. The Time Keepers are said to have created everything within the TVA, every analyst, Minuteman, and whatever the other roles are. But that’s not true. They’re all variants who’ve been taken from their own timelines and had their memories wiped. This gives an explanation for the courtrooms, and the process to get into them. Robots will be melted from the inside out if they go through the temporal aura machine thingy, and I have a feeling it’s harder to reset a robot’s memories. Living beings are let through, and their actions in the courtroom could give a good overview of their strengths and intelligence, so it can be decided whether they’ll be pruned or ‘reset’ which we are told is killed, but with the information of them all being variants now available, is more likely having all their memories hidden, replaced with the idea that they’ve been at the TVA their whole lives, and that they were created by the timekeepers. Though why would space lizards create workers in the image of humans instead of like their own lizard-y selves. The TVA as a whole, as we are introduced to it, feels very cult-y. Things such as the videos Variants are shown upon being arrested, the whole ‘Sacred Timeline’ thing, the Time Keepers being viewed as almost gods, and that when one of the TVA’s own minutemen is told the truth (C-20) she is, well, removed. The TVA views Variants as criminals of the highest order. How dare they violate the sacred timeline?!!? Only, no variant knew that what they were doing was wrong, or that it even mattered, but if you’re late to work on a day where you weren’t supposed to be, then you’re removed from your timeline and charged. The sentence? Essentially death, or removal of all your memories and being lied to about everything, which might be worse depending on your stance on that kind of thing.

Anyway, the minutemen themselves are another issue that the TVA has. They respond with violence at every available opportunity, like when a young french child from the 1500s walks into a church, the first thing a minuteman does is reach for his weapon. This is also the scene where we’re introduced to my favourite character, Mobius, but more on him later. For now, I need to stay on track and keep in mind this part of the view has to remain consistent. All I can think of are the nerds I split. It seems I have an inability to stay on topic, however, I’m gonna try so you have fun keeping up with that.

Loki stood trial for crimes against the Sacred Timeline and, like any logical person may in that situation, relentlessly questions the validity of his conviction. The answers he’s provided with he just,, kind of,, disagrees with, which is fair. The concept of the TVA and the sacred timeline as a whole is absurd to him, as who would a god serve?

Part one: Glorious Purpose

Loki, in his own words, it ‘Burdened With Glorious Purpose.’ I’m so glad no one but me is gonna read this draft cuz I managed to spell many of those words wrong. His glorious purpose, in his eyes, is becoming the ruler of all, removing free will and choice from those beneath him, in a twisted attempt to make it easy for all living things. He believes in free will, at least, the free will of himself, and also believes that, out of everyone in the universe, he is the one who is right, the one who can make the world better, that is his burden. Now, you may look at that and think, ‘hey, for a god of mischief, that doesn’t seem very mischievous,’ and you’d be right. It isn’t. He’s evil, like, without a doubt, an evil person in his ideals and views of the universe, however, the change from mischief to villainy was rapid, as it’s shown that he was D.B. Cooper, and, when asked, said it was because he was ‘young and lost a bet to Thor’, which, like, okay, but that was the 60s or something. 50 years aren’t a lot in the face of 1,500, but a lot can happen then

Part something: ethics

So, as you’ve probably gathered by now, I’m a pretentious asshole, and with that comes three years of philosophy classes and a superiority complex, though perhaps that comes from the whole leftist thing. Anyway, as per usual, I got sidetracked. I’m watching a really good video atm, so lots of things are happening in my head right now. Back to being pretentious, I’m going to be talking about ethics, fun, and how that relates to the TVA, the sacred timeline, Kang, sorry, he who remains. Regarding the whole Kang thing, I haven’t read a single Marvel comic since I was a member of the comic book club 4(???) years ago. Gods, I’m so old. Yup Percy Jackson took up too much of my childhood. Sidetracked again! I apologise, anyway, everything I know about Kang the Conqueror comes from Tumblr, so I’m not going to spend any time talking about any parts of the character that aren’t shown in the show. I really want to be writing about Doctor Who right now but I have my notes up so I’m gonna do this. Okay, right. Ethics. I hope I don’t go into free will right now because I will never stop going on about that. Anyway, let's look at the TVA, ignoring Kang, not for simplicity, but to see if the ends do in fact justify the means as Mobius said. And by that I mean, if what employees of the TVA think is true, are their actions justified? Finally got to the point, after how many words? Too many, anyway, let’s start from the start (kinda).

In an actual, proper, organised essay, I think that whole last paragraph was supposed to be 1 (one) sentence long, maybe. I have been writing year nine level essays for many years, despite not being in year nine for many, many years, so, be glad you’re reading something I’m interested in. Back to the topic at hand, please. Sorry I just got distracted again. I shouldn’t have Tumblr open atm. Anyway, what are the TVA’s means? So, I’ve already explained what the TVA is, and what it does, but let’s use a fun example to show what they really do. Imagine you’re a kid (or maybe you are a kid, so imagine you’re a younger one) and you just got home from school. You just made an awesome new friend who believes in you and loves your art. This sparks your interest in art, leading to countless pieces, days and days spent drawing and painting and having a great time. Your art begins to take hold on the world, speaking to people, letting them believe in themselves, thousands upon thousands of people inspired to start their own art, to rebel against the system of capitalism and teach people that there’s more to life than a job. This begins the global radicalisation of the working class, and with that, rebellion and the downfall of capitalism. I’m in a good mood rn, feeling optimistic, so don’t worry about what’s happening. Anyway, with the downfall of human exploitation and eradication of poverty comes a branch in the Sacred Timeline, and as the root of it is you as a child making a friend, your 5-year-old self just committed a crime that, according to the TVA, is worthy of what they believe to be actual death, like, being pruned.

Now, this was a very umm, off-the-top-of-my-head example, and entirely makes no sense, but give me two seconds and I’ll remember my original point. Right. The risk of allowing the downfall of capitalism is the end of all time. Always. Maybe? But, in the eyes of the TVA, kidnapping a 5-year-old, putting them through a dehumanising process to be shoved in a courtroom and being accused of crimes against the sacred timeline, and what was the crime? Making a goddamn friend. As a child. Being supported in art. Doing what you enjoy, destroying oppressive systems that will eventually be the downfall of us all and so entwined with all the problems in the world that any chance of saving it revolves around its deconstruction. I’ve been hunched over too long and my back is really starting to hurt, but the essay must go on. And remember, the domino effect of that friendship never actually happened. The timeline was pruned before it could happen, so the crime is literally making a friend. Very extreme example sorry, but shock makes your point go across faster, and also sparks outrage, which I don’t want to happen, but with doing literally anything comes backlash, like stepping on the wrong leaf, or a butterfly. I hope you guys know that this is unplanned and probably unedited. Okay I need to watch Pacific Rim again. Okay imagine now they kill the child. Right. That’s likely what would happen. Children are weak (usually, Sylvie is just on another level of awesome) [author’s note, Crimson Peak is a horror movie and I’m very upset by that cuz now I won’t be able to watch it]. Alright, so, kill a child, or destroy all of time. Always. Maybe. The way we see the TVA in the first two episodes is through Loki’s eyes, as a cult-like lie with a cool retro/futuristic aesthetic (like Doctor Who, but more on that later). I have been sitting here for 4 hours and I can confidently say my cat is an asshole whose sole purpose in life is to want to come in right when I’m in the middle of a point only to not want to come in but allow me to lose exactly what I was about to say, meaning I’ve gotten next to nothing done. Hi, I'm back. I got distracted by My Little Pony and Pacific Rim. And checkers. Issues with pacing? I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Okay, so, I’m going to say something possibly controversial. When the stakes are the endings of the entirety of time, it’s okay to let a child die, and technically they might not die they’d just be sent to be either devoured the void or saved by a ragtag team of loki variants. Which is not great. That might sound like I agree with the TVA, but trust me, I do not. Not in the slightest. I hate the slimy bastards. (I do love every single character though, like all of them are awesome) The prickly pricks will bury us all!!! I don’t agree with them because I think there is a better way to handle the multiversal problem and the issue that arises regarding the particular cause of the multiversal war. That made no sense. You’re really just gonna have to guess at this point, however, for the solution, we must look into the finale and the reasoning behind He Who Remains’ plan. I said I wasn’t going to talk about him, but I lied (rule number one). Basically, from what I understood of his plan (which wasn’t much, I’m pretty stupid) was that there were two options; option number one was to leave him there, looking over all of time, preventing free will, so that the infinite variants of him that would come from timelines wouldn’t once again attempt to conquer all of the timelines (though if there are infinite ones, how would that work? Just kidding, you’re not allowed to question this). He dictates all. There’s no such thing as free will, and if you dare veer off the path, you will be pruned, and your timeline destroyed. His plan is to hand that power over to Loki and Sylvie, because he’s getting old and has lived long enough. The other option (and the one that’s taken in the show) is to allow Sylvie to kill He Who Remains and let the multiverse unfold, allow free will and chaos to reign, with the possibility and established likelihood of the destruction of time itself. Now, just putting this out here, what if there was a third option? My proposition is based of knowing next to nothing and not having seen Loki in a while, and that is,

#loki #loki show #loki series #loki tv show #i don't even know what this is #uhhh i don't think i agree with all the points i made and i also used some very crap example #this is not a good peice of writing and it's from several months ago #if you talk to me about it i won't get back to you.

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kurokoros · 4 years

Photo

Hello friends and followers!

7000 follows stuck up on me a bit out of the blue and that number just keeps going up (as of posting I’m sitting just shy of 7.2K), so I thought I’d do something fun as a thank you for all of the amazing support I’ve received over the years!

Here’s what you do!

Send me an ask (on or off anon) with an option from A (characters and ships), B (au settings), and C (optional dialogue prompts)! There are four fandoms listed (BNHA, Fairy Tail, ATLA, and FMA), eight subcategories for settings (including canonverse), and 50 different dialogue prompts to choose from. You must specify if you want your request to be sfw or nsfw. I’ll be working on these as quickly as I can, but I’m prone to writing longer fics, so keep that in mind!

Again, a huge thank you to everyone that decided to follow this old blog of mine, whether you’ve been here since the beginning, or just recently! The support I’ve received from writing for different fandoms over the years has meant the world to me, and I probably wouldn’t be where I am now without it <3

A - CHARACTERS + SHIPS

BNHA

Aizawa Shouta

Amajiki Tamaki

Awase Yosetsu

Bakugou Katsuki

Iida Tenya

Kaibara Sen

Kaminari Denki

Kirishima Eijirou

Midoriya Izuku (sfw only)

Shindou You

Shinsou Hitoshi

Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu

Todoroki Natsuo

Todoroki Shouto

Todoroki Touya | Dabi

Tsuburaba Kosei

Bakugou x Kirishima

Bakugou x Uraraka

Bakugou x Kirishima x Uraraka

Kaminari x Jirou

Jirou x Momo

Kaminari x Jirou x Momo

Midoriya x Uraraka

Midoriya x Tsuyu

Fairy Tail

Nalu

Gajevy

Gruvia

Jerza

Lyredy

Miraxus

Elfever

Bixana

ATLA

Zutara

Sukka

FMA

Edwin

Royai

B - AU SETTINGS

A/B/O AU

Canonverse AU (and any specific tropes/aus set in canon)

Supernatural AU (be specific – vampires, werewolves, ghosts, etc)

Modern AU (be specific – coffee shops, roommates, meet-cutes, college, etc)

Fantasy AU (be specific – dark fantasy, urban fantasy, high fantasy, fairy tales, etc)

Soulmate AU (be specific – reincarnation, tattoos, sensations, etc)

Crime AU (be specific – assassins, hitmen, detectives, bounty hunters, mafia, spys, etc)

Misc AU (florist/tattoo artist, arranged marriages, fake dating, model/photographer, pacific rim!au, films, etc)

C - DIALOGUE PROMPT (OPTIONAL)

“It’s really not that complicated.”

“Close the door.”

“It’s three in the morning.”

“I should have told you a long time ago.”

“Why are you helping me?”

“You have to leave right now.”

“Just trust me.”

“I’ve been waiting a long time.”

“You’re in love with her.”

“Come here.”

“We could get arrested for this.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“I thought you were dead.”

“You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

“Was that supposed to hurt?”

“I can explain.”

“Love is overrated.”

“Watch me.”

“I’ve missed this.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Sometimes, being a complete nerd comes in handy.”

“I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“We have to be quiet.”

“You’re trembling.”

“I want an answer, goddammit!”

“It was you the whole time.”

“Tell me again.”

“This is why we can’t have nice things.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“You don’t see me.”

“I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you.”

“You could have died.”

“Prove it.”

“I might never get another chance to say this.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Lie to me then.”

“You’ve thought about this, haven’t you?”

“We need to talk about what happened last night.”

“I never stood a chance, did I?”

“I feel like I can’t breathe.”

“I’m only here to establish an alibi.”

“Are you drunk?”

“I still remember the way you taste.”

“How much of that did you hear?”

“What happens if I do this?”

“Why are you whispering?”

“You make me want things I can’t have.”

“I don’t want to screw this up.”

“People are staring.”

(dialogue prompts taken from HERE)

#alisha babbles #alishacelebrates7k

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scientistowengottlieb-newtkelly · 4 years

Note

Thoughts and feelings about Pacific Rim 2?

you sure you wanna open up that particular can of worms?

movie review time! be warned i'm not in a good mood as i am shaking in pain, however this review would have been scathing regardless. and none of this is to say pacific rim is perfect, it's not, but... aye, i have no words for the world of difference there. oh wait! i do:

so. first and foremost, i hate it. as both a movie and a sequel. did i find it entertaining? yes, mildly, so i suppose it did its job, however the only thing that keeps me watching it is because, simply, it's part of the pacific rim franchise whether we like it or not. therefore, i squeeze as much salvageable content from it as i can, such as how one might analyze the precursors, how we are to view hermann and newt as characters pre-, during, and post-uprising, what we are to expect from drifting (though this one i take with a grain of salt, there is a whole other rant preserved for the joke of an attempt to develop that shit within the movie)

one of my biggest issues with pacific rim is really simple: it plays out like DeKnight did not watch the first fucking movie or was scrolling through twitter while doing it and decided he'd make a cash grab since the first one was relatively popular. "haha the kaiju were going for mount fuji the whole time!!" bitch no they weren't!!! why the fuck did they end up anywhere near sydney, australia, then!!! why did they turn tail on places like manila and san fran instead of heading straight for japan!!! WHY DID THE ONE THAT WAS IN JAPAN NOT SUCCEED, THERE'S NO WAY WITH THOSE MARK 1 JAEGERS THEY'D HAVE BEEN ABLE TO REASONABLY FIGURE OUT THEIR PLAN AND WHERE THEY WERE GOING IN TIME TO STOP THEM!!! newt literally lays out what they are doing in the first movie and they completely ignored that!!! not to mention, if the destruction from elements found in mount fuji would have been enough to terraform the earth, WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST FUCKING DO THAT WHEN THEY WERE SUPPOSEDLY ON EARTH AGES AGO??? THERE WERE VOLCANOES WITH THOSE SAME ELEMENTS BEFORE RIGHT NOW, VOLCANOES ARE NOT A RELATIVELY NEW THING EARTH CREATED SUDDENLY AND I WOULD IMAGINE NEITHER ARE THOSE ELEMENTS!!! IT MAKES NO SENSE!!! and.... okay the fucking drones. how did those bitches make breaches??? we know the breach is some result of precursor/kaiju technology, apparently they know the breach's atomic structure as hermann said in the first movie, but how tf some kaiju organs and tech from earth only is ALL it takes to open a breach... illudes and confuses me... why were no more breaches made by the precursors once they realized how long and how many resources it was taking to kill the humans off??? if it's??? shit they could do with simple earth materials + their own biology??? they could have ended things much faster??? shit just doesn't add up, idk, that was Vague and Annoyed Me

and the jaegers.... were....... strange? the fight scenes were so underwhelming, i could count on one hand the number of maneuvers—NOT SCENES, MANEUVERS—i thought were badass and moved well. their fighting was confusing and paced really weird and some of the moves they pulled... don't... work like that... like some of those scenes were just hand-to-hand combat but in big robot form and they didn't sit right with me at all.

and the characters......... oh my word, the characters. look: i love jake pentecost with all of my heart and soul and john boyega's beautiful acting just barely saves the movie from its poor writing. i do love him as a character. but can someone explain to me why in the world they thought it was a good idea to make the only black guy a black market thief/runner, deep-record criminal with daddy and authority issues, and who they dare try to play off as some kind of lazy??? they made him every stereotype they could and said "yeah let's go with that". i'm- aaaaaaaaaaaaaa and what was with the child soldiers??? ROBOCOPS?????? mako....... character assassination at its worst........ my baby......... but the movie was paced so GOD DAMN POORLY I GOT BORED AND LITERALLY MISSED HER DYING THE FIRST TIME I WATCHED IT. and i couldn't tell you the names of half of those poor damn kids, i really couldn't. and can i also say they killed off one of the only two darker skinned kids?? like y'all???? the other darker skinned kids (one of the children i can't remember the names of because it was uttered ONCE in the entire movie or some shit) didn't even GET characterization. my whole heart goes out to her and those other underdeveloped fucks. speaking of...... i am ashamed about jules. from the movie that brought us the mako mori test, they threw in a girl simply for the sake of some shitty, awkward, and unexplained love triangle between jake and White Angst without much else to put to her name. she deserved better. amara was... a decent shot, but very hit or miss because of the writing. i, personally, am very neutral about her leaning towards liking her, but i know people who swing love and who swing hate. liwen was like,,,, they tried really hard to make her unlikable at the beginning because "oh no, she must be the villain! GOTTEM plot twist!!!" and then suddenly she's no longer. threatening everyone except newt. idk i feel like they leaned to heavily one way and i got whiplash when she's actually another but there was nothing to... portray that. at all. i do like her character, and that says a lot because they got me to sympathize with a capitalist without actually regretting it later, but there could/should have been More there. she was powerful, though, in multiple different aspects, and we saw that from her CONSISTENTLY and i 😳🥵👀💕 mako mori test pass for her

now, let's talk about hermann (and by extention, newton, however he'll be getting a section all his own the rat bastard). that man is one of the single instances of decent cross-movie characterization i saw in the whole god damn film. the idea that he takes on newton's roles, that he is more outspoken for himself, that he is just slightly more unhinged after his drift with newton: THAT is on point. he's himself, you can see it, you still know that he's hermann with ever step, but there's something that has shifted in him in those 10 years and it's good without being too much. the "i still get nightmares" scene, the way he presents himself, that scene gives me chills because god bless burn gorman and his acting ability. every face and intonation of his voice is just wonderful and i think his performance was great for what he was given. king shit.

the biggest disappointment of my life came in the form of a kaiju vest wearing bitch at work. at his corporate job. as a boss. for a tech company that undermines all of his and, frankly, hermann's work over their lifetimes. 10 years older and exaggerated to the teeth. newton "move you fascist" geiszler. let me preface this by stating for all to see that i do not hate the idea of newton being the villain. story wise it was a bold move and there was something possible there. BUT THE IMPLICATION THAT ONE OF THE MOST OBVIOUSLY NEURODIVERGENT CHARACTERS IN THE WHOLE FUCKING FRANCHISE, ESPECIALLY GIVEN THAT HE HAS BEEN CHARACTERIZED AS HAVING A "BORDERLINE MANIC PERSONALITY" AKA HAVING ONE OF THE MOST DEMONIZED MENTAL ILLNESSES OUT THERE, ENDS UP ACTING AS THE GOD DAMN VILLAIN OF THE STORY IS A HOT GARBAGE TAKE WHEN YOU FACTOR IN THINGS LIKE POOR WRITING NOT MAKING IT CLEAR WHETHER OR NOT NEWTON IS EVEN IN CONTROL OF HIS OWN FACULTIES AND THE VAGUENESS OF "WILL HE BE 'REDEEMED' OR NOT" BEING UP IN THE AIR LIKELY NEVER TO BE CANONICALLY FUCKING ANSWERED BECAUSE BECKHAM AND DEKNIGHT SHAT OUT A MOVIE THAT BOMBED IN THE BOX OFFICE. we aren't even gonna TALK about the fact that this bitch got AWAY with it despite not even acting in a remotely stable way comparable to himself in the first movie in the 10 years he supposedly dropped off the map from all of his friends because, clearly, hermann hadn't seen him or he wouldn't be so excited with a picture of the two of them on his desk, nor would he have to tell newton about his idea for rocket thrusters with kaiju blood fuel because he would have simply written to him about it. for some strange reason people see his ass show up decked out in a suit he wouldn't even wear for Stacker Fucking Pentecost and a behavior of "Haha Gotta Listen To The Boss" and think "ah, yes, well, time changes a person. THIS BITCH HAS APPARENTLY BEEN LIKE THIS THE WHOLE TIME, YOU THINK HE GOT A JOB WITH LIWEN LOOKING AND ACTING LIKE HE DID BEFORE AND THERE WAS A SHIFT OVER TIME? NO, HE HAD TO HAVE CHANGED IN A SPLIT DECISION AND LIED ABOUT HIMSELF THROUGH HIS TEETH AND NO ONE CONTACTED HIM, OR WAS WORRIED ABOUT HIM, OR DECIDEDLY THOUGHT "YOU KNOW, HE MAY BE EMBOLDENED THAT HE SAVED THE WORLD, BUT I THINK SOMETHING LIKE THAT WOULD HAVE THE EXACT OPPOSITE EFFECT ON HIM AND HE WOULD DO HIS BEST TO AMPLIFY HIS CURRENT STANDING TRAITS. LISTENING TO AND KISSING THE BOOT OF AUTHORITY FIGURES? DIVORCING HIMSELF FROM HIS WORK WITH KAIJU XENOBIOLOGY THAT EVEN HERMANN PICKED UP? TO BECOME THE THING HE HATES? AND FOR WHAT? MONEY? FAME? BITCH WHO ARE YOU?" unreasonable. ridiculous attempt to do this just for a plot twist that was underwhelming at best. i've decided to stick to the fan theory that he was not in control 99% of the time but literally that movie causes such a hellfire path to appear in my wake as i think about it because i know people who don't take it like that and think newt wants what's happening because "haha horny kaiju man" and i wish to scream at the top of my lungs because this is exactly WHY you CANNOT spare ANY EXPENSE to the GOOD, PROPER, INTRICATE directing and writing of a character who is neurodivergent and also ONE OF THE CENTERS OF NOT JUST THE MOVIE YOU'RE WRITING, BUT THE FUCKING MOVIE AFTER THAT. i could go on but i sincerely don't fucking want to, despite how long i've been waiting for someone to willingly hear me out on all of this. all i'll say is if by some miracle they are greenlit for a third film and deknight's working on it and i see ANY sign of a bury your gays end for newt, i'm going to commit the first hate crime against a cishet white male.

to end, the only valid kaiju in that movie was the mega-kaiju, i don't remember the appearance or the names of the three that got through the breaches but the mega-kaiju could kill me and i'd die happy 🥰 beautiful design, that scale comparison when it came face to face with newt? amazing, chills, *chef's kiss* there are exactly two things i liked about uprising and that bitch is one of them.

sorry if this isn't what you wanted, but as i said i am in a bit of a bad mood and have been curled up in bed trying not to think that i'm dying and i've repressed all of this for a couple months now and very few people have actually heard PORTIONS of my frustration so. here it is.

#rowboat speaks #i'm gonna go puke now #or just. fall asleep on the bathroom floor or something.#pacific rim #pacific rim uprising

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shardminds · 4 years

Text

fortune favours the brave

pairing: emma swan/killian jones rated: m (for language & depiction of injury & just to be safe) wc: 5189 pacific rim!au

She passes the pseudo-drift but Killian can’t quite meet her eyes afterwards and Emma catches herself wondering, with clenched fists, if it’s all worth it.

just a warning, this is an open-ended work, meaning the ending is up to your own interpretation and i most likely will not be writing anything else to clarify... unless i decide to have another crack at this au down the line and completely rewrite the whole thing but i am a lazy bitch above all else with too many things to do so please don't get your hopes up!

my initial tag for this was "dealing with the weight of a neurological bond that reveals a lot more about yourself than you’d like." but ao3 said it was too long

this was intended as a birthday present to myself but it's 12 days late and i won't apologise.

also available on ao3 ♠

@artistic-writer is my saviour and i love her.

As soon as the pincer hits her spine, the simulation is over. Quicker than death could ever have captured her, quicker than the pain she was expecting in her lower back, quicker than blinking past a fallen beast and thinking it long past dead. If it were real, she wouldn’t have to deal with the disappointment of her superiors as they marked another tally in the opposite column of their tablets.

Kaiju: 3, Swan: 0.

Pixels dissipate into the air, audios and visuals power down as the relay gel leaks from her display, Killian sighs over the comms and the four walls of the training centre scream failure. Unclasping the plug at her neck, she collapses to the floor. Defeated.

“If your intention was to get paralysed, love, congratulations.” He’s exasperated, words clipped, and she knows he’s probably running his hand through his hair in that way he does or rolling his eyes or praying for this to be over. She can picture it so well because she’s been there, supervising rangers through the same process. That had been her job, her safe space. Then Marshal Mills had coerced her into a compatibility trial with the promise of a bigger bunk and a night off with the last bottle of bourbon on deck. Suddenly, nowhere was safe anymore. “It’s just a simple test,” she’d said, rolling her eyes at Emma’s reluctance to even try. “What harm can it do?”

If he catches the curses under her breath as she stands, he doesn’t let on.

Killian had managed to pass her simulated drift space on the second attempt—eviscerating a CAT 3 with ease and ignoring the distractions along the way. He didn’t talk about what stopped him the first time. Neither did she.

She was not so lucky, struggling not to forget herself in the memories of his past. Each step deeper into the consciousness he’d moulded dragged her further away from the task at hand. Each step closer to finding out what keeps Killian Jones awake at night is a step away from truly knowing him. She felt it all. His pain, grief and loss coming in overwhelming waves, only serving to intensify her own. Each time she failed, she understood him a little bit better and lost herself a little bit more.

Robin said it’s the trauma that helps their compatibility and the resilience in light of such pain. Will said it’s because they’re both insufferable cunts.

You can’t choose your drift partner.

“Again.” Adjusting the helmet slightly, she pulls up her vitals on the inner screen. BP a little high, heart rate too, brainwaves stable. Good enough. If she could just get past the random-access brain impulse triggers, the lure of Killian’s fabricated conflicts, she’d be showering the fabricated city in fabricated Kaiju Blue.

(Of course, she’d never really do that. Regina doesn’t need a reason to resent her.)

“Swan, take five.” The comm in her inner ear buzzes. Killian, again. There’s a tension to his tone, as if he could snap at a moment's notice. It’s not easy, having someone else inside your head—even when it’s not real. It’s worse when every inch of it is projected in agonisingly high definition to your commanding officers. Emma’s been living through his trauma while he’s been forced to watch it back, time and time again. She’ll get it next time.

Next time.

Always next time.

“No, count me down.”

“Swan—”

“My vitals are fine! No bleeds, no dizziness, motor function all good.” The CNS link connects to the back of her neck with a twist of her wrist and a dull click. Power vibrates through the plug suit, humming like the anticipation Emma can feel beneath her own skin. “One more try, I’m almost there.”

There’s no response from Killian. No quip or complaint. He’s silent as Emma closes her eyes and opens them to the darkness of the drift. The next voice she hears is Robin’s.

“Five.”

Her world is blue. Warped. Memories zipping past her that she does and doesn’t remember. Emma recognises one woman’s face from her previous pseudo-drifts. She has a name somewhere.

“Four.”

The woman walks off to some kind of middle distance, between nothing and nowhere. She indicates for Emma to follow with the crook of her finger and a smile.

“Three.”

It’s not Emma she’s seeing.

“Stop chasing it, Emma. Two.”

Taking a breath, Emma wills away the apparition, tuning in to the pounding of her own heartbeat and that of someone else’s — Killian’s, strong and steady. It grounds her.

“Prepare for Neural Handshake.”

When the Kaiju pincer swings for her, she slices it clean off.

She passes the pseudo-drift but Killian can’t quite meet her eyes afterwards and Emma catches herself wondering, with clenched fists, if it’s all worth it.

A CAT 3 and two CAT 2’s attack what’s left of San Francisco a week later in the largest triple event in recorded history and yes, it’s definitely worth it.

Ruby and Graham are deployed in Lone Wolf, along with two Jaegers from Alaska. The fight, like all fights, is raw and too close. Always too close. They return half a day later, lucky to have made it out with their lives. The bags under Jefferson’s eyes carry the weight of the world as he reports back to the bridge with the news.

They’ll never pilot again.

Killian finds her later, sat atop Frozen Serenity with a half-empty hip flask and a cigarette. He doesn’t question her or the tears she wears. He holds her, one arm wrapping around Emma’s shoulders, pulling her into his chest. It’s too close, too much but not enough. It’s times like this—times of wordless understanding—that she’s glad of the bond they supposedly have.

Thankfully, he doesn’t waste his words with reassurance. Regina had spent the last thirty minutes on the comms for everyone to hear. The threat was eliminated; victory, but at what cost? Ruby and Graham had been wheeled in on gurneys, surrounded by medics and techs and escorted directly to isolation. Their Jaeger followed shortly after, complete with thick gashes to its middle and a viciously pierced conn-pod leaking rivulets of coolant and Kaiju blood. It didn’t take Emma long to see why they’d ushered the pilots away.

Sneaking off had been a non-issue.

“Next time,” The warmth of his body offers only slight comfort from the chill of the hangar but she’s grateful for it. “It’ll be us.”

“We might not even drift yet. The simulation is nothing like the real thing.” The lump in her throat has her choking around the words. The fragility of it all should frighten her, but it doesn’t. She’s not scared. There’s no time for fear.

“We will.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s called trust.” When he smiles, sad but hopeful, the tears come again.

It’s all worth it, even if she loses herself in the process.

Jolly Roger, a Mark 3 with a history of fallen pilots, had been in pretty bad shape when Emma had seen it come through the east coast bunker a year ago. With a compromised pod and basically no left side, it was a mess.

Will had already sized the wreck up for parts before it’d even docked in the hangar.

“There’s no way it’ll run again. Core to Wolf, pod fixed up for Snow’s Mark 4, shocks to whoever needs them most and the rest for scraps and refurbs.” He’d said, around a mouthful of instant mac and cheese. Emma rolled her eyes, grabbing a bite of her own meagre rations. “Bet as much as you want, you know I’m right.”

After six months, when Marshal Mills announced they needed a co-pilot for Jolly, Emma collected her prize with a smile and a disgruntled “Fuck off.” from the mechanic.

Seeing it now, all shiny and new, with a fresh core, updated weapon systems and a slick paint job was like looking at a different machine entirely. Killian has the same awestruck glaze to his expression that she has.

He says something under his breath that sounds like “I missed you.”

Three days later, atop the bunker looking out at the wasteland the eastern seaboard has become, Killian finds her again. The horizon is permanently tinged green these days, thick with smog rising from the polluted city that used to be Boston. It’s something else now, something new entirely. New York had really done a number on the east coast.

“So,” he starts, a six pack in his good hand and a thick file—her file—in his mechanical one. “It seems that the fate of the earth relies on us getting intimate, love.”

Emma shrugs his comment off with an eye roll. “In your dreams.”

“In my dreams, we wouldn’t be drinking this backwash,” she catches the bundle of cans as it falls to her lap and pulls two free of the casing. Killian slumps down beside her, a welcome warmth against her side. He’s always warm. “And you’d be wearing a lot less.”

“Pervert.” Her cheeks flush from the windchill and not because of the wink he sends her way as he takes a can from her lap.

He shrugs, gulping back his beer. “I’ve been called a lot worse.”

“Why does that not surprise me?”

“I doubt anything could, lass.”

He reads in relative silence, which Emma appreciates, only pausing to ask questions at the redacted statements in her story. There’s no point in hiding anything from him now—soon, he’ll see it all. There’s something about Killian Jones that she trusts and she’s not exactly sure why.

“You were there? In New York?” He thumbs the report sheet, filled with more censoring than words. She doesn’t remember much of it; being eighteen, the toils of pregnancy, wrongful imprisonment, the first Kaiju attack on the east coast, holding her child to her chest as the walls crumbled. The memories are all so distant, it almost feels like someone else lived them.

Emma nods. “Unfortunately.”

Killian doesn’t push for the details; all the relevant ones are written on the sheet he’s holding. How they’d found her bleeding beneath rubble and dust, clutching the bundle of blankets and the body within. There hadn’t been time for a funeral.

She’s shaking when he takes her hand.

“It was my first deployment. On a CAT 4, no less.” He traces circles around her knuckles as if they’re anything but strangers. She doesn’t have it in her heart to stop him. “Cataclysm, they called it. The ugliest bloody thing I’d ever seen. Liam, the comedian he is—was, spent the whole fight calling it all kinds of names as we tore it to pieces bit by bit.” He takes another sip of his can, eyes locked on the horizon. “I felt him die that day.”

His thumb doesn't stop tracing its pattern, but she grips his hand tighter—part shock, part understanding.

“Jewel never stood a chance. The emp left us wide open and the blasted thing used its last breath to launch at the conn-pod and—”

“You don’t have to, Killian.” She whispers, beer forgotten at their feet. “You don’t have to relive it.”

“But I do. Every time I step foot in the hangar, I relive it. Every time I drift, or spar or train. Every time I look in the mirror I see his face staring back at me.” He sighs, letting his posture slip further. He’s no longer a Ranger. He’s a lost boy. The grief he carries, the guilt, is something she recognises. “I miss him, Emma, and there’s nothing I can do about that.”

Wind blows, alarms ring, sun filters through the murky atmosphere and casts them both in its golden glow and Emma Swan pulls him in for a hug.

He stiffens in her embrace before leaning into it, letting the tension dissipate beneath her touch. It’s intimate in a way that doesn’t need words and her breath catches at the sight of a teardrop on his cheek.

Putting space between them again is hard, but necessary.

“I know you’ve probably heard this a thousand times, but you better be prepared to hear it a thousand more. It’s not your fault. It was never your fault. It will never be your fault. We’re Rangers. We’re disposable. The world is ending and we’re the first line of defence. If we fall—” He’s watching her so intently, hanging on her every word.

There’s no way to soften the blow of a death sentence.

“We’re going to die in a Jaeger, Killian, that much is inevitable. We won’t grow old. We won’t pass in our sleep. We’ll go screaming at the hands of a Kaiju and, I don’t know about you, but I plan on taking a fair share of those fuckers with me in the process.”

A nod.

A squeeze.

A gulp.

He’s still holding her hand when they return to the artificial warmth of the hangar.

He used to drink black coffee, dark and bitter. She hates it, preferring sweetness over caffeination in her warm beverages but getting her own would require a trip to the cafeteria earlier than she’d like to be awake. A few seconds of grimacing over the taste is worth it for the extra half hour of sleep. Killian’s an early riser—of course, he is. It’s a wonder they’re compatible at all.

Killian initially tried to put up a fight over it, hold it out of her reach like kids on the playground or finish it off before Emma could even think of crawling out of her quarters, but she wore him down, little by little.

They’re working on Jolly with Will when she takes a sip, stealing the travel mug from his hand and already half wincing for the unsweetened assault. When surprisingly palatable coffee hits her tongue, she almost chokes. It’s not half bad; no acrid punch of burnt grounds, no grainy aftertaste. Instead, it’s sweet. Creamy. Not what she was expecting at all.

“What’s this?” She takes a sniff at the lid incredulously. Is that… syrup?

“According to Ms Lucas, this is what poses as a caramel latte these days. Filled to the brim with sugar, spice and all things nice, just how you like it.” Will hands him a tablet, outlining the Jaeger’s current specifications. Emma understands enough of it to get by—she’s more attuned to reading neural charts, not the gibberish the engineers put out—but Killian revels in the details. He doesn’t even look her way as he speaks, fully engrossed in the graphs, comparisons and visuals. It also means he doesn’t notice Emma eyeing up how good he looks with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a grease stain on his left cheek. Just the right amount of dishevelled. “Is there any way we can drop a few tonnes to help increase speed and manoeuvrability?”

Will peers at the tablet, overseeing the stats with a critical eye. “No, mate. Not without losing vital armouring.”

“What about swapping out the nuclear core?” Killian hums, swiping to the next screen.

“Don’t be daft, Killian. It’s brand new.”

“The arc-whip?”

“I’m gonna cut in and say no on that one.” Emma interjects, surprised that she even managed to drag her attention away from the warm, sweet beverage in her hands or the enigma of a man that let her take it. The arc-whip is her preferred weapon—combining both distance and close combat, great for the CAT 2’s and smaller CAT 3’s that like to stay just out of reach or dragging back the larger beasts from getting further inland. She’s the one that suggested it be added to Jolly’s arsenal in the first place.

“Come on, love.” Handing her the tablet and tapping a few menus, Killian points out Jolly’s stats without it. Their speed would be improved and their power longevity, but they’d be sacrificing their range completely. “Having an arc-whip and a plasma cannon is overkill.”

The mechanic chuckles, coming to her other side and throwing an arm around their shoulders. “Technically, the plasma cannon is overkill anyway. Massive power drain.”

“Don’t you start.” Killian bats his arm away and Will cocks an eyebrow in challenge.

“Just because I’m right.”

Before either of them can respond, the hangar shudders as alarms blare. The alarm they all dread.

The Breach.

The CAT 2—Axefury—with armour piercing spines and nasty blade-like mandibles, emerges just off the coast of Florida, stalking towards the shore.

Frozen Serenity is deployed, piloted by sisters Anna and Elsa.

The fight takes an hour.

Killian brings her another coffee as they watch the battle from the command centre. He doesn’t say a word, wrapping his arm around her shoulder as she tenses against the cold realisation.

It could’ve been them.

Next time, it will be.

When he knocks her on her ass, straddling her waist with his sparring staff pressed to her throat, Killian’s eyes are the bluest she’s ever seen, and it takes her a second to remember where they are. He smirks, allowing her space to breathe while keeping her thoroughly pinned down.

“Normally, I’d prefer to do other more enjoyable activities with a woman on her back.” With a voice like that, velvet and grit, Emma’s not sure if she wants to push him away or pull him closer. The watchful eye of Marshal Mills keeps her straight. The last thing anyone needs is a show. She struggles just enough to make him cocky before retaliating, using his own weight against him.

In a heartbeat, he’s the one on his back, head caught in a lock between Emma’s thighs. In the time it takes for him to realise what’s going on, eyes widening as he realises where he is, it’s too late. His weapon clatters to the edge of the crash mat, useless.

“For future reference,” She pants, squeezing her legs tighter until Killian taps out against the floor. “I prefer to be on top.”

He laughs and, despite the patrol alarm blaring down the hall and Regina’s eye roll, the world feels a little lighter.

When they drift in Jolly for the first time, the phantom woman from the pseudo-drift is nowhere to be seen. There’s a blip where Killian gets caught up in visions of destruction and earthquakes and rivers of blue eroding the streets of New York, but just as Emma feels the echoes of her memories in his mind, they’re gone. He’s in her head. An uncomfortable yet reassuring presence that she never thought she’d be able to endure again.

“Neural bridge initiated and holding strong. Well done, guys.” Robin chirps over the speakers, dragging them out of the initial drift space and back to their shared reality. She lifts her left arm as Killian lifts his right and they join the jaeger’s metallic palms in a salute that rumbles through the bowels of the hangar.

Cheers erupt from the comm lines as scientists and pilots and soldiers line the walkways and balconies to celebrate their achievement.

She can feel the haze of his irritation through the link.

“We’re another shot at hope for them.” Her uncalibrated right-hand takes his uncalibrated left wrist just above the brace of his prosthetic. He doesn’t flinch but his thoughts stutter, interlaced with images of her soft smile and memories of each time they’d sparred, each stolen hour on the rooftops, each close encounter, each moment that could’ve been an almost, or a maybe. Emma pauses just long enough to imagine What if?

She shakes them away. They owe each other that much.

“We’re a suicide mission.” He’s right and his voice buzzes in the back of her skull. If the comm deck picked up on his words, they don’t respond.

“Yeah,” she lets his arm fall back to his side, making sure her left side—the one that’s wired into the eight thousand tonne government-approved death machine—stays relatively still. “But it’s worth it.”

“Is it?”

She can’t tell the difference between his words and his thoughts right now.

Static crackles in the conn-pod before Robin’s voice calls out again. “Ready to take her for a spin?”

She kisses him, with trembling palms pressed to his chest. Because she wants to. Because she can. Because, more than anything else, she isn’t ready to die. Not now. He is slow to respond, one hand on her shoulder ready to put distance between them at a moment's notice, the other at her waist, pulling her closer. The corridor leading to their quarters is empty and, beneath the harsh light, he tastes like the coffee they’d shared for breakfast.

He doesn’t push her away. She’s grateful for that.

The absence of Killian in her head should be a relief but it isn’t. It feels… empty. The absence of a presence that had made itself at home. She’d worked with rangers for years, ever since the hangar took her in, learning the in’s and out’s of the neural bridge and working to better align pilots with an initial pseudo-drift before putting them through the real thing.

She’d never expected to like it.

It’s exhilarating.

The expiry date they have hanging over their heads is unavoidable now. They’re compatible, truly compatible, doubting that is no use to anyone and despite whatever lead them both to the corps, whatever it is she catches glimpses of when they drift, she trusts him.

Fingers still trembling and head thick with fog, Emma trusts him.

“That was—”

A mistake.

Long overdue.

A one-time thing.

Just the beginning.

“Worth it.”

“Emma—”

“Be quiet.”

She snakes a hand around his waist, using his surprise to yank him closer into the alcove, away from prying eyes. Their dark uniforms blend in the shadows. Chest to chest like this, Emma can barely catch her breath. The cold steel pipe against her back does nothing to dissuade the heat he’s putting out—seriously, how is he always warm? It’s impossible to avoid his gaze either, the intensity of it only magnified with their proximity.

There’s questions there—so many questions—but he doesn’t have to ask them. She knows.

Killian’s tongue darts out to wet his lips.

She knows.

David and Snow walk past none the wiser, caught up in a discussion about something or other. Emma can’t focus enough to listen in, too distracted by everything in her body that screams for her to pull Killian closer and slam their mouths together until they forget about the rest. She holds her breath until the other rangers round the corner at the end of the hall.

“Mills hasn’t cleared Humbert or Lucas for visitation. We’ll be turned away.” Killian whispers, mouth so close to her ear that she can feel his words better than hearing them. His cheek catches hers as he pulls back but he doesn’t get far, her hand still pressed to his side, holding him in place. His brows raise in surprise.

Her palm tingles against the empty air when she lets go.

“Let me do the talking.”

He nods, following as she exits into the corridor, only a half-step behind.

They don’t have clearance. The med bay doors beep dejectedly as Emma’s ID card fails to pass the security check. Will had promised it would work, he’d sworn. Either he lied, already ratted them out to the Marshal or—

Victor Whale.

“Mills already has her reports delivered to her directly every hour,” he sighs, tugging off his gloves, surgical mask and running a free hand through his hair. Emma can see the dark roots coming through. There’s no market for salon-quality peroxide at the end of the world, apparently. “With the intention of alleviating the need for rangers like yourselves to check in. Can’t you go be annoying somewhere else? I don’t have time to file insubordination paperwork, I’m already understaffed.”

Killian reaches out, pleading, his eyes wide and blue and honest. He grabs the doctor’s forearm with his mechanical hand.

“Please, mate. Just five minutes.”

Whale’s brow furrows focused on the prosthetic gripping his arm. The fear of disciplinary action outweighs a lot of things in the hangar.

She’s pale, too pale, and riddled with tubes and drips and monitors that beep along with the pace of her heart. The burns, blistered and seeping, are tinged blue with the toxic sludge that courses through Kaiju veins. Blue burns, as they’re colloquially referred, aren’t uncommon. There are ointments and salves to calm the low-level contact burns and sprays to neutralise the toxins in the acid. What’s left of the governments have put extensive measures in place to ensure that stuff like this doesn’t happen to the general public.

They don’t seem to care for rangers.

As Ruby’s skin sloughs from the slightest friction of the sterile sheets, Emma can feel the first clutches of fear curl around her throat.

Corpselike. That’s the only word that comes to mind. Ruby, once so full of life, has never looked so… not, and Emma can’t help but fall into step with the ventilator that’s currently breathing for her as if somehow it makes a difference. The steady whirr of the machine only working to wind up the anxieties simmering beneath the surface of her skin.

Next time, it’ll be them.

Next time, it’ll be her.

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.

“We’re having to keep her under.” Someone —Victor? — hums, ignoring them both to look over the digitised chart at the foot of her bed. “There’s a lot of irrevocable damage that we’re still looking into while repairing what we can externally.”

Inhale.

“What about Gra— Ranger Humbert?” Killian's hand hasn’t left hers since they entered and, for what it’s worth, she’s thankful for the anchor and the ever-present warmth he offers. His presence is grounding and his words reflect her thoughts when she can’t quite reach her own.

Exhale.

It’s too much.

Inhale.

“More of the same”

Exhale.

They never should’ve come

His lips taste of salt.

The inevitability of death.

It burns.

“I don’t want to lose this.” she pants, soft against Killian’s lips as he smiles and steals it away. Like the future they don’t have. That she so painfully wished they could have. “I—”

His kisses trail to her ear, each one as gentle as the last. Too soft, too delicate. It terrifies and excites her how something as small as a kiss can melt her resolve to nothing. Any shadow of doubt disappearing with each step they take closer to the inevitable. After everything that had happened, from sneaking into the med bay, drowning the images with the last of that damn bottle of bourbon that started all this and sparring until they were both bruised and beaten and breathless, sex had been the last thing on her mind. It had crept up on her, crept up on them both, and it was impossible to deny.

That first rooftop rendezvous, first spar, first kiss, all those weeks ago, had cemented this. She can see that now.

Closing what little distance there is left between them, Killian walks her backwards until her thighs bump against the solid table behind them. “You won’t, love. I’ve got you.”

Each touch, each glance, each gasp is another goodbye.

His prosthetic rests on her waist as his other makes light work of the fastenings of her uniform, and she urges him on with a moan. She’s thankful they made it back to his quarters. They won’t make it to the bed.

Emma searches for answers as he pulls off his shirt, praying something in his eyes will reassure her that this—whatever this is—is okay, that they’re not terrible people for finding something worth fighting for at the end of the earth, anything to provide even a modicum of hope that maybe, just maybe, they’ll survive just long enough to have a chance at finding out if it is. She clutches at his shoulders, with nails biting into his skin, and breathes.

She doesn’t find the answers. Instead, she finds herself.

Scared and afraid, clinging to the last comfort she has left.

Three words bloom, fade and crumble in her mind, as fragile as a leaf on the wind and, before she can even speak them, Killian nods.

“I know.”

Somewhere deep inside her chest, behind broken walls and the rubble of a past life, something long since broken, beats.

Emma wakes up to warmth. An all encompassing warmth surrounding her so completely, an aura of heat welding together the cracks that had once debilitated her heart. So familiar, and pure and yet so foreign at the same time.

Each beat of her heart echoed by a shadow.

Each exhale mirrored by that of another, a soft caress against her nape.

The solid and comforting press of a body—his body—against her back, bringing forth memories of the night previous so slowly, like a crack in a dam; first a drip and then a flood. The synchronicity. The passion. The mutual need to just Be.

The absence of all thought except one.

Life is just too fucking short.

As if summoned by her mental recollection, Killian’s arm wraps around her waist. His lips ghost against the skin of her shoulder blade and the kiss he presses to her neck brings a smile to her face.

“Good morning, Swan.” He purrs, voice gravelly and wrapped in sleep. Damn, if Emma had only known he sounded like that first thing sooner—

The thought catches her off guard.

It’s so… normal. Domestic.

She could get used to it. She wants to get used to it.

“Mor—”

The spell shatters. The facade peels away to reveal the truth and the bliss that had wrapped her up in its glow is gone. Reality hits.

The blood-curdling scream of the one alarm they pray will never ring.

The Breach.

Robin’s voice screeches out over the comms in a panicked shout, followed by the calm and commanding call of Marshal Mills. Her own name and rank is called, along with Killian’s. Emma’s blood runs cold when the realisation hits.

A CAT 5.

All units to report.

Approaching New York.

Killian doesn’t move for what seems like an eternity, lips still pressed to her skin in an everlasting kiss, as if time has somehow warped around this very moment, stretching seconds into minutes, hours. Allowing them a chance to come to terms with what must happen next.

Their fates were sealed the second they stepped foot in the hangar.

Emma wrapped in a hospital gown. Killian in a battered, blood-stained plug suit.

“It’s okay.” He whispers, already drowned out by the blaring siren that fills every corner of the room. Emma can’t tell if he’s saying it for her sake or his own.

When she turns to him, pulling herself upright in the process and letting the cold of his quarters seep into her bare chest, he’s smiling. It’s by no means her favourite smile—wide and full of laughter—but it’s something and, for some crazy reason, she believes in it.

She believes in them.

“Fortune favours the brave.”

////

tagging a few of y’all! @thisonesatellite @teamhook @kmomof4 @superchocovian @itsfabianadocarmo @thisonesatellite @darkcolinodonorgasm @carpedzem @hollyethecurious

#cs fic #captain swan fic #ouat fic #ficminds #i'm sorry to anyone that likes once upon a time and pacific rim #this is a mess #but it's my mess

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altumvidetur · 4 years

Text

Pacific Rim: Newmann Fic Recs

So, I was thinking about the coronavirus pandemic and what I could do to help people out. I’m isolated because I’m at higher risk, so I can’t really offer to go out for my elderly neighbors or my family… but I thought I could try to help keep people entertained.

Because I don’t have an AO3 account right now, I’ve been compiling fic recs for my own amusement for a year or so. And I thought – maybe that’s the time to share these with everyone? So everyone will have plenty of things to read while they have to stay at home, or even to escape anxiety a little bit if you’re forced to go out.

Of course, these cater to my own tastes, so you may find stuff you don’t like around here. I never include works in progress. The Mature and Explicit works will be in italic. I ask you to READ THE WORK’S TAGS before continuing, so you won’t find anything that makes you uncomfortable.

I haven’t managed to read the whole Newmann tag yet (started on page 183, am now on page 77). From what I’ve gathered, most of these recs are from before Pacific Rim Uprising. I watched that movie (although I wish I hadn’t), so feel free to discuss it. I hope you like them!

“The Things That Stay” ‘verse, by singagainsoon

a collection of non-linear moments, snapshots, tiny dots on an endless timeline

i would kill to make you feel, by singagainsoon

Hermann gets really red when he’s mad - his ears, his cheeks, his stupid fucking cute nose. Even his neck gets these big red spots on it. It’s funny. It’s really, seriously funny.

i’ll be a rockin’, rollin’ bitch for you, by singagainsoon

“Don’t be foolish, Newton. I can think of a hundred better things for you to do with that mouth-“

Entomologist AU, by singagainsoon

Two weeks ago, he’d been in the midst of furiously tapping out an absolutely incensed email to the man who somehow managed to consistently infuriate him from another department, even, and what Hermann would have given then to strangle him, truly - and then Dr. Geiszler himself had appeared in Hermann’s doorway, toeing the carpet with his scuffed up Doc Martens and asking if they might try to talk things out over dinner.

Hermann hadn’t known it was a date.

they did the mash!, by singagainsoon

obligatory newt-wears-a-sexy-halloween-costume-and-hermann-has-to-rail-him-because-he-can’t-help-himself ficlet!! tis the season!!

(video) call me at any time, by singagainsoon

When Newt finds himself away from Hermann for a business trip of sorts, they figure out fairly quickly that they won’t last until Newton comes home.

Good Vibrations, by singagainsoon

“Newton, are you quite certain about this?”

Newt smiles, gives the odd-shaped dildo in his hand a teasing wave and sets it aside in favor of the vibrator. His face seems to hint at something along the lines of Funny Thing To Say When You’ve Just Had A Dildo In Your Ass, but he doesn’t say it.

my lovely, talented friend and fellow writer gaby commissioned me to write this piece and let me tell you i had the time of my life (as did hermann, i’m sure)

A Certain Step Towards Falling In Love, by singagainsoon

“You’re terribly lucky, darling, that my father is away,” he says, voice low, smoothing his palm over Newton’s wind-tousled hair.

Eating In, by singagainsoon

It really was supposed to be just a massage.

you make me feel so young, by zach_stone

In the wake of saving the world, Hermann decided to appreciate the little things.

Or, Hermann and Newt go grocery shopping. And, because it’s Newt, shenanigans ensue.

seven minutes in heaven, by zach_stone

Hermann was enjoying a quiet, peaceful morning when Newton burst into the lab and shoved both of them into a closet.

in other words, i love you, by zach_stone

Newt is having a difficult day. Hermann has an idea to make it better.

hold me in this wild, wild world, by zach_stone

Hermann didn’t often allow himself to cry. Humanity was barreling towards the end of days, and he simply didn’t have time to fall to pieces, not when people needed him — needed his work. But four rangers had died. He decided he could allow himself one small moment of grief.

–

Or, some Hermann-centric hurt/comfort because I just want to give him a hug. Set pre-canon.

it might be over soon, by zach_stone

To celebrate a victory, Newt steals a bottle of booze and he and Hermann drink, argue, and maybe finally act on their feelings.

hey i just met you (and this is crazy), by zach_stone

Newt Geiszler accidentally texts the wrong number when trying to message his roommate Raleigh, and instead winds up texting Hermann Gottlieb, who he’s never met.

(AKA a college texting AU that I promise was absolutely necessary)

worthy of celebration, by zach_stone

It’s a well-known fact around the Shatterdome that Hermann does not like his birthday. This year, Newt’s determined to change that.

lab-appropriate decor, by zach_stone

“For god’s sake, Newton, that is wildly inappropriate,” Hermann snapped. “Those things are not cute, they are abominations. I don’t know why I’m surprised, once again you prove that you have no tact —” “Oh, give it a rest, Hermann,” Newton retorted, rolling his eyes. “It’s not an abomination, it’s two feet tall and made of plastic.”

Or, some backstory to the one of the kaiju figures in Hermann’s lab in Uprising.

The Geiszler & Gottlieb Post-Saving-the-World Lecture Tour, by zach_stone

Following Newt and Hermann as they tour universities, argue across podiums, and fall in love.

feel your heartlines, by zach_stone

Newt and Hermann cuddling on the couch at the end of a lazy summer day.

We Don’t Skip A Beat, by decadent_mousse

Summary by me: Newt, Hermann, and their heartbeat over the years.

the lure of adventure, by zach_stone

Newt is a reckless treasure hunter. Hermann is an intrepid journalist. On their search for some long-lost treasure, they run into a little more trouble than they bargained for.

AU based loosely on the Uncharted video game series - no knowledge of the games needed to understand the fic!

wouldn’t it be nice, by zach_stone

Newt and Hermann spend a day at the beach.

take your time, make it slow, by zach_stone

Hermann was far from shy in bed, but was quick to brush off Newt’s insistent (and one hundred percent correct, Newt might add) claims that he was the sexiest person to walk the earth. Well, if Hermann wouldn’t believe his words, then maybe he’d believe his actions. And Newt was nothing if not a man of action.

–

Prompt fill for Newmann Porn Fest 2018: “Body Worship” !!

when you are close to me, i shiver, by zach_stone

When the heating goes out in the lab, Newt comes up with a great idea on how to stay warm.

–

Another fic for the Newmann Porn Fest 2018! Prompt was “huddling together for warmth” ;)

it suits you, by zach_stone

“Newton, for goodness’ sake, can we just — no.” Hermann frowned at the selections Newt held up in front of him. A pair of overalls and a red-and-black flannel shirt, both Newt’s. “I am not wearing dungarees.” “Okay, first of all, cute that you call them dungarees,” Newt said, grinning. “Second of all, you would look very cute in these, they’re seasonal, and I am not kidding when I say you’ll ruin your slacks if you wear them to a farm.” He wiggled the overalls in Hermann’s direction, the buckles on the braces jingling as he did so. Hermann let out a long-suffering sigh, mostly for show. He really did need to invest in a pair of jeans.

–

Fic for the Newmann SFW Fest! Prompts were “sharing clothes/personal items” and “pumpkin/apple picking”

ease my slumber, by zach_stone

Newt can’t sleep; luckily, Hermann’s got a really soothing voice.

–

Or, a conversation about how Hermann would have a good voice for ASMR turned into this.

pick up and start again, by zach_stone

“This,” Hermann says imperiously, glaring at Newt from the other side of the elevator, “is your fault.”

Newt whips around to face him so fast he almost loses his balance. “My fault?! How the hell is this my fault?!” He gestures wildly at the elevator door. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I forgot it was my personal responsibility to make sure this piece of shit elevator is maintained so I don’t get trapped in it with the most annoying person in the Shatterdome —”

“You’re always trapped with yourself though, aren’t you?” Hermann sneers, and Newt lets out a hysterical bark of laughter. This cannot be happening. Of all the times for the elevator to break down between floors, it has to happen now, when he and Hermann are in the midst of a fight that’s quickly blown itself out of proportion.

–

Newt and Hermann get stuck in an elevator, and are forced to work out some of their shit.

just your touch could cure my lonesome blood, by zach_stone

Four times all Newt needed was a hug from Hermann, and one time it was the other way around.

(Or, sentimental cuddling: the fic.)

Heart and Soul, by zach_stone

A quiet day in the lab is interrupted when Newt coerces Hermann into playing piano with him.

My contribution to The Last Line of Defense Zine (spring 2019)!

Lullaby & Rain, by j_gabrielle

It still blows his mind, still makes him stop in his frenetic need to move, speak and think whenever he remembers that Hermann…

Whatever Hermann is to him these days.

Carry Me To You, by j_gabrielle

For the prompt on the kink meme that asked for; Hermann/Newton. Lab sex

the world ablaze, that’s the best for me, by postcardmystery

Summary by me: Newt and Hermann are two unstoppable forces of nature.

Please, Sir, May I Have Another, by eigengrau

It isn’t until Newt is bent over the desk, papers and glass specimen jars strewn about like the debris of a hurricane, white-knuckling the hard stainless steel with his pants around his ankles, that he realizes the gravity of the situation.

Hide and Seek, by DoubleStashed

Summary by me: Hermann Gottlieb - life and love for Newt Geiszler.

pull the trigger without thinking, by liginamite

It’s manageable for the first few days. Shared emotions, shared thoughts, words spoken in unison. But it’s only when they share a nightmare born of memories that it finally occurs to them that maybe this isn’t going to go away.

Rechtsbrecher, by Ezlebe

“If you’ve lost your key again, you’re not getting another,” Hermann says, sidestepping past Newton’s hunched form on the steps.

Darling, by BeeLove

In which Newton rides Hermann for all he’s worth. Or at least tries to.

unravelling, by kiyala

It’s been a while since Newton’s taken his meds. Hermann begins to notice.

All of Your Flaws and All of My Flaws, by CinnamonCake

Hermann is still there tomorrow and the day after and Newton tries to not break his face with the door again.

and i fell fine, by ohgod

The other night I dreamt of knives, continental drift divide –

what history has given me, by kiyala

In which Newton is a girl and she really doesn’t have the time for your shit.

Solving For X, by griesly

No matter what opinion Doctor Gottlieb had proclaimed concerning his tattoos on numerous occasions, Newt knew the score. He’d glimpsed a heady rush of somewhat mortified appreciation, just an old memory surfacing in the Drift from the first time Newt rolled up his sleeves in the lab. He could still feel it like a taut string in Hermann’s mind, in the same way he knew his lab partner was too surly to ever admit it. It was all tangled up with his impression of the way Newt approached the world, a precisely calibrated instrument in one hand and a nail-bat in the other. Newt had to smile at the way Hermann saw him, a churlish adolescent and a half-mad genius all wrapped up in a hurricane.

…or, sometimes even the sharpest minds in the PPDC can be excused for a being a bit dense.

Towards, by orphan_account

Based vaguely off the Lemony Snicket quote: “When someone is crying, of course, the noble thing to do is to comfort them. But if someone is trying to hide their tears, it may also be noble to pretend you do not notice them.”

Hermann finds Newt in the lab after the clock stops, and realizes that sometimes all you can do is wait.

Dear Diary,, by ohgod

That is way, way, WAY too close to my whole InuYasha phase. Do-over!

the night will go on, by ohgod

Mako is sheltered, Herc is old, Raleigh doesn’t want to know about any of this, and Tendo is a perpetual asshole.

I Get My Kicks Above the Waistline, Sunshine, by ambitiousbutrubbish

Summary by me: Newton’s exploration of his asexuality.

corpus callosum, by hieronyma

1 + 1 = 1.

when it’s broken, it’s perfect, by liginamite

Love is not divided up into neat little graphs and numbers and theorems, able to be charted if one only took the time and effort to do so. No, love is… it is unpredictable and volatile. Hermann doesn’t really do unpredictable and volatile, but with Newt he doesn’t have much of a say in the matter.

After the Rockets Calm, by callmejude

written for the kink meme prompt: “The morning after Newt and Hermann sleep together for the first time, Hermann comes over all ridiculously British and can’t cope with the intimacy and loss of inhibition. Newt is having none of that nonsense and tells him to quit fussing and come back to bed for snuggles.”

behind us, by kiyala

After the Breach is closed, Newt asks Hermann to go to Boston with him. Hermann doesn’t leave.

They Say It’s Your Birthday, by callmejude

for the kink meme prompt: These two have worked together for many years, and obviously have had to continue working through special occasions, including their birthdays. I know they strongly disliked each other, but deep down they are good friends and I’d love to see anything (slashy or friendshippy) showing how they acknowledge or celebrate birthdays. I’m betting Newt is secretly into baking and Hermann comes in one day on his birthday not expecting anyone to even know, only to find a Kaiju shaped cake on his desk with a sparkler or a candle stuck messily in the centre. Or or or Newt comes in on his 30th birthday and he’s like depressed and absurdly quiet for the day cause he’s not ready to be that old and Hermann realizes why he’s being all docile so he takes off at lunch only to return with pizza and stuff to cheer Newt up and celebrate his birthday. OR YOU KNOW ANYTHING YOU WANT.

within reason, by kiyala

Newt goes to the Skull Temple after the Breach is closed. Hermann goes with him.

pull you through the mirror (before you come undone), by griesly

The War is over. The war is over, and everyone else has something important to do and somewhere else to be except Newt.

shaken, by kiyala

Newton has nightmares. Sometimes, Hermann has them too.

Imagine Sisyphus Happy, by Jenni_Snake

They’re colonists… we’ve practically terraformed it for them. -Dr. Newton Geiszler

“The thing we saw with the Europeans was that they wanted their new world enough: they didn’t care who stood in their way.” -Dr. Melanie Mountain Horse

“Do not rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive them.” -Sun Tsu

“The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor. … I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one’s burden again. … One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” -Albert Camus

How The Light Gets In, by griesly

He’d told Hermann time and time again that he didn’t love the kaiju, he studied them with a curiosity born from a life-long fascination with the giants of the earth. Newt had always been the dinosaur kid – still was, if he was being honest with himself, and the kaiju were the biggest, most awe inspiring terrors he’d ever seen.

the body is not an apology, by BeeLove

In which Hermann triggers some of Newton’s insecurities and strives to make up for it.

When Two Substances Collide, by Emileesaurus and ripkord

Doctors Geiszler and Gottlieb — the first ones in and the last ones out. Thirteen scenes from the countdown to the end of the world.

Scar, by mlle

A tiny thing written for Jaegercon Bingo.

Not every tattoo makes a scar.

I’ve got nothing to say but it’s ok, by madness_and_smiles

Newt’s burned into Hermann’s brain now, like an itch he can’t scratch. Whenever they’re in the same room together – which Newt likes to make sure is almost always – there’s the low hum at the back of his mind telling him Newt is there and Newt is feeling and breathing and sometimes they feel and breathe in unison and it makes Hermann drop his chalk.

in which kaiju guts were not part of the wedding vows, by orphan_account

“You’ve got your glower face on,” Newt remarked above him, and Hermann opened his eyes just to scowl at Newt’s concerned face.

“I am a thread away from murdering my own science team, so, yes, I suppose a glower here and there would not go amiss.”

Seeing in Color, by what_alchemy

The Dr. Geiszler Hermann had found in the publications — printed pages worn with constant handling and tucked into his briefcase for easy access — was an eloquent scientist whose work functioned at a level far above almost anyone else Hermann had ever encountered in the field, and yet he neither patronized his readers nor expressed himself in the inexplicable jargon which so infected much academic work. He was singular in his intelligence. Hermann thought this was a man he could understand — and who could understand him in turn.

More fool he.

Kämpfen, by Huntsmonsters

“The point is that Hermann loves numbers like they were his children, except that Hermann hates children. He loves them and the way they go together the way Newt loves every sample that enters his collection, the way he loves tattoo needles and his books of scribbled anatomical drawings and the harried, barely legible, 4 in the morning notes scrawled around them when the first pieces of a freshly dead Kaiju come in. These are the tools with which they carve themselves, the knives and chisels and guides, the planes on which their shapes are made. Hermann is held up by his cane, but it isn’t the reason he’s standing. They’ve both gone through the rabbit hole and come out again with something clenched in their fists. ”

In which arguments are had over equations and entrails, vivisections are banned, and Newt uses ink to prepare for the possibility of death.

I Was the Match And You Were The Rock, by griesly

Written for the Jaegercon Bingo Square: ‘The Drift’

'Hermann is strong and solid and stable even if no one else at the PPDC would ever think so, Newt knows so, and come to think of it, he always has. He just never knew the man’s mind would be so goddamn beautiful, so bright and full of purpose and satisfaction at a job well done that somehow, impossibly, included him.’

Lucky Number Seven, by griesly

'Newton?’ Hermann called out, only to hear an answering 'Shhh!’ issue from behind a moving curtain. He appeared to have cordoned off an area in the back corner of the lab with heavy screens, labeled 'Light-Sensitive Specimens – DO NOT TOUCH.’ Newton poked his head around the corner with a slightly manic grin.

'Lock the door,’ he advised before motioning Hermann enthusiastically over to a break in a thick curtain. Hermann frowned and paced across the room, wondering what could possibly be so important and so secretive that Newton would have to obfuscate its very existence.

Whatever it was, Hermann was certain he wasn’t going to like it.

autoclave, by cynicalRaconteur

Or: How the fuck is she so attractive, she dresses like my grandfather, I want to punch myself in the face: the Newt Geiszler story.

nyctophobia (into the light of the dark black night), by orphan_account

“See, the thing about birthdays is they’re totally an annual thing,” Newt explained, handing Hermann his latte. “And I’ve known you for, what, twelve years? Thirteen?”

“Fifteen,” Hermann interjected tersely. “And a half.”

Do you have Prince Albert in a can?, by mwestbelle

Newt has a Prince Albert piercing. That’s about it.

This Most Beautiful System, by rosepetalfall

Like Watson and Crick, Newton Geiszler and Hedda Gottlieb are two scientific names almost invariably thought of together.

Hedda Gottlieb and Newton Geiszler grow up, save the world, conquer academia, defy the odds, do some ill-advised things, do some brilliant things, and learn about love. Not necessarily in that order.

In the Midst of the Blackest Storm, by TrufflesTheMushroom

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, at the precipice of our hope, at the new beginning of our time, we can choose not only to believe in ourselves, but in each other. Tomorrow, there will not be a single person on our shores who shall stand alone. Not tomorrow. Tomorrow we will face the monsters that are at our door and take the fight to them. Tomorrow, we are facing the apocalypse. As one.

Or: Tendo Choi used to coerce every Jaeger Strike Team in the Hong Kong Shatterdome into boosting its dwindling funds with shady black market deals, and this is how he gets everyone to slowly become a family once more as the world faces the re-opening of the Breach and humanity’s darkest hour.

Or: How To Trust When All Seems Hopeless

i forget the difference between seduction and arson, by gyzym

Ignition and cognition.

animals trapped (the cage is full), by liginamite

Because that’s the problem, isn’t it? The world doesn’t have time for affection, for intimacy, for anything more than quickly coming and cleaning off and heading back to work like nothing ever happened.

The Mathematician’s Answer, by ConstanceComment

“Prosper our handiwork; O prosper the work of our hands.” — Psalm 90

People Might Laugh at Your Tattoos, by callmejude

It’s armor.

Conversations You Don’t Know We’re Having, by adventuring

The spleen was doing something very uncooperative now, turning colors no alien spleen was meant to turn, and oh god, was something bubbling? That could not be good. “No, baby, no, I can fix this, I can do better, just give me one more chance,” he begged it, ignoring Hermann’s baffled, “Pardon?” in his ear. He grabbed frantically at the tongs, fumbling them, realized he probably couldn’t fix this situation one-handed, and said to Hermann, “Gotta go, important work to be done.”

“Newton, I swear to you, do not hang up this phone, follow my instructions—”

“No time, man, science is happening,” he said, and then without thought tacked on, “Bye, love you,” and threw the phone in what was likely the direction of his desk, not bothering to end the call. Hermann probably kept talking, but hello, science.

California King, by notastranger

Hermann is not a sleep cuddler. Bummer.

that every man might have need of other, by lymricks

In the few hours it took to reconcile Newton’s gone with Newton left, Hermann had created an elaborate fantasy: Newton kidnapped, Newton taken, Newton needing to be saved. He had not considered that leaving had been Newton’s idea. He had not thought it would be voluntary.

You Lost, Doctor?, by hailtherandom

“The next morning, Hermine goes to work with a clear head. It sticks for all of about thirteen minutes, until Newt walks into the offices in a pair of jeans and an old, threadbare undershirt instead of her usual button-down, and numbers flicker out of Hermine’s mind like lights in a Jaeger. Newt glances up and shoots her a filthy grin, then drops her coat on her desk and pulls out a pair of gloves. Hermine loses whole equations to the kaiju rippling over the muscles in Newt’s forearms.”

Private in Public, by spirogyra

Dr. Newton Geiszler and Dr. Hermann Gottlieb get introduced to life in a shatterdome, and somehow survive showering together for ten years even when they’re on separate continents.

Nightmares, by beckettemory

“Hermann frowned, remembering the bags under Newton’s eyes and the constant bubbling of the coffee maker in the corner brewing pot after pot of strong coffee all day.” ——————- Hermann, sore after a long day, passes the laboratory and realises that, though well into the night, Newton is still working, and has been acting strangely for a few days.

Lights On, by berlynn_wohl

Hermann’s solitude and shame was an immovable object inside him. He had yet to find out that it would soon encounter an unstoppable force.

Not While I’m Around, by callmejude

written for the kinkmeme prompt: In all the years they’ve worked with each other, Hermann can’t remember ever seeing Newt angry - upset and frustrated, maybe, but never angry. Sure, they argue and raise their voices at each other all the time, but that’s just lively intellectual discourse - they’re never really mad at each other. Hermann has always just kind of assumed that Newton is so easy going that nothing can set him off.

And then someone messes with Hermann, and Newton absolutely explodes with rage.

Come Away To The Water, by funnylookingfella

The Kaiju War is over, there are no Jaegers left, the mourning period has passed… but the hive mind lingers.

A Little Friendly Challenge, by moonblossom

Newt knows how to get Hermann to cooperate.

I wear your granddad’s clothes, I look incredible., by notastranger

Newton comes up with what he thinks is a hilarious Halloween costume. Things do not go as planned.

venus in fleurs, by indications

6.7k of boring-ass white boys touchin dicks

so it goes, by liginamite

The world needs Newton Geiszler, and with that thought in mind, it’s Hermann that drifts with the Kaiju instead.

sugar, spice, and graduate programs, by classyfanperson

Newt works at a coffee shop. Hermann is studying abroad at MIT. Pumpkin lattes are good for the soul.

Good Day for Ghosts, by cryogenia

Hermann wakes into the new world, and carries the remains of the old with him.

Equality, by pickleplum

“‘Immediate family only’ is our policy and no amount of yelling at me will change it, Doctor Geiszler. Unless you are Doctor Gottlieb are long-lost brothers, you need to calm down and wait in the reception area or we’ll have to ask you to leave.”

Newt makes a very loud exasperated noise and throws his hands in the air, but turns and marches into the waiting room. He drops himself onto a couch and pulls at his hair in frustration. I’m going to behave, he tells himself firmly. I’m not going to freak out over this total bullshit and get myself tossed out of here. No way. I can do this.

no man is an island, by narcomanic

Running away from the hive mind is easier said than done, especially when you’ve been so clever all your life that you never had to learn how to ask for help.

Time Will Crawl and Our Mouths Run Dry, by hailtherandom

It was Hermann’s idea, oddly enough. Sometimes Newt never quite believes that, thinks he made it up in a dream or a drunken haze, because Hermann, Dr. Hermann Gottlieb, does not suggest things like that. But he did, and Newt laughed in his face, and then blinked a few times and said, “what, really?” “Yes, really,” Hermann said. “It’s logical, Newton, if you take a moment to think about it.” — Hermann and Newt. Mutual handjobs at twenty-one hundred hours every Wednesday and Friday. Slight complications develop.

After Zero, by what_alchemy

The war is over. Hermann and Newt get on with their [sex] lives.

More Than I Can Return, by callmejude

written for the kinkmeme prompt: “Newt likes to flirt with Hermann, the fact that he never flirts back does not discourage him at all. An outsider might think that Newt is foolishly in love with someone who doesn’t care about him back at all. But one day in the lab out of nowhere, Hermann says, "Alright, what if I just bring you off with my hand? Will that make you more bearable?”

Newt’s thrilled and doesn’t miss a beat. “God, Hermann, a handy would be awesome right now! Thanks, man!”, all while he’s unzipping his fly and grabbing the surgical lube for improper use.

From then on they start hooking up whenever it pleases both of them. Sometimes handjobs, sometimes frottage, occasionally one will penetrate the other. But most importantly, Newt never stops calling Hermann “man” or “dude” during the act, and keeps talking as if Hermann was just doing him a mundane favour, or he was doing a favour for Hermann.

It isn’t until they sit on the sofa in Hermann’s room one night, cuddling up and making out after a taxing workday, with no signs of anyone unclothing or unzipping, that Newt thinks maybe affection has something to do with it.“

Jackpot, by notastranger

People say some strange things when coming out of anesthesia.

Cleaning Days, by jotc

All Hermann Gottlieb wanted was a clean lab space of his own.

Feels Like Reckless Driving, by lakehymn

“Did you just say I’m right about something?” Newton asks, feigning shock. Then he lightheartedly elbows Hermann in the ribs and adds, “I always knew you loved me.”

everyone needs a place (it shouldn’t be inside someone else), by orphan_account

His brain goes a gazillion miles an hour in loopy misdirectional circles, and when he dreams he dreams of kaiju biology, of being back in their lab, of sharp elbows in a small bed.

Chatter, by berlynn_wohl

“What do you think? Is today going to be a good day?”

Unhappy Campers (or Why You Can’t Perform CPR on Someone Who’s Still Breathing), by Jenni_Snake

A summer science camp field trip to the mountains. What could be more fun? Probably anything, especially for a group of nerdy science kids.

Hermann Gottlieb’s Stacker Pentecost Obsession Trapper Keeper, by what_alchemy

Hermann has a giant man crush on Stacker.

Newt finds it delightful. Herc, not so much.

what’s your rush, by Byacolate

Summary by me: An elaboration of Hermann and Newt’s relationship before and after the closing of the Breach.

Baby, You’re Hotter than my Bunsen Burner, by SkysongMA

They argue like they breathe—but that’s not all there is to it. Newt flirts, and it’s disgusting.

It’s not that Hermann minds flirting. The Kaidonovskies have propositioned everyone in the PPDC, or so it seems, and Tendo has intimated more than once that he wouldn’t mind spending some time in the lab, “talking numbers.” The Shatterdome is a small place. One has to practice somewhere.

It’s just that Newt is so bad at it.

Becoming History, by Scientia_Fantasia

Sure, the phrase “crotchety old man who obviously pays no attention to the current scientific community” may have snuck its way into one of the letters, but hey, that’s what you get for calling Up-And-Coming Scientific Rockstar Newton Geiszler “some kid.” Like, the guy had it coming. Really.

It Is not Heaven, It Is Home, by bravinto

Finding the love of your life is awfully anticlimactic.

Fleece, by berlynn_wohl

Newt and Hermann enjoy a day of terminally fluffy domesticity, with maybe a few minutes set aside for shenanigans on the sofa. Also, monsters (duh).

For What It’s Worth, I’d Do It Again, by callmejude

Between finding Newton seizing on the floor and running to get Pentecost, Hermann needs to make sure Newton is okay.

The Stretch and Pull of Disused Hearts, by billiethepoet

Newt notices that the move to the Anchorage Shatterdome is affecting Hermann’s leg. So Newt builds him a hot yoga studio out of spare parts and an abandoned storage closet. Obviously.

Best Cock On The Block, by hobbitdragon

They’ve been so close and yet so far for fourteen years now, but the drift is the pebble that starts the avalanche of change. (By which we mean sex)

This started out as a short ficlet and quickly grew beyond ficlet status into a full-blown fic. I guess I really wanted to write more trans smut.

The Seconds In Between, by orphan_account

Sort of a day in the life of Hermann (and Newt, always with Newt). Mostly, I had a lot of tiny little headcanons and then tried to spin them all together in a fic.

hallo mutti, hallo vati, by classyfanperson

Newt and Hermann visit the Gottlieb family after the Breach is closed. Some are happier to see them than others.

The Cost of Craving Dark Instead of Light, by sonnie

Summary by me: Monica Schwartz and her son, Newton.

The Two Weirdos Who Work In The Lab, by berlynn_wohl

Two vignettes about the worst kept secret in the Shatterdome.

he’s thunderstorms, by mundaneanarchy

Wherein Newt maybe possibly has a teeny tiny itsy bitsy almost microscopic crush on a certain grumpy old mathematician and Hermann falls and can’t get up. Angsty pining ensues. (explicit for chapter 2)

Never Done with Killing Time, by orphan_account

In between one day and the next, there’s always some time for some loving.

Quantum Degeneracy, by trell

Newt makes a sound from where he’s hidden behind his kaiju, behind his arms, and then he croaks, "I can’t play anymore.”

Hermann’s eyes flick to the electric keyboard sitting near Newt’s desk—a paper-covered, disorganized disaster of a thing—and he says, quietly, “Ah.”

the best laid plans, by liginamite

The plan, you see, was to totally sex Hermann up immediately after the world was saved. But you know that old saying about well-laid plans.

Generated Affects, by trell

Twelve is you washing your hands ten times up to the elbow in the space of the half an hour you spend prepping kaiju entrails for long-term cryo. It’s him that stops you, him that struggles over to the sink on his cane and grabs you by the wrists, hands fitting perfectly over the open maws of Hundun and Yamarashi, and he says “Stop,” and “Newton, think, this isn’t like you, it is like—” and the me hangs unspoken but you get it, let him guide you over to a bench in the lab and force you to sit still long enough to tone down the compulsion.

five times newt proposed to hermann and the one time he said yes, by mundaneanarchy

title is self explanatory.

alternate title: the fear of falling apart

warning: cheesy and kinda dumb

macho dudes in lace undies, by mundaneanarchy

Summary by me: Newt, Hermann and a lingerie kink.

one last kiss while we’re far too young to die, by mundaneanarchy

Newt and Hermann meet, fall in love, hate each other, lose each other, find each other, kiss drunkenly, save/destroy the world, and get married. All in that order.

it is one way to live, by fuckener

Newt would stay stuck in the wartime if nobody tried pulling him out of it.

Black Velvet Rabbits rockstar AU, by spirogyra

Summary by me: In which Hermann is the number one fan of Newt’s rock band, The Black Velvet Rabbits.

Sea Swept, by cypress_tree

A high seas fantasy AU in which Hermann is a ship’s navigator and Newton is found washed up among flotsam.

there are no atheists in foxholes, by liginamite

Newt and Hermann have been feeling off since they helped to cancel the apocalypse. They’re losing time, long black-outs, periods of aggression. The feeling that there’s something else, something they can’t pin down.

The thing is, the Kaiju drift left something behind in the both of them, and it’s determined to get out.

Can’t Wait for You to Shut Me Up, by callmejude

written for the kink meme prompt: “Hermann tells Newt to shut up, Newt tells Hermann to make him. They make out. That’s the prompt.”

(That may have been the prompt but I admit to it going much further than that.)

Dead Letter Chorus, by QuokkaFoxtrot

It’s if you’ve never heard anything true. But we will try 'til the next time or the last time. Dead Letter Chorus - You Am I

Newt owns a coffee shop. Hermann is a tenured professor at the local university. Their relationship has its ups and downs.

Also: Chuck is a champion barista, Mako is a world travelling Direct Trade negotiator, Stacker and Herc play a lot of chess, and Tendo owns Shatterdome Records.

Much coffee is consumed. (Except by Hermann who is a priss about how his tea should be prepared.)

bones, sinking like stones, by mundaneanarchy

You don’t love him. You don’t love him even though you do, you know you do, you know you do so much it hurts, but you don’t.

have yourself a merry little christmas, by classyfanperson

Hermann isn’t going home for Hanukkah, so Newt insists they both visit his family back home. They continue to not talk about their feelings.

Or: A Very Geiszler Christmas.

Newton Geiszler’s 11 Ways to Save the World, by kaijukonjou

Keep to yourself, keep your chin up, and maybe you’ll make it out in one piece.

Five Times Newt And Hermann Kiss While They Are Drunk, by luceluceluceluce

A brief timeline of the apocalypse from the perspective of a pair of nerds: a story of science, alcohol, and love.

Become What We’ve Always Been, by irisbleufic

Hermann doesn’t have enough time to experience a crisis over Newton’s response to his unvoiced request; he’s drifting into that self-same lethargy, eyelids heavy, his arm across the cane gone slack.

it wouldn’t be make believe, by infinituity

“By the way, dude,” he says, and he reaches down both to grab his notepad as well as to avoid looking at Hermann, “my parents think we’re dating.”

Instead of the expected angry yelling, he gets only silence in response, so he looks up to see Hermann opening his mouth to speak, reconsidering, closing it, and repeating. After several more repeats than strictly necessary, he sighs and slumps down in his seat.

“Of course they do,” he says.

sweet as anything, by classyfanperson

Newt is embarrassed about certain aspects of her body. Hermine is considerably more enthusiastic.

The Statistics of Touch, by WheresPeebs

Alternate Title: If You Would Just Stop Interrupting Each Other, Everything Would Be Worked Out in the First Friggin’ Paragraph.

Hermann is uncomfortable with public displays of… well, anything. It causes problems.

First, by cypress_tree

Newt and Hermann’s first time is Newt’s first first time.

Roses are red, and if that’s kaiju blue so help me Newton, by unnecessary

Summary by me: Newton and Hermann have some communication problems.

point me in the direction of the last setting sun, by orphan_account

They were two women standing against the end of the world.

Urine Trouble, by kinkitsecretkinkitsafe

Hermann has a thing for watersports. Newt finds out.

breathing free and even, by classyfanperson

He’s working on it. They’re working on it.

High-Five for Hatesex, by kinkitsecretkinkitsafe

Summary by me: Newton has a thing for Hermann and justifies it as hate!sex. He might be wrong.

Counterpoint, by kinkitsecretkinkitsafe

Summary by me: Sequel to High-Five for Hatesex.

a thousand spiders down the drain, by Byacolate

Children can be so cruel to boys who pick flowers.

Secret Agent Scientist, by Malteaser

Written for the prompt: Hermann, secret badass; He has something cool like a fencing saber installed in his cane and when someone fucks with them he kicks their ass and keeps talking like nothing happened.

A Little Kindness Goes a Long Way, by patster223

Newt liked to purposefully annoy Hermann in order to get rough sex. Which worked out great, until Hermann found out about it and decided to punish Newt by giving him excruciatingly nice sex.

cross my heart and take me with you, by drashian

The first time Hermann meets Newton Geiszler, they are pleasant with each other for about 10 minutes until suddenly they’re duking it out about Hermann’s theories of transdimensional transport.

The second time Hermann meets Newton Geiszler, they just start yelling.

The third time Hermann meets Newton Geiszler, it is in the toxic blue haze of the Drift.

Anthology ‘Verse (& Related Errata), by irisbleufic

Summary by me: a study of the relationship between Hermann and Newt, from the beginning to the future.

Parallax / Perihelion, by irisbleufic

Parallax—the apparent displacement of an observed object due to a change in the position of the observer; from the Greek, παράλλαξις (“alteration”). / Perihelion—the point in the orbit of an asteroid, comet, planet, or other celestial body where it is nearest to the sun (again from the Greek, περιήλιο).

One-Week Rule, by irisbleufic

Somebody’s got a stick up his theoretical vortex. Starting this off with a bang?

We’re Revolutionaries Now, by AxolotlQueen

One really shouldn’t attempt to cut one’s own hair.

(Or, Hermione Gottlieb gives herself a bad haircut and Newton Geiszler helps out.)

Newton Geiszler and His Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Interns, by cambion and casdere

“I know, it’s all a bit silly,” he admits.

“You always get a bit silly about your crushes, yeah?” She teases easily, and Hermann nearly spits out his mouthful of soup. Jasmine gives him another concerned look, but he waves her away.

“Vanessa, can you please not,” he hisses under his breath, and she laughs with the phone pulled away from her face, sounding like distant bells, and he feels taken back to high school, and remembers the fumbling idiocy of his crush on her, and knows immediately she is right, and he ought to give up the fight. He has a crush, an honest to God crush, and at his age! He knows, surely, it started with his fascination of the man’s intellect, but he also knows how quickly and easily he was drawn into his off-kilter charisma, as well.

or: hermann and newt are college professors, newt is working on his sixth doctorate, hermann is nursing a nasty crush, and i fit way too much into one chapter

scene after scene, by drashian

Everything had been banking on the world ending.

It doesn’t end, though, and that leaves everyone with this big hole where the future they didn’t plan for suddenly stretches ahead of them.

Newt struggles and reaches to fill that hole, and comes up with two things: Hermann Gottlieb and a cross-country road trip.

Chalk It Up To Love, by patster223

Newt replaced all of Hermann’s white pieces of chalk with pink ones. Or: the one in which chalk is a form of courtship, Hermann is head-over-heels, and somehow the entire Shatterdome gets involved.

The Apple In Our Hands, by irisbleufic

Summary: 1950!AU in which Newt is a cryptozoologist trying to find the Loch Ness monster, Hermann is more or less the same, and they have to share a cabin in Scotland.

Ice to Meet You, by patster223

Hermann is eating a rather phallic-looking popsicle and Newt is pretty sure he might actually die from sexual frustration.

In Sweden, and Elsewhere, by rillrill

Newt had just thrown down his end of the half-assembled bookshelf and shouted, “Whatever! It still makes no sense that two acclaimed and accomplished scientists with the combined brainpower of four average adults can’t put together a goddamn shelf!” Because, seriously, he can build an improvised neural bridge out of old lab machinery and an ancient Mr. Coffee, but he’s undone by three missing pegs? Fuck this.

Newt and Hermann rebuild, relocate, accept the Nobel Prize for Physics, fight over furniture, and strive to carve out a space for themselves in a world where they’re inextricably linked - in the the press, in their personal lives, and in their own heads.

Magic and Progress, by patster223

The Hogwarts AU in which Newt is a wizard, Hermann is a Muggle, and somehow they manage to save the world and love each other anyway.

Self-Destruct, by pinkmoon

“He learns how to never be wrong. He learns how to be indispensable. He realizes it makes him unstoppable.

Newton Geiszler is one tick away from self-destructing for the rest of his life.”

A character study of Newt’s lifetime of risky behavior and predilection for taking risks of the “rock star” sort. (Spanning many years, continents, arguments, and accidents, but landing, unexpectedly, in a happy ending.)

Today Your Barista Is: Hella Fucking Gay, by unnecessary

Hermann is a professor. The barista at the coffee shop across the street is cute and very, very single.

It is inevitable, really.

Predictable, by cypress_tree

It’s a movie date, but they’re not really watching the movie.

Adventures In Knitting, by decadent_mousse

Newt decides to knit Hermann a sweater, with… mixed results.

You’ve Taken A Pizza My Heart, by decadent_mousse

Hermann and Newt are so busy with work, they don’t get much time to go out to dinner, so Newt decides to improvise.

Fear of a Name, by uhnonniemiss

Newt and Hermann never could decide on how to define what they are to each other. It takes several years, thousands of kisses, a vat of acid, a big fight, and a sunny Boston evening to help them choose.

every day I fight a war against the mirror, by thekaidonovskys

“It came at a price,” he says. “To understand them, I had to learn how to fear them.”

Cut to the Chase, by patster223

Hermann needs a haircut. He does not need the cute hairdresser to flirt with him, he does not need a scalp massage, and he does not need anything trendy or stylish done to his hair.

Thankfully, these are things that happen anyway. Barbershop AU, featuring hairdresser!Newt and smitten!Hermann.

The Sublime, by Lucretius

The waves are coming closer to them now, and yes, the tide is coming to them with crescendo crashes.

The white fringe of sea is mere fathoms away.

“Can we?” Hermann asks.

And it is the question that one asks because, the choice having been made in what feels like another lifetime, now, for the first time, there is someone here, here, right here—who can see a way of being and seeing long dormant under so many layers of performing and seeming.

Recover, by irisbleufic

You’re my new favorite blanket. Come inside?

Untoward, by LemonScience33

Newton licks his bottom lip. “Maybe, um…” he says.

Newton doesn’t continue. Hermann wills his breathing to remain steady. “Yes?”

Newton shrugs casually. “Maybe we could give each other a hand,” he says. “Just two friends… you know, helping each other out.”

Knocking Socks, by decadent_mousse

Hermann and Newt go sock-shopping.

Listening, by cypress_tree

Newt has a dirty talk kink, and Hermann has a really nice voice.

Act Together, by irisbleufic

“You know I’m only a liar when it matters, right?”

You + Me = Happiness ², by steviekat

The thing is, Newt had never really put much thought into the future. The future of K-Science? Sure! Her own? To be fair, this probably better than anything she could have imagined.

Got Your Back, by Doooooooom

The workload is taking its toll on Hermann’s shoulders. Luckily, Newt is a dab hand at shoulder massages.

That’s one way to shut you up, by offensiveagentpie

Based on this fanart by pixiepunch.

Hermann tries a new tactic to get Newt to be quiet for once.

wash us away, by thekaidonovskys

Thank god Hermann undresses after he’s entered the bathroom, or else walking in to find Newt sitting on the bench top would have been much much worse.

visions are seldom what they seem, by mundaneanarchy

Hermann likes Tchaikovsky. Newt likes Hermann.

The Sun On Your Face (I’m Freezing That Frame), by irisbleufic

“Hate to break it to you,” Newton whispers, kissing Hermann’s neck with a happy sigh before letting his head drop to rest against Hermann’s shoulder, “but we’re busted in five, four, three—”

“Your ass is mine, Geiszler!” shouts Officer Hak, barging into the lab. “You too, Doctor Gottlieb. If you think you can get off so easy—”

The Good Old Days, by decadent_mousse

Hermann and Newt go scavenging for supplies during a blackout and get more than they bargained for.

A Proper Family Christmas, by uhnonniemiss

When Hermann ends up in the medical wing, he looks all set to spend Christmas by himself. Not if Newt gets a say in it, though.

Or, in which adopted and blood family save the Holidays

The Friendmas Ficlet Collection, by cypress_tree

A collection of five unrelated ficlets written as Christmas gifts for friends:

geniusbee: Hermann hurt/comfort patster223: Hermann wearing nail polish thehorrorinsymmetry: Hermann in lingerie bravinto: belly rubs decadentmousse: Harvest Moon AU

Aftershocks, by tastewithouttalent

“Hermann has to stumble away because the Drift is still too fresh and he can’t tell the heat of Newton’s body apart from his own anymore.” The impact of the Drift hits Hermann, and he and Newt don’t make it back to the laboratory.

Au Naturel, by decadent_mousse

Newt gives Hermann a wake up call during a very boring meeting.

Fortune’s Favor, by tamerofdarkstars

In which there is kissing, the end of the world, the subsequent salvation of the world, and more kissing.

Fills Trope_Bingo: Round 4 - Celebratory Kiss

Bump in the Night, by unicornsandbutane

Newt’s made a mistake, and it’s really a subjective matter whether it was a poor decision altogether or just a mere miscalculation. Regardless, he is forced to phone Hermann in the middle of the night, to deal with the consequences.

But the Gesture is Ruined, by cypress_tree

Five times Hermann tried to be romantic, one time he succeeded without even meaning to. A K-Sci romcom, basically.

Strange Bedfellows, by decadent_mousse

When Hermann and Newt first arrive at the Hong Kong Shatterdome, a paperwork mix-up forces them to share a room for awhile.

followed your ashes into outer space, by parpar

The numbers of the War Clock ticked down to zero, and the resulting euphoria was thick as smoke in the air. The assortment of PPDC members and civilian contractors were in an uproar, and Hermann and Newton made their way down the LOCCENT steps to stand in the midst of it.

When Tendo had finally managed to get Mako and Raleigh to stop hugging and cooperate with the rescue team, Newton had leaned his forehead into the curve of Hermann’s shoulder.

“We actually pulled it off,” he had whispered. “We did it, holy shit, it’s over.” Hermann had gracefully ignored the tears soaking into his collar and patted his colleague on the back while he pulled himself together.

Occupational Hazard, by decadent_mousse

Hermann overworks himself and gets a migraine.

In Space No One Can Hear You Mop, by decadent_mousse

Hermann and Newt are janitors sent to a derelict ship to clean things up after a group of aliens massacred the entire crew… but are they the only ones on board?

Liminality, by what_alchemy

What we know, after.

Fortuna Favet, by Mipeltaja

Newton seemed to think one could invoke good fortune simply by being bold enough or loud enough, a notion Hermann found utterly ridiculous.

It wasn’t that Hermann didn’t believe chance could on occasion work in his favour, it was just that life had taught him not to rely on it.

Brainspace and Kinkspace, by Emmalyn

Summary by me: Newt and Hermann exploring some of the delights of kinky sex.

Desperate Times, by decadent_mousse

Newt finds Hermann in a terrible state.

Matchsnaking, by patster223

There is a snake in Hermann’s apartment. This is not how he wanted to start his day.

Apartment neighbors AU where Newt’s snake keeps sneaking into Hermann’s apartment.

Put a Pin in That, by unicornsandbutane

Newt tries to convince Hermann to participate in a charity event. What ensues might be classed as ‘hijinks’, ‘shenanigans’, or ‘hilarity’, depending upon your perspective.

Remains, by berlynn_wohl

Newt and Hermann wrap Christmas presents and talk about death.

You Love Me Not, by mundaneanarchy

A story of love and coping with love told from the second-person perspective of Newt.

Newt loves Hermann and Hermann loves Newt but sometimes it’s not that easy.

Statiscally Significant Other, by unicornsandbutane

Flattery will get you everywhere.

Or, the fic computerbaby on tumblr requested, in which Newt compliments Hermann and Hermann is really really into it.

Pasta Aisle, by cypress_tree

Hermann and Newt meet for the first time in a grocery store. Hermann helps Newt grab something off a high shelf. Newt takes offense.

Disconnect, Connect Again, by cypress_tree

Raising Newt Geiszler has never been easy. Seeing him fall in love can be harder.

The development of Newt and Hermann’s relationship, from Jacob Geiszler’s point-of-view.

Spaces Between, by adropofred

Newt had not realised, somehow, that the world not ending would mean it would stubbornly keep on turning without waiting for him to catch up.

So what? He’s a scientist. He’ll do some catching up of his own and lose himself in the labyrinth of his and Hermann’s brains and their bodies.

This is absolutely not to be considered hiding, not that they can hide much anymore.

The Six Million Pillows Man, by adropofred

As it turns out, Hermann’s room is nothing special. His bed, on the other end, is very, very special.

Of course, Newt wouldn’t be himself if he didn’t find a way to turn this revelation into a situation where he could put his foot in his mouth.

Time For You and Time For Me, by patster223

A collection of Newmann prompts that I’ve filled on my tumblr. Contains: AUs, pining, flirting, bickering, several chapters of Hermann’s filthy exhibitionist kink, and two nerds learning to love each other in as many ways as possible.

The Beholder, by ItsClydeBitches

Written for the Newmann-uendo Hurt/Comfort challenge.

Hermann is feeling pretty insecure about his body. He’s unattractive. That’s a fact. Luckily Newton Geiszler’s number one law is still in place:

Hermann Gottlieb is ALWAYS wrong.

we’ll leave our tracks untraceable, by confused_android

When she steps off the plane in Logan International, something tight in her shoulders cracks, loosens, and she shakes free the last barb the PPDC had through her spine, through her brain, keeping her tense and wary for most of a decade. She yanks her heavy suitcase off of the carousel, identifiable by the years of layered duct tape repairing a seam that could once have been stitched, and flags the first taxi that will stop for her.

Permanent Ink, by mundaneanarchy

Inspired by this piece of fanart (http://rockstar-ologist.tumblr.com/post/126950663313) by rockstar-ologist

Newt gets Hermann’s initials tattooed on his hand. A month into their relationship. Hermann isn’t too happy about it.

Castaways’ Window, by Chancy_Lurking

“There are no words for the thoughts he has in that moment, because they are not his thoughts.”

Rings, by perniciousLizard

Three scenes, post movie. They’re happy.

Right Hand: Heart, by QuokkaFoxtrot

Two beers. That was all it took these days.

Dance In The Graveyards, by LemonScience33

As they round the next corner and lights come on, Newt’s first thought is, This had better be worth it, because we’re definitely gonna get caught.

His second thought is, That is the skull of Otachi’s baby, with lights strung over it.

His third thought is, This is definitely worth it.

Sweater Wars, by paenteom

Hermann takes his fashion illiteracy to new, festive levels. Newt is forced to retaliate.

Die Musik Kommt, by romangold

Maybe everyone’s drowning in the day, the night, memories and regrets and guilts, in relief, in pure, unadulterated happiness. Maybe they’re all dying.

Hermann finds Newt after the apocalypse is cancelled, and the two realize that perhaps they aren’t so toxic together after all.

Nigel, by uhnonniemiss

A particularly harsh snowstorm has brought the boiler- and Hermann- to a standstill.

(My piece for the 2015 Pacrim Holiday Swap!)

Etude, Op. 25 No. 12, by romangold

The climax always resolves to major, no matter how many times you play the piece. And the heroes always win, despite the amount of times you rewind to the beginning or fast-forward to the end.

sharing half our genes, and nothing in between, by getmean

“Christ, Hermann, is this a letterman jacket?” Newt cried, spinning and holding it up with a level of glee he hadn’t reached since he got that salivary gland from Mutavore. “How cliché can you get?”

Plausible Possibility, by cissues

Newt and Hermann experience some odd post-drift effects.

mountains sunk below the sea, by getmean

Newton has been, and always will be, what his father calls a ‘tough nut to crack’, but has an element of horrifying vulnerability that makes Hermann’s skin crawl. He selfishly likes Newton best when all his walls are intact.

netflix and chill, by w0rm

Hermann does the Netflix, Newt does the chill.

How to Deal with Accidental Neural Oversharing and Other Scientific Conundrums, by yourguardianangel

The world has not ended. Operation Pitfall is successful. Celebrations are had. But how are two snarky scientists meant to cope with having way too much of each others internal monologues retroactively overlaid with their own memories?

(with smut, that’s how.)

It’s All Good, by spirogyra

Thoughtless words, hurt feelings, cryptic statements, the drift makes things easier and more difficult, but in the end… it’s all good.

追伸, by lamphouse

“If I recall correctly, this is the man who confessed to wanting a pet Godzilla for his twentieth birthday, is it not? Glass houses, Dr. Geiszler.”

It takes two months for Newton Geiszler to fall in love. It takes thirty months, around two hundred letters, several time zones, and two missed-ish connections for him to actually admit it.

it’s alright, don’t you let it inside, by areunasty

They’re taking Gipsy Danger out for a trial run, and Newt watches with mild interest as the mech slices cleanly through the ocean. He thinks that if he was that big anything would be easy. Loving someone difficult, being loved, the quiet and painful twist of Hermann’s mouth whenever he looks at Newt recently.

The Price of Ghost Drifting, by confettiinmyhair

Newt is home early. Hermann has a surprise.

concentric circles, by lamphouse

It’s times like these that Hermann finds himself checking and double-checking his list of reasons why he works at the library. It’s also times like these that prove why nowhere on said list does it mention the people he works with.

The Boyfriend Experience, by berylnn_wohl

In the Shatterdome, Hermann confesses his disappointment that his and Newt’s relationship lacks romance. After the war is over, Newt vows to spend one year righting this wrong as they travel the world together on a lecture tour.

Everything We Never Said, by JennaCupcakes

Newt has a few regrets about his drift with Hermann. Namely, that he’s had a crush on the guy for a while and really doesn’t want him to find out.

Echoes in the Well of Silence, by unicornsandbutane

Hermann can hear Newton through the ducts.

Wishbone, by cypress_tree

Hermann doesn’t have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving, so Newt invites him over for food, family, and a little bit of flirting. Just a warm, fuzzy college AU to get you through the holidays.

Do Scientists Dream of Cloned Sheep?, by paenteom

Newt fumbles with the key card before he finally manages to swipe it, throws the door open and freezes.

There’s only one bed.

It’s massive, and covered in the fluffiest blanket he has ever seen, but it’s undeniably singular.

“Uh,” he says. “Awkward.”

Laughter, Confession, by cypress_tree

He’s nervous and awkward and he’s afraid he’ll mess up, but god, he wants this so bad.

Proving a Point, by steampunkepsilon

Newt thinks Hermann is a shy, reserved, vanilla kind of guy. Newt is wrong, and Hermann has sources.

Slumber Sequence, by strigine

Summary by me: Newton and Hermann’s sleeping habits.

Clean Clock, by cissues

'“So, you’re that guy, huh?” The man says, finally. He has his back to the newly emptied and even more newly dirtied sink and Hermann’s gaze is fixated on the encrusted plates and wine-stained glassware.’

Or, where Hermann is a hermit and also a clean freak with messy roommates.

Linguistics, by cypress_tree

Literally just a thousand words of Newt masturbating while listening to Hermann give an interview on a podcast.

i ain’t holy, i ain’t close, by queenofthestarrrs

The end of the world feels like home.

tell me you’ll love me for a million years, by buckgaybarnes

Hermann is working late, so Newt decides to be a great husband and tackle their chores. He mostly succeeds.

lost connection, by orphan_account

When the Shatterdome stays open for continuing research, the K-Science team realizes they’ll actually have to deal with the after-effects of their Drift.

Trial and Error, by cypress_tree

A romantic comedy of errors in which Newt and Hermann try to spice things up….and fail spectacularly.

Mixed Signals, by SkysongMA

After the Drift, Hermann starts having sex dreams.

Newt’s sex dreams.

That are all about Hermann.

Oh Mein Me, by junkiechurch

You wonder how a heart like his could ever love a man like you.

clothes (or a lack thereof), by orphan_account

Once the war is over, Hermann and Newt move in together. Newt realizes how little clothing they actually own.

#pacific rim #newmann #newton geiszler #hermann gottlieb #fic recs #please warn me if any links are broken #and reblog it if you can so more people will see it #otp: the favors of fortune

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waveridden · 5 years

Text

FIC: too large for any moment

But it’s still there, in the back of Bacta’s mind. He knows what a good Kwoon fight is like. He knows what drift compatibility feels like, and even if he never does anything about this, he knows that he and Leenik could be compatible. (A Campaign/Pacific Rim AU, 1.9k, vaguely Bacta/Leenik)

AUcember || title lyric || more about the AU || read on ao3

“Bacta.” Leenik leans in, so close that Bacta has to pull back to keep looking at his face properly. “We should do the Kwoon room thing.”

“The Kwoon room thing,” Bacta repeats. He hasn’t been in a Kwoon room in years. He might’ve sworn to himself that he’d never do it again, but it’s hard to remember. It’s been years, and he’s drunk, and Leenik’s drunk, and he’s never seen Leenik this relaxed before. “Do you wanna… do the staff thing?”

Leenik nods, so emphatically that he collapses against the wall behind him, still nodding. “I think it’d be fun fighting you,” he says sincerely. “I wanna do the thing with the staffs and I wanna see what happens.”

“We should see what happens!” Bacta pushes himself to his feet, and he’s pleased to see that he’s steady enough to stand. Walking might be harder, and fighting to determine if he and Leenik are drift compatible will definitely be harder still, but if this is what Leenik wants, then damn it, Bacta is going to figure out how to do it for him. “Let’s do the staffs.”

“Staves.” Leenik frowns, but he takes Bacta’s hand and lets Bacta pull him upright. “Stavs?”

“Staves,” Bacta repeats, and tugs Leenik towards the door. “Let’s stave.”

There is no such thing as a night off in the Shatterdome, not really. But there are nights that are better to get drunk than others, and they’d decided that this is one of them. There are additional J-Tech staffers supporting them from other domes, and Bacta has been tired of… well, of being tired. He decided that he and Leenik, as heads of J-Tech, deserved a day off. So they’d gotten drunk, because they couldn’t leave the dome.

Bacta’s one of the newer people at this particular dome. He’d been transferred because his old marshal didn’t want to deal with him anymore - or because the dome needed more support in J-Tech, depending on which paperwork you look at - and it’s been a bumpy adjustment. He’s known Leenik for over a year now, and Leenik is still painfully reserved around him sometimes. Bacta had half expected him to say no when he’d suggested a drinking night. He hadn’t even been sure if Leenik drinks.

By the time they get to the Kwoon room, both of them still wearing pajamas and socks, they’re a little less stumble-drunk. Bacta’s pretty steady on his feet by the time he has a staff in his hand, looking at Leenik across the room. “You ever done this before?”

To his surprise, Leenik nods. “Been a while,” he says, and shifts his grip on the staff. “I used to be pretty good.”

“So did I,” Bacta says. Leenik cocks his head, looking curious, and Bacta shrugs. “I had a whole life before I ended up here.”

“Right.” Leenik grins. “New Zealand.”

Leenik also had a whole life before the Shatterdome that Bacta doesn’t know anything about. He’s never really asked, because Leenik is… cagey, to say the least. But he’s holding the staff like he knows what he’s doing with it, and he looks completely at home in the Kwoon room. Bacta wishes, with a sudden ferocity, that he knew Leenik, really knew him.

He lifts his staff to a ready position. “First to five?”

“First to five,” Leenik agrees. He steps back, and Bacta barely has time to anticipate his next move before Leenik charges at him and swings his staff for Bacta’s side.

Bacta side-steps it and jabs his staff behind him, towards Leenik, but Leenik is already sweeping around to Bacta’s other side, shifting his staff from hand to hand. Bacta wheels backwards and lifts his own staff.

Leenik sweeps his staff towards Bacta’s chest right as Bacta lowers his, stopping just an inch from Leenik’s head, and Leenik’s staff freezes just as the tip of it touches Bacta’s sternum. For a second, Bacta is too stunned to move or breathe. Judging from the look on Leenik’s face, he is too.

“Draw,” Bacta manages to say, after a few seconds of heavy breathing. “That-”

“Was really fucking good,” Leenik finishes, eyes wide.

Bacta’s face splits into a grin. “Thank Christ,” he mumbles, and Leenik only grins wider. “You think we can manage that again?”

Leenik pulls his staff back, miming the motion of sheathing a sword as he steps away. “We should find out,” he says. Every inch of him is buzzing with awareness, and Bacta feels drawn to him, like he can’t look away. He hasn’t felt this way in a long time.

Bacta copies the sheathing motion, old training taking over, and moves to an opposite corner of the room. He steps back, eyes scanning the room, and lands on the doorway for a second.

Marshal Luroon, standing in the door, arches an eyebrow at him. She looks like she was likely on her way somewhere else. Bacta considers asking why she’s stopping to watch, but then Leenik shifts his weight, and all of his attention is back on Leenik.

“Is a draw a point for each of us or no points?” Leenik asks, doing an idle figure-eight with his staff.

“Point for each,” Bacta suggests. “More fun that way.”

Leenik grins sharply. “Good,” he says, and lunges forward with his staff. Bacta thinks that he’s grinning back, just as face-splitting and raw, as he dodges.

They don’t do it again, is the thing. Not that Bacta particularly wants to - he hasn’t done a serious Kwoon fight in a few years, and he’s not sure he’s ready to do it again - but Leenik seems… worried about it. He’s a little cagey around Bacta the next day, and the day after that, and the day after, until Bacta makes a pointedly casual comment about not being interested in piloting again. After that, Leenik relaxes more than Bacta has ever seen him.

But it’s still there, in the back of Bacta’s mind. He knows what a good Kwoon fight is like. He knows what drift compatibility feels like, and even if he never does anything about this, he knows that he and Leenik could be compatible. It’s the kind of knowledge that comes without intent. He’s not even sure that Leenik realized how compatible they were, but he knows. He remembers.

The problem is that it turns out Marshal Luroon remembers, too.

It’s an emergency situation in every sense: all of their main pilots are on another continent for some ridiculous press junket. There are Jaegers flying in to support them, but all of the backup teams are deployed already and doing poorly.

Lyn must be getting desperate, because she turns and meets Bacta’s eyes across mission control.

He realizes what’s about to happen just before she opens her mouth. “Marshal-”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Lyn says, voice dangerously tight. She points at him, then at Leenik. “You two, get in a Jaeger.”

Leenik’s mouth drops open in shock before he regains himself. “I don’t think-”

“This isn’t-”

“This is life and death.” Lyn’s voice is deathly quiet. “Do you understand that? This is not about what either of you want. This is about damage control. This is about minimizing casualties. You are going to suit up, and we are going to calibrate you, and we are going to hope that it works. And either way we will deal with it, do you understand?”

Leenik looks away. Bacta has to unclench his jaw, with a monumental effort, but he grits out a terse “Yes, ma’am.”

There are lines in Lyn’s face that he doesn’t remember being there when he started at the Shatterdome. She turns around to say something to Tryst, who looks grimmer than Bacta has ever seen him.

Bacta sighs. He turns to Leenik, to say that they should get ready or ask if he’s okay, and is completely unsurprised to see that Leenik isn’t standing there anymore. He heaves out a sigh and leaves mission control.

Leenik is, as expected, in the J-Tech garage. He whirls around on Bacta as soon as he enters, with anger and betrayal and panic all flickering across his face in turns. “You told her?”

“She saw us.”

“She saw us and you didn’t say anything?”

“I didn’t think this would happen.” Bacta has to fight to keep his voice low and steady - and it’s barely steady, with a tremor rocketing through it. “Leenik, you have to believe me, I don’t want to do this.”

“But you said yes,” he says, verging on hysterical. “You said yes, and I- I can’t do this, I said I’d never-”

“We don’t have another choice.”

“We have a choice! That choice is staying here, and saying no, and dealing with the consequences, because it’s not worth it.”

“Isn’t it worth it to you to save those people’s lives?”

Leenik’s face contorts into something miserable. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“I know it’s not.” Bacta has to fight the urge to reach out to Leenik. He knows Leenik wouldn’t want it, would say he doesn’t need it, but his entire body is alight with the need to be… closer. He puts his hands behind his back and clasps them, gripping as tightly as he can manage. “The last person I was in a Jaeger with died.”

Leenik visibly takes a step back, stunned. “You used to be a pilot?”

“A long time ago.” Bacta twists his hands, trying to keep himself grounded. “We only went on a couple missions together before kaiju attacked our dome. She was so focused on the evacuation effort that she didn’t realize-” his throat tightens, and he forces himself to swallow down the tears. They don’t have time for him to relive this. “She died. I was ruled not fit for duty, so I joined up with J-Tech. I never wanted to pilot a Jaeger with anyone else.”

“Wanted,” Leenik says warily. “What do you want now?”

Bacta huffs out a laugh. “I want to stop more people from dying.”

“I-” Leenik pauses and gulps. “My brother-”

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” Bacta says, and Leenik sags in relief. “If you really, really can’t do this, we’ll find an excuse. But I think we need to try.”

“I know we do,” Leenik sighs. “I just- I’m afraid.”

“Of being in a Jaeger again?”

“That you won’t like me after you really know who I am.”

“Leenik,” Bacta sighs, and he moves forward without thinking. Leenik stays in place, trembling as Bacta’s hands land on his shoulders. “You’re my friend. There is very, very little that could be in your head that will change that.”

Leenik stares up at Bacta, eyes wide and searching. At last, he nods slowly, and Bacta’s hands relax on his shoulders.

Bacta smooths his hands down Leenik’s arms and draws them back to his sides. “Okay,” he says, and Leenik takes a deep breath. “Let’s go suit up.”

“Let’s go suit up,” Leenik echoes. He looks tense, still, but he looks Bacta up and down and then relaxes. “We’re going to do this.”

“We’re going to do this,” Bacta agrees, like it’s a finality, a fact, and Leenik offers up a terse, nervous smile. It’s the best thing Bacta has ever seen.

#campaign #campaign podcast #campaign star wars #beenik #bacta x leenik #it's like... not romantic but in the same way that mako/raleigh isn't? if that makes any sense at all? anyways #waveridden.fic #aucember18 #a bitch loves a good pacrim au!#campaign fic

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demonsonthemoon · 6 years

Text

Peacetime

Fandom: Pacific Rim Pairings: Jules Reyes/Nate Lambert/Jake Pentecost Word Count: 7391 Summary: After their victory against the gian kaiju, Jules celebrates. She celebrates humanity's survival, but also the fact that her two favorite Rangers are coming home. And she also hopes that "coming home" will involve "coming" in her bed. Note: I am extremely sorry for that summary I just couldn't help myself, I'm laughing too hard. Big thanks to @roboskin for cheerleading.

Also available on AO3

The aftermath of the battle was a confusing, exhausting mess. After the last few days – Obsidian Fury, the drone attack, the furious scrambling that immediately followed as they desperately tried to re-build something that could help them save the world – everyone was tired.

At the same time, however, no one could seriously consider going to sleep with so much relief and joy coursing through their veins. The adrenaline rush was a wild and addictive feeling.

As one of the heads of the J-Tech department, however, Jules Reyes couldn't simply give herself over to the celebration. She had to make sure the repair bays were ready for the repatriated Jaegers, find at least one team of technicians willing to take the first shift to take care of emergency repairs, and somehow find a way to get access to the parts they needed. The last few days had been a strain on their budget for sure, so that last task wasn't going to be easy. Maybe Liwen Shao would help again. As long as she had her parts, Jules would be happy. Let the higher heads deal with the contracts and debts and whatnots.

So Jules got to work, despite the frenetic rythm of her heartbeat. Despite the fact that her thoughts kept going back to the Jaeger pilots, to Nate and Jake and the fact that they were coming back, that they had survived and saved the world and that they were coming back.

She chastised herself, trying to keep focused on her work. They would need to stop by the medical bay anyway, she wouldn't be able to see them right away. Nate had been well enough to track Newt down, but that barely meant anything considering the adreline rush he must have been under. There was no saying how serious the wound he had suffered fighting the kaiju really was. And Jake would probably pretend that he was totally fine, but he had been launched to the limits of the Earth atmosphere in a defective connpod.

Jules groaned at the idea how how much repair Gipsy Avenger's connpod would need. At least it helped her re-focus on giving directions to her team of techs so they could prepare for the Jaegers' arrival as well as they could.

Once they did arrive, though, Jules didn't see the point in holding herself or her techs back. They all rushed towards the landing bay, letting whatever they had been holding fall to the ground. Whenever she looked around, Jules saw matching grins on everyone's face. Although, watching the four Jaegers be dropped was a bittersweet sight. Most of them couldn't stand on their own anymore. But at least they were here.

And then the choppers landed, and the pilots came out, one by one.

Ryiochi and Meilin, Saber Athena's pilots came out first, and helped Ilya, Guardian Bravo's last pilot, exit the same chopper. They carried him for two steps before a group of med techs rushed in with a gurney, laying him down. The two other pilots hesitated for a second, wanting to follow him as he was rushed away, but Ilya waved them off with a forced smile. So Ryiochi and Meilin waited as the door of a second helicopted opened and Amara, Vik and Jihai came out. The five ex-cadets ran towards each other, teary smiles on their faces.

Jules found it strange, to be in the crowd, a respectful distance away but still close enough to witness these acts of intimacy. She watched them hug each other, full of wonder at how young they were and what they had accomplished already. They had all hoped, ten years ago, that the time of children growing up too fast and dying too soon was over. As she watched the ex-cadets release each other from their embrace and gaze towards the medical bay, she knew that that hope had been foolish. There was always a new war waiting around the corner.

Finally, finally, Jake and Nate came out onto the landing bay. Nate had one arm around Jake's shoulder, who took careful steps forward, helping his co-pilot walk. Jules felt something expand in her chest at the sight of them, these two utterly breakable men, somehow alive and standing. She wanted to catch their eyes, let them know she was here, let them know how happy she was that they came back. But there were too many people all around her, and soon they were being taken to the medical bay as well, Nate in a wheelchair and all of the Jaeger pilots trailing behind him.

Jules smiled. Then she clapped her hands and started shouting orders at anyone wearing a J-tech uniform or looking like they had nothing to do. They had to stabilise any Jaeger component that had been damaged and could cause a short-circuit. No one wanted the Shatterdome to get even more damaged than it already was because of something as silly as a short-circuit.

“Come on, gals and guys and everyone! If you want to party this evening we have to stabilize these Jaegers before sunset!”

They managed to get their work done before 10PM somehow. Most of their equipment had had to be repurposed, but by now they were all becoming much more creative when it came to those kinds of things. The only thing left to do for the night was pray that everything would hold.

Jules thanked her team for their hard work, and they all rushed to the mess hall for some hard-earned dinner, stuffing themselves with mashed potatoes and noodles and sautéd vegetables. The atmosphere in the mess hall was electric. Everyone had seemed to forget their tiredness once they'd had food in front of them and a night of loud music and alcohol to look forward too.

Jules spared a thought for Nate and Jake, wondering whether they would be held in medical for the night or be able to attend the party. She wondered if they would be looking for her.

Jules wasn't blind. She knew how both of them looked at her. She had been lightly flirting with Nate for a few weeks now, and Jake had made obvious that he was interested in her during their first conversation. And she had tried to show her own interest in return. She thought that she had even been quite obvious about it, although in her experience men tended to be dense.

Her dinner finished, Jules let herself be dragged to the party which was apparently happening in one of the Jaeger repair bays. It was bittersweet to be there, as a J-tech officer, since she knew the place was only empty because Valor Omega had been nearly entirely destroyed during the drone attack. Still. It was large, empty, and once some dedicated party-throwers had brought in a few tables and benches from the mess hall, all the alcohol they could find, and repurposed the comm systems to play some music, it did the job fine.

Jules threw herself into the atmosphere of the party, and it was like taking a breath of the purest air you had ever felt, like shedding a skin and being reborn.

“Okay, people!” She shouted over the music, turning around to face her team of co-workers. “Let's get this party started with some shots!”

There were cheers from a few of her friends, and they made their ways to the alcohol table, lining up two shots of tequila in front of everyone.

“To victory!” Jules said, raising the first glass.

“To victory!”

The rest of the night was a whirlwind of dance music, sweaty bodies and alcohol. Jules felt like she had fire in her veins, until it ran out, and then the only thing she could think about was going back to her quarters and sleeping for a lifetime. She said her goodbyes to her friends, planting two sloppy kisses on the cheeks of Aida, one of her closest co-workers. The way back to her room seemed longer than usual, probably because Jules wasn't exactly walking in a straight line.

Once inside, she eyed the t-shirt and boxer shorts she usually slept in, decided they were too much effort, and just kicked off her shoes before settling down in bed.

Then she groaned, got up again, drank two glasses of water, and finally went to sleep.

She still woke up with a headache the next day. But well. It wasn't her first rodeo. She checked the time, realised that it was 10AM, and groaned. By military standards, this definitely qualified as sleeping in. Jules inspected her morals and realised she didn't care. The next catastrophe would hopefully wait a few days, so she might as well take one morning off.

She got up with a groan and didn't turn on any light until she got to her tiny bathroom. Then she groaned again when she did turn on the bathroom light. She left her dirty clothes in a pile under the sink, took a quick shower, then got ready to have brunch at the mess hall. She only felt barely alive, but at least she was moving. Most faces in the mess seemed as tired and hungover as she was. The only exceptions were those who had accepted to take a morning shift, hadn't come to the party, and were coming in for lunch.

Jules sat at her usual table with the few people from her crew to be already awake. The conversation was slow-going, which was fine for her since she had exhausted almost the totality of her social energy the night before.

After she had eaten enough greasy food to make her brain feel a bit less like it was drowning in alcohol, she told her friends she was going to try to find someone before starting her shift, and walked out of the mess.

She checked the pilot training room, though it seemed unlikely that anyone would have the energy to practice after yesterday, and wasn't surprised to find it empty. Then she checked the main sports hall, because it was on her way, and reached the pilots' quarters. She knocked on Jake's door but didn't get any answer. She checked the rangers' communal room, but didn't find him there either. In the end, she found him in the cadets' room, playing a round of cards with Amara, Meilin and Ryiochi while Vik and Jinhai were watching something on a tablet, sitting close together on one bed.

The door was open, so she didn't feel like she was intruding. She still knocked anyway, announcing her presence.

They all looked up at once, which was a little bit unnerving. Jules smiled. “Hey everyone.”

The ex-cadets looked slightly confused. They all vaguely knew her, since she was head of her division, but she guessed that they had no idea why she would be here. Jake, however, smiled brightly at her. She smiled back.

“How are you holding up?” she asked.

“I'm good,” Jake replied. “Spent the night in the med bay, so I missed the party but at least I slept well. You?”

“Ah,” Jules chuckled. “I didn't miss the party. So I slept like shit.” She grinned. “But I'm good. You guys?” She looked at all the ex-cadets.

Amara shrugged. “We're okay. It's... weird.”

Jules nodded.

“Ilya's still in medical,” Meilin added.

Jules turned back towards Jake. “Nate?”

“Still in medical too. But his wound isn't too bad, so he should be released this afternoon.”

She nodded again. “Good. I have to go. J-tech's kind of overworked right now and I need to put in at least one shift. But I'll find you tonight.”

Then she walked away, not waiting for an answer. She didn't need one. There was no question in what she had said.

Jules was growing more and more distracted as the evening grew closer, and finally decided that it just wasn't worth it anymore and put her tools back in place. She did a quick round to check with the others working on Saber Athena that everything was going okay, answered a few questions, and then called it a day. After having grabbed herself some early dinner, she went back to her quarters for her second shower of the day, then changed into something more casual than her work clothes.

And then she went looking.

She checked Jake and Nate's rooms first, then the Ranger's communal room. She found them in the kitchens.

They were both eating gelato with sprinkles on it, talking in-between bites. She watched them for a moment, while they still hadn't noticed her.

For the first time when it came to them, she felt insecure. They were drift partners, after all. They had a shared history that she wasn't privy too. They had the connections of memories shared and she... Who was she? A glorified technician. Someone they barely knew, whom they shared only months or days with, respectively. How could she hope to compare, to compete?

But she wasn't here to compete. She wasn't here to come in-between anything.

So she breathed in, and walked into the room in a few confident strides.

“Can I join you guys?”

Jake actually jumped a little in surprise, and both of them looked up. She felt her cheeks warm under their gaze, although she hoped they wouldn't be able to tell.

“Yeah, of course,” Nate replied, already scrambling up to get a third bowl.

“Let me-” Jake interrupted, pushing Nate back down. The blond started sitting down again before Jake had even touched his shoulder.

Jules let Jake serve her a bowl of ice-cream, with whipped cream but sans sprinkles.

“How are you holding up?” She asked Nate, sitting herself up on the table next to him since there were only two chairs in the room.

“I'll live.” Nate shrugged. “It's really not that bad, no organs touched or anything. I was just in a bad shape when the adrenaline wore off, and it took a while to get back on my feet. But I'll live.”

“And are you okay...?” She gestured towards her brain.

Both men nodded. “Yeah,” Jake replied. “Long drifts are hard. And when Nate...” He paused, swallowing a mouthful of gelato. “It was hard. But we're okay.”

Nate nodded.

A tension relaxed in Jules' spine that she hadn't known had been there.

“Good.”

She took a few spoonfuls of gelato as silence settled around them. Jules felt like she had boiling water under her skin. She still felt like they didn't understand what she wanted, like they were still confused. She couldn't rely on subtlety to do the job here. And she probably couldn't count on them taking the first step because, once again, men were dense.

She put her bowl of ice-cream down.

“Can you guys promise me not to do or say anything for thirty seconds? Thirty seconds. That's all I ask.”

Nate and Jake frowned at her, then exchanged a look.

“Sure?” Nate finally replied and, since he was currently sitting closest to her, Jules jumped off the table, bent down and pressed her lips against his.

After a second of contact, she pulled away, turned towards Jake, took the two steps that separated them, and kissed him as well.

Then she walked back to her spot on the table, and ate some gelato.

Jake's mouth hung open, and Nate was frowning. They exchanged another look.

“Okay, so...” Jake started.

“You...” Nate tried to continue.

Jules ate more ice-cream, letting them process it.

“You, what, like us? Both?” That was Jake, looking surprised, sounding intrigued.

She nodded. “I thought I had made it pretty clear, but apparently not clear enough.”

“It's just that...”

“What, you haven't heard of a threesome before?”

Nate nearly choked on a mouthful of gelato, and Jules grinned.

Jake took a second to turn his surprise into a bright smile. “Oh, I have. Trust me, I have. Just... how would you even know that we'd be interested in sharing you?”

Jules shrugged. “I don't. I don't know that. But I liked my odds, so I played my cards. You both made it pretty clear you were interested in me, and I'm interested in both of you. I'm honestly not into the idea of being some kind of prize in a rivalry between you both so... Your choice.”

Once more, Nate and Jake exchanged a silent gaze. There were whole conversations happening in those looks of theirs, and Jules silently wondered whether they were even aware of it. She could have felt closed off by it all, but she had come into this knowingly. Instead, she felt a soft kind of heat settle low inside her at being able to even just watch this kind of intimacy play off from so close.

She interrupted the silence. “Obviously, I don't know all of what happened between you two, so you can totally tell me if I'm out of line. But you seem close. And you've drifted together, so obviously you're not afraid of intimacy. So I assumed that sex probably wouldn't be a problem.”

She hadn't expected their reactions to be laughter, but didn't let it faze her.

“Yeah, that's... probably not gonna be a problem, no.” Jake said.

Jules raised an eyebrow.

“There's...” Jake gestured between himself and Nate. “history, I guess.”

“Oh.” Jules scraped off the last whipped cream in her bowl, not actually very surprised. “So... You guys are game? For a threesome, I mean.”

“Yeah,” Nate replied, gathering the empty bowls and passing them to Jake once he stood up. “I guess we are.”

“Awesome!” Jules grinned. While Jake was being a responsible adult and taking their bowls and spoons to a sink to wash them, she bent down to kiss Nate again. Her balance was awkward, but that didn't stop them from making the kiss much deeper than the first peck she had given him. She opened her mouth first, barely grazing his lips with the tip of her tongue, and Nate followed suite, raising a hand to her cheek.

Jake cleared his throat. “Not that I'm not happy for you both, but isn't it unnecessarily cruel to make out while I'm doing the dishes for you both?”

“I would help,” Nate replied. “But you keep telling me I shouldn't move too much because of my injury.”

“And I can't just leave a poor injured ranger all on his own, I'm not heartless.”

Jake shook his head, laughing. “You are both terrible people and I can't believe I'm letting you drag me into this.”

“Look at him,” Nate mock-whispered. “He's jealous.”

“I'm not listening!” Jake replied, clanging a spoon against the sink on purpose.

“Don't worry, Jakey,” said Jules. “We'll make sure to thoroughly thank you for your troubles later.”

Jake stared at her. He pointed towards her and Nate with a towel. “That is not fair. You are being totally unfair.”

She shrugged. “Tough life.”

Nate chuckled, head against Jules' arm. They controled themselves and managed not to resume kissing as they watched Jake make quick work of drying their bowls and putting them away. Once he was done, Jules stood up and quickly pecked him on the lips. She whispered a just as quick thank you in his ear, and pulled his hand into hers. “Any chance we could move this elsewhere?”

“My room?” Nate asked.

“Yeah,” Jake agreed.

They lead the way.

As they took the short walk back to the Rangers' quarters, Jules was happy to notice that Nate seemed to be walking just fine. It made Jake's mother hen attitude seem a bit exaggerated, but possibly all the more adorable.

She couldn't stop smiling, and the warmth in her gut was now an insisting presence. She had two handsome men on her sides, and they had saved the word, and Jules felt happy. She had forgotten all about her shift, about the Jaeger parts they needed urgently, about how to start repairing the 'Dome or how many people they had lost. In this moment, walking down the grey hallways of the Rangers' quarter, she felt content. She almost wished she didn't have that much self-control, and could just start running through the corridor, hopefully with Jake and Nate following behind.

She settled for squeezing Jake's hand just a little bit tighter as Nate opened the door to his room.

Jules wasn't surprised by the bareness of it. The room was standard: a bed, a closet with the doors hanging open, a chair in front of a small desk, some picture frames and books on the latter, and a simple bed, made with military precision.

It was a soldier's room, because Nate was a soldier. So many people were, around here. Sometimes Jules wondered whether she was one herself.

She let the thought melt away as Nate went to close his closet door and then leaned against it, unsure. Jules let go of Jake's hand, and walked towards him. She pressed a hand against one of his cheeks, and Nate leaned easily into the touch, letting himself be guided towards her so she could kiss him. There was no place left for insecurity, not in the small bedroom which left barely any space between them in the first place. So they both opened their mouths, deepening the kiss almost immediately. Jules felt herself shiver a little.

They were still hesitant with each other, awkward in the way that first kisses always are. Jules pressed in with her tongue, but Nate seemed more interested in toying with her lower lip. She didn't mind at all. The newness of it all, the discovery, made her let out a soft sigh.

She sighed again as she felt Jake come up behind her, arms settling around her hips. He pressed his lips softly against her neck. “I thought I'd been promised payment for my hard work,” he said, voice low and close to her ear.

Jules giggled, pulling back from Nate slightly. “What do you think?” she asked. “Should I take pity on him?”

“Oh, I don't know...” Nate replied, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

Jules turned towards Jake, and found him doing his best impression of a kicked puppy. She laughed. “I'll be nice to you if you stop doing that ridiculous face.”

Jake pulled away, mock-offended. “How dare you! I'm adorable.”

“Adorable and ridiculous aren't exclusive, you know,” Nate pointed out.

Jules pointed at him. “He gets it.” Then she turned fully towards Jake. “Come on, come here.”

They switched their earlier position around, Nate plastering himself to Jules' back while she put her hands around Jake's neck and made good on her promise to pay him back for the washed dishes.

Jake was a totally different kisser than Nate, confident where Nate was soft and self-conscious. Considerate, but definitely more inclined to take the lead.

She felt Nate's lips brush the spot that Jake had kissed earlier, then nip the skin slightly. She made sure to bare her neck a little more, letting Nate know she was enjoying it.

Jules felt warm, surrounded. She felt safe, in a way she hadn't known she'd been craving.

“Bed?” Jake asked, pulling back for air with much less composure than his usual persona.

“Yeah,” Nate replied from behind her.

Jake peeled himself off from Jules and pulled his shirt up off his chest.

She knew it was childish and counterproductive, but she couldn't help laying her fingers on Jake's chest, caressing the marks his Jaeger suit had left behind, courtesy of too many hours of constant electrical current and heat.

Jake shivered, but let her explore, carding a hand through her long hair in retaliation.

“Come on,” Nate said then, putting his hands on her hips, just under the hem of her t-shirt.

She grinned and pulled away, getting rid of the tank top she had put on and throwing it towards Nate's desk chair. She was left standing in jeans and her bra, a look which she knew suited her well, despite the fact that her bra was a simple black thing, more practical than flattering.

She took the few steps that separated her from the bed and sat down on the edge of it, kicking off her sneakers and hooking her fingers over the waistband of her pants.

Jake and Nate were both standing still, looking at her, and she raised an eyebrow.

She started pullind down her jeans slowly, a gesture which would have made her feel almost ridiculous if both men's eyes were not tracking her movements.

It was a strange feeling, to have all of this attention focused on her, but it was thrilling, making her feel powerful and in control. She wasn't able to suppress a smile at the idea of calling herself powerful when she was sharing the room with two rangers trained in combat.

She shimmied out of her jeans and let them drop to the floor, quickly discarding her socks as well. She sat back on the bed, knees bent and legs teasingly spread open.

“What? Nobody's gonna join me?”

Jake and Nate exchanged one of their trademark looks, before going to work and discarding their clothes. Jake was the first to join her on the bed, wearing checkered boxer brief she found herself smiling at. He settled on her left side, and they started kissing again, relieved at the possibility of letting their hands trail along the other's skin.

The bed dipped again, on Jule's right side this time, and she turned towards Nate. She traced his collarbone with one hand, the other resting against Jake's hip, linking them all together.

She was careful, as she let her fingers trail down, of the bandage wrapped around Nate's abdomen.

“Does it hurt?”

Nate shook his head, watching her intently. She saw his gaze trail down towards Jake behind her, before turning to her eyes again, almost guiltily. Jules stifled a sigh, wondering when the two of them would finally get their shit together and talk. You would think that being in each other's head, sharing thoughts, memories and emotions would have made them just a little bit better at actually communicating, but Jules suspected it was the opposite. They thought they knew each other, thought they could sort through and understand everything that they had seen in the drift, and so they thought they could go on without actually talking.

Or maybe they were just too scared.

But all of that wasn't Jules problem, and not what she was here for. Sure, she would be happy if their little time together helped Jake and Nate actually face each other, but the main goal was for her to have fun and enjoy herself, and she wasn't about to give that up.

She leant down towards Nate, hand dropping from his collarbone to his hip, avoiding the wound on his abdomen, and pressed her lips against his once more. He sighed into the kiss, hands immediately coming up to cradle her head. In the meantime, she found one of Jake's hands with the one she'd had resting on his hip, and pulled it up to her chest.

Jake didn't hesitate one second before running his hands over the soft fabric of her bra, lightly then more insistently. He slipped a finger under it, touching her breast proper as she kept on kissing Nate. Then she felt a hand in her back and a breath on her neck right next to her ear.

“Jules. Can I?”

She pulled away from Nate and turned slightly. “Yeah.”

Jake unclasped her bra, and she slipped it off her shoulder, dropping it somewhere on the floor. Nate looked down, and then two hands were on her chest, one from each man on either side of her.

This felt right, this felt good, and the heat inside of her was a tight knot that screamed how much it was not enough. Looking at the erection in Nate's boxers, the way his mouth hung slightly opened and the worshipful light in his gaze, she wasn't the only one feeling that way. She reached out with one hand, pulling slightly on the elastic band of Nate's underwear. “Down.”

Then she reached down behind her, palm pressing down on Jake's erection. She smirked at his intake of breath. “You as well.”

They both pulled off their underwear, and she followed suit, shimmying out of her panties. She couldn't help herself and rubbed two fingers against her clit. It didn't really help release the tension insider her, instead spreading it across her body in a glowing wave.

“How do you want to do this?” It was Nate who asked the question, although they were probably all thinking about it.

“You're lying down,” Jake replied, only half a second later. He seemed surprised, perhaps even embarrassed at his own readiness to answer. He scratched his neck, toying with his lower lip. “Your injury.” He then offered as explanation.

Jules grinned. For all of his usual bravado, Jake really was acting like a mother hen. His consideration was really sweet.

“I'm fine!” Nate protested.

“I was in your head,” Jake replied, sounding as irritated as Nate had. “I know how much it hurt and I'm not going to let you-”

“I could ride Nate,” Jules cut in. The remark had the nice effect of shutting them up immediately. She grinned. “If he's okay with it, of course. It would be less strain than him doing the fucking, if we're careful.” She tilted her chin up towards Nate. “What do you say?”

“I'm down. What about Jake?”

“I'm sure we can figure something out,” Jules replied, and then she started kissing Jake, pushing him back against the wall at the same time. Nate settled himself against the pillow, and Jules put a hand on his thigh, always careful to include everyone.

She kept the other one at the back Jake's neck for a while, getting used to the way he tasted, the way his mouth moved against hers, the warmth of him. He also had one hand on her neck, and the other was rubbing small circles against one of her nipples. Then Nate's hands were on her hips, on her ribs, exploring in an almost ticklish way. Jules knew she needed to speed things up, she could feel how wet she was getting, she thought her whole body was going to catch fire.

“Do you have lube?” she asked Nate. He quickly pullled a bottle out of his nightstand drawer and handed it to her, fishing out a couple of condoms at the same time. Ever the gentleman.

Jake was sitting sideways on the bed, while Jules was on her knees next to him, with Nate seated with bent knees behind her. It wasn't the most comfortable position for Jules, but she was used to much worse for much longer from years doing repairs on the Jaegers, and she liked being able to move if she needed to.

She squeezed some lube onto her fingers and warmed it up a little bit.

Jake moaned loudly as she took his dick in hand, immediately leaning into her touch and opening his legs some more. She leaned into him, slowly starting to suck a mark against his neck as she stroked him.

“Fuck,” Jake groaned, letting his head drop back to give her better access and throwing an arm over her shoulder. “Fuck.”

Jules felt Nate settle his chin on her shoulder and turned towards him. He looked reverent, but almost insecure as he reached out with one hand to join Jules' on Jake's cock. Placing his fingers over hers, he guided her hand, twisting his wrist on the upstroke. “Like this,” he whispered. Jake's whole body shivered, back arching.

Something passed between the two men as they crossed eyes, and Jules once more realised they shared things she would always be excluded from. But Nate pulled away right after that, letting Jules pick her own rhythm again. So she focused on Jake, on the way he shivered when she ran her thumb over the slit of his cock, gathering drops of precome.

“Fuck, Jules...” Jake groaned, hips bucking up involuntarily.

Jules let out a gasp of her own as she felt Nate's hand trail down her back, then under her. She opened her legs a little more, raised her hips to give him more access. Her muscles would probably start hurting very very soon, but it was worth it when Nate started running the tip of a finger against her clit.

“Yeah...” Jake's eyes were on her, on Nate's fingers touching her, and Jules twisted her wrist again like Nate had showed her. She bent down and kissed him, swallowing his moan. Nate had one hand on her hip, the other rubbing slightly between her folds. Jake's arm was still over her shoulder, but he put a hand behind her neck, pulling her even deeper into the kiss. She felt unbalanced between them, and yet safe, in control.

And then one of Nate's fingers slipped inside of her, and she felt like she was falling head first off a cliff. Instinctively, she tried to open her legs even more, trying to force her muscles to hold her up.

She broke away from Jake's kiss, quickly pecking his lips in apology when she saw him reach towards her again.

“Sorry,” she said quietly, and Nate slowed the movement of his finger inside her. “I can't hold myself up like this for much longer if I want to ride Nate afterwards, I need a break.”

“That's okay,” Nate replied, pulling his hand away so she could move.

“Yeah, it's fine.” Jake was a lot more breathless.

Jules pulled him above her as she let herself fall on the bed, settling in perpendicularly. It wasn't a lot of room, but she propped herself halfway up against the wall, and Jake managed to fit his knees between Jules' open legs.

She was weirdly proud, when he kissed her one more time, of how desperate he felt. He had let his control slip, definitely, and the kisses that could have been made to impress were now just new attempts at chasing a release that had been dangling over his head for too long already. The urgency of it was a thrill, an insistent pulse between Jules' legs. It felt like it had been a while since she had worked with a deadline that wasn't just if you can't do this, everyone's gonna die.

“Nate?” She asked above Jake's head as he latched onto her neck. “Will you be fine if we finish Jake off first?”

Jake made a sound against her skin that he would most definitely deny had been a muffled whine.

“Yeah, I'm okay,” Nate nodded. Jules extended a hand towards him, threading their fingers together. His dick was jutting out, probably achingly hard since it hadn't been touched since the beginnings of their proceedings. Nate definitely looked flushed.

One hand still in Nate's, Jules let the other one trail down Jake's chest right abover her, barely teasing one of his nipple before tracing down the slight burns and other scars that littered it. And then she went back to touching his cock, and he immediately leaned into it. The way he hummed softly at the contact made him resemble a cat purring. Jules twisted her wrist again like she now knew he liked, and he bit down on her skin in pleasure, just under her collarbone where she was sure he had now left a mark.

“Fuck, fuck,” he muttered.

“It's fine-” Jules started reassuring him, thinking that he was worrying about the bite.

“No, no, it's-” Jake shook his head. “Oh fuck. Nate, just-”

Jake looked up, something pleading in his eyes that made Jules' hips buck up involuntarily, and that was all it took for Nate to lean forward, as if drawn by a magnet.

There was something almost scared in both men's expression, like they were falling towards each other by the sheer force of gravity, unsure of whether they would survive the crash. But then their lips met and they both moaned into it, at the exact same time, and then Nate's free hand was on Jake's face. He let go of Jules, and then his other hand was on Jules' on Jake's cock, and Jake was shivering, gasping, the muscles in his arms quivering as he struggled to keep himself up, and then he was coming on both their hands, a strangled cry swallowed by Nate's mouth.

Jake pulled away, oversensitive and gasping, something like awe in his eyes. “Fuck, that was... Thanks.”

Jules grinned, pulling him down so she could peck him on the lips. “You're most welcome.” She felt him run a hand up her thigh, slipping a finger inside her. “Oh... More than welcome.”

Jake smiled, almost languid. Then he turned towards Nate. “I think Jules promised to ride you.”

“I think she did,” Nate replied, grinning in turn.

Jules laughed. “Boys, so impatient!” But she sat up a little, Jake manoeuvering to get out of her way. “Lie down,” she said to Nate, pushing him back as she settled with her knees on either side of his hips. Nate's hand was on his own cock, stroking slowly, gathering the precum at its end before sliding back down, and Jules gripped the headboard with one hand so she could put two fingers inside of her, groaning slightly at how wet she was, how good it felt to have something finally going deeper in. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said to Nate jokingly, “But I still need some more prep.”

“I think I could help with that,” came a reply behind her, Jake's voice slightly rough. He batted her hand away, put one of his on her hip, and then two lubed fingers were sliding inside her once more.

It was Jules' turn to swear, and she gripped the headboard with both hands to keep her balance.

“He's good at it, the bastard,” she muttered, as Jake managed to find her g-spot despite the awkward angle.

Nate hummed in agreement and rose up to tongue at one of her nipples, and Jules had the distinct thought that if the drones and the mega-kaiju hadn't been the death of her, these two men definitely would. There were worse ways to go.

“Fuck, Jake...” He was working her open methodically, making sure she was loose and relaxed before slipping a third finger inside of her. Nate was softly peppering kisses in the space between her breasts. She ran a hand through his short hair, surprisingly soft. Her touch was encouraging, at first, but then she used it to pull him away.

“Condom,” she just said, not trusting herself to string together anything longer. Not needing to string together anything longer, because he would understand.

“Shit, Jules, you're so beautiful,” Jake whispered near her ear. She leaned into his touch and let him support her weight some more as she gave room for Nate to roll on a condom.

Once that was done, she put a hand on his face, guiding him towards her own so she could kiss him, deeply and thoroughly, feeling Jake hum against the skin of her back as she did so, his fingers still working her open. She hoped the kiss would be enough to convey to Nate how much she wanted him, how much she wanted them, how scared she had been to see them leave, off to war, off to die, while she could only watch from afar.

“I'm ready, I'm ready.”

And Nate looked at her with those eyes, those eyes, which he usually hardened to steel in imitation of military authority, but which could be so soft otherwise. Those eyes that said he himself could barely comprehend that he was alive, and Jules was lining herself up, Jake's hands on her hips, and then she was sinking down and Nate was inside her and-

“Fuck.” Surprisingly – or not, since it seemed to be his favorite expletive during sex – the exclamation came from Jake. Jules felt him lay his head on her shoulder, but she couldn't think about it a lot more than to appreciate the contact, too busy enjoying the fullness of Nate's cock inside her and listening to his own heavy breaths as he willed himself not to move.

“Oh god, it feels so good,” she said, not expecting an answer from Nate as she lifted her hips and started moving up and down.

Nate's hands moved from her thighs to her hips, fingers crossing over Jake's. Jules shifted her weight a little, moaning as she found a better angle, the sound echoed by two mouths at once until everything was just an endless echoing of sounds and sensation, and Jules wondered for a second if this was what the drift could feel like, this sense of connection, of instantaneousness.

Nate was thrusting upwards in the same rhythm as her, eyes almost closed, and Jules ran a hand through his hair, because it was there, because she could.

“Just...” Jake mumbled against her neck, and somehow she understood, and pulled slightly.

Nate's eyes shut more tightly as he whined, hips thrusting harder, once, twice, a few more times, and then he was coming insider of her, and Jules was shuddering with it, so close herself...

She rode Nate through his orgasm, and he reached towards her even as he pulled out, an apology on his lips. She almost laughed at the earnestness of it, because she wasn't really worried about not coming when Jake's hands were still against her, already manoeuvering until she lied back down, and then she had three fingers inside her again and a thumb working at her clit, and why would she worry about anything when like this?

And Nate, considerate Nate, was turning towards her, eyes still hazy with afterglow, and kissing her, and Jules felt her orgasm rise, more like a wave spreading through her whole body than a peak. It wasn't the most intense orgasm she had experienced in her life, but for a while it felt like it would last forever, until the aftershocks became overstimulation and she had to pull away, feeling electric.

“As Jake would put it,” she said, a grin spilling her face, “Fuck.”

Nate burst into giggles, while Jake mostly looked confused. Jules decided to kiss his frown away, a surefire way to make things all better. Nate twined his fingers with Jake's, until the latter pulled him up and started kissing him instead of Jules.

There were all less desperate now, less scared that time was running out. Their kiss was softer, softer perhaps than those they shared with Jules, less exploratory and more like coming home.

It was a weird thought for Jules to have. She had known there had been history there, even before they had confirmed it, because it was something people gossiped about, but also something that showed in the way they held themselves around one another. She had known there had been history, and that had felt a little dangerous. But even as they came home to each other, they were making space for her, Jake still between her legs and Nate's hand on her thigh.

If war was destruction, Jules thought, this was what peace was: time. Time to discover, to create, to bridge and connect. It was the softness that came from a lack of urgency.

She looked at them as their kiss broke apart and they just stared into each other's eyes, foreheads resting against one another.

She breathed in. Breathed out. She felt happy.

And then she felt exhausted, the fatigue of the last few days suddenly dropping over her shoulders. Jules groaned. “Sorry to be the killjoy, boys,” she started, stretching her arms above her head. “But my body just reminded me that I haven't had a good night's sleep in a week. Also, no offense, Nate, but your bed is way too tiny to fit all three of us.”

Nate shrugged. “None taken. Feel free to use my shower if you want to clean up before you go.”

“Tempting offer. Is anyone willing to help wash my hair?”

That, too, what was peace was. Hope and dreams and laughter. Togetherness.

#Meeni writes fics #Pacific Rim #Jules Reyes x Nate Lambert x Jake Pentecost #Jules Reyes #Nate Lambert #Jake Pentecost

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