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Gossip is a funny thing—most people assume it originates amongst seeds of truth. Because for speculation to form, there must be a reason, right? Though this is only half true as yes, some gossip sprouts from half-realized truths while other gossip blooms from outlandish lies. And in the Shatterdome, it doesn’t matter what’s true and what isn’t because there’s not much to keep away the impending thoughts of doom plaguing most personnel in its workforce.
Aether himself has sought the most disgusting gossip from his coworkers on more than one occasion to silence his brain when the plume of darkness shrouding his thoughts shows no signs of letting up. But this particular round of gossip floating around the base seems to lean into the outlandish lies category, and Aether has never really liked those rumors much.
The current person subjected to the spotlight is a new Jaeger Pilot transferred from the Shatterdome in Inazuma under an unknown pretense. His name is Kunikuzushi, and the only relevant piece of information widely known by everyone is that his Co-Pilot died in nonideal circumstances. The cause of his death, though, is what everyone seems to be whispering so incessantly about.
This particular news is one Aether finds himself avoiding rather than looking further into it—he’s, unfortunately, no stranger to this circumstance.
Aether didn’t have much of a say as to whether or not he would become a Jaeger Pilot. He was eighteen when the first Kaiju emerged on the shore of Mondstat’s Port, and the world was thrown into chaos. After the military struggled to take down the beast, their numbers dwindling to a third of their former strength, Celestia Enterprises raced to develop what would later be called Jaegers—massive mechs equipped with the ability to take down Kaijus with ease. These machines were revered as humanity's salvation until a critical drawback was uncovered. The strain of drifting on a single human mind caused catastrophic brain trauma that, more often than not, left the pilot forever mentally impaired. This caused a private organization by the name of the Fatui to develop a technology that allowed two people to meld their minds and control the Jaegers together as Co-Pilots.
Things were finally turning in the favor of humanity.
If only it stayed that way.
Turns out it’s difficult to find people compatible enough to hold a stable drift for a prolonged amount of time, so with the military in dire need of new recruits, it became mandatory for high school students eighteen years and older to attempt drift simulations. One day during the middle of his History class, he got called down to the gym for testing, and low and behold, his sister Lumine was waiting along with a Neural Bridge Operator, more commonly known as a Drift Technician.
Aether should mention he and Lumine are twins, so the chances of them being drift compatible shot up considerably, and their fates were sealed pretty much the moment the headgear locked around their consciousnesses.
Now Aether is twenty-two, and the second bed in his living quarters hasn’t been touched in ten months. The memory plays on a loop in the back of his mind almost constantly, and the feeling of flesh tearing as bones sink into bones dances across his body like phantom scars. It should have been him. Not her.
The gray lunch tray in Aether’s hands is trembling, or maybe he is, but it’s still empty, and he’s not all that hungry anymore, so he places it down on a table and sets course for the Kwoon Room. Most of the cadets should be eating their dinner, so Aether is hoping he’ll be alone without any pesky onlookers waiting for the right moment to ask him to spar.
When Lumine died, Aether became a hot commodity amongst his old classmates, and it didn’t take long for the unpartnered cadets to start seeking out Aether and asking him to drift with them. They’re all a little too desperate to get out in the field if you ask him, but he never really liked the idea of being a hero without a real cause, either. Aether is very much enjoying not having to go out there when the alarm wails, too content with Tighnari and Cyno or Deyha and Candace taking down the Kaijus in his stead.
The hallways around the base are mostly empty around this time, so Aether is surprised to hear the distinct whoosh of a wooden staff piercing through the air. With his curiosity piqued, he enters the Kwoon room, and standing in the center of the mats is a man Aether has never seen before. He’s about as tall as Aether, maybe a bit shorter, and his dark hair seems to be a mutant hime cut mixed with a mullet though it’s not as offensive looking as it sounds—the overall shagginess and dark (Indigo? Purple? Aether can’t decide) color helps bring it all together.
Inky eyes are upon Aether in the tenth of a millisecond, and the wooden staff in the stranger’s hand is pointed directly between his eyebrows in less time than that.
“What are you doing here?” The stranger asks, and Aether notes that his voice is deep, with a faint Inazuman accent underlying his words.
“Well, I was here to clear my head, but I have a feeling you’re going to keep me from doing that,” Aether hums, and the staff pointing at him drops to a relaxed position.
“That depends. Are you any good?” The stranger's eyes squint as they look the other man up and down, and Aether knows he’s being judged on his looks alone.
Which is fine, Aether is used to it, considering he just barely passes five feet in height, and his blonde hair, even when braided, lands below his ass. Nothing about his appearance exactly screams professional Jaeger Pilot of four years, but sometimes that’s fun to use against judgemental people and make them feel like assholes for assuming anything different.
“I’m probably better than you,” Aether lays the words out like a hidden challenge, and the stranger steps back on the mat as if he’s beckoning Aether over.
“A bold claim for someone whose hair can easily be yanked,” is spat in Aether’s direction with the company of his own wooden staff being tossed at him.
The dense wood is sturdy as Aether’s fingers wrap around the circumference of the staff and a small grin tugs at the corners of his lips.
When they begin their first match, neither of them stays stagnant for long, limbs and weapons in constant motion.
Aether gets the first strike. The stranger gets the second.
It makes Aether’s blood sing.
They predict each other’s movements like they’ve known each other for years, and even if Aether tries to sabotage or gain the upper hand, the infuriatingly talented stranger knows just how to combat him.
24-24.
Sweat drips from Aether’s chin like the leaky faucet in his kitchen, and his chest rises harshly with each breath of humid air sucked into his lungs. The man across from him on the mat is in a similar predicament, the front pieces of his hair sticking to the wet mess of his forehead. They’re both in a defensive stance, tired as their muscles scream for a reprieve, but neither of them is going to back down. The challenge is too decadent.
There’s no denying that the two of them are drift compatible, and that thought alone is a bit disconcerting as Aether has never meshed with someone so well besides Lumine. A dark feeling similar to betrayal stabs at his gut at the same time the stranger hits Aether’s stomach with the end of his staff. The mat is hard under his body, head pounding as the wind is knocked out of him.
The stranger uses the end of his staff to tip up Aether’s chin while putting his foot on the center of the blonde’s chest to keep him down. They stare at each other over the chasm of distance separating them as Aether’s mouth dries out, and his tongue feels like sandpaper.
“What’s your name?” Aether croaks as his chin is tipped higher, and unreadable dark eyes watch him eerily.
“Kunikuzushi.”
Oh. That actually makes a lot of sense. The Inazuman accent and the bitter personality certainly fit the bill Aether has been hearing about for the past week.
“Aether.”
The staff falls away with a curt hum of acknowledgment as Kunikuzushi steps off of Aether’s chest to gather his things, and the blonde follows suit even though he longs to sprawl out and take a nap right where he’s laid out. They move in silence, and Aether figures that’s going to be the end of it, but the universe has always liked to prove him wrong in annoying ways to keep him humble.
“Tomorrow morning, meet me at the drift simulator after breakfast. Don’t be late,” Kunikuzushi warns as he finishes lacing up his boots and leaves the room.
Interesting.
So very interesting.
✦
Aether feels out of place as he walks down the hallway toward the drift simulator room, a few engineers giving him odd looks in passing as if they’re trying to place the reason he’s here. The looks themselves have Aether’s skin crawling, and he pushes himself to make longer strides to escape the speculation. It’s not a secret that Aether has turned down every proposal to drift with someone else since Lumine was killed in the field, so it’s obvious everyone would be a bit perplexed.
He can hear the new gossip already.
What is Aether Viator doing at the drift simulator? Is he meeting anyone? Isn’t he the guy who had a mental breakdown and swore off piloting? Is he even stable enough to be a Jaeger Pilot anymore?
An icky feeling, thick and tarlike, makes it harder for Aether to pick up his feet the closer he gets to his meeting spot with Kunikuzushi. Why is Aether doing this? Is it because he saw a bit of himself in Kunikuzushi? Or is it something Aether himself isn’t entirely aware of yet? The sound of Aether’s boots against the solid concrete echoes in the empty corners of his mind, and even though it’s daunting, it helps drown out the horrible whispers to turn back.
“You actually came,” comes a familiar Inazuman accent to the left, and Aether whips his head in that direction.
Leaning against the wall is Kunikuzushi with his arms crossed loosely and a crooked smirk pulling on his lips. He looks more like a cadet in training rather than a seasoned Jaeger Pilot who’s taken down countless Kaiju in the toxic seas of Inazuma—no sign of torment behind his expression. Aether is almost a bit jealous that he can hide it that well. No one comes out of this line of work unscathed, especially when your Co-Pilot dies, their ghost a forever presence licking at your heels like some sort of demon waiting to drag you down to the hell you imprisoned them in.
Sometimes Aether swears he can feel Lumine walking in place beside him around the base, but whenever he looks over, not even her outline is visible. Her joy, her sadness, her pain, Aether can feel it all like the backtracking vocals in a popular song that’s gotten stuck in his head. Honestly, the entire idea of drifting should be considered one big cosmic joke because the ability to physically feel someone after they’ve died is inhumane and the worst sensation in the world. It never stops whether Aether is awake or not, his dreams filled with sirens and red emergency lights inside a wrecked Con-Pod.
“You left before I could tell you no,” Aether supplies as he maintains eye contact with the transfer.
“And yet, here you are.” Kunikuzushi pushes himself off the wall and walks up to Aether until there’s only about a foot of space separating them.
Upon their first meeting, Aether assumed the two of them were the same height, but now that they’re this close, he can see that Kunikuzushi is a bit taller than him. Aether has to tilt his head up slightly to gaze at the other man, and that only helps to worsen the anxious churning of his gut. Everything inside Aether is telling him this man, Kunikuzushi, is trouble and that he should run as far away from this Shatterdome as he possibly can, but a quieter, far crazier part of him is urging him to stay anyway.
“You don’t exactly look like the kind of guy who gets turned down.” Pointless banter is easier than confronting those particular thoughts right now, Aether can do banter all day long.
“You’d be right,” Kunukuzushi confirms as he reaches out with a stray hand and grabs Aether’s braid, feeling each tightly woven section thoroughly. “Have you ever thought about cutting this off?”
Yes, Aether thinks instantly, yes, I have.
Lumine always thought Aether had such pretty hair, about two shades closer to golden than hers, and she was constantly fiddling with it. One of the last things she touched before that mission was Aether’s hair when she was trimming his dead ends in their room. It hasn’t been cut since.
“No, I haven’t.” Aether swallows thickly, the explanation caught somewhere in a past riddled with soft touches.
“Shame.” The golden braid slips out from between Kunikuzushi’s fingers as he reaches the end, and it falls back into place like nothing happened. At this proximity, Aether can see the exact moment adamant fascination turns into disinterest, like flowers wilting from being kept in the sun for too long. “Let’s go.”
Aether doesn’t know what possesses him in that moment, but he follows Kunikuzushi into the darkened room where a spotlight hangs over the two chairs. They look like the ones found in patient rooms at the dentist, with the addition of a helmet strapped to the top. Upon first look, they’re a bit daunting, but when you’ve been in the business as long as Aether, they start to seem more comforting than anything.
The black leather of the chair is cold even through Aether’s layers of clothing, and a jolt runs down his spine as the absurdity of his situation washes over him. He’s drifting with someone new for the first time when Lumine’s memory hasn’t even grown cold in the back of his mind, and that someone new is the same man who’s rumored to have murdered his Co-Pilot.
In front of Aether is a glass panel. He can’t see it, but he knows it’s there; he’s been on the other side enough, observing potential matches. Nahida thought maybe he’d enjoy a change of pace after Lumine’s passing, something simple. Except drifting was anything but simple. There’s so much science and luck involved, and the theory of Murphy's law seems to follow Aether around like a dark storm cloud.
“Alright, guys, relax. The drift simulation will be commencing in sixty seconds,” Aether recognizes the voice to be Nilou, and he feels some of the tension release at knowing who’s behind the glass.
The helmet above Aether lowers until it's just barely existing around the sphere of his head, and his eyes glance beside him to see Kunikuzushi in the same situation.
About 20 seconds in, the warm and fuzzy feeling starts—a weightlessness engulfing the commands coming from Aether’s brain to his body as they’re redirected to what feels like a different realm entirely. The room slips away to a pitch-black kind of darkness where orientation is obsolete, and everywhere you look makes it seem like you’re free-falling. If Aether had to describe it, he’d say it feels something akin to sinking into the twilight zone, unsure of what’s waiting for you the further you descend until sparks of memory ignite like flash fireworks.
The act of drifting is so familiar yet foreign as new memories drift past him in a haze of light and dull colors. They’re new amongst the forming stars rising above the surface of the ocean and easier to pick out compared to Aether’s own memories, and he has to resist the urge to follow, to piece together this stranger who oh so effortlessly got him into this room.
Logically Aether knows no more than 40 seconds could have gone by, but it feels as if a millennium has passed before he can feel Kunikuzushi’s consciousness falling in sync beside him. The other man’s presence feels sharp and cold, like the flat side of a sharpened knife you never want to be on the wrong side of. Drifting with Lumine always felt like swimming into perfectly undisturbed water, waiting to accept an offering of movement. Aether didn’t know it could feel any different. This is almost. . . exciting.
Then Kunikuzushi’s presence halts somewhere above Aether on the path back to their bodies, and a dreadful feeling pools in Aether’s gut as he realizes what memory they just passed. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Aether feels unbalanced in proportion to time as the stability of their drift falters, and he’s pulled headfirst into a memory he’d rather not revisit even on his deathbed.
Alarms blare overhead, and emergency lights flash red in quick succession as Aether’s gaze lands upon Kunikuzushi, kneeling in the center of the chaos. For a moment, Aether can see himself from behind, Lumine next to him, as the shiny black material of their drive suits reflects the frenzy of activity collapsing around them. It only takes a few more seconds before Aether is pulled back into his body the way his mind remembers. His perception of reality and the present slips away like the sea returning to low tide as unbridled fear and dread fill the empty space.
Pressure. Pain. Kaiju. Jaeger. Drift. Drifting. Lumine.
Screaming. Pain. Panic. Life. Death. Pain. Pain. Pain.
Noise. Static. Drifting. Drift. Nothing. Empty. Alone.
Aether is forcibly pulled back into the present with a shuddered gasp that rattles his bones and sets his chest on fire. He can barely feel the oxygen circulating in his lungs as he rolls out of the chair onto the floor, narrowly avoiding cracking his forehead open. Invisible needles prick his skin until every nerve inside his body starts to lose sensation, no feeling of external stimuli making it back to his brain. Aether could be floating again or being eaten alive by a Kaiju, and he wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
What could either be hands or teeth or claws settle on his back, and through his vibrating gaze, Aether can see Nilou crouched over him, red hair framing her face. Just past her, he can see Nahida kneeling next to a much more well-put-together Kunikuzushi. The only sign he went through a failed drift, too, is the twitching of his fingers against his thighs, and that minuscule detail makes Aether angry.
The nerve of this guy. He forces Aether to drift with him, and he follows the fucking R.A.B.B.I.T like some kind of student from the academy. This can not be the work of someone who's been piloting for eight years with fifteen consecutive kills on their record. No way, Aether refuses to believe that.
“You,” Aether growls when his tongue stops feeling like a foreign weight in his mouth. “You entitled prick. Where do you get off invading my memory like that?”
Kunikuzushi tilts his head just slightly to face the blonde, a small movement that reveals the increasing discipline needed to control his demeanor. The hollowness of his eyes is illuminated by the matchstick of fury ignited in their depths, waiting to catch a wick and set the rest of himself aflame. Aether wants to get his hands on a gallon of gasoline to help speed up the process so the other man knows exactly what it’s like to be invaded, overrun, massacred by someone else’s consciousness. Their thoughts and feelings intertwining with your own until they become indistinguishable.
Oh fuck—half of this anger doesn’t even belong to Aether. It belongs to Kunikuzushi, whose knife-like presence is still settled over Aether like a weighted blanket. He didn’t notice it at first, not with the initial shock of getting knocked out of the drift, but the other man is definitely there. Lurking on the edge of his mind, watching and waiting to see Aether’s further reaction. What game is he playing?
“It was an accident,” Kunikuzushi mutters through the rigid line of his jaw, words tinged with a genuine quality that Aether can feel parroted back from inside his own mind.
Nothing can be fake in the drift—they can only be hidden by mental walls built by seasoned rangers, but neither of them has had enough time to put up such precautions. Whether Aether wants to believe him or not, Kunikuzushi is telling the truth. This stupid goddamn ghost drift needs to fall apart in the next five minutes, or else Aether is climbing to the highest point of the Shatterdome so he can leave in a body bag.
The tingling of otherworldly teeth lodged snugly into the ghost of his sister’s corpse rattles through Aether again, and he watches in an almost sick sense of satisfaction when a wince flutters across Kunikuzushi’s carefully schooled expression.
“I don’t care if it was an accident—” Aether knocks Nilou’s hands away from him as he pushes himself onto wobbly legs— “I never want to drift with you again. Never.”
And Aether really fucking means it. His choice is absolute in all the ways that should matter. Except that pesky little ghost drift never goes away, and it’s starting to become exhausting keeping the brick wall between their thoughts from crumbling.
Ghost drifting is an interesting phenomenon. No scientists from the K-Science division can explain what it is in its entirety other than it’s a common side effect of drifting. Supposedly a ghost drift is meant to be faint at first, with only minor traces left behind on the brain like a temporary tattoo. Subsequently, after several successful drifts with the same partner is the ghost drift able to strengthen enough to last outside of drifting for more than a few hours. For some Co-Pilots, that can range from days to weeks to months.
And therein lies the problem, doesn’t it? Aether and Kunikuzushi drifted once, a week ago, and it ended just a step below civilly.
Even with the wall put up between them, Aether can still sense where Kunikuzushi is around the base throughout the day and small baseline blips of emotions resonating below the surface of their connection. It’s nothing more than sitting in a car as the engine idles, rocking the vehicle until it becomes virtually unnoticeable, but even in that scenario, jolts happen out of nowhere. Around the fourth day, Aether thought he was finally free of the other man, but a sudden onset of annoyance towards a few J-Tech engineers pulsed through him. Annoyance that very much didn’t belong to him as he sat in bed and read a novel he’d been meaning to for years.
Kunikuzushi was beginning to become a phenomenon all on his own the longer Aether suffered with this residual ghost drift.
Neither of them, or well, Aether hadn’t stuck around to hear all of the statistics cataloged during their simulation, but their success probability seemed more and more intriguing with each passing hour. Was it high? Was it low? Was it why Aether physically couldn’t get Kunikuzushi out of his head?
The doors of the ranger dorms always looked rather repelling, in Aether’s humble opinion. Lumine had tried to remedy this critique by putting little stickers and drawings on the outside of theirs. It helped make their room significantly more welcoming than intended, their friends always inviting themselves inside without an invitation. Then it didn’t take long for the other rangers to follow the trend and add their own personalizations to the dorms.
Kunikuzushi doesn’t have stickers on his door, the nameplate to the right with his surname is the only indication he lives here at all. The nail wedging itself in Aether’s proverbial coffin is the horrifying fact that Kunikuzushi undoubtedly knows the blonde is standing on his doorstep. Another reason Aether can’t bring himself to knock or yell or do anything that isn’t questioning all his life decisions.
Open the door.
The request is soft, barely slid through a crack in the mortar holding the bricks together, and Aether is half expecting a softer fuck off to resonate back at him. Not because of any lack of emotion but the pure principle of getting back exactly what you give. Instead of a response, though, Aether hears shuffling behind the door before it creaks open on its hinges to reveal Kunikuzushi with his hair wet and stringy around his face from a shower.
He lacks the meticulous air of perfection that usually surrounds him like this, revealing a man closer to human than Aether initially thought.
“Does never mean something different in this language?”
Yup. Still definitely an asshole. At least that didn’t change overnight.
“What was our score?” Aether asks as he struggles to keep his mind in check.
Kunikuzushi lets his gaze casually roam Aether from head to toe as his expression remains neutral with a hint of displeasure that can be disputed from fascination faintly buzzing across the ghost drift. He leans against the edge of his door as he sighs, a few pieces of hair obscuring his eyes from view.
“Ninety-seven percent.” The ghost drift pulses again quickly with something Aether can’t quite decipher, but he really wants Kunkikuzushi to invite him in already. “Buer thinks it might’ve been higher if we weren’t forcibly ejected.”
Aether nods as the information sinks into him like oil in a bowl of water, there but not entirely integrating with the base solution. He and Lumine only had a base compatibility of 88%, and that was considered high, so to hear the numbers nine and seven together instead of separately was more than jarring. It was impossible; it had to be. There’s no way in hell that he and Kunikuzushi were essentially a perfect match. That didn’t happen between identical twins, let alone strangers who just met.
And yet, they’ve been coasting on a ghost drift for a week with no signs of the connection weakening.
“So when are we trying again?” Kunikuzushi asks, unmoved from his earlier position, as he watches Aether carefully.
Aether wanted to say no. He really, really did. Even as he was strapped into the same chair by Nahida herself. Having the Marshal of the Sumeru Shatterdome personally invested in their drift compatibility should be considered an honor, but Aether knew it was a curse. Her involvement meant this had to work, and failure was prohibited. At least, that’s how it made sense to him when he saw the 100% staring at him from the control panel.
Impossible.
Utterly impossible.
Somehow, between their accidental meeting and their first drift, Aether was eighteen again, and he didn’t have a choice in tethering his life to someone else.
✦
Are you coming?
Aether wants to bash his head against the wall because maybe then he can finally rid himself of the pest that’s infiltrated his brain.
Viator.
Blood dripping down his forehead would be hot and messy, but the pulsing of an injury is a better alternative to the constant tugging on the tether keeping him attached to Kunikuzushi.
If you’re not here in the next three minutes, I will find you and carry you here myself.
Aether finds his feet shuffling down the hallway before he can decide if going to this meeting is worth not having to endure another legendary round of manhunt with his Co-Pilot. The objective of the manhunt is simple. Aether refuses to do something having to do with their partnership, so Kunikuzushi tracks him down with the help of their ghost drift and drags Aether to it with the blonde slung over his shoulder like a lifeless doll.
Too many random people around the Shatterdome have seen Aether bending to his partner’s every whim when it comes to training in the Kwoon Room, eating meals together, or sneaking into the dark-haired man’s room well after base curfew. They don’t do anything under the guise of darkness, they just sit around the crappy circular table in the corner, drinking tea so bitter it makes Aether’s teeth ache. He knows what it looks like from the outside because, apparently, one night, Kaveh, a J-Tech engineer, caught him in the act and accused him of withholding important information about his love life. Aether laughed in his face without another word.
I’m on my way. Don’t pop a blood vessel.
Foreign satisfaction swirls in the pit of Aether’s stomach, and he stomps it out on his end of the drift with only a tiny hope that Kunikuzushi feels his displeasure take root instead.
When Aether enters Nahida’s office, he’s greeted with the sight of Kunikuzushi sitting cross-legged on her desk as he plays with the aforementioned woman’s hair and Kaveh readjusting models on a green-tinged holographic display before re-readjusting them again. Three pairs of eyes shift to him when he walks further into the room, and Kaveh begins his presentation before Aether can sit in one of the chairs at the conference table farthest from Kunikuzushi.
Arcane Desender.
That’s the name of their future Jaeger.
A Mark VII standing at 250ft equipped with a Gravity Sling, a 2.0 Chain Sword, and an N-16 Particle Charger. She’s going to be built with an ultra-light frame utilizing high-tensile muscle strands. Apparently, the sleek design allows her to perform feats ranging from high jumps and acrobatic leaps that give the illusion she can fly. Bold claims made by a bold engineer but Kaveh has always been one to outshine himself from his previous projects.
As the short meeting comes to a close and Kaveh gets the final approval needed from Nahida, Aether pointedly ignores the pleased waves of gratification lapping against his legs, knowing full well it’s a shared sentiment. Going back into the field is an ultimately terrifying experience that holds a significant amount of weight, and Aether isn’t sure how he’ll actually react to being back in a real Jaeger. Will he panic? Will he find comfort in it? The last option scares him more than the first. He doesn’t deserve to be in a Jaeger without his sister—to be living instead of his sister.
Why her? What did he do wrong? How could he have done better?
Viator.
Even inside his head, Kunikuzushi retains the deepness of his voice and the steady undertone of his accent as he unceremoniously slams into Aether’s train of thought.
Walls.
In the middle of his spiral, Aether let the integrity of his mental block soften, and the foundation of his wall weakened enough to let his feelings leak through the drift. They sit along the tether like wet laundry, barely hanging on because the weight of the water is too much, and one rough shake will send them tumbling down. Aether gives them two rough shakes for good measure and forces Kunikuzushi back into the corner of his mind with the least amount of information. He hates treating each of their heads like a duplex with common areas and closed-off rooms they can’t help but find themselves inside.
Aether can no longer count on one hand how often he finds himself sifting through the filing cabinets of memories buried in the back of Kunikuzushi’s mind without realizing what he was doing. His partner has never commented on the mishaps, and that possibly has to do with the fact Aether has never stumbled upon anything he hasn’t seen in the drift multiple times. Pieces of Kunikuzushi’s backstory are undoubtedly missing. That much he knows for certain. None of his memories makes a cohesive timeline that completes the person Aether knows.
The most significant glaring indicator being Aether doesn’t actually know what happened to Kunikuzushi’s last Co-Pilot. Sure, he knows the other man is deceased, but that fact stemmed from logistical gossip, Not Kunikuzushi offering it up. Somehow, he can hide things from Aether even when it should be impossible during a simulation drift.
Each day, Aether finds the urge to cut Kunikuzushi open under a knife more compelling than the last, if only to see if he’ll find flesh and blood or machinery and oil.
Their gazes meet across the room, a flash of recognition in dark eyes, and Aether knows that’s another desire shared amongst them.
✦
Experiencing the view from above in the Shatterdome has always been an incredibly humbling affair to Aether when he finds himself on the catwalk that houses all the Con-Pods for their respective Jaegers. Everyone looks so small, so insignificant. A perfect imitation of a colony of worker ants milling about below and doing what they need to do to get through their day. Outside of missions, no one besides personnel in the J-Tech division roams this area, so it’s an easy place to stay hidden. Unless one of those people you’re trying to remain hidden from happens to be a very nosy Jaeger Engineer.
“Oh no. You’re hiding.” Kaveh observes as he easily slides into the spot next to Aether on the ground, legs hanging over the ledge of the catwalk.
Aether doesn’t remove his eyes from the constant motion of the lower level, choosing to sling his arms over the bottom rung of the railing instead as they sway uselessly. He sinks the majority of his weight into the stability the iron bars provide, hoping they won’t snap, or maybe hoping they will so he can avoid the impending conversation Kaveh is about to start. The integrity of the wall between his and Kunikuzushi’s thoughts is more secure than usual after that whole fiasco in the Marshal’s office, so he’s not worried about it getting broadcast to the other man, but that doesn’t mean he wants to have it either.
“What makes you think I’m hiding?”
It’s a blatant hair trigger deflection, one Aether knows isn’t going to work on the older man, but what’s the harm in prolonging the inevitable? Kaveh knocks his shoulder against Aether’s side, and he can hear the yeah right, like Kaveh is the one inside his head instead of Kunikuzushi. For some reason, that seems like a greater evil than having his current Co-Pilot pillage his mind like unconquered territory.
A breath. One. Two.
“I don’t think I can handle this again,” Aether finally relents in a whisper after a moment of sitting in waiting silence.
“Handle what? Piloting?” The earnest sincerity in the other man’s tone causes an oppressive pang of nausea to settle in the base of Aether’s throat.
His next swallow barely pushes past the lump, and it takes everything inside Aether not to bolt.
“Fucking everything,” Aether laughs, a dry, quiet sound that holds no humor. “Jaegers, Kaiju, sharing my head. It’s all bullshit.”
Aether can barely remember what it was like before that first drift simulation in his high school gymnasium, the same way he can barely remember what he had for dinner last night. A faint impression of an idea. He knows it was quiet. Like how a clock will never stop ticking, but as time passes, the noise melts into the background until you re-remember its existence. Sure, it was a fake quiet, but it was still comfortable nonetheless.
Then Lumine weaseled her way into the mapping of folds across the surface of his brain, and she became a constant source of never-ending sound. She filled in all the empty space like she’d always been there, and suddenly, there was nothing they didn’t share as twins. Zilch belonged to either of them without it belonging to the other one, too. It was a learning curve unlike any other, and just when Aether had gotten used to it, that noise was snuffed faster than a flame on a dying wick.
The moment it happened wasn’t instantaneous—the noise that was Lumine lingered like smoke twirling toward the heavens, yearning for something softer, gentler. Aether thought that if he was fast enough, he could reignite the spark, grab her essence in his hands, and force her back into light. It was a misplaced effort because the smoke eventually dispersed, only the memory of it remaining, and Aether was alone in the room that was his head again. There was nothing but him and the ticking of a clock as he felt insanity fester inside him.
Light became dark—white became black.
Aether couldn’t tell which way was up and which way was down, a void staring at him from across the room, threatening what only he would consider a gift. Oblivion. It sounded beautiful, looked beautiful. Oblivion. It would save him. Oblivion. It was close enough that he could taste an end so cold it became hot on the tip of his tongue.
But oblivion never came for Aether the way it came for Lumine.
He was stuck in this endless loop of life, and no matter how much he planned or fantasized, he just kept on living. Aether has never considered himself suicidal, and he still wouldn’t, but he can’t say he’s never imagined taking one wrong step on the catwalk. Would it feel like the freefall right before a drift? Would it feel freeing? Would it hurt? Aether kind of hopes it would.
“You don’t have to keep punishing yourself over what happened.” Kaveh swings his legs, movement caught in Aether’s peripheral vision. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Aether wouldn’t consider himself a violent person either, but he wants to grab something fragile and fracture it into a million little pieces fitted with jagged edges that might finally complete him.
“If it wasn’t my fault, whose was it, huh? Nahida’s? The fucking Kaiju’s?” Aether shakes his head and lays his cheek against the railing as he takes a deep breath that rattles his chest on the exhale. “No one but me was in that Jaeger with her, and it was my call to wait. If I had just listened to her, the Kaiju wouldn’t have had the opening it did to—”
Blonde hair, hazel eyes, and a smile crafted from the sun all wrapped into someone with the same blood, a built-in best friend.
“—to take everything from me”
Kaveh sighs softly as a large hand rubs the top of Aether’s back, cheek rubbing back and forth on the metal of the rail unpleasantly. He means well, Aether knows he does, but he also knows Kaveh will never understand the grief of holding someone’s last moment, last words, and last thoughts in the back of his mind forever.
It’s okay, brother, home is wherever we are together.
Aether cries quietly, and Kaveh offers him the small mercy of pretending not to notice.
✦
Insects are crawling beneath the surface of Aether’s skin, pincers tearing holes through muscles and ligaments so they can crawl deeper and multiply. He scratches at his arms until his flesh is stripped red, and the stinging pain lingers in muted throbbing that barely distracts from everything else. This always happens when he wakes up from a nightmare in a different bed he didn’t fall asleep in, it’s become a monthly routine. What’s not routine, though, is the specific bed he’s in.
Kunikuzushi is on the other side of the room, still peacefully asleep in his own bed and completely aware of Aether losing it in the spare bed of his dorm. He moans as he adjusts further onto his side, arm sliding under his pillow, and Aether begins routing a silent escape.
Scratch. One. Two. Scratch. Two. One.
The linen of the thin sheet drags against Aether’s legs as he attempts to recall the instance he started becoming comfortable enough to relax, let alone fall asleep, in the other man’s presence. They’ve only been partners for about two months now, with barely any social interaction outside of training or accidentally popping into each other’s heads. It doesn’t track at all.
Aether came over for bitter tea, and they didn’t talk besides curt greetings or the occasional jab toward their training session from earlier in the day. After that was done, Aether was supposed to go back to his room down the hall as per the delicate ritual they’ve built. It helps keep them just enough in tune that the ghost drift doesn’t feel like it’s suffocating them the further they stray from physical contact. So why oh fucking why is Aether still here?
As his feet make contact with the ground, flashes of the nightmare wash over the blonde in waves, hazy and shimmery in nature.
White. So much white. A hospital room, maybe? There was definitely excessive beeping from what could only be a vitals monitor. Pale hands. Bony fingers. All ten trembling around a pillow covered in a wrinkled white cover. Everything after that blurs into a mess of muddled colors and heavy terror.
Aether collects his coat from the back of the chair he occupied a few hours ago as he resists the urge to collect another layer of skin under his fingernails. The blonde is only three steps away from the door when hears bed springs creaking behind him, and that infuriating sharp presence waltzes into his mind like he owns it. Kunikuzushi doesn’t have to say a thing for Aether to turn around and face him with his lips drawn in a taught line.
“What are you doing?” Even freshly woken up in the dead of night, Kunikuzushi looks effortlessly put together, and Aether wants to wrap his hands around his neck until his eyes bulge.
“I’m going back to my room,” Aether clicks his tongue as he bounces from foot to foot, the insects still very much present.
“Even after I was nice enough to tuck you in?” His tone is nothing less than bland as Kunikuzushi pushes himself onto his elbows, eyes giving Aether a slow once over.
Aether opens his mouth to speak, but before he can utter a single syllable, Kunikuzushi fixes him with a hard glare that stops him cold.
Get over here.
The command is simple, decisive, and easy to follow, yet the complete nerve of the dark-haired man forces an uneasy shiver down his spine. It makes Aether stand straighter as he walks over to his Co-Pilot and stops right before his knees knock into the side of the bed. Looking down at Kunikuzishi is something Aether doesn’t get to do often, but each time is better than the last. It’s a privilege standing above someone so disconnected and unconcerned with everything for the sole reason being they know nothing can knock them down. A shot of dopamine would never compare to this rush.
“I can feel your emotions. I know you’re having a panic attack, but I don’t need a ghost drift for that. I’m not stupid—” Dark eyes flick down to angry, red-lined arms— “I’m going to touch you now.”
Aether barely has enough time to think before deceptively strong arms wrap around his torso, pull him down on the bed, and shift him around until his back is pressed to Kunikuzushi’s chest. The other man tightens his hold across the blonde’s sternum before Aether gets the faint impression to follow his partner’s breathing pattern. It was a subtle suggestion passed along the ghost drift, and with each breath, Aether feels the crawling under his skin lessen, exhaustion taking root in place of it.
“What is this?” The arms wrapped around Aether loosen slightly at his question.
“Is it helping?” Kunikuzushi asks, his breath tickling the back of the blonde’s neck, another shiver wracking his spine.
Aether makes the decision that responding isn’t in his best interests as he continues to copy Kunikuzushi’s breathing, settling further into him, oddly sheltered in his hold.
“That’s what I thought—” Kunkuzushi moves his face, the tip of his nose brushing the shell of Aether’s ear— Go back to sleep.
No more words are shared between them after that, the room falling into an agreeable silence as Aether tries not to think about how warm Kunikuzushi feels pressed into the lax line of his body. They won’t discuss this in the morning, like most things, but that’s okay, Aether would rather they didn’t anyway. He’ll enjoy the fleeting comfort of another person next to him until it disappears again.
✦
Sweat collects on the tip of Aether’s nose before dripping into the hollow of Kunikuzushi’s neck.
Tension stretches across the ghost drift, making the air around them vibrate with unshed energy and dangerous ambition. The dark-haired man is pinned under his staff, looking up at Aether with a manic grin stretched across his lips, all teeth and wide eyes with pinpoint pupils. Like this, Aether finds it hard to see the unhuman thing everyone else in the Shatterdome makes his Co-Pilot out to be. It only took a few different sparring sessions for Kunikuzushi to shed his carefully painted expression of neutrality and let Aether see just how much training sparks an insatiable fire within him.
Fire—it’s something Aether finds himself thinking about a lot lately. The opposite of water. Able to devastate a nation yet also able to make it prosper. Drifting with Lumine was like diving head first into a still, vast ocean that had the ability to soothe every painful thing Aether had ever felt. A healing balm perfectly created with the sole purpose of saving him. Aether isn’t sure what he feels like in a drift. No one has ever told him, and he’s never thought to ask because, as Lumine’s twin, he assumed he had to feel like water too. Yet as of late, Aether finds his thoughts often drawn to images of flames—greedy in their search for everlasting light, using any kindling it can find to live even one second longer. Never truly knowing if it’s going to achieve its goal or doomed to die anyway.
Maybe that makes sense, though. Water and fire technically make up two sides of the same coin, the same way twins do in a metaphorical sense. Lumine was always his greatest savior, and Aether was always his biggest enemy. Both elements are shapeless in form, and each has its own purposes outside of the other, as do all things, but they were also created to repel each other.
Water extinguishes fire, and fire evaporates water—it all just depends on who’s fast enough.
When Aether steps back to let Kunikuzushi up, he glances at the edge of the room where he’s felt a familiar presence lingering for the past few hours. At first, he notices nothing more than the normal scratches etched into the wall, but as he goes to switch focus again, he sees her leaning there by the entrance. She looks so real, her favorite light blue sweater wrapped around her shoulders, head tilted slightly to the left as she watches him with glittering eyes.
Sometimes, because Aether has a weak soul and simple desires, he truly thinks she is real. His hands tremble around the staff as Lumine pushes off the wall and walks closer to the mat, stopping right behind Kunikuzushi. She leans around the other man, peering up at his face as if inspecting him, and Kunikuzushi offers Aether a quirked eyebrow in response to his lack of movement.
Then he turns his head to make direct eye contact with Lumine, and Aether feels his breath stall as if someone has their hands wrapped completely around his neck. His heartbeat pulses in his ears, and he just barely feels it in the tips of his fingers as he watches them blink at each other slowly like two cats acknowledging one another. It’s entirely too calculated for Aether’s liking, as if Kunikuzushi is trying to study his sister for an answer only she can give him.
“She’s prettier than I thought,” Kunikuzushi says as Lumine begins to fade into nothing more than seafoam crashing against the sharp rocks of a coastline. “You never think about her much when we drift.”
The staff that was previously in Aether’s hand finds solace with the ground as the blonde grabs Kunikuzushi by the front of his shirt and hauls him in close, sweat-slicked skin easing the brush of their noses. This close, he can feel the exhausted heat radiating off of the other man’s face in waves, a testament to how hard they were going at it before this unwanted instance.
“Do not talk about her with me,” Aether snaps, a dangerously low register of his voice emerging as his gaze darts between his Co-Pilot’s eyes, finding nothing but detached apathy.
Most of the time, Aether doesn’t have a problem coexisting with Kunikuzushi, even when it tests his large reserve of patience, the bottom emerging closer every time. Yet occurrences like this come out of nowhere and rattle him with how easy it is for the other man to rile him up like he’s no better than a beast. So far, their biggest argument had been over how to properly prepare tea, so Aether would be lying if he said he wasn’t already concerned about how this will turn out.
“It’s been a year, Viator, you need to get a grip.” Kunikuzushi pushes closer until their chests touch as he returns the harsh inflection of the conversation, straightening his posture to appear taller in such close proximity.
Aether knows exactly where the carotid artery lies within a person’s neck. He learned it back in some high school health class, and the information never left him. Now all he wants to do is stand up on his tiptoes and sink his teeth into Kunikuzushi so he can tear it out in a beautiful display of glory.
“Like you have any right to tell me how to feel about my sister when you probably murdered your last partner—” Fuck, Aether didn’t mean that, but the horrified depth Kunikuzushi’s expression adopts is so gratifying that he can’t stop— “Yeah. Don’t think for one second that you’re the only person here who can put together the bigger picture. I saw it in my dreams. A hospital room and your hands. I know what you are.”
Kunikuzushi breathes deeply through his nose as his nostrils flare, and the sudden appearance of such emotion makes this pit inside of Aether coil with pure delight. Then the clattering of the other man’s staff being thrown down makes Aether jump as two hands grab at his waist with vicious intentions meant to mark, and mutilate, and hurt. Blunt nails dig into the flesh barely protected by his clothes, and Aether hisses through his teeth as Kunikuzushi remains eerily still with his steel grip on him.
“And how about you don’t start talking about big pictures until you have more than a third of the story,” his breath is hot against Aether’s lips as he whispers the words, an unearthly sort of rage clearly locked into the tense lines of his muscles. His jaw is set like stone, the tendons in his neck visible below the skin, and his eyes look almost as if they’re shaking.
The hands holding Aether in place dig in harder until it stings, fully unhesitating in leaving a lasting ache behind. Without thinking, Aether knocks his forehead against his Co-Pilot’s nose forcefully, and a crack echoes throughout the room as pain blossoms across the ghost drift. Kunikuzushi stumbles back with his head tipped toward the ceiling as a trail of blood slowly starts crawling down his face.
Aether watches transfixed as laughter, fucking laughter, bubbles up from the pit of Kunikuzushi's stomach, violent satisfaction creeping in alongside pain invading the blonde’s mind. Which one of them it accurately belongs to is hard to decipher as thoughts appear and disappear with seemingly no order. Honestly, at this moment in time, they’re too intertwined mentally for anyone to successfully pick them apart because not even Aether is sure where he begins and ends when the dark-haired man is involved.
“Oh, so you do have a backbone.” Kunikuzishi laughs again as he fixates his stare at Aether again, the blood reaching his mouth now. “It's good to know you won't just bend over and take it from anyone.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Aether hears more than feels his breaths growing ragged while he takes another step back, mental wall be damned, as that same satisfaction grows at a concerning rate.
“Why don't you tell me if you're so smart,” Kunikuzushi spits, specs of blood landing on the floor between them, tiny red stars against a barren black canvas.
White. Hyperventilating. Sadness. Anger. Loss. Grief.
None of it makes any fucking sense. Before, Aether was speaking without reason, with no other intention but to cause Kunikuzushi distress. Now his accusation feels like the only correct answer to an open-ended question with no clues on a test he failed to study for. Aether knows he’s sinking into the memory again, and he barely pulls himself to the surface, lungs begging for air, when Kunikuzushi forces the remaining pieces into his head.
His name was Niwa. He had a terminal diagnosis from a mission gone wrong due to a malfunction within their Jaeger that never made it to the mouth of the media. Kunikuzushi loved him the way a child is supposed to love their mother—wholeheartedly and human. So very human that it makes Aether’s chest feel tight and he can’t stop the tears that prick the corner of his eyes. The other man wanted nothing more than for the most important person in his life to leave behind his pain.
“You did kill him,” the words leave Aether slowly, the formation of them sluggish in his mouth.
“So what if I killed him? He was already dying!” The manic intensity is back in Kunikuzushi’s eyes, ripping Aether apart right to his core, searching for an understanding the blonde is reluctant to admit exists. (Kunikuzushi knows, though. He always did.)
They stare at each other from across the mat, a silence encasing them as the reality of their situations settles into their bones.
“I killed her too,” Aether finally concedes as the throbbing in his forehead settles into a dull ache, and the tears spill over his cheeks without blinking.
Kunikuzushi watches him as his shoulders droop into a less defensive stance than before, “I know.”
The words take Aether by surprise. No one has ever agreed with him so openly when he's said it, even when he knows they agree. An odd sense of gratitude sweeps over him as a shaky breath leaves him. Kunikuzushi tracks Aether as the blonde takes a step closer, and he doesn't move away when their personal bubbles collide into shared space. He meets him halfway, tilting his head down as a drop of blood lands on his shirt, camouflaged against the dark material.
Golden eyes rake over pale skin marred by a crimson created from his own fury as Aether tries to understand this kindred grief—guilt—housed in each of their souls. They are both the consequences of their own actions, but that’s what compelled them toward each other in the first place, whether they knew it or not. He reaches out to wipe the streak of blood off Kunikuzushi’s upper lip with the pad of his thumb, warm liquid only smearing in the process, and he can taste it. Iron sweetness coats his teeth and seeps into every corner of his mouth with an undertone of reverent desire.
The wall between their thoughts is nothing but a pile of crumbled bricks sitting amongst the dust and carnage of dug-up memories. Sensations and feelings dance across the ghost drift without their previous restrictions, as the intensity alone makes Aether weak in the knees. He knows Kunikuzushi is going to kiss him before the other man moves, but that doesn't stop Aether from gasping into his mouth.
Kunikuzushi holds onto him like a lifeline to salvation, and Aether prays to the gods for a strength great enough to keep him together.