Title: Wall of Sound
Author: teagrl83
Word Count: 1422
Pairing: None
Rating: PG
-
What they don't tell you in training is that drift compatibility with a stranger is a crapshoot. There's all sorts of signs, personality compatibility, physical compatibility, but in the end, that's all they are - signs. Scientists aren't sure how drift compatibility works exactly. If it goes wrong...well, no one talks about that.
Raleigh thought that kind of thing could be painful, maybe even dangerous, but he hadn't heard of any incidents. There wasn't any point in questioning the drift when it's the basis of survival. Raleigh sure as hell never cared. On some level he'd always known he and his brother were drift compatible, so it never mattered.
But he'd be lying if it didn't cross his mind when he learned he'd be getting a new copilot. Even years later he could still feel Yancy in his head. Maybe there were too many people in there already.
Then again, if the world really was ending - what was one more?
And there was a moment back there in training where he could read Mako's moves as if he himself were thinking them up. It hadn't been like that with Yancy, but it was close. Close enough to count. It had to be.
"Don't follow the rabbit," he warns Mako. "Random access brings impulse triggers-memories. Just let them flow. Don't latch on. Tune them out. Stay in the drift." He shakes off the deja vu, feeling his brother's voice through his. "The drift is silence."
Mako nodded. He didn't need to be in her head to see she was nervous.
"Neural handshake initiating."
Raleigh breathes in and closes his eyes, readying himself. The first seconds are always disorienting as the mind adapts to the presence of someone else. And-
(Comforting. It's been so long.)
The opening of a drift feels like being half-awake, shadowy images following in quick succession. Anything powerful enough to make it to the surface does.
(Yancy's face. A fraction of a second. A choice. I would have chosen differently-)
Raleigh knows enough to keep himself in check. You can't avoid the rush of memories, but you can control the speed and force of their flow, Yancy always said. Raleigh's mind instinctively reaches for a contact point, common ground between the two.
(Dinner was always a thing at home. Mom always read to us.)
With Yancy it was easy, his memories were like looking at the same view, but from a different vantage point. Differences were like shades of the same colors. But Mako's memories come too fast for that comparison.
The memories aren't a problem, Raleigh realizes belatedly as he stumbles. Not really, it's the feelings attached to them. They're overwhelming, like a wall of sound. Pain and fury in equal measures. Hard for him to think, hard to find his footing. Yancy had been unmovable by contrast.
(The drift is silence.)
She can't hear him over the rush. He attempts to help her push the memories back, create a space from which to reach towards the now. It's something that he'd done before.
(Something that'd been done to him. "You need to focus, kid. You're too angry. It's too loud, and they need us. They need us. Like this." The rage eases up like unfurling a clean, white sheet in the sun. He can almost smell the lavender scent of the detergent their mother used.)
Mako recoils like it was an intrusion. Raleigh finds himself moving back, giving her space. She's not Yancy. She's not him. He can't just move things around in her head uninvited, especially without a contact point. Even with Yancy, you never dig around someone's head. He can still hear him, even and calm as always, stay on the surface. Stay in the now.
(Everyone was gone. Everyone was dead.)
Mako's teetering at the edges of his mind while he's slowly inching towards the maelstrom of hers. Without a stable contact point, any attempts to reach her might only drive her further in, but he needs to try. Her memories crash around him like waves in a storm. He's beginning to feel unmoored.
(I was scared. I am scared. If I fail-)
His control frays for a split second at the onslaught. And he's drowning.
("Only listen to me! Only listen to me!")
And Raleigh surfaces enough to pull, hoping it's not too much. Hoping she can take it. Pulls her towards the hum of the Gipsy. Hoping she accepts it. The vibration goes all the way to his bones. Mako knows the Gipsy, too, loves her, not like him, but enough. It's not much of a contact point, but it's a start.
(I won't fail.)
Determination reverberates between them, pulses through the Gipsy. Mako's memories, fall under a thin veil.
(I can save them.)
The wall of sound fades, leaving silence. His perception widens.
(Our perception.)
He looked at his arm, curling it, feeling the Gipsy Danger respond. Mako's at the horizon of his consciousness. He sees her with his mind's eye, mirroring his movement of her own accord. They test out a fighting stance, the power of it intoxicating. This is real. It feels like homecoming.
He looks over, grinning.
(Yancy grins back at him. We can do-)
Mako looks up.
(Not Mako. Yancy. The kaiju breaking through. "Only listen to me!
His brother gone. "Only listen to me!" Here. Then gone.)
He feels it when he tumbles to the boundaries of the drift. The alarm blares and Tendo's voice follows it up, "Gipsy! Gipsy! You're out of alignment. You're both out of alignment!"
"I'm okay," he speaks up, mostly for reassurance. Even out of alignment, he knows Mako has a front row seat to his embarrassment, to the regret. Yancy could cut through all that bullshit. But she's not Yancy, he reminds himself and he—
He can try.
"Just- let me control it," he grits out.
"You're stabilizing," Tendo's voice is still urgent. "But Mako is way out. She's starting to chase the rabbit!"
Raleigh turns. He calls to her, stomach sinking. Mako has no experience to draw on. He probably triggered her and she couldn't stop it. "Don't get stuck," he appeals to her. "Stay with me. Stay in the now—"
But Mako is no longer there. He clamps down on his reluctance at having to go further into her mind. It's not hard to find her, one memory stretches deep—
(It's coming. It's coming to kill me. It already killed everyone else. It'scomingit'scomingit'scoming.)
He steps in. She's so lost, she barely notices the intrusion. The wall of sound is all around them, taking the form of the kaiju's roars, muting the hum of the Gipsy. Mako's a child, crying as she hides beside a dumpster. The ground shakes every time the kaiju takes a step.
It's following her. It's following him.
(It'scomingit'scomingit'scomingIt'scomingit'scomin git'scoming.)
No, Raleigh shakes himself. It's not. This isn't real. Had Yancy felt like this when he lost it? When he had to forcibly push the memories away. Had it also felt like just a step away from chasing his rabbit? Being left stranded until kaiju screeches are all you can ever hear?
Raleigh forces himself to speak. "Mako this just a memory, none of this is real."
(It'scomingit'scomingit'scomingIt'scomingit'scomin git'scoming.)
The ground shakes thunderously, even more so than before. Raleigh looks up, startled. Cold seeps through him in spite of himself. Not real, he thinks as it emerges into view, a monstrosity of razor sharp teeth. Fuck you, he thinks. I could light you up right here.
He does not expect Mako to dart out with a scream, extending a hand.
(It'scomingit'scomingit'scomingIt'scomingit'scomin git'scoming.)
The plasma cannon begins to boot up, breaking through the wall of sound. That is not a memory. "Mako!" Raleigh screams. "This is just a memory! None of it is real!"
The whoosh of planes overhead drowns him out and the creature turns. He feels the tug of the memory, harder now, transfixing him along with her.
(It'scomingit'scomingit'scomingIt'scomingit'scomin git'scoming.)
A breath later, the plasma cannon disengages, and he's back on the cockpit with an almost audible snap. He shakes off the disorientation enough to take off his helmet and catch her just as she's about to drop. He slides of her helmet, murmuring, "It's okay. It's okay."
She's limp, eyes open, but unseeing, breaths coming in sharp gasps. He doesn't say it's over, because it isn't, and he can't bring himself to lie. Not now.
He wonders if Yancy could have.