So, I've written 5K+ words for the 9th chapter of Amative, but it wasn't really what I wanted, so I decided to rewrite it and to clear my head I came up with this little drabble. Nothing special. But if you managed to find your way here, thank you for reading!
I'm thinking this is season 1. Might add a season 2. I dunno, from Jasper's POV, to explore his "dark spot" aka "I'm a grifter and I've come to rob you off your Jaeger". Something like that. I know. Deranged.
Gypsy
informal
a nomadic or free-spirited person.
"why should she choose to wander the world with a penniless gypsy like me?"
She used to think she was the Queen of the world. Not even Helena could remove her from her throne. Because there was no one as good as Eleanor Henstridge, no one as proud, strong, unbreakable, immortal, because when she drifts, she is the Queen of the world and when they drift, they beat every kaiju that dares to oppose them.
But then Robert dies and suddenly there is no throne and no strength and she breaks, because all her immortality, he takes with him. And she drifts, and she drifts, simply drifts, but it's never easy anymore.
She tries, though, takes new partners. And they always seem compatible at first, but it never lasts, no, it never lasts, never make it through the neural link, because she's lost and she's hurting and for fuck's sake, she just drifts purposelessly.
Her father, King and War Commander, suggests to try matching with Liam, but she refuses. She has already lost a brother in a Jaeger; she isn't willing to take such a risk again. And perhaps, but she doesn't say this out loud, she already knows that she and her twin are not as compatible as she and Robert had been. They were not drift-compatible at all. Because he was light and she was dark and her memories and emotions would ruin him.
In the end she just gives up.
Still, she is furious when Simon tells her he takes her Jaeger away. Tells her Liam and Ophelia will be piloting Icarus from now on because apparently they are drift-compatible and they need all the man-power they can get.
She is furious, but deep down she understands. Because the war is never going to end and they are never going to be safe. The illusion of humanity is only kept alive by the Jaegers. It's all they have.
But it's also all she has.
So she drinks. She drinks, and she smokes, and she snorts, and no one even dares to stop her, because they can all see she's hurting and maybe she needs this. She might not be the Queen of the world anymore, but she is still their Princess. And when she stumbles through the Shatterdome at night, clearly drunk out of her mind, high off of some illegal substance, they simply offer her an arm and escort her to her room, promising to not tell Simon, who, unjustly as they all think so, turns a blind eye.
And so she drifts even further, because that is all she knows.
To drift, the drift.
Drift.
Jasper Frost arrives at the battle station three months later. He's from the States, demure and soft-spoken, nervous and perhaps even frightened, and she invites him into her bed the same night. When she sees him the next morning in the Kwoon Combat Room with the other Rangers, she knows she has made a mistake.
His form is excellent, cocksure and ready, and none of his opponents stand much of a chance. He leaves Liam reeling against the wall and triumphs even Marcus in less than a minute. When he sees her, he winks, and she turns away disgusted, but not before her stomach tingles and something of a blush reaches her cheeks.
He comes to her room again that night. She wants to turn him away, but he challenges her and Eleanor is never one to back away from a challenge. When her fingers are twisted in his hair and his head is in between her legs, she figures that maybe this newcomer isn't all that bad.
When, a couple of days later, she comes to the Combat Room again, he provokes her. And she thinks that yes, he is this bad.
Everyone knows of her history, so does Jasper Frost, but as he crawls into bed with her after training, he tells her she isn't as broken as she thinks she is.
'You're strong,' he whispers against her breasts.
'They took your brother and they took your Jaeger,' he breathes into her mouth.
He slides into her, gently compared to his roughness of the previous nights, and buries his face into her neck.
'But they couldn't break you,' he murmurs, 'because you're strong.'
She wants to believe it, but she can't. Not yet. So she goes on a rampage of sex and drugs and alcohol, and even Liam barges down her door, yelling at her to get a grip, because he doesn't want to lose his only sister and he doesn't want to have to worry about her while drifting and fighting Kaiju.
'But at least you get to drift,' she shouts back and her voice is hoarse of all the smoking, but they can still hear her all the way down at the Combat Room.
'So can you if you just fucking sober up,' Liam yells and they both stand panting, staring at each other. Of course he is the first to back down, the first to apologise, and he moves to hug her, but she pushes him away.
'Lenny,' he sighs, but she shakes her head.
'Nobody is drift-compatible with me,' she says softly. 'Only Robert was.'
But she does sober up, because she loves her twin, and five days later she shows up in the Combat Room, because maybe, just maybe…
Jasper Frost is already there and Simon watches him, frustrated, because this young man surpasses everyone in skill and determination and – so they whisper – Kaiju kills, yet he still hasn't found a partner.
They're not compatible, Jasper says.
They're not good enough, Simon hears.
But then Eleanor steps forward and Jasper smirks.
Because what does she has to lose? If she's not strong, she cannot drift. If she cannot drift, she does not have to be strong. She doesn't dare think further than that, because what if he was right? What if she was strong?
He throws her a staff and she catches it, and immediately he is on her. She's almost a foot shorter and should be an easy combatant for him, but when he doesn't take her down on the first three strokes, she wonders if he's going easy on her.
The thought angers her and she attacks.
Ruthlessly.
They go head to head.
1-1.
But then she ducks beneath his blow and swings her staff around, catching the back of his knees and sweeping him off his feet. He falls on his back with a heavy thud and she knows it must've hurt, but he still smirks at her as he brushes himself off.
2-1.
He slaps her head with the far end of his staff.
2-2.
She dances around him and almost impales him on hers.
3-2.
He feints and she thinks he wants to do the same to her as she had done to him, so she jumps, avoiding the swing of his staff that never comes. Instead he smashes his shoulder into her stomach and suddenly he's on top of her and they're both breathing heavily.
'That's enough,' Simon booms, but his eyes are wrinkling and so are Jasper's, that infuriating smirk still on his face. It's only after he helps her up and bows for her, that she notices she's smiling as well.
That night is a continuation of their sparring, as he takes her against her bedroom door and she goes down on him in the Command Center. She feels alive for some reason and she's drifting, but maybe this time she finally has a purpose.
'I don't want you to think I'm trying to replace Robert,' he tells her one night, when he's getting dressed after they've had sex. He never stays the night and she doesn't dare ask why.
His question has her scrunching up her nose.
'Replace Robert?' she repeats scathingly. 'I don't know what you people get up to in the United States of America' – and she stretches it, just like the stretches her Jaspurr's – 'but this is Britain and he was my brother.'
Jasper scoffs and rolls his eyes.
'You know what I mean,' he sighs. She wants to rub his arm, but they're not that close, despite their endless sparring sessions and midnight rendezvouses.
'I don't,' she says honestly and the way he breaths out sounds almost disappointing. He catches her eye and holds her gaze, but she can read nothing from his expression and he's gone before she thinks to ask.
When the next day Simon comes to her and tells her he wants her to try establishing a neural link with Jasper, she shouldn't have been surprised. But she was. And suddenly his words from the previous night make sense.
Liam offers her Icarus, but she refuses. He had been hers and Robert. He could never be hers and Jasper's.
She is excited and scared at the same time, and when she can't find Jasper she panics. Runs around the Shatterdome frightfully, but doesn't dare to ask anyone his whereabouts, because what would they think? They are already talking. The Princess and the Newcomer, and they hadn't chosen the most original name for him, but it was a name and a rumour nevertheless.
The Drivesuit Room is the last place she thinks to look, but that's exactly where he is, being hoisted into his drivesuit by a technician. He smirks at her, vexing as ever, and pointedly looks at the clock in the corner.
'I'm not late,' she snaps. 'I was looking for you.'
'Here I am,' he says. 'Now get dressed.'
And it's more than six months ago since she last wore her drivesuit and for fuck's sake, she's shaking when they pull it on her. But eventually she manages and he doesn't mention it, even though she knows he noticed.
Their Jaeger's name is Gypsy and she knows one of its previous pilots was killed during neural link, causing the other to go insane. She briefly wonders whether it's an omen, but then she remembers she survived Robert's death and was still sane – somewhat – and she hears Jasper's voice in her mind, telling her she is strong.
And he's looking at her, this exact same moment, telling her the exact same thing, and somehow she cannot stop the swelling of her heart, nor the butterflies in her stomach. She reached over, quickly, and kisses him softly on the lips. He doesn't even pretend to be surprised and she glares at him.
But then they're linked.
And she relives everything. The anguish, the pain, the relentless voice in her head telling her she wanted to die, and she knew Jasper was watching, knew he was experiencing the exact same thing, because her memories and emotions were his and his were…
Blurry and cold and distant and dark and she extends a hand out to him, to pull him into her own happiness, because she knows that somewhere, someplace, she has some happiness left, but there is a dark area, deeper than black, and she can't reach him through it, no matter how hard she tries. And she tries, remembering their first night, the timid man, and the smug bastard he turned out to be, remembers him casually fucking her and then telling her she was strong, remembers fighting with him in the Combat Room and the thrill running through both their bodies and fuck.
Her eyes shoot open and for a moment she worries. Because with Robert it had gone smoothly. They had reached out to each other and then they had become on.
This. This is different.
But then they are moving in sync, Eleanor, Jasper and Gypsy, and she feels like floating. It feels almost like how it was with Robert. Effortless and easy. Almost but not really, because she still knows almost nothing about Jasper and everything about Robert.
She thinks to ask him about the dark spot, that one part – did he purposefully keep it dark, hidden? But then he touches her hand, curls his fingers between hers and she smiles at him. She'll ask him later, someday, maybe never.
He may not be her brother, but they are drift-compatible.
Because when she drifts, she is the Queen of the world and when they drift, they beat every Kaiju that dares to oppose them.