Incidentally, I didn't set out writing this as a prequel to Armageddon but it does fit into the storyline so I decided why the hell not. Can be read as a standalone fic or the prequel to Armageddon. Also, hurting Herc is like a thing for me. And I would feel bad if it didn't feel so good.
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Before the Jaeger, there are Jasper Schoenfeld and Caitlin Lightcap. Before Conn-Pods and drift compatibility, there are test pilots. There is Stacker Pentecost and the Pons system, and then there is USAF Captain, Adam Casey and Brawler Yukon. This is not history in the making, this is taking that first swing and hoping that you don't miss the ball entirely.
There are many things that came before PPDC, there are also many things that comes after. This is both the former and the latter.
.
He pulls him into the room, hand on the cuff of his shirt in a fist, and that is anger in the lines around his eyes. They are once the air force on opposite sides of the world, flying choppers and fighter planes, being pilots of a different kind of machine that will one day take them to their graves.
It is really not so different now. They are the first generation of Jaeger pilots this program has to offer, and they know how this goes. They should.
But that is still his brother lying on the bed in medical.
.
"You know this could happen, Scott."
"You weren't supposed to let it happen, Stacker."
.
Before the drift, there is compatibility.
There is Hercules and Scott, there is Hercules and Stacker. And then there is Stacker and Scott standing in the Hansens' temporary quarters here on Kodiak Island. They are not the only potential candidates; they are also not the only ones that mattered. There is still Tamsin Sevier, the Gage twins, the Kaidonovskys, and a handful of other promising men and women. There are also Sergio D'onofrio, and Caitlin Lightcap.
Before finding your co-pilot, there is trial and error.
The latest is an error. The latest also lands Hercules Hansen in the medic bay.
.
"What'd you do, Stacker?"
"I was twelve years old, Scott. I saw my father's murder."
.
Stacker Pentecost hasn't always been the ranger that takes nothing into the drift. It is just as he tells Mako, years later when he is Marshal of the PPDC that has dwindled down into the Resistance, vengeance is like an open wound, you cannot take that level of emotion into the drift.
He speaks from experience.
He once took that into the drift.
.
There are facts that remain constant in any given conditions: That the world is at war is one.
There are also facts that change with time: that the Hansens didn't always have a bad apple. Wait around long enough, and dig in the barrel deep enough, anything's bound to go rotten though. That is two.
.
When Herc wakes up, a couple hours later, there is Scott sitting on one side of his bed playing a game absentmindedly on his phone and Stacker sitting on the other with a book opened in his lap.
"It's really not so bad." He tells them when he finally sits up under their scrutinizing gazes.
"It's bad enough." They both reply when Stacker holds out a cup of water and Scott drops a straw in.
"Maybe the two of you should be drifting together next." Herc just rolls his eyes and sips.
.
There is a chance to that but they never do get to it.
Stacker's trials end with Tamsin. Herc's ends with Scott.
Three months in, the first generation Jaeger pilots also find a side effect.
.
The first time Scott finds himself with a hand on the cuff of Herc's shirt, his mouth is inches from his brother's. He doesn't hear the sound of his heart in his chest or the pounding of his pulse in his neck. He only feels the way Herc freezes up.
"Shit."
It doesn't matter who says that because Scott is making an excuse and Herc is nodding his head at that half-assed excuse. Scott locks himself in the bathroom until the hot water runs out against the skin of his back and by the time he lets himself out, the room is empty.
He doesn't really fall asleep in his bunk that night.
.
When he walks into the mess hall the next morning, he sits down next to Stacker and swipes a strip of greasy bacon from Herc's tray across from him.
"Simulation run later today, Scotty."
Herc says as he pushes his plate closer to Scott. Stacker doesn't look between the two, just nods good morning to Tamsin when she takes a seat on his other side.
"I'll be there, Herc."
Scott swallows and takes a wedge of potato next.
.
"I don't want to ask but—"
"How do you tell anyone that you want to fuck your brother into the mattress, Stacks?"
.
The simulation doesn't show them anything they don't already know. And the fact is that they know plenty.
.
When he opens his door last night, Herc is standing there with a complicated expression on his face. The words don't come easy but Stacker can read between the lines. He doesn't have a spare mattress, he doesn't even have a spare sheet but he lets him in.
"I can just take the floor, you don't—"
"Don't be stupid, Herc, get in the bed. We've both been through basic training."
.
When Stacker opens his door, he finds both of the Hansens brothers sitting in his room. He doesn't ask how they got in, he also doesn't close the distance between himself and the two Australians.
"…We needed to talk."
It is Herc who starts by making a vague gesture between him and his brother, and who the hell declares someone else's quarters as neutral ground, Stacker thinks.
"No, you don't."
And it is Scott that tells him with a grin, "No, we don't."
.
When Stacker kisses Scott, he tastes of whiskey and smoke.
When Stacker kisses Herc, he tastes of the cheap brown bottles lined up like targets by the sink.
And when Herc kisses Scott, he is the slick slide of tongue against the edge of teeth, the hand holding his shirt in his fist, and the mind filling up all the empty spaces in his own. They keep Stacker between them, like it changes the fact that they are brothers exchanging kisses over the curve of Stacker's shoulders.
Scott lets himself be pulled into Stacker's lap, head tipping back as he slowly sinks down, taking Stacker in inch by inch with the smallest sound escaping from between his teeth. The fingers wrapping around his hip is wet with lube and the hand wrapping around his cock is too.
When he finally opens his eyes to the florescent lights, Scott can see Herc watching him from where he is marking a lip shaped bruise into the nape of Stacker's neck. His brother's mouth curves into a smile and it is only then that he remembers to move.
He drapes his arms around Stacker's neck, feels the heat of the man fucking deeper into him with the shift and groans when Herc gets him off with the tight kind of grip that he's been craving for like a bad hit.
.
"There's a word for people like me, Herc, and nice isn't ever going to be it."
Stacker's in the shower and the two of them are lying on his cot. It's not quite the kind of conversation fit for post-coital pillow talk but it's admittance and it's enough when it comes to them.
"You think I don't know that, Scotty? I've been in your head."
.
Scott is not a cruel thing in his head but he becomes one.
In the places where Herc keeps Angela and Chuck safe, he also remembers a little brother running down the sidewalk, tripping, crying, and coming to him with his fists balled up tight enough to throw a punch. But he doesn't, not then, and not for years to come. He's still been a little boy with a brother to protect him from scrapped knees and blood stained knuckles.
He wonders when Scott's learned to fix up his own cuts and bruises.
He wonders when Scott's learned to cut and bruise.
As Herc lay there in his hospital bed, hand to his head, Scott's still pressing against the places he'd rather have broken glass instead.
.
He pulls him into the room, hand on the cuff of his shirt in a fist, and that is not anger in the lines around his eyes, looking not unlike the end of the world, but that is something that doesn't come until later.
Stacker keeps him from turning away.
And there is a memory in both of their heads that reminds them of this.
.
"What'd you do, Scott?"
"What'd you think, Stacker?"
.
Before the war, there are three men flying choppers and fighter planes. They don't come from the same place and the circumstances are different. The fact is though, before this war, there are many more.
.
"What'd he do, Herc?"
I want it out of my head.
"What do you think, Stacks?"
.
Just as that there are many things that Stacker doesn't know, and just as many that Herc wished he doesn't know. The fact that Scott is the common denominator to them all is not a coincidence. But they don't know that, they only know that this is not the first war, neither will this be the last with or without Scott.
.
"People change."
Stacker says, sitting by Herc's hospital bed. And when he extends a cup of water out to him, there is already a straw.
"They really don't."
XXX Kuro