Written for the kinkmeme prompt: Herc/Stacker, Alpha/Alpha pairing. They are both alphas. There's a lot of prejudice against this and in some of the countries they are protecting, it's actually illegal. They hide it because running the PPDC is the most important thing in their lives. Maybe they try to end it because of this, but they never manage to do so successfully. Maybe Tendo, Mako, and Chuck cover up for them (though I bet Chuck would loudly proclaim that he's' doing it for the Jaeger program, not because he cares about his dad at all, just so no one gets the right wrong idea).
Disclaimer: Let it be know that I read little to no ABO fics and is actually quite skirmish about knotting and the likes so idek what I am doing with this.
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Fixed
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They understand duty in ways no other men do.
(In ways no other men can.)
It may be written in their blood, bound into the genes of their every cell. And it's a luxury, they say now, you used to be just that, one of three sexes that defines everything there is to you. But it's not so much a biological limit, not anymore, not with the amount of drugs available on the market that allows you to come across as anything you want.
Yet, it is still a social construct that some place their entire worth on.
Hercules Hansen is an alpha. But so is Stacker Pentecost.
.
And sometimes, that means more to everyone else than it does for them.
.
He scents him the moment he steps into a room.
It is not so much that he is tall, dark or every bit alpha as alphas come. It is that the man is a fixed point in a world gone mad. There is no divide when he walks through the threshold, where it can only either be him or him in a constant struggle of instincts and bad blood in the water.
No, it isn't like that.
Stacker fits into the room Herc is in just as naturally as he walks up to him.
And they are comfortable so close when the world thinks they should be tearing at each other's throats. They are next to each other when they could be anywhere else.
"Stacks."
He gives him a nod, and then it is all business when Tendo connects them to the conference.
The two of them haven't come so far from their flyboy days just to have the United Nations tear them down when a Wall comes up. They are soldiers, damn good ones if Herc has any say, and a six months funding at the end of the world is not even enough for a suicide run for when the worse gets worst.
As the most senior active Jaeger pilot, Hercules Hansen stands at attention. He listens to the politics and sees the diplomats as nothing more than shiny smiles and sharp suits tied tight enough to choke. He clenches his fists. He thinks Tendo is glancing at him with concern, he knows Stacker can feel the anger rising.
It's biology, and not even the pills being traded on the corner of Fong and Tull can mask something like this. It's biology, but not entirely so, he hasn't given away his son's childhood for this, he has given it to save this world. He knows what that says about him, his sprog knows what that says about them both (that Chuck has agreed that he is better off without a childhood where he wouldn't have his mum anyway).
Herc exerts his dominance in an entirely opposite way than Stacker does with his.
He's not deadly in the way that Stacker is quiet with his rage. Herc is rough hands and rougher moves, low blows and dirty tricks. They are both damaging but Herc takes that to a new extreme, he walks from every fight, knuckles split and bruised and bloodied, and then some more.
Call him old fashion but he hates head games.
The first hint of a growl gets out, low in his throat as he makes to take a step forward, dressed blues pulling taut across his shoulders. Stacker's words don't falter, he doesn't so much as blink out of sync. It is control, one that he exerts over the room in perfect tandem to Herc's vicious coil of white, hot anger.
The Marshal takes a simple step forward, and the movement is just enough to bring Herc back to the bigger picture at work.
It is far greater than the LOCCENT control room where the screens are lit up with faces that will never know what it means to face the Kaiju eye to eye.
.
And really, it's hard to explain how it feels to go up against a hurricane and win.
.
Herc once said no.
To him, to them.
There is no protest, they both know the risks, the stigmatism and then the consequences to what they do behind closed doors where soundproof walls and metal doors are barely enough to contain them. Stacker doesn't say anything, just gives his old friend a nod, mouth curving into a line that may have almost been a solemn smile.
A week later, the Australian pilot nearly breaks the door to his office.
He has only talked to his second in command the day before, and Stacker should be surprised (he really isn't though). Anchorage is nineteen hours behind Sydney time. The man has been flying for close to fifteen hours to get to him, and that means something (it has to) when the only thing he has in his hand is a crumpled medical report that Stacker Pentecost knows all too well.
After all, he's read it a hundred times over.
"Those are confidential," Stacker says, not even Mako knows what those sheets of paper say.
They may not have piloted a Jaeger together (it really would've been something) but he's been in his head, logged enough hours on those simulation Conn-Pods that has even the best of men throwing up at the end of each run.
They don't call them death machines for no reason.
"Were, Stacks." Herc kicks the door close behind him with anger thrumming against every clipped syllable. His eyes flashed, bitterness biting into every word. "When the fuck were you going to tell me?"
"That I was dying?" Stacker steps out from behind his desk, and he is honestly surprised that Herc hasn't broken his nose just yet from the way he is clenching and unclenching his fists. He looks at him evenly, and there is no give when he says. "Never."
"…Fuck you."
Stacker reaches out with a hand, and it's not his place to take the edge out of the other man. He can't even if he tries, won't even if he can. He looks at Herc and it isn't an apology, but this isn't him showing his hand either.
This is him proving his worth in a way that anyone else would see as a challenge.
"I'm not broken, Stacks."
Herc tells him with soft distaste, and it is only then that Stacker finally drops a hand on his wrist with a faint smile. He doesn't shake him off but only because he is already strung up so tight he might just split down the seams if he so much as moves. Instead, Stacker comes to him.
"Then pretend that I am, Herc."
He takes his medical records from his hands, pries the papers from his fist. It crumples and it rips, but it is the sight of Herc's blunt nails digging into the flesh of his palms, marking crescent moons in a curve. It is control, and that line is thin, when he doesn't break the skin from the sheer force he has on the papers that has signed Stacker Pentecost off as a dead man walking.
"Don't need to pretend." Herc says, a mutter before he brings their mouths together in a kiss that is all bite, overpowering and barely enough. He bruises him with his lips, bites down on the rough slide of his tongue. His fingernails digs half moons into the back of his neck, drags him close, marking him in little ways that is just on the edge of too good and sharp pain—
He pulls back, just a fraction of a breath away and tells him.
"Do that again, Stacks, and I swear I'll kill you myself."
Stacker smiles against that mouth and lets the other man ruin another perfectly tailored suit.
.
He follows the trails of freckles and marks him up like he would with an omega.
He retaliates by fucking him hard enough to keep him from sitting properly for days.
.
The world outside the Shatterdome doesn't understand how it feels to face death (the government and the civvies think they can outwait this war). Stacker and Herc know better, no one is walking away from this without scars to show.
He is his commanding officer, and there will always be a difference in ranks.
But in bed, they are equals.
His hands come at him with a soldier's precision, fingertips digging into each layer of his uniform. He sheds the suit. The symbolism doesn't escape them either, and Herc lets out a low chuckle against Stacker's bared throat as he works at the tie. Undoing the knot with one hand just as the other pulls at the dress shirt from where it is tucked into those pants.
They are hard planes and harder wills. They push and pull in perfect tandem, worn edges rubbing against opened wounds. And it should hurt, but in an entirely different way than the rest of the world thinks it could. (The countries all along the Pacific Rim may have their differences, but an alpha-alpha relationship is frowned upon in most and downright illegal in the rest.) It hurts but it's good because it grounds them in ways nothing else in the world can.
So he pushes him down into the bed, splays Stacker against the sheets before kneeling up, the edge of the mattress dipping under his knees with his added weight. Looking down with a feral grin, Herc makes a show of pulling his shirt over his head, drags the threadbare grey against miles of freckled skin before dropping the Henley on to Stacker's bare chest.
"Herc." Stacker growls out at the sight of the other's grin, growing wider, wilder. Herc's eyes don't startle even when Stackers pulls him down on top of him with his fingers hooked into the waistband of his pants. "Come here already."
He pulls him down and the weight of the other man settles, Herc's hand braced against his chest in support, fingertips splayed over where Stacker's heart is.
He pops the button open with practiced ease, rubs a thumb into the dip of his pelvic bone. Kisses him in stutters as they push away at the rest of their clothes until it is just the hot slide of flesh. He wraps a hand around the base of his cock, fingertips just long enough to circle around the start of his knot.
He smiles down at him before possession takes control.
Stacker colours the pale span of his skin with white when he comes with another stutter of a kiss. He mouths at the line of jaw, imprints the rough drag of Herc's stubbles over his lips, and watches in a post-orgasmic haze as Herc runs a hand across his own stomach.
He smears Stacker's semen across his palm, and gets himself off.
It is a quiet kind of affair when Herc follows, perched against Stacker's sides, groan muffled as he spills into the space between their close pressed bodies. His eyes are half lidded, the blue a thin, thin ring against the dark of his dilated pupils.
Stacker kisses him as he comes down from the rush, kiss each breath into his opened mouth until Herc is pushing back with a tongue that makes a swipe across the sharp edge of his teeth.
.
Stacker Pentecost is an alpha, and so is Hercules Hansen.
You would think there is a clash of wills. You would think it wouldn't work at all. You would be surprised how easy it is to hide this from a world that needs saving when Stacker comes out of Herc's quarters with an overpowering scent of alpha male even the betas can taste on the flat of their tongues.
The world can have their rules, but the Shatterdome operates on the balance of these two men alone.
XXX Kuro