Eren and Rivaille ran through the hallways as the alarms sounded, Rivaille leading and Eren following as they took an alternate route that would avoid the most crowded passages to the safe zone. Rivaille could hear Eren's footsteps behind him as they skipped the elevator in favor of the faster stairs. They were the first team to arrive, Rivaille already unlocking the panels that held his and Eren's circuit and piloting suits as the other four soldiers ran in. He barely registered the glowering on the blonde's face- Annie, right?- before the swishing doors opened and his circuit suit was accessible.
For once, Rivaille didn't bother to fold his clothes with his usual precision, allowing his shirt and pants to land more or less piled atop the bench as he donned the circuit suit, buckling what parts of the piloting suit he could without assistance. He shot a glance at the digital clock above the lockers. 19:17. His brows pulled together slightly. It was winter, his fucking birthday (seriously, was a break really all that much to ask for?), and the sun had already been down at least an hour and a half. Kaiju were diurnal to the point of barely functioning at sunset, although on occasion there had been a few that had made it that long. But two kaiju showing up this late?
"Hey, Rivaille?" Eren said, and Rivaille shook his head, reaching out to take Eren's spinal attachment and motioning for him to turn around. Eren complied, and Rivaille slotted the fine metal fittings into their slots, activating the attachment and watching its bug-like legs tighten into place. Then he adjusted the larger panels across Eren back, smoothing them all into place before turning and allowing Eren to perform the same for him (and if Eren's fingers lingered a bit longer than strictly necessary, Rivaille wasn't one to complain).
"Ready?" Rivaille asked as he turned around, looking up to meet Eren's eyes, mildly irritated that he even had to look up.
Eren's gaze snapped back to Rivaille from where it had been roving around the room, and Eren gave a nervous nod. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I am." Rivaille nodded slowly.
"Let's get moving, then," he said, Hanji's new helmet- which he'd brought down to the lockers earlier- clasped under one arm as he stalked out into the jaeger docking bay. Freedom Wing was waiting, as usual, her plating glowing in the low lights of the hangar, the forest green shiny and clean. Rivaille felt his usual swell of pride at being the pilot of such a magnificent machine. Next to him, an intake of breath from Eren led Rivaille to assume that he felt the same.
Rivaille glanced at Eren out of the corner of his eye, examining him. His piloting suit bore the same sheen as Freedom Wing, the crossed wings on his shoulders glinting as well. His eyes were focused firmly ahead, his shoulders thrown back and his movements stiff- his entire demeanor oozed of angry determination. Reluctantly, as Eren ran a hand through his dark brown hair, shifting the chocolate locks just so, Rivaille admitted to himself that he cut a rather fine figure.
His thought was cut short by a loud whoop from behind him, followed immediately by a thunk and a clatter and a muffled exclamation of pain. Rivaille turned, noting with mild disinterest that Connie had apparently tripped on the gridwalk and fallen completely forward, his partner clutching the railings as she laughed hard enough to cry.
"Typical Connie," Eren snorted, shaking his head with a fond expression, but making no move to help his classmate, who stood up shortly with help from his partner.
"C'mon, let's get in the damn robot already, kaiju aren't exactly gonna wait for us," Rivaille grumbled as the sky blue pair headed to their jaeger. A bit further down, Mikasa and Annie were already stepping into their command pod, and Rivaille was quick to follow suit, heading to his position on the right side of the jaeger. He'd been on the right side with Petra, too, although that had been mostly luck of the draw, as she easily could have taken the role of dominant pilot. With Eren, the choice had seemed more obvious, although after their several drifts- had they really only been a team for twelve days? It seemed like so much longer- Rivaille was no longer sure.
"Drift sequence in 3… 2… 1… Drift sequence initiating. …Drift sequence complete." The blues faded and his helmet cleared, Rivaille threw up his mental walls almost before he had processed the move. Eren's consciousness pressed heavily on his, as it usually did- and Rivaille could understand why; beyond their small conversation earlier, Eren barely knew anything about him, while he had access to the ebb and flow of his memories, had stepped into one of them. Although, that was slowly changing. Rivaille found it harder every time to keep his walls solid; harder to build them up as high.
Most alarmingly, Rivaille found that he didn't want to build them as high. Eren's conscious and unconscious was a warm weight against his, contrasted to the cool emptiness of living machine, and they made him... feel as though maybe their situation wasn't as hopeless as he'd thought. If there could be people like Eren in the world, people who possessed such fire and determination, then maybe- and just maybe, Rivaille wasn't one easily given to optimism- maybe they could, someday, be free. Maybe they could spread the indescribable smell of freedom that the land outside the walls possessed, spread it on wings until the whole of humanity would breathe it in. Maybe.
Clearly the brat was having too much influence on him.
"Drop in three," said Erwin, a welcome pull away from his ruminations. As the jaeger rumbled forward into drop position, Rivaille leaned forward and pressed the comm button.
"Hanji," he said. There was a moment of silence before the comm crackled into life.
"Yeeeees?"
"What the actual fuck is up?"
"What do you mean?"
Rivaille sighed, and on the other side of the comm pod, Eren mirrored his action. "I mean the fact that it's- oof-" the jaeger lurched down, "-an hour after sunset."
"Ah, that. Weeeell… there's been a slight malfunction of the calculations, you see."
"Weren't you the one who said the math was the handwriting of nature or some bullshit?"
"Typo?"
"…right." The jaeger lurched once more to a rumbling, heaving halt, mechanisms on her outer plating preparing themselves to be cranked up several hundred stories to surface level. There was a blip on the mic, and when it came back online, it was once again Erwin's voice speaking.
"We'll deal with the implications of this later. For now, all teams- turn on your floodlights, prepare to engage within five minutes of being topside. Understood?"
"Yessir!"
"Sir."
"Understood."
"Excellent. Here we go. Category three is the closer of the two, category two following about two hundred meters behind. Good luck."
Rivaille caught Eren's eye as they began to rise. Eren grinned, but as usual, their mental connection exuded much more information- he was nervous- floodlights?- but with his friends around he had to show he was the best- no, seriously, what were the floodlights- it'd be fun to spin again- they could kill kaiju- the vermin- the monsters who dared take this world from the humans-
Oi, brat, calm down, Rivaille thought, the roiling mass of Eren's mind stilling fractionally. Floodlight controls are on your side, he added, mentally guiding Eren through the process. The floodlights mounted on Freedom Wing's head and shoulder flickered on, their intensity growing brighter with every second, reflecting off the hatch's walls- until the ground fell away and the floodlights powered into the darkness, illuminating less than was probably necessary for the piloting of a one-hundred-and-two-thousand-kilo jaeger.
"Of course the floodlights weren't built to light up where we need to put our feet," Riaville grumbled, allowing the mics to pick up his complaint.
"It's a bit dark for us to be fighting like this…" said Sasha (Rivaille drew shamelessly from Eren's pool of knowledge, connection the name with a face with a voice with quirks and complaints and funny stories).
"Oh! Rivaille!- by the way only you and Eren can hear this, the others aren't in on this conversation-"
"…yes, Hanji?"
"You can use your birthday present now!" Eren's curiosity took Rivaille like a wave, only amplifying his own.
"Yes, wonderful, if only I knew what it was," Rivaille deadpanned, bringing a ripple of amusement from Eren.
"Hold on a sec, I'm activating it… now!" The screens in the jaeger flickered twice, and then went even darker.
"Hanji, now we're walking blind what the fuck."
"No, no, it's infrared! Turn and look at Maelstrom or Springles!"
Sighing, Rivaille and Eren turned, Freedom Wing complying with their motion, so the visor faced to their left, where Topaz Maelstrom was striding forward in pace with them, her two pilots not having voiced a complaint against the low visibility. Except… in place of the floodlights, the whole of Topaz Maelstrom was lit up in red, her joints- knees and ankles and waist particularly- a much more vibrant orange.
"Holy crap," Eren whispered, Rivaille sharing in his awe (not that he'd show it, of course- he had a reputation to maintain, after all).
"So d'you liiiike it?" Hanji sing-songed over the mic. "Kaiju organs last longest in stasis in liquids that are about eighty degrees- that must mean kaiju have naturally high body temperatures, they'll show up nice and yellow-white on your senso- ooh turn around turn around they're coming!"
I bet you a dead rat that she only did this so she'd be able to record the kaiju's temperatures while alive, Rivaille thought, Eren's question pressing against him in vague potential until he added, she just made it so the internal heat sensors now function externally as well.
"I see one!" exclaimed a voice, and Eren and Rivaille turned around, their visor turning, true to Hanji's prediction, yellow-white as the massive four-legged body neared.
"Okay, Eren and I will take this one, Topaz and Springles, you standby for the second. Try to cover each other with your floodlights, Freedom Wing got an upgrade so we're fine. Understood?" Rivaille said as the kaiju lumbered forward, gaping jaw ever whiter than the rest of it. Freedom Wing lowered herself into a fighting crouch, a flick of her pilots' wrists sending her swords hissing out of their sheath.
"Roger."
The sight of the other two jaegers fanning further away was pushed from Rivaille's mind as he and Eren focused on the one before them. There was a second where neither party moved, simply content to wait for the other to make a mistake. Then the kaiju's nose twitched, and Eren shot forward, copied by Rivaille and Freedom Wing, swords coming to a deadly point before them. The kaiju leapt out of the way, its tail whiplashing Freedom Wing's head as it went.
Everything narrowed in Rivaille's vision as he- and Eren, and Freedom Wing, their wonderful mix of fire and ice- all focused solely on the nimble-footed kaiju. They didn't even need to talk, their movements and thoughts truly one as they dodged and slashed, spraying the dark green ground with white splashes of blue blood, the remnants of which cooled quickly through the color spectrum as the battle moved on.
They danced with the kaiju three times, finally catching its leg and preventing it from escaping Freedom Wing's deadly blades. Eren and Rivaille both growled in victory as the sword cut through the kaiju's neck, severing its head and allowing blood to gush forth. Rivaille caught himself, stifling the rumble in his chest and slowly making sure his walls were still intact, the adrenaline coursing through him leaving him a bit shaken at his loss of control- and Eren's. The brat's fierceness got the best of him, sometimes, and Rivaille clucked his tongue, bringing his focus, and consequentially Eren's, to where Topaz Maelstrom and Springles were returning, their engines blurs of yellow, glowing kaiju carcass behind them.
"You ready to head back?" Rivaille asked, turning his head between the two other jaegers.
"Please," said Connie.
"Yes," answered Mikasa simply, Topaz Maelstrom idly shaking a hand that had acquired a bit too much kaiju blue. The cleanup teams would take care of it, anyway.
"Freedom Wing to Command, all three returning now."
"Roger, return hatches at the ready."
"Let's go," Rivaille said, leading the way back to the return hatches, the sensation of sweat oozing onto his skin making him feel distinctly in need of a shower. Eren snorted, the vague certainty of 'another' crossing the drift. Oi, you're taking one too, Rivaille reminded him, a mental groan his only answer, although he could also feel Eren's genuine want to clean up and cool off.
After docking the jaeger, all six pilots stripped quickly in the locker rooms, Rivaille leaving Eren to chat quietly with his sister as he made his way quickly back to his- their- rooms, throwing his clothes into the hamper and taking a long, cool shower. The faint scent of lavender lingered about him, and Rivaille once more appreciatively sniffed the soap Eren had given him earlier. No doubt Hanji had been involved, but the sentiment was still there. It was… nice. Yeah, that was the word Rivaille wanted.
Rivaille finished his shower and stepped out, drying off somewhat before wrapping a towel around his waist and exiting the bathroom, not missing the way Eren's eyes flicked down when he caught sight of Rivaille.
"What, brat?"Rivaille grumbled, though not entirely unappreciative.
"Uh, nothing. I mean, are you coming?"
"Not on the towel I'm not," Rivaille said, watching as Eren's expression flitted from initial confusion to a deep blush as the meaning registered.
"N-no! I just meant- to the charades party-"
"Tsk. They're throwing another one?"
Eren nodded vigorously as Rivaille crossed the room, selecting a few articles of clothing. "Yes they-" Rivaille grinned- his back turned to Eren, he'd dropped the towel, in favor of slowly dressing himself, and now Eren was stuttering. "Um, I mean, yeah, they're still having it, I, uh, was wondering if you'd, ah, want to go."
Rivaille calmly donned the rest of his clothes, opting for the slacks he wore to bed and a loose-fitting T-shirt. "No, I'm not going, and neither should you. Drift sim shit tomorrow. Bright and early," Rivaille said, wriggling his fingers to emphasize just how bright and early is was going to be, only just managing to keep his own groaning internal (Eren had no such compunctions).
"Seriously?"
"Yes."
"…can I go?"
"What did I just say."
"That I shouldn't… not that I couldn't," Eren muttered, pouting. Rivaille shot him a glance as he folded his towel neatly over one arm.
"Don't play fucking coy with me, you know what I meant."
"But Rivaille," Eren whined, dragging out the last syllable of Rivaille's name, making a single shiver run down his spine.
"Do you even have ears, brat?"
Eren sighed heavily. "Fiiiiine…."
"Good," Rivaille said, returning his towel to the rack in the bathroom before marching back to his bed, placing a hand on Eren's chest and pushing him from a sitting position to full on his back along the way. Eren sputtered again, but Rivaille merely shrugged. "Lights out is in approximately three seconds," Rivaille said as he pulled his blankets up to cover him, reaching over and turning off the light as he did so.
Eren tossed and turned for several minutes, and Rivaille was no longer so sure that sharing a room was the best idea- he hadn't slept near another person in long enough that even breaths were sure to bother him, and so help him is the brat snored he'd fucking-
Instead, almost half an hour after Rivaille had turned off the lights, Eren sat up, clearly trying to be quiet. "Rivaille," he breathed, the expectant silence remaining empty as Rivaille focused on keeping his breathing even and deep. Sure enough, a few seconds later, Eren got up and shuffled to the door, slipping out with enough noise to wake the dead (or at least keep Rivaille from sleep). Once he was gone, Rivaille shifted into a more comfortable position. So that's why he didn't complain as much as I was expecting when I turned off the lights, Rivaille thought.
Then he was struck by another idea.
"That fucking brat had better not be hungover tomorrow morning…"
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Full title: On Drifting, or: introspection and a kaiju count
DISCLAIMER: Hanji is using centigrade as her unit of temperature! That means the liquid stasis thing is 176 Fahrenheit. :D
DISCLAIMER 2: proof-reading and I aren't really friendly acquaintances, but this is one of my favorite chapters so far.