Since Q was once again immersed in talking tech and codes with Dr. Gottlieb – or any of the engineers of the Jaegers - Bond had taken to wandering the Shatterdome. Q had teased him about his 'patrols', but it was something in his blood: get to know your territory. Just like his co-pilot got to know the science teams, unable to resist getting into the thick of it all.
He got nods of recognition from some of the people he passed. Like all pilots he was a known factor.
"Hey, Double-Oh. Gone sight-seeing?" Herc teased when he joined him for a drink.
"Passing the time. Q is busy doing what he does best. Hip-deep in diesel and engine oil, rearranging codes and upgrading the upgrades."
Herc raised an eyebrow. "You still call him Q?"
"It sticks."
Yes, he was Kian Whitmarsh, but it really had stuck with James. He liked to tease him with it. Q had never protested or asked him to stop.
Hansen chuckled. "I guess. Watched the two of you in the Kwoon. He's pretty good."
"For a techie?"
Herc laughed, shaking his head. "Heard that a lot already?"
"I can read it in other people. Q wasn't a candidate. He's a genius engineer and programmer. I can't wrap my head around what he can do, and I was in his head."
The Australian grinned. "And more."
Bond met the dancing blue-gray eyes, brows rising a little, but he didn't comment.
"I read what Mallory sent Pentecost. You're strong. New, but strong."
Bond nursed his beer. "I know," he finally murmured.
"His inexperience isn't a problem. It never is when an experienced pilot gets a rookie partner. You match in the Kwoon Room, you match outside, too."
He looked at the other man, aware of what was said in silence. Herc's relationship with his own partner, his son, was far from ideal outside a Drift. In the Drift they worked seamlessly, were unbeatable. Outside it was tumultuous at best, catastrophic at worst. Herc was struggling with his son's temper outbursts, his competitive nature, his aggression.
Herc shared a quick smile with him that was devoid of humor. He wanted a better relationship with his son, but the anger and pain inside Chuck was too strong. The blame he put on his father for his mother's death.
One of the techs called him away. He went and Bond emptied the beer, then strolled toward Striker Eureka, watching them work on the Mark-V. She was a beauty, he had to give them that. She was sleek and deadly and a work of art.
There was an angry shout and he almost rolled his eyes as he saw Chuck Hansen verbally assault Raleigh Becket again. Becket looked almost too calm, just taking it, but there was a fire there, a warning.
Hansen said something Bond didn't catch, but he caught the fist landing in the younger man's face, the fury blossoming on Raleigh's, then the pilot stormed off.
Chuck just stood there, chest heaving, a look of anger and confusion on his features. He wiped away the blood from his split lip, then shouldered through the onlookers that were already dispersing.
The Hansen-Becket fights didn't really draw too much attention any more.
Bond strolled after Becket.
He found Raleigh in one of the Kwoon Rooms, looking drawn between fury and desperation, coupled with the need to fight down something he hadn't been able to control all too well.
Anger. Loss. Pain. All bunched together in one memory.
James knew what had happened to Gipsy Danger, to Yancy Becket, to his younger brother. He had read the files and Q had commented on some evaluations. His partner had even dug up the psych report on Raleigh right before the man had disappeared, had joined the construction crews of the Anti-Kaiju Walls.
"What do you want, Double-Oh?" Raleigh growled, voice wavering a little.
"A work-out," Bond simply said.
The younger man laughed, sounding tired. "Or gawk at the freak; the one guy who managed to pilot a Jaeger alone. Who got his brain fried and just doesn't know it. Who ran instead of fighting."
"The neural load of an interface with a Jaeger is too much for a single mind to bear, Raleigh. It kills you." He picked up a staff and twirled it between his fingers. "The Drift is already a rough ride. To be the only one to buffer this, without a co-pilot, I wouldn't be able to take it."
The other ranger snorted derisively. "Yeah, you're talking to a walking dead. Not really a zombie, not even a ghost." Raleigh shook his head. "Just broken in so many places that nothing can repair it."
"Still you are here."
"Desperate times, desperate measures."
"Pentecost pitched a good sale?"
It got him a gritty kind of laugh. "Second chances and all."
"You took it."
A shrug. "Better than dying building another useless Wall."
Bond leaned on the staff, raising an eyebrow as a clear offer.
"I'm not much of a match partner right now."
He shrugged. "Easy tryout, going through the motions."
Raleigh scrubbed a hand over his face. "You just want to wipe the floor with a has-been wash-out."
James chuckled. "Welcome to the club, Raleigh."
That got him a raised eyebrow.
Bond mimicked it. "Who am I?" he asked, spreading his arms.
"James Bond, Skyfall Prime. Last of the Vancouver Shatterdome. I was told who we had and who to still expect by Pentecost the first time I arrived."
"That's it." It wasn't even a question.
"Don't need to know more."
"You really have no idea about the other teams?"
"Not much sense in getting acquainted."
"You should. Might prove vital in a fight."
Raleigh rolled his eyes. "Keep clear of the Russians unless you need something." He checked it off with one finger.
iWell, too late for that/i, Bond thought wryly.
And he liked them.
"The triplets do nothing but play basketball and kick anyone's ass in martial arts." Check number two.
"And speaking of which, I know Chuck's a jackass." He grinned.
"And an ace pilot."
"Still an ass."
"No argument from me."
Raleigh sat down with his back against the wall, shaking his head. Bond just sank down beside him, watching the ranger.
Too many dark memories. Too much darkness all in all.
He knew the darkness and he knew how nightmarish such memories could be, though he hadn't lost Vesper in a Drift. She hadn't died while he had still been connected to her. Raleigh had gotten the full experience, every little detail. And what Q had told him, the young pilot still suffered from the occasional Ghost.
That had to be… more than bad. It had to be terrifying to listen to and see a dead person, feel his emotions, remember his memories.
"He's young," James finally said, almost conversationally. "He's one of the best. He wants to be the best. He's afraid of you. You're a hero. The guy who piloted a Jaeger on his own and lived to tell about it."
"Psych 101?"
"Common sense and some hacking." He smirked.
Raleigh laughed, surprised. "I'm no threat," he finally said, shaking his head. "He could just keep out of my way. Problem solved."
And he could just be Raleigh's match, Bond mused. He suspected Q was right. There was a definite pull between those two, even if it was arrogance and aggression on Chuck's part, and defiance and old pain on Raleigh's.
Becket had to confront what had happened and fight out of the abyss of loss and pain. Chuck had to grow up. Plain and simple. Whether that led to intimacy on a sexual level or the far more intimate connection of a Drift had to be seen.
Bond smirked a little.
They had said a few choice things about him not so long ago, too. M had dragged him back kicking and screaming and he hadn't played along. It had taken her death to jolt him back to life. It had taken Q to make him want to fight again, and they had become both co-pilots and partners.
"You lost someone," Raleigh broke into his thoughts, voice low, almost probing. "That's why you know."
"Everyone… nearly everyone here lost someone."
The blue-gray eyes were hooded, knowing, probably aware of the deflection.
"Not like a pilot can lose someone."
Bond gazed at the mat on the floor, noted the scuff marks, the dents, the abuse it had taken over the past years.
"She was my co-pilot."
Raleigh was silent.
"We… were close."
Still silence. Bond refused to look at the younger man. His whole body felt tense, tight, like he was about to seize, and his jaw clenched, teeth grinding.
"I still Ghost with him," the other ranger broke the dark silence between them.
That had Bond turn. It was a really open confession in the presence of someone Raleigh didn't even know. Becket smiled humorlessly.
"You've probably heard it around the Shatterdome already."
"Rumors."
Raleigh shrugged.
"Like I hear rumors about Chuck. Or the Kaidonovskys. Just rumors. I like the truth."
"The truth is that Yancy is still very much a part of me. Breaking apart a Drift like that… Chuck is right. I'm brain-damaged. Finding Mako… it was luck."
Bond leaned his head back against the wall, the ceiling above no more interesting than the floor mats.
"I refused to come back," he said evenly. "When M was killed, I did. Because I wanted revenge. And to prove those idiots wrong, that I couldn't find a compatible partner."
Raleigh's chewed his lower lip. "You found someone."
The smile came almost unbidden. "Yes."
"He fits."
"Yes."
The other man nodded.
"You found Mako Mori," Bond reminded him gently.
"She is a good match. We're a strong team." He clenched and unclenched his hands.
But. There was a 'but' in there, a very loud one.
Bond didn't comment. He waited.
"She knows what happened," Raleigh finally said. "It… somehow didn't scare her away, even though it should have. The baggage I carry… I thought… She understood. And she accepted me. That part of me is gone and that there's a part that isn't me… that's Yancy. The part I'll always carry."
James remembered Moneypenny. She had been terrified from their one and only Drift because of what she had seen with Bond. She had touched the part that had been Vesper, what she had left in his brain, what would never leave. A footprint.
Mako wasn't Moneypenny.
Mako wasn't Yancy.
She didn't follow the footprints. She would leave her own, whether she would remain Raleigh's co-pilot or not.
"She is a very strong person," he said.
"I know. I owe her. Pentecost got me back here, but she made it possible for me to pilot a Jaeger again."
And now there was another challenge: Chuck Hansen, who wasn't a viable co-pilot candidate for so many reasons – one was that he already had a match in Herc - but someone Raleigh found himself drawn to. Just on another level. Bond had seen the tension between the two men and he knew Raleigh wanted something from Chuck that he wasn't ready to pursue just yet. It was something else that had to heal first, not just scab over.
That Hansen kept clawing at those scabs, drawing blood again and again, didn't really help in the matter.
Soft steps had them look toward the entrance. Mako stood there, calm as ever, expression somewhere between curious and polite. She held a tablet.
"Uh, hey," Raleigh said, brows wrinkling. "Did I miss a briefing?"
Her smile was even more polite, but there was amusement dancing in her eyes. "No. I heard about your encounter with Chuck. I wondered how you are."
"Good. Just fine."
Riiight, Bond thought. Worst lie he had ever heard.
She looked at Bond and bowed her head slightly in greeting. "Commander Bond."
"Just Bond. Or James."
Another inclined head. "James."
Bond climbed to his feet, giving the young woman a smile. "I'll be off. I think I need to drag my partner away from all the shiny upgrades."
Raleigh rose, too. "Bond? Thanks."
He gave the other man a brief smile. "See you around, Raleigh."
And then he left the two alone. An experienced, damaged pilot who had been dragged back into service, and a young, inexperienced pilot who hadn't had a real fight before.
It sounded so very familiar, he thought, grinning to himself. So very, very familiar.
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Bond nuzzled the mark he had left on the pale shoulder, licking over it, then up the sweaty neck. Teeth scraped over sensitive skin and Q shivered. Bond, while sated, was playful in a way that bordered on erotic. His fingers slid over sweat-slick skin, fondling his semi-hard dick and Q's breath caught when his partner began to stroke it lovingly.
"Are you trying to kill me?" he groaned.
Because he was feeling a new wave of arousal, much less than before, little twitches all that came out of it.
"Hm, maybe."
"You're a menace."
And then his partner slid down his body, that wicked tongue somewhere else and Q swallowed hard when a hot mouth engulfed him.
"James…" he stuttered, seeing himself disappear in that hot, wet mouth.
"Hm." It was a hum, a vibration around his dick.
Fingers circled him and he didn't fight the sensation, the caress, but his head thumped back hard when those fingers slipped inside him.
With the edge taken off, letting himself fall into the teasing stimulation was wonderful.
"James, god, please…" he begged.
The gleam in the glacially blue eyes told him that Bond knew just how sensitive he was, how much he wanted this. Knew that he trusted the older ranger.
It all turned Bond on even more. He was hard again and yearning, wanting it all, wanting the power and the submissiveness, knowing so very well that Q was anything but submissive or weak.
Q could only moan, his thoughts suddenly jumbled as Bond swallowed around him, two fingers sliding to just the right spot.
Q came again, his body tensing up and then flowing into pieces. He felt Bond's release like a faint echo, and when the other man crawled up to lay down next to him, he was too limp to do much. Bond brushed a gentle hand over his stomach and Q smiled lazily.
"Sticky," the quartermaster murmured.
It got him a grunt.
"Shower?"
"You move first."
He smiled and slid his fingers into the messy, dark blond hair. Bond's eyes opened a slit, the blue bright and sharp.
They made it to the shower eventually.
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The alarm blaring through the Shatterdome had three Jaeger crews scrambling for their Conn-Pods, while two had to remain behind.
Both the Mark-III Jaegers.
That they weren't sent out with the others was a mystery. It might be to have a last ace up their sleeves while Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon tackled what had been classified as two category 4 Kaiju. Striker Eureka was to protect the coastline, be the back-up, but they didn't really want to risk any form of serious damage because of the bigger plans.
But wouldn't it make more sense to have Striker safe and sound in the Shatterdome and let the four others battle it out with the Kaiju? Why risk so much?
A dark voice muttered that both Bond and Raleigh were paired with rookie co-pilots, that it might be the reason to hold them back, let the experienced command crews take care of matters.
He hated the voice. He despised the implications.
He could see his anger reflected in Raleigh's face, watched him argue with Pentecost. But the Marshall wasn't to be swayed. If anything, he grew even more icy, quietly ordering Raleigh to stand down.
Bond exchanged a knowing look with Q. This was about so much more than rookie pilots. This was also Pentecost's personal life becoming mixed up with his Marshall duties.
"Two attacking together," Q murmured, studying the screen. "The Double Event. After such a short amount of time."
Gottlieb had been right.
It was frightening to think of what else he might be right about.
x X XX xx X
It was how they lost Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon.
It was how five human pilots died and two Jaegers were destroyed.
Q was a pale, silent shadow at his side, tense, trembling with repressed fury.
James just curled a hand around the slender wrist, squeezing it gently. Jaeger pilots lived with the prospect of death every time they faced a Kaiju. It didn't make it any easier when a team was lost.
And then the EMP blast silenced everything, rendering the Shatterdome and Striker Eureka deaf and blind.
tbc...