0013: You can't cheat at Tekken, 2017
The first time it happens, it's in the middle of lunch and his eyes are wandering the table, wondering what he forgot to grab. Without so much as looking up from his book, Yancy reaches over and hands his brother the bottle of ketchup hidden by the punch bowl in the center of the dinner table.
Raleigh stares at it for a second, wondering why his brother is even handing him the bottle. Yancy stops chewing on his French fries and stares at his own hand, baffled himself. "Did you want this?" He asks. Raleigh's gaze shifts, he looks down at his plate and realizes there are still French fries on them. "Yeah, actually," He grabs the bottom and proceeds to open the cap.
The second time, Yancy is soundly beating him in a game of Tekken Tag Tournament 2. Raleigh throws his control onto the couch not once, but every time he's beaten. He can't understand for the life of him why every team he uses is countered and beaten by even the worst of Yancy's tag selection. "You're cheating, you have to be!"
"How the hell do you cheat at Tekken? There are no cheat codes for this game!"
"You keep backing me into a wall, that's how."
"Oh, bullshit, you just can't stand that I'm beating your ass for once, and before you go and call me "bullshit", it's the truth and you know it."
"I wasn't going to call you bullshit."
"Yes you were. It was practically written on your face."
They argued for another five minutes before Raleigh removed himself from the recreation room, taking his controller with him. Yancy marched out a few seconds later, shaking his head. Dumb kid.
The third time it happened, Raleigh can't explain why eating his cereal is trigging arousal. It's embarrassing, chewing on cornflakes, making noises and feeling the the sting of pleasure hit him square in the chest every time he swallowed. He knew he was making faces because half the Danger crew was eyeing him like he just farted or trying their hardest not the laugh.
These were either the best cornflakes he ever tasted or something else was amiss. Crossing his legs, he leaned toward one of the Drivesuit techs and asked, "Have you seen Yance anywhere?"
The guy shrugged. "Uh, last I saw him he was talking to Regina."
Raleigh made a face. "Regina, the Jaeger Fly?"
"Yeah, that'd be the one."
"How did she get in the dome?"
"The same way the others do."
"Where are they?"
"Uh, the Kwoon, I think. Why?" Raleigh didn't answer him. Sliding off the bench, he adjusted his jacket and exited the mess hall. The entire way to the Kwoon room, his palms were sweating and his heart was racing. Opening the door, he traveled down the short corridor toward the three stairs and stared at the middle of floor.
Yancy was lying on the floor pinned beneath the girl named Regina who was busy trailing kisses across his chest, working her way up to his neck. His expression matched exactly what Raleigh was feeling; he hated it.
"Yancy!" His voice boomed in the empty space, startling both parties out of their activity. Regina scrambled off of Yancy, using his jacket to cover whatever was exposed. "Oh, my God, you have a twin!" Yancy was on his feet in an instant, hands hoisting his pants back up around his waist and adjusting his red plaid shirt. He was vexed, embarrassed and still riding the high. "He's not my twin, he's my brother," Yancy corrected her. "What the hell are you doin' here, Raleigh?"
"You wanna tell me what the hell you're doin' with her?"
"What business is it of yours?" Yancy snapped. "I don't ask who you sleep with."
"It's my business when you're practically broadcasting it in my brain!"
"What?" His older brother stared at him like he grew two heads.
Regina made a face. "Uh, what does he mean?" As Yancy prepared to dismiss his brother as temporarily insane, a look of horror spread across her rosy features. "Oh, my God."
"Yeah, exactly," Raleigh retorted, crossing his arms.
"What?" Yancy was lost. "What exactly?"
Regina shrugged his jacket off and handed it to him. "Were you- did you two just Drift or something?"
"It's been an hour since we got off patrol with Gipsy, but, babe, I don't-"
"Uh, I have to go, Yancy. Like, call me when you're not- whatever," Regina retrieved her purse and shirt from the floor and pulled it over her head.
"Regina, you don't have-"
"Actually, I think I do," She hurried away in the opposite direction, leaving the brothers to their devices. Raleigh felt his brother's disappointment transform into resentment. He turned to stare his brother down with a glare. He marched toward him, hand gripping the jacket with all his might. "There had better be-"
"-a good reason for this?" Raleigh finished, his expression mirroring his brother's. "Yeah, I think there is. C'mon." He made a move to grab his brother's wrist. Yancy evaded his hand and marched up the stairs.
"Well, fine, be that way," He muttered following after him. "Button your shirt up, we actually want to get to our room."
"Shut up, kid."
"Jaegers for Dummies" lay open between them on the floor, Raleigh attempting to read the text upside down, Yancy staring down at it with a slightly annoyed expression. "Ghost Drifting" / "Drift Hangover", an unexplained side-affect from the neural handshake, something he figured they both should've been aware of.
They were never terribly studious about rereading the entirety of their manuals once they got over the initial hurdle of reading the material and memorizing it for tests. "You've gotta be kidding me," Yancy grumbled, shutting the book. "Does this ever go away?"
"Book says Dr. Lightcap doesn't think so," Raleigh scratched the back of his head. "Which might complicate things."
"That makes no sense," Yancy grumbled.
"It actually makes a creepy kind of sense," Raleigh argued with a shrug. "I mean, all those times you kept beating at Tekken when I should've won-"
Yancy glared at his brother. "I can't believe you're still bitching about that."
"It's the truth; I've beaten you every time we've played that game until we started piloting Gipsy Danger," Raleigh insisted with a grin. "Now that I know, maybe I can use it against you."
"In your dreams, Rals," Yancy grabbed the book off the floor, stood up and moved toward the door.
"Wh-where are you goin'?"
"To call Regina."
"Dude, desperate much?"
"She thinks we had a threesome or something, Rals," Yancy explained. "I should at least have the decency to explain what happened." Before Raleigh could say anything in her defense, Yancy was out the door and down the hall.