Chapter Text
“Here?”
“No, higher.”
“Here?”
“Why do you sound so surprised? Just take it all off.”
“Everything?”
“Yes, I said.” Yuri frowns at Otabek’s reflection in their bathroom mirror. “God, Beka, it’s not a big deal.”
Their setup and tools are hardly ideal—just the two of them and Otabek’s desk chair yanked into the bathroom and positioned in the middle of the floor, and nothing more suitable to work with than a pair of stolen medical scissors, a broom, and a dustpan. Yuri can only just make out his own face, given the chair’s height, but as far as he’s concerned that’s a moot point; Otabek can see him just fine, and that’s good enough.
“You say that now, but if you don’t like the way it turns out, you’re not going to talk to me.” Otabek’s hands idle at the back of his neck, parting the lengths of his hair, carding through the strands. Too long now, they’ve agreed, and too wild—hanging down past the shoulderblades, a singular pain to wrestle into a helmet, a disaster post-helmet removal. But the thing is Yuri’s decided it could use more than a trim this time. “I keep telling you I can take you to a barber when we next go to town.”
Yuri huffs. “And spend money? I have to get Deda a new coat before winter hits.”
“Which I said I’d help you with, remember?” Otabek sighs and clips a lock between two fingers to measure out the new length. “Well, if you’re sure.”
“Just follow that,” Yuri tells him, leaning backward, just a little. When Otabek’s fixing him up like this all his stiffness, all his caution falls away. By way of instruction he gestures at the faded photo taped to the lower right corner of the bathroom mirror. “Give me what Mom’s got.”
It’s a picture taken on one of the catwalks in the main hangar. In it Astra Nova’s pilots have just completed their first dispatch—sweat across their brows and helmets under their arms, leaning shoulder-to-shoulder to stay upright, but smiling. Exuberant, to mark what they can only hope is the first of many such returns. Otabek touches a corner of the photo, skims over it with his thumb, wordless and reverent, before he pulls the scissors from his pocket and begins to cut.
There’s precious little Yuri knows about who his parents used to be, before they became soldiers. There’s only one story he knows back to front, because it’s the one his grandfather most loves to tell—the one of the day his son Sasha told him he meant to sign up for enlisted basic training with the Air Force, how that had led to the longest and most explosive quarrel they’d ever had. And when Nikolai had pulled out what he’d assumed was his trump card—What about Nadia? Don’t you want to marry her?—his son had only shrugged and said, She’s already there.
Yuri remembers his grandfather laughing to tell it, laughing even as he said that they’d been breaking his heart over and over since that day. What do you expect, when your impossible son meets his match in such an impossible woman? Beautiful Nadia Sokolova, the spitfire-girl with the green eyes and masses and masses of coppery hair tumbling all about her in wild waves, just shearing it all off without a second thought, jumping unencumbered onto the back of an army truck. “But why, Sasha?” I asked him. “Did you make her go?” And all your father said to me was, “She went because she wanted to, Papa. That’s all.”
That stretch of years, the big before, only exists to Yuri in his grandfather’s photographs. In his memories, she looks different. Her hair is always short; she kept it cropped at the nape until the end of her life and never wore it long again. It was Yuri’s hair, instead, that she allowed to grow out—if only for the sake perhaps of adding another item to her laundry list of ways to care for him. He remembers the monthly trims, the nightly combing while his father sat on the floor at his feet and told him stories about ghost-girls and monsters that rose from the sea; still only just stories then, nothing more dangerous than stories for many years.
In his memories, Yuri is also in a chair—only he’s so small his feet don’t touch the floor, and he’s leaning forward, toward his father’s voice. Straining for the next thread of the tale: What happens next? The lengths of his hair catch in his mother’s grip, pull tight; he ignores the ache at the base of his skull until she rests her hand on his shoulder. Stay still, Yurochka.
Only now he’s taller, and he’s mastered the art of staying still, listening to the too-familiar snip of the scissors in an altogether different pair of hands.
“You look a lot like her.”
“You think?” He’s heard that one before, been told that other people can see his father in his long, lanky limbs and the color of his hair. But your face, your face is all Nadia.
“Sure.” Otabek smiles, snips. “Unless you take a leaf from your dad’s book and grow a beard, maybe.”
Yuri rolls his eyes. “No chance.”
There’s this thing that happens to the air in the room, when they look at each other in the mirror—this unreal lightness. Yuri remembers being five years old, standing on tiptoe to practice his military salute, meeting colonels and generals and matching their stony expressions with a dogged solemnity that looked so out-of-place on his face it broke them and made them laugh. How he hadn’t allowed himself to so much as crack a smile until he was absolutely certain no one else was watching.
He’s never forgotten that life, and he never will—what it was like, who he thought he’d grow up to be, then.
Otabek finishes his work carefully, makes the last cuts with deliberate precision, brushes the last stray strands to the floor. When he settles his hands on Yuri’s shoulders and asks “So, are we okay?”, Yuri can well imagine it stands for several things at once.
He considers his own image in the mirror, touches the bare nape of his neck and thinks—just a little longer than he knows he normally would have—about how to answer. But he’s interrupted by a knock on the door of their room, then a soft groan as it opens. After that, Yuuri’s voice.
“Otabek? Yurio?”
“In the bathroom.” It’s a statement made with as much nonchalance as anything Otabek ever says. Yuri doesn’t notice—at least not right off the bat—the strangeness of it. What he does notice, though, is the silence, which begins at the end of the sentence and stretches on so long he wonders if Yuuri has left the room.
Then, tentatively: “... Both of you?”
Yuri sees Otabek bite the inside of his cheek. He finds the words building rapidly to a shout inside him, a quick burn, and then he’s turning his head toward the bathroom door and yelling, “Dammit, Katsudon, are you coming in or not?!”
Another long silence. Both Yuri and Otabek have their knuckles pressed to their mouths, as though they’re physically trying to shove the laughter back down. Which is stupid, Yuri knows; it’s like being little kids again, getting up to mischief that doesn’t mean much.
“N-no it’s fine! Totally fine! I j-just wanted to check if you were awake, but it seems you’re awake! More than awake, I guess—it’s fine!” They listen—hear the shuffling, the scuffling. “See you two at breakfast!”
The door closes, and the dam breaks seconds later, Yuri doubling over, snickering and clasping his ribs. Otabek doesn’t follow, though Yuri’s willing to bet all his savings it’s taking every iota of his by-now-legendary self-control not to, from the way he pushes off the back of the chair and sets too hastily to sweeping up the “evidence.”
“You’re—stop laughing, you’re terrible—come on, we need to go.”
For two months now it’s been quiet, which means that the Vladivostok defense team has had little to do besides train and wait for the axe to drop. As designated leader and resident human battery, Victor’s been applying his seemingly inexhaustible energy reserves toward figuring out ways to build the team’s interpersonal rapport and improve their synergy. Thus far they’ve tried coordinated gym routines, dawn-to-dusk sparring, a roundtable discussion on strategy. His latest schtick is taking meals together, at the same long table in the middle of the mess hall every day. He says there’s nothing like it for building a sense of solidarity, though perhaps his greatest (and most transparent) rationale is that oversaturation will motivate Yuri and JJ to channel their energies less toward trying to kill each other and more toward actually killing the kaiju, whenever they decide to reappear.
The others are already there when they enter, have already taken their places and started eating, Victor and Yuuri on one side of the table, Isabella on the other. One empty chair beside her and two more at the ends. JJ still on his feet, setting a coffeepot down on the table, and of course he’s the first to notice the new arrivals.
“Hey, nice hair, Plisetsky! Good to see your face for once!” He reaches out with one arm as they approach, but Yuri catches his wrist and digs his fingers in, shoves it aside more forcefully than is strictly necessary.
He knows his own strength, so even he can tell it’s too much, but he can’t quite help it—not yet. “Try to touch me again and you can kiss your arm goodbye.”
“Yowch, his bite’s as bad as his bark!” JJ circles around and drops down into the empty chair at the head of the table, pouting furiously. “Bella, kiss it better.”
“You get no sympathy from me,” Isabella declares, but she pats the offended wrist nevertheless. Looks Yuri full in the face and smiles, then Otabek. “Coffee, you two?”
They sit. Otabek’s careful to place himself in the chair next to Isabella, maneuvering Yuri gently but firmly into the last empty chair on the opposite end of the table from JJ, putting the two of them out of each other’s striking range. “Yes, please, thank you.”
“The new cut suits you.” Yuuri speaks up in the middle of buttering his bread. “Was that what you were, um, busy with earlier?”
“Huh? Yeah.” Suddenly Yuri feels the air, prickling up and down the back of his neck, the swathe of skin bare and exposed. He brings a hand to his nape, scrubbing at it irritably, while the other starts to poke at his scrambled eggs. “I wanted a change. It was getting kinda heavy.”
Victor chuckles as he stirs a packet of sugar into his coffee. And then another. And then, to Yuri’s mounting horror, another. “You’re not the rebel I thought you were, Yurio. I don’t know if you remember, but back when Yuuri and I were running second flank my hair was twice as long as yours.”
Yuri sneers. “I remember. My dad always said it took five extra minutes to get your helmet on.”
It’s always noisy at mess, but this time he’s hyper-aware of how sound travels around the table. The interlocking conversations, how he can’t disengage completely from any of them. Over his shoulder, Otabek’s murmuring a question he doesn't quite catch to Isabella, something about the coffee, and Yuri deciphers her answer in snatches: “There’s a place in town... Arabica beans... we can show you, next time...” JJ chiming in: “I know a guy who...”
“Phichit-kun!” On Yuri’s other side the greeting peals out like a bell, making his ear ring. He cups a hand over it protectively, but it’s not quite solid enough to block out Phichit’s answering “Yuuri!” from two tables away, or the peculiar melody of their two voices raised in laughter. There’s nothing to laugh about, even—nothing that Yuri can discern, unless there’s some kind of joke coded into the words “good morning” that only the two of them know.
“... way too many people at this table,” he mumbles, glancing down, rubbing at the side of his head.
“Right? Isn’t it wonderful to eat with everyone?” Victor’s eyes shine under the overhead lights. That’s one thing about him Yuri finds he’s never understood—how someone who’s seen so much battle still walks through the world with all that light spilling out of him, a radiance that pours off in waves. “The two of you don’t need to be alone anymore!”
“What the—You can’t just say stuff like that!” It’s jarring to hear it said. It feels like being disarmed, so of course all the spines go up. Next to him Otabek lets out a soft noise that sounds suspiciously like a chuckle, try as he might to disguise it as a cough. He brings up one hand to try and muffle it, but Yuri is quicker—slapping it away, irritated. “And don’t you start, Beka!”
They both know there’s no need to say it. Otabek smiles and makes no argument, returns his modest attention to his food and his coffee. Yuri relaxes a little, as much as his own stubbornness will allow.
Victor’s already done eating, the rest of them working through the last few bites on their plates or draining their cups when the alarms go off.
Attention. Attention. Harmony Tango, Justice Jackal, Astra Nova. Report to Bay 7, level A39. Kaiju, codename Vodyanoy, Category 4 sighted at 0900 hours. I repeat—
JJ whistles through his teeth. “A full sortie, first thing in the morning? And for a Cat Four too. These kaiju really know how to crash a party.”
“We don’t have time for your complaints, first flank! Vladivostok defense team, scatter!”
True to form, Victor is on his feet in a flash, but it’s Yuuri who moves first, taking his partner by the arm and half-dragging, half-lifting him away from the table. “What do you mean, scatter? No scattering. We’re all using the same elevator.”
The other four rise to follow, just as quickly. JJ swipes a half-eaten bread roll from off his plate and shoves it into his mouth as they make for the elevator without missing a beat.
“Mmmph hmmphf fffmmm mphmmmph mmff!” It’s clearly not what he’d been going for in terms of delivery. Clearly a take two is in order, so he chews rapidly a few more times, swallows, tries again. “I said, let’s kick some kaiju ass!”
Isabella groans, Yuri knows he’s about to have words, but this time Otabek beats him to the punch, just grabs Yuri’s wrist in his hand and hustles him forward, muttering “Come on, come on, let’s go, before you kill him” under his beath.
Yuri’s wrist stays in Otabek’s grip as the elevator races up and up in time to the wail of the sirens. He feels his blood already beginning to beat with urgency, his breathing quickening—or maybe that’s Otabek’s, or Isabella’s, or Victor’s, or all of theirs. He can’t tell, even when the six of them hit the corridor outside the Drivesuit Room and break apart from one another, just before they make for their separate chambers.
“We’ll see you on the water,” Victor says. From the sound of it you’d never think they were about to go to war. “Let’s make it back in time for lunch. Maybe brunch, even.”
“We can’t make Nikolai cook an extra meal,” Yuuri protests, tugging firmly at his hand.
“We’ll go to town, then.”
“But we’ll have to get permission—”
“Yuuri, you know I already have it.”
“Vitya, don’t be—”
“Yuri thinks brunch is for old ladies.”
It’s not a yes, let’s go to town, or a no, let’s not go to town. It’s just what Yuri would have said himself, only the words were out of Otabek’s mouth long before they were even a fully-formed thought in his mind. And the others must know this; the sound of Victor’s laughter fills up the whole room, ricochets off the partitions that separate them.
The techs have already finished helping them into their armor and are in the process of affixing the spinal clamps when Yuri notices it. He feels it like a pulse, a muted presence on the very fringes of his consciousness. He’s aware the energy isn’t his own—it’s far too low-key for that, too steady and understated—and while it would make sense to assume that it must then be Otabek’s, it also makes no sense at all without the Drift up. You’re not one mind when you’ve disconnected from the hardware and become two people again; he doesn’t know if it’s even possible for a measure of that synchronicity to remain, like a kind of phantom limb.
He wonders if Otabek feels it too. When he comes back from his wondering they’re already hooked into the Conn-Pod and listening to Yakov take them through their final preparations before the sync-up, so he can’t ask—but, then again, maybe he doesn’t need to. He’ll know soon enough.
“Rangers, this is Deputy Commander Yakov Feltsman. Prepare for Neural Handshake.”
“Harmony Tango, born ready,” Victor says, satin-smooth, but it’s easy to hear the spark deep down underneath the polish, the little ember that is fury and delight and resolve all at once.
(In the background, too, Yuuri sighing: “Vitya, I swear—”)
Meanwhile Isabella’s voice is calm and clear over the tactical channel, ringing out so free of any hitches and tremors it comes off like a clean truth, a clarion call, impossible not to trust: “Copy that, sir. Justice Jackal standing by for Neural Handshake.”
It’s peculiar, maybe even a little funny, to listen to so many transmissions at once, hear so many voices echo around the inside of the Conn-Pod. For a moment Yuri is so occupied with listening that Otabek needs to call to him, to make sure he doesn’t miss his cue.
“You have to sound off.”
This is where the morning opens up. Yuri leans forward, throws the switch that will open their communication line, and joins his own voice to the chorus.
“Astra Nova, ready to align.”
The comm isn’t a bridge this time, a singular stream from Jaeger to Mission Control and back again. Instead it’s a net cast outwards, holding all of them together—six people and three giant machines and one tower for the sea to break against, standing fast, waiting to see her soldiers home.
What difference does it make? Yuri listens to the AI count the numbers down, catches and holds Otabek’s eye and feels the understanding hum between them: they’re about to find out.
... Three, two, one. Initiating Neural Handshake.
They sense the Jaeger first, all around them, its presence so fierce and powerful it threatens to overwhelm—the sheer fire and steel and will of it surging to life. At first, it doesn’t make sense to imagine that something so enormous could be moved by human hands. This alone already feels a little like battle, the act of interfacing, of negotiating a place from which you and your copilot can make your will known, but Yuri’s learned all you need to do is fall. It’s the same for Otabek; it must be.
When they shut their eyes and drop down through the Drift into Astra Nova’s heart, Yuri knows where to find him.