Chapter 1: Advance
Chapter Text
When the first monster rose from the ocean and attacked San Francisco, Jean Prouvaire was so high he didn’t realise what he was watching on the TV. Neither, in his defence, did Bossuet, who was equally stoned at the time. They’d been flicking through the channels, looking for something funny to watch, and they’d settled on a monster movie.
They didn’t actually realise until the next morning, when the footage they’d giggled over the night before was being replayed on every news program in the world, that they’d been laughing at the real destruction of San Francisco. Jehan cried for an hour, and Bossuet sat in uncharacteristic silence as the impossible monster shrugged off military attacks and roared at the world.
It was still going sixteen hours later when they finally fell asleep, and it was still going when they woke up.
“Where the fuck did it come from though?” Musichetta shouted over the noise in the bar. She didn’t even know the name of the guy she was talking to, but she didn’t care. “Everyone’s talking about mourning the dead, but who’s asking where it came from?”
“It came from the sea, didn’t you watch the news?” the guy shook his head.
Musichetta bared her teeth in derision. “That can’t be it! They can’t just throw their hands in the air and say ‘it came from the sea’ and expect us to stop asking!”
“Who’s they?” the guy yelled.
Musichetta sighed explosively and knocked back her shot. She was as ignorant about it as he was, but at least she was angry about it. At least she wanted to do something.
All most people seemed to want to do was strip the thing’s body. Musichetta turned her shot glass upside down on the bar and wondered how something that had been so intent on destruction had stayed hidden for so long.
For the first time in several years, Feuilly returned books to the library without having finished them, and proceeded to check out every single book on giant monsters he could find. That they were all in the sci-fi and fantasy sections didn’t bother him – he knew fiction contained just as many lessons as textbooks, if the reader’s mind was open to them.
None of it was particularly helpful. He attended a candlelit vigil for the people who had been killed in the attack, and was glad when no one asked him who he’d lost, this too-thin teenaged drop-out who hadn’t known any of the hundreds of dead personally, but still felt like he’d lost part of his family.
He returned the sci-fi books and checked out the ones he hadn’t had a chance to finish. Advanced mechanic theory might come in handy one day.
Azelma drew pictures of Trespasser at school and got in a fight with another classmate who tried to rip them up. No one came to collect her, so she sat in the front office with the secretary and drew more pictures while she waited for Éponine to come and pick her up.
Her teacher didn’t bother calling her parents – she knew by now that the Thénardiers wouldn’t care if their daughter dressed as a Kaiju and went rampaging through the playground. But she mentioned it to Éponine when she came to get Azelma at the end of the day, and Éponine told her sister that if she was going to draw monsters, she should at least draw the monsters losing.
Azelma drew pictures of Trespasser being killed by airplanes and tanks, and one of her better ones got put on the board in her classroom.
“Holy fuck.”
Every head in the lecture hall turned to him, and while Joly would usually be mortified by the attention, right now he hardly noticed.
“Excuse me?” their lecturer looked scandalised.
Joly gaped at her and then gestured to his phone. “My friend, he just –”
“I don’t care if it’s an emergency,” his lecturer interrupted, narrowing her eyes. “Leave the room and don’t come back until you learn some manners.”
“Another one of those monsters just attacked Manila,” Joly blurted, and her expression went instantly from furious to horrified.
Every student in the hall went for their own phones, and Joly stared in shock at the photo Courfeyrac had sent him as cries of confirmation rang out around him. The lecturer dismissed them after five minutes – it was clear that no one was going to be able to concentrate on learning the intricacies of metabolism now.
Enjolras drove to the coast with Combeferre and they sat on the edge of the cliff together, staring out at the ocean. “Let it out,” Combeferre muttered. “It’ll help.”
Because for the first time, fighting against issues like sweat shops and corrupt politicians looked laughably small. Faced with monsters larger than any creature seen before on Earth, what did their little petitions and meetings matter?
Enjolras wanted to break something. Smash and tear and destroy, because thousands of people had died the first time, and that had been horrible enough, but then it had happened again, and again, and today the fourth monster – Kaiju – had attacked Sydney. And he knew with a conviction he couldn’t explain that it would happen again, and more people were going to die. Innocent people, guilty people. Old, young, rich, poor, good, bad, and just plain ordinary – a mixture of everything. All killed by mindless nightmares that took days to bring down.
“Let it out,” Combeferre urged again, but Enjolras shook his head. He wanted to contain his fury and frustration, so that when he did get the chance to unleash it, it would be as potent as it was now. Combeferre sighed, and pulled his phone out when it pinged. “Breaking news,” he murmured, showing Enjolras the screen.
“The Pan Pacific Defence Corps,” he read, and, “what the hell is a Jaeger?”
Luc Javert had always been a light sleeper, so Cosette’s footsteps on the stairs had woken him instantly, and he’d followed her down less than a minute later. It would be a nightmare – she’d had several since Fantine’s death in San Francisco (the two of them had been on holiday), and more since the second Kaiju attack on Manila. Jean was away at a conference, so his goddaughter – their new adopted daughter – was his responsibility tonight.
“Cosette?”
She looked up with watery eyes from the sofa. He turned the light on as he went in and sat next to her gingerly – he’d never been as good with the emotional side of things as his husband. To his relief, however, she seemed content enough to sit in silence, and after a while he put his arm around her and relaxed.
It would be alright. As long as his family was safe, it would all be alright.
Marius left his grandfather’s apartment in a daze, so angry he could hardly see straight.
Fuck the old man and his incredulous laughter. Fuck him for daring to ridicule the PPDC. If he honestly thought humiliating Marius would convince him not to volunteer, then Marius didn’t want to be part of his life anymore. He’d help defend the world from the Kaiju or die trying.
“Hey, look at this!”
Éponine looked round at her little brother, then at the TV screen where a picture of what looked like a Transformer was being pointed to by a man in a white coat. “What is it?”
Gavroche grinned. “They’re going to make massive robots to fight the Kaiju!”
That got Azelma’s attention away from her phone, at least. She’d been obsessed with the Kaiju since the first one reared its ugly head out of the ocean. Éponine made her way over to where Gavroche was sitting, picking her way between the rubbish on the floor of their shared bedroom. Azelma followed her, and they sat together on the floor in front of the battered TV.
“The mechas will be specially reinforced to withstand the blows a Kaiju can land,” the man in the white coat said, “and will possess nuclear weapons designed to pierce even the thickest Kaiju armour.”
“They’re calling them Jaegers,” Gavroche whispered.
Jaeger. Éponine rolled the sound round her head and nodded, deciding she liked it. Downstairs, something smashed, and Azelma leaned forward to turn up the volume on the TV to drown out the sounds of their parents screaming at each other. It was second nature by now to tune them out.
Grantaire only agreed because Bahorel had insisted they do it together. After all, his friend declared, they were both excellent fighters in peak condition – exactly what the PPDC was looking for. Why shouldn’t they go for it?
Honestly, the real attraction for Grantaire was the insistence the program placed on sobriety, and he knew Bahorel had seen that too. God knew he needed all the help he could get – maybe the incentive of potentially getting to be a Jaeger pilot would give him that extra bit of resistance he sorely needed. And if not, he could probably stick around as an instructor. The pay would certainly be better than his current job as a kickboxing teacher at the local gym.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” he muttered as he followed Bahorel into the hall. Their applications had been accepted – now they needed to pass the practical assessments.
Bahorel gave him a wide grin over his shoulder. “Don’t lie – this is the most exciting thing you’ve done all year.”
Grantaire’s lips twitched and Bahorel winked.
He was paired off with other candidates, then the officials, and finally a professional instructor. By the end he was exhausted, but quietly pleased with his performance. When he and Bahorel were both passed through to the next round, it was impossible not to feel elated, if only for a moment.
‘Drift compatible’. That was what they called it.
Combeferre nudged Enjolras, just the slightest press of his shoulder, and Enjolras smiled, the barest lift of his lips.
Some of the other trainees were already muttering the term to each other in the mess hall, in the dorms. Drift compatible. The Jaegers were too large to be piloted by just one person. Two were needed to share the strain.
“I don’t want anyone else in my head.” One of the men shook his head. “No way.”
“Pleased?” Combeferre asked under his breath.
Enjolras’ smile grew. “You know I am.”
Fewer potential pilots meant less competition, after all.
When the tests began, neither of them was surprised when their instructor declared them the first drift compatible pair in the program.
“Can you move it at all?” Joly asked from his position on the floor. He looked up at the man sitting on the edge of the gurney and prayed he wasn’t blushing.
The man – Laigle, his name was Laigle – shook his head with a grimace. “I’m fucked, aren’t I?”
Joly rocked back on his heels and sighed. No point sugar-coating it. “You’ve severely damaged the ligaments. Realistically speaking, even with intense physiotherapy, you’ll never be at optimum level again, and before it’s healed you’re going to have to be very careful with it.”
Laigle groaned. “Just my luck. I make it all the way through to the actual pilot program, and then I injure myself. What’re the odds?”
“Not that slim.” Joly rose to his feet and avoided Laigle’s eyes in favour of pretending to continue examining his knee. “You’d be surprised how many people push themselves too far and hurt themselves. We’ve sent several people home already with broken bones.”
“I can’t go home now.” Laigle’s face fell. “You’re not sending me home, are you?”
Sometimes Joly hated being a doctor. “I can’t recommend for you to be put back on the program,” he said apologetically. “You can’t even walk. And…well, they’ve got literally thousands of people breaking the doors down to be Jaeger pilots.”
Laigle sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. “My luck,” he muttered, laughing, and Joly was horrified at how thick his voice sounded. “Just my fucking luck.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said, knowing as he said it how inadequate his apologies were.
A knock on the door made him jump, and it opened before he could even open his mouth. A man with a kind face poked his head round the door and bit his lip when he saw Laigle. “Are you okay?” he asked, coming into the room and closing the door.
“Sorry, visitors aren’t actually allowed?” Joly said.
The man turned to him immediately and stuck his hand out. Joly shook it automatically, and the man grinned. “I’m Jehan. Bossuet’s my friend – I won’t be long, I promise, but this was the only time I could slip away.”
“Bossuet?” Joly frowned.
“A nickname,” Laigle sighed. Noticing his tone, Jehan left Joly and went to sit next to him on the gurney.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m out of the program,” Laigle – Bossuet? – whispered. “My knee’s too fucked up.”
“Ohhhh…” Jehan’s face was the picture of pained sympathy, and Joly couldn’t bring himself to ask him to leave. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”
Bossuet sniffed and leaned into him. “What am I going to do now? I don’t want to go…”
“What else can you do?” The words escaped Joly’s mouth before he had time to think about them, but he pretended it had been totally intentional when Bossuet looked at him.
“What do you mean?” Jehan asked.
“Well,” Joly cleared his throat self-consciously. “You’re obviously physically fit, but can you do anything else? What were you before this?”
“I…” Bossuet sat up a little straighter. “I was a programmer. A designer for Microsoft.”
Joly broke into a smile. “Were you good?”
“I was alright.”
“He was brilliant,” Jehan said firmly. “Why?”
“Because I happen to know that they’re looking for programmers and engineers to help build the Jaegers you want to pilot. I have a friend in the operations department – I could put a good word in for you if you really want to stay.”
“Are you serious?” Bossuet’s eyes were like saucers, and something fluttered in Joly’s stomach at his tone of voice.
“Sure,” he said, a little breathless. “I mean, it’s ideal, really – you wouldn’t aggravate your injury if you’re sitting at a desk all day. And you get to stay here.”
“Hug him for me,” Bossuet told Jehan, and Joly only had time to squeak before he was being squeezed around the middle, almost lifted off the floor.
“I take it that’s a yes?” he managed to say once he’d been released.
Bossuet’s grin was blinding. “Yes, and thank you.”
Jehan nudged him with a sly smile and shot Joly a look that was entirely too knowing. “And who said you had rotten luck?”
Éponine was going to be a Jaeger pilot. She was going to gain the power and prestige offered by the position and use it to get Azelma the job she wanted in the Shatterdome, and get Gavroche as far away from their parents as possible. She would become a Jaeger pilot, or die trying.
Unfortunately, at this point it was looking more and more likely that she would die trying than achieve those goals. She wasn’t drift compatible with anyone in her class of graduates, and she knew it was only a matter of time before they stopped letting her try. She’d only lasted this long because she’d proved her strength and her smarts again and again. She’d jumped through every hoop and ticked every box, but none of that would matter if she couldn’t find someone who would drift with her.
It was infuriating. It was terrifying.
She was running out of time.
“Set me up with anyone,” she begged Grantaire. “You teach everyone – you know the combinations that work.”
Grantaire sighed and gestured for her to do some press-ups. “I can’t tell till two people are in the ring.”
“There must…be someone…I haven’t…fought yet,” she huffed, the strain in her muscles pronounced. She’d been training practically non-stop for nine hours already today, and she was nowhere near done.
Grantaire hummed. “Butt down,” he said absently. “Back straight. There’s a class of new recruits coming in next week. I can get you into their first session with me as an observer, and we can see if anyone catches your eye.”
Éponine grinned. “R, you’re the best.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere.”
She would be a Jaeger pilot if she had to spar with every recruit from here to Timbuktu.
“Don’t tell me,” Courfeyrac told the head instructor. “See if I can guess.”
She snorted and waved an arm at the kwoon floor. “Go ahead.”
There were five pairs. As the third began sparring, Courfeyrac checked their names on the clipboard and then jerked his head at the instructor. “That’s them, right?”
“How’d you guess?” she muttered. They watched the pair on the floor weaving around each other. They weren’t as fast or as fancy as the first two pairs had been, and they didn’t look as strong or scrappy as the others either. But they’d been fighting for over three minutes now, and neither one had landed a blow on the other. Courfeyrac had watched literally hundreds of trainees spar in dozens of kwoons. None of them had known their opponents the way these two did.
“Drift compatible if ever I saw it,” he grinned.
“Next!” the instructor called, and the pair stopped, grinned at each other, and cleared the floor for the next pair. Courfeyrac watched the other trainees dutifully, but he knew he was only taking away two names that afternoon – Enjolras and Combeferre.
“This is Grantaire,” Bahorel introduced him to Jehan with a nod of his head. “R, this is Jehan. Apparently, we’re drift compatible.”
“That so?” Grantaire grinned and shook Jehan’s hand. “You got a Jaeger yet?”
Jehan shook his head and smiled. “They’re still building them. But we’re definitely in the front line.”
Bahorel caught Grantaire’s raised eyebrows after Jehan left – visiting a friend in operations, he said – and grinned. “So, whaddya think?”
“I’m surprised,” Grantaire said slowly. “He doesn’t exactly look like your type.”
Bahorel snorted. “We’re going to be co-pilots, not husbands. Besides, he’s cool. Great, actually.”
“Didn’t you only meet him a couple of days ago?”
“But I’ve already drifted with him,” Bahorel reminded him. They started walking to the east rec room, passing jumpsuited engineers, pilot trainees, and uniformed technicians on the way. A few gave Grantaire friendly nods – he was staff like them, after all – and several paused to congratulate Bahorel on finding a drift partner.
Bahorel waited for Grantaire to ask, but it didn’t happen till they were in the rec room. Of the four available in the facility, this was the only one where alcohol was prohibited. Grantaire had never been in any of the others, and Bahorel intended to keep it that way. But when they sat down, Grantaire finally asked. “What’s it like?”
Bahorel leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Difficult to explain,” he said. “It’s…yeah, really difficult to explain. It’s weird. Really weird. But not as uncomfortable as I’d expected, actually. I mean, Jehan and I fought in the kwoon the day before, and we exchanged basic info after they said we were compatible – he has two step-sisters, he used to be a sales assistant, he really likes poetry…yeah, yeah,” he grinned at the amused expression on Grantaire’s face. “I know what it sounds like.”
“Sounds like you’d never be friends with him in real life,” Grantaire smirked.
Bahorel snorted. “I know. But today we drifted, and…I don’t know everything about him – it’s not like that. You don’t put on the Pons and get a guided tour of their life story or anything. It’s more like impressions. I know what some poetry makes him feel now, and I know what makes him tick.”
“So?” Grantaire raised an eyebrow. “What makes him tick?”
“He wants to protect people,” Bahorel said simply. “I mean, he feels everything so much – super-empathetic, this guy, I mean, he cries all the time. But I can’t…I mean, I get why. He’s not whiny or self-indulgent – he just feels so sad for everyone whose life has been ruined by the Kaiju attacks. He wants to make it stop.”
“Damn. You getting in a Conn-Pod with Jean Prouvaire or Jesus Christ?”
Bahorel laughed and reached across the table to swat his shoulder. It was a mark of friendship that Grantaire let him. “He’s got flaws too. But they don’t matter so much, in the grand scheme of things.”
“I wonder what he saw in your head?” Grantaire mused.
“Plenty,” Bahorel shrugged. “It’s hard to be buttsore over letting someone in your head when you can see right back into theirs. You kind of…the first few seconds are crazy. Like the most intense mental storm you can think of, almost like a trip, but without the weird. You get this huge blast of exactly what’s in their head, and the only way you can get out is by letting it wash over you. And you come out on the other side knowing they’re in exactly the same situation as you, and you…I could actually feel him in my head. It wasn’t physical.” He gestured aimlessly, trying to explain in terms Grantaire would understand. “It wasn’t like he was a separate voice in my head or anything. He was just there. It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
“You’re compatible though,” Grantaire said softly. “You’ve got a real partner now.”
Bahorel nodded, and they sat in silence for a minute or so. Everything was about to change. They’d been slogging it out for so long, for months, over a year, and now it was all going to be one big push towards the goal. And Bahorel would be up in the Conn-Pod with Jehan while Grantaire could only watch from the ground, and there was nothing either of them could do to change that now.
Fuel shortages since the last Kaiju had managed to hit an oilfield off the coast of Alaska meant that Jean was walking home today. “Any news?” he asked as he walked in. From his seat at the kitchen table, Luc wordlessly handed him a letter. The seal of the PPDC was stamped on it, and Jean’s heart sank. “She got in?”
“Of course.” Luc sounded about as pleased as he did. “I’ve been teaching her self-defence since she was a toddler. She’s always been a natural. They would’ve been idiots not to take her.”
Fantine’s daughter, their Cosette, headed off to war against monsters too big to comprehend. Jean pulled out the chair next to Luc and sat down slowly. “There’s no guarantee she’ll be a pilot,” he muttered. “How many built so far?”
“Five. And Japan, New Zealand, and Australia’s programs have confirmed pilots now.”
“God.” Jean dropped his head into his hand. “I hope she’ll be alright.”
“At least she wasn’t in the first wave,” Luc murmured, and Jean nodded. The thought of their angel exposed to deadly radiation was awful. But at least then, a treacherous part of him whispered, she might die with them, not killed by a Kaiju, so thoroughly destroyed they wouldn’t even have her body to bury.
Fantine had trusted them with her child. Jean wondered sometimes whether she had made the right decision.
“I feel like I should be piloting them,” Feuilly admitted to Musichetta in the Shatterdome hangar.
“I know what you mean,” she sighed, gazing across at the Jaegers. Liberty Blaze, Indigo Fury, and Typhoon Strike stared back, dark and empty.
“What do you think the real pilots will be like?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Cocky, probably. Macho boys playing with giant robots.”
Feuilly sighed and swung his legs where they dangled over the edge of the walkway. The pilots would arrive tomorrow and take centre stage. He wondered whether they would even think about who had designed the Jaegers; who had engineered and built the behemoths they were sending out to fight the monsters. He didn’t want to hope for too much. And really, he couldn’t even lay claim to having played that great a part in their creation – he and Musichetta were just minor mechanics and Drivesuit technicians.
Musichetta leaned her head on his shoulder and lifted her beer. He smiled and clinked his bottle against hers, and they each took a gulp. “Here’s to our giant hunters,” she muttered. “Let’s hope the Kaiju don’t fuck up all our hard work.”
Courfeyrac grinned at the new liaison, who rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “You’re just as excited as I am, don’t lie.” He leaned over and poked Marius’ shoulder.
“I’m excited,” Marius laughed, “but I’m not as excited as you. You’re actually buzzing.”
“You will too when we see this.” Courfeyrac bounced on the balls of his feet and nodded in front of them. Liberty Blaze’ head was level with the command centre window, and the pilots were about to step into the Conn-Pod for the first time.
“What’s so special about them?” Marius asked sceptically. “I’ve seen pilots drift before.”
“Not these two, you haven’t. Trust me, it’s something special.”
“What’re their names again?”
“Enjolras and Combeferre.” Courfeyrac pointed as they emerged from the walkway and approached the Jaeger’s massive head. “Enjolras is the blonde, Combeferre’s the brunette.”
“Alright, gentlemen.” Lamarque said loudly. “Let’s see what the academy’s best and brightest can do. Who’s their liaison?”
“Me, sir.” Courfeyrac stepped forward.
“Then get to a booth. Pontmercy, you too – talk to our techs. Let’s get them hooked up.”
Courfeyrac followed Marius to a computer terminal and watched as he hooked up the comm.-link. “Feuilly, Chetta, you there?” he asked.
“Where else would we be?” A woman’s voice, amused.
A man’s – “How’s it look from your end, Marius?”
“Looks great to me,” Marius grinned and offered the chair to Courfeyrac, who accepted gratefully and patched into his pilots.
“How’re my delicious muffincakes?” he sang. “Everything good?”
“Do you really have to keep calling us that?” Enjolras’ voice came through clearly, pained though it was. Courfeyrac laughed.
“Not my fault you’re blondie and brownie. Keep me posted, yeah? We want this to go well, remember?”
“We’ll be fine,” Combeferre assured him. “Everything’s great so far.”
It took the Drivesuit technicians over ten minutes to get Enjolras and Combeferre into their suits, and Lamarque clapped his hands. “Make a note, Pontmercy – we need to practise suiting up to get that time down. The more time we waste, the more time the Kaiju have.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Helmets on and ready to go,” Combeferre said.
“Clearing the Conn-Pod now,” the woman – Chetta – confirmed. “Locking in.”
“Okay, guys, nice and easy, just like in the test centre.” Courfeyrac’s eyes flickered over the data on the screen.
“Relax,” Enjolras told him. “We know what we’re doing.”
“Then let’s show off a bit, shall we?” Courfeyrac grinned up at Marius. “Prepare to be impressed. Initiating neural handshake.”
They could hear the hum of machinery through the command centre window, and Lamarque came to stand behind Courfeyrac as Enjolras and Combeferre slipped into each other’s minds. “Stabilising,” Courfeyrac said. “And we’re in. Talk to me, Liberty Blaze.”
“This is incredible,” Combeferre sounded like a little kid at Christmas. “Enjolras –”
“Can we –” Enjolras started, and Courfeyrac looked up at Lamarque.
“Can they move?” he asked.
Lamarque didn’t reply for a moment, too busy drinking in the numbers streaming across the screen. “With a handshake like that, I’d say they’re safe to twitch a little.”
“Movement permitted,” Courfeyrac grinned. “Keep it basic, guys – arms only for now.”
There was the groan of metal, and everyone stared as Liberty Blaze’s two massive arms rose up and the hands curled into fists, opening and closing slowly.
“This is better than the test centre,” Enjolras said, breathless.
“We’re actually moving together,” Combeferre agreed.
“Like we’re actually one person –”
“In the same body.”
“Feeling good?” Courfeyrac’s face was beginning to ache from grinning so hard.
“Fantastic,” they said together, and he laughed, looking up at Marius.
“So?” he smirked at Marius’ gobsmacked expression. “Impressed?”
“That’s the steadiest, smoothest neural handshake I’ve ever seen,” Marius started to smile. “Yeah, I’m definitely impressed.”
Cosette spun on the mat and narrowly avoided a kick in the face from Éponine. “Careful,” Éponine cautioned, but when Cosette found space to look, she saw that Éponine was grinning.
“Careful yourself,” she retorted, advancing into Éponine’s space again.
“Cool it,” the instructor – a brawny man with black curly hair – called from the sidelines. “Keep your movements controlled, Cosette.”
“Yeah, Cosette,” Éponine teased, trading sharp, powerful blows with her fists and feet. “Cool it.”
Cosette narrowed her eyes and attacked fast and hard, driving Éponine into a corner and speeding up her punches until Éponine eventually missed one and caught it on her side, hard enough to send her staggering back, almost off the mat.
“Good!” the instructor praised. “Éponine, speed it up.”
They sparred until they were panting, too tired to keep it up. Cosette bounced in place and watched Éponine carefully, wary of another sudden attack. This woman favoured wide, sweeping kicks and sweeps that forced Cosette to expend more energy than she’d like ducking and weaving.
“Okay, take a break,” the instructor ordered. “Twenty minutes, then you fence.”
“She can fence?” Éponine looked over at him, surprised. Cosette straightened and lifted a shoulder when Éponine looked at her with a calculating expression.
“I like swords.”
Éponine brushed hair out of her eyes and grinned. “Me too.”
They talked as they stretched, keeping themselves ready for when the instructor decided they were going to fight again. To her surprise, Cosette found herself telling Éponine about losing her mother in the first Kaiju attack, and her determination to keep her dads safe. “They didn’t want me putting myself in danger, but I’m pretty stubborn when I want to be.”
“I know how that goes,” Éponine nodded.
“Ladies,” the instructor called, gesturing to the fencing gear he’d brought in. “Let’s see what you can do.”
They had jarred with their bare skin, but with an épée in each of their hands, they were electric. Every strike and shift was smooth, and Cosette felt like she was dancing. Éponine landed the first hit, Cosette the second, and they whirled around each other like flames, like tornados, crackling lines of lightning.
The instructor stopped them by clapping his hands loudly. He kept clapping even after they’d stepped away from each other and pulled off their helmets, both breathing heavily. “Ladies,” he grinned, “that was something. How’d that feel to you, Éponine?”
Cosette looked at Éponine and caught her eyes. Éponine smiled hesitantly and nodded, still panting a little. “Like I found a drift partner.”
“Cosette?” the instructor asked her.
“When can we start?” she asked eagerly, and he beamed.
“I’ll talk to Courfeyrac. Obviously you need to go through the tests, but I think we just found the final piece of the puzzle.”
Marius liked his job – liaising between technicians and commanders came easily to him, and he knew he was liked by both sides. It didn’t hurt that the perks included drinking with both sides either. Officers had the swankier bar, but the techs had better gossip.
It was nice to be the one with the news for once though.
“Are you serious?” Musichetta was ecstatic.
“It’s confirmed,” he nodded. “Indigo Fury will be piloted by the first all-woman team in the Jaeger program.”
Musichetta crowed and twisted to shout over to Feuilly at the bar. “Feuilly! Celebration drinks on me!”
He lifted a hand in acknowledgement and came over a minute later with three tall glasses held between his hands. “Take them quick before I spill them!”
“Thank you,” Musichetta kissed his cheek when he sat down.
“What’re we celebrating, by the way?” he asked cheerfully.
“My baby’s going to be driven by the first women-only team in the program,” Musichetta boasted.
“Yeah?” Feuilly grinned at Marius. “Confirmed?”
“Yep.” Marius laughed at Musichetta’s fist-pump. “Cosette Fauchelevent and Éponine Thénardier. Now we’ve got a pilots for all three Jaegers, they’ll relocate to the Shatterdome permanently, along with a core team to work with them.”
“They need fancy treatment?” Feuilly raised his eyebrows.
Marius shrugged. “It could be a good thing – these people will know them, and they need to be as comfortable as possible to drift at optimum. Besides, you liked Courfeyrac.”
“He was alright,” Feuilly admitted. “I just don’t want them pushing us around, that’s all. We’re the ones who’ve done all the hard work.”
“Preach.” Musichetta held up her fist and Feuilly bumped it with a laugh.
“As your liaison, I’ll do my best to keep everyone in line,” Marius said smoothly, and grinned when they lifted their drinks in a toast.
Gavroche ran down the street, fourth-hand trainers splashing through puddles from last night’s rain. The stolen paintings were under his arm, and the backpack full of stolen statuettes was heavy on his shoulders. He ducked into an alley and behind a bin, going absolutely still. He was pretty sure no one was coming after him, but it was always better to be safe than sorry.
His sisters kept telling him to stay out of trouble. But he had to eat, and no one hired kids for legit work.
There was a big difference between practising manoeuvres in the Conn-Pod and actually being called out for a real Kaiju attack.
Combeferre forced himself to listen to Courfeyrac’s voice through the comm. as he and Enjolras were locked into their Drivesuits by two stone-faced technicians. “Thank you,” he managed to say just before they left. The man gave him a surprised smile, and the woman nodded.
“Kick its ass,” she told him, and then they were alone.
Though really, you couldn’t be alone in the drift. Combeferre craved the connection for the comfort and relief it would bring – he felt stronger with Enjolras in his head.
“Initiating neural handshake,” Courfeyrac said in his ear the moment after they were dropped, Liberty Blaze’s head joining onto the rest of its gargantuan body.
And there it was, like sinking into a hot bath. Enjolras’ determination washed over him, and Combeferre breathed deep, accepting the fear that came with it; the fear that Enjolras could hide from everyone but him. There were no secrets in the drift.
“Liberty Blaze, online,” Enjolras’ voice was clear and strong, and Combeferre started to smile, excitement growing. They were in this together, and together they were unstoppable.
“Liberty Blaze, you are looking good,” Courfeyrac crooned through their earpieces, and Enjolras and Combeferre laughed together in harmony. “Okay, we’re gonna drop you two miles beyond the shoreline. Remember, this is a category one, but we think he’s got an extra pair of arms.”
“What’re we calling it?” Combeferre asked.
“Jaikaan,” Courfeyrac replied. “You ready for this, guys?”
“One hundred percent,” Enjolras confirmed.
“Then let’s do this.”
They were dropped in the ocean, and only had a minute and a half to get accustomed to moving the Jaeger without having to worry about accidentally crushing anyone. “This is amazing!” Combeferre shouted for Courfeyrac’s benefit.
“Everything’s working fine at our end,” Courfeyrac said. “Jaikaan’s approaching fast – get ready to intercept. Backup’s on its way, but don’t let Jaikaan get into the Miracle Mile.”
“We won’t need them,” Enjolras said confidently.
“Better safe than sorry,” Courfeyrac cautioned.
Combeferre understood both of them. He felt as invincible as Enjolras did, fear so far buried it was hardly there. He also reminded Enjolras silently of the sheer size and strength of a category one Kaiju – better to err on the side of caution, at least for their first mission.
Enjolras’ thoughts aligned with his immediately – better to make absolutely sure that the coastline was protected than risk lives unnecessarily.
“Send the backup,” Combeferre said. “Kaiju ETA?”
“He’ll be right on top of you any moment now.”
Combeferre felt Enjolras see it the moment before he said, “There.”
There was a wave approaching them. Foam and spray rising up as Jaikaan emerged from beneath the water and bellowed a challenge.
“Jesus Christ,” Combeferre breathed. He was still confident, but…
Enjolras was thinking that he’d never been so close to a Kaiju before. Combeferre reminded him without speaking that no one who got as close to a Kaiju as they were about to made it out alive. It was a good thing they were in a three-hundred-foot-tall Kaiju killing machine then, Enjolras pointed out. They were in Liberty Blaze. They were Liberty Blaze.
Jaikaan screeched, beak-like jaw stretching wide. Combeferre wasn’t actually sure which one of them had the idea first, but they were of one mind as they shouted their own challenge at it and raced forward. Liberty Blaze moved like a dream, plunging through the waves like they were butter – their legs were narrow at the front, sharp like a knife to cut through the water with ease despite their size.
Combeferre’s lips pulled back over his teeth in a snarl as he and Enjolras worked in perfect synchronisation, him operating the left arm, Enjolras the right, and while Jaikaan was still shrieking, they inserted their hands into its beak and pulled. It was taken by surprise, and its jaw broke almost immediately, its scream turning from angry to agonised.
They were strong. They were powerful on a physical level no human had ever been before and it felt good.
Jaikaan attacked ferociously, but Liberty Blaze was more than a match for it, distracted as it was by the pain of having its jaw practically snapped off. They had to stay with the body to make sure it wasn’t washed away before the cleanup crew arrived, and both of them breathed evenly, in a kind of trance. In the drift, it was just the two of them.
Combeferre had known Enjolras since childhood, and he loved him as fiercely as he would have loved a blood brother. More, probably. Friends were the family you chose, after all, and he and Enjolras had always chosen each other for everything. Lonely only children, too smart for their own good. Enjolras charming their teachers, Combeferre outwitting them. They were the perfect team even before they were given the ability to get inside each other’s minds.
“How’s the oven?” Courfeyrac chirped as they started to make their way back.
“The oven?” Enjolras asked, a little fuzzy. It was strange speaking out loud – so slow compared to mental communication. So one-dimensional.
“Yeah. You’re blondie, Combeferre is brownie – obviously Liberty Blaze is the oven. Even got fire in its name.”
Combeferre groaned, and Courfeyrac laughed. “That’s awful.”
“That hurts, Combeferre. I spent the last ten minutes coming up with that.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” Enjolras grinned, and Combeferre felt rather than saw it.
“Probably a good thing in the long run,” Courfeyrac said, and Combeferre smiled, a wave of affection for the man rolling through him. Enjolras caught it and amplified it – they wouldn’t be where they were without Courfeyrac. He’d been the one to insist on their potential and pushed them through every stage of the program, supporting them even though they weren’t the best in their physical classes. At the end of the day, drift compatibility was what counted, and Combeferre and Enjolras had that in spades. Courfeyrac had seen that from the moment they met, and took great pride in telling people.
Enjolras in his head, Courfeyrac in his ear. Combeferre sighed and added exactly one mark to a mental tally – Kaiju kills: one.
Chapter 2: Golden Age
Summary:
The Golden Age of the Jaeger program lasts from about 2016 to 2019.
Chapter Text
Three years, eight months, two weeks, four days.
Bahorel told him when he got to ten years, he’d give him a surprise present. Grantaire just hoped they lived that long.
When he was made primary combat instructor for all three pilot teams, Bahorel and Jehan spent the night in his room with him, playing cards and reassuring him that he was more than capable of coaching three teams at once.
Three years, eight months, two weeks, five days.
He always told himself he just had to make it to the end of the week.
(And then the next week, and the next, and the next, and the next. And so on until he died.)
(By now, he’d accepted that sobriety was never really going to be a natural state for him.)
Jehan woke up screaming, drenched in sweat and heart hammering so hard he thought for a panicked moment that he was going into cardiac arrest. Images and residual sensations swirled in his head, flickering over his vision like a layer of skin.
Still in the Jaeger, still in Typhoon Strike, still fighting but falling, slipping, slipping on the sea bed and tumbling down, down, down, down (such a long way to fall in a mech hundreds of feet high).
“Bahorel,” Jehan muttered, stumbling to his feet and lurching unsteadily across to the door. His body told him he was upright, gravity keeping his feet on the ground. But half his mind – the half connected to his partner – insisted that he was falling, gravity pulling him backwards towards the terrifying depths of the ocean.
Water closing over Typhoon Strike’s body, arms flailing for purchase and finding none. Darkness, bubbles, the rushing roar of water invading the Conn-Pod, the cold of the Pacific pouring in.
“Bahorel!” Jehan shouted, falling over as he got his door open and spilled into the corridor. Bahorel was in the room opposite, and he had to pull himself over on hands and knees, water flowing down the corridor as the Conn-Pod tilted and he was strapped in, stuck, trapped, helpless.
It was freezing, ice-cold as it seeped through the Drivesuit and touched skin, and he couldn’t pull away, he was going to die, and the panic, the sheer panic was overwhelming.
“Bahorel!” Jehan screamed, clawing at the door and wrenching on the handle, only to find that it was locked from the inside. “Wake up! Bahorel!”
Water sloshing against the outside of the helmet, getting inside the crack at the bottom and crawling up his throat, his chin, mouth – panic like nothing he’d ever known before, blind, screaming terror shredding through him, muscles tearing as he struggled to detach himself from the harness – and the water in his mouth, coming up to his nose, no escape, no way out, no hope of salvation or rescue just fear FEAR FEAR –
Jehan felt it the second Bahorel woke up, like an elastic band had been stretched between their minds and suddenly snapped back. He pounded weakly on the door, uncurling and hauling himself up onto his knees. “Bahorel,” he rasped, only realising then that he was crying. “Bahorel, let me in.”
He thought he could almost feel an echo of hesitation, but then there were footsteps inside, and the scrape of a bolt pulling back. Jehan swayed as the door opened, and a hand slick with sweat appeared in front of him. He gripped it tight, and Bahorel pulled him to his feet.
Ghost drifting. Cosette had told him that she and Éponine sometimes shared dreams, but he’d never experienced it till now.
They didn’t need to speak. They just sat next to each other on the edge of the bed, shoulders pressed together for what little comfort could be gained.
Being Jaeger pilots wasn’t all glitz and glamour. But at least they were never alone.
Musichetta looked at the three newcomers from under her eyelashes. Marius had invited Courfeyrac to their usual Friday night piss-up, and Courfeyrac had brought along three of his friends. Only Courfeyrac could get away with something like that – he was impossible to dislike, really.
Joly, Bossuet, and Jehan. Jehan she knew by reputation, of course, and she and Feuilly had sealed him and his partner into their Drivesuits on their first mission. The other two, however, were totally new.
Joly was a medical officer, and Bossuet was a programmer for Typhoon Strike. He and Jehan had been friends for years, and Courfeyrac and Joly had been roommates at university. Joly was tall, pale, with an easy laugh and bright eyes. Bossuet was dark and lean, and walked with a slight limp. “Fucked up my knee,” he said cheerfully. “It’s not all that bad though. Joly got me the job in programming and I only use the cane when my knee plays up.”
“Or when you feel like tripping up your underlings,” Joly said dryly.
Bossuet grinned. “Or using it as a claw. I modified it a bit,” he added for their benefit. “It’s got a trigger that pops out at the bottom, and the top can unfold into a pincer. For when I’m feeling particularly lazy.”
Musichetta laughed and tried not to stare too hard. They were both gorgeous, and wasn’t it just her luck that she’d managed to find two of the most attractive men in the whole Shatterdome on the same night, and she was at least seventy percent sure they were already in a relationship with each other.
She dragged Marius to the bar for her round to help her carry the drinks. She ignored the knowing smirk Feuilly sent her way as she went, and resolved to smack him when she came back.
“Marius, you know everything,” she muttered in his ear, looking over at their table. Bossuet and Joly were telling some story that had everyone else in stitches and she just wanted to eat them up. “Tell me about them.”
“Who?” Marius followed her gaze. “Bossuet and Jehan?”
“No, you tool, Bossuet and Joly. Are they together?”
“I’m…not actually sure,” Marius admitted. “But I can find out by the end of the night if you want?”
“Can you do it subtly?”
“No.”
She hesitated. “Fuck it. Better obvious than not at all.”
“Consider it done.” Marius picked up three of the drinks placed on the bar. “Which one are you interested in?”
“I can’t be interested in both?” she said haughtily. After she’d given Feuilly his drink, she swatted the back of his head, and he grinned shamelessly up at her.
“So, Joly,” he said, leaning his elbows on his knees. “Tell us about being on the med team.”
Musichetta scowled at him as furtively as she could, and gave him a quick kick for good measure. He knew she had a thing for physical specialists – doctors, martial arts instructors, physiotherapists, etc. She wasn’t choosy.
By the end of the night, she believed that programmers were just as sexy, and what Joly and Bossuet really needed to do was spend the night – and possibly the week – with her, in her bed, with Joly drawing bones on her limbs and Bossuet tracing numbers on her stomach with his tongue. She’d also convinced herself that they couldn’t be a couple, because Joly kept staring at her with a dazed look in his eyes, and they hadn’t shown any physical affection beyond friendly nudges and pokes.
Marius grabbed her as they were leaving to whisper, “They’ve kissed, and they’re really close friends, and possibly fuckbuddies, but no actual relationship.”
She reached out and snagged the back of Feuilly’s braces. “Feuilly,” she hissed, “we have a problem.”
“The problem being your massive crush on the doctor and the nerd?”
“This has been the most simultaneously confusing and arousing evening of my life,” she complained. Marius stifled a laugh, and she turned on him. “You! Where did you get your information from?”
“Um.” He exchanged an unreadable look over her head with Feuilly. “Courfeyrac?”
“Courfeyrac!” she shouted, making both Marius and Feuilly wince and step away. Ahead of them, Courfeyrac turned around.
“Chetta!” he bellowed, merry as ever.
“Shoo,” she gestured to Feuilly and Marius, striding ahead to Courfeyrac and grabbing his arm. “Tell me everything you know about your hot friends. Excluding the ranger.”
“Joly and Bossuet?” he glanced ahead at them and then at her, a surprised smile on his face. “Which one do you like?”
“Both!” she hissed. “Quick, tell me – would they be up for a threesome?”
“Aaaaand, I think we should probably cut this conversation short,” Feuilly sang, sliding between them and pinning Musichetta’s arms by her sides.
“No!” She struggled. “I need to know!”
Courfeyrac laughed helplessly as Feuilly dragged her away. “I’ll get back to you!” he promised.
Numbers and code blurred together after a while, and after Bossuet caught himself nodding at his desk for the third time that afternoon, he gave in and got up. He’d only been putting off the journey to the canteen for so long because his knee was being particularly irritating today, making the cane a necessity instead of an accessory.
Grantaire was at the coffee station when he got there, knee aching from the walk. The canteen was empty but for a table at the back occupied by a gang of jumpsuited mechanics, and Grantaire was stretching while he waited for the machine to brew his coffee. Bossuet watched him for a moment, unobserved, sighing internally at the gentle stretch and flex of Grantaire’s body. He wasn’t quite jealous, but he did chafe at the restrictions his damaged knee placed on him.
“Hey,” Grantaire smiled when he saw him and beckoned him over, grabbing a couple of chairs from a nearby table. Bossuet took it gratefully, even more grateful that Grantaire had gotten one for himself so they were on the same level. It really was the little things on days like this. “You want this one?” Grantaire motioned to the humming coffee machine. “I’ve still got a few minutes till my next session.”
“Who’re you seeing?” Bossuet asked. “And no, I’m alright – I actually like mine to taste of something other than engine oil.”
Grantaire grinned unrepentantly. “Whatever, sugar-lover. I’ve got the golden boys next.” He pulled a face, and Bossuet laughed.
“They can’t be that bad.”
“They’re not – I mean, they’re on top form. It’s just that their form is, y’know…lacking, compared to the other teams. You just can’t tell because their drift compatibility makes up for it in the Jaeger.”
Bossuet raised an eyebrow. “Have you told them this?”
“Are you kidding?” Grantaire snorted. The machine beeped, and he got up to retrieve his coffee. “What’s your order?”
Bossuet told him which buttons to press, glad of the excuse to stay seated. “Why not talk to them?” he asked. “Or Courfeyrac, if you can’t talk to them?”
Grantaire’s mouth twisted slightly. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “I guess…I don’t know, what right do I have to criticise them?”
“You’re intimidated.”
“Not intimidated,” Grantaire frowned. “Just…hell, I don’t know. More cautious than usual.”
Bossuet narrowed his eyes. “I’d bet money on Enjolras being the source of your problems.” At Grantaire’s shocked expression, he laughed. “Come on, it wasn’t going to be Combeferre. I’ve met them a couple of times through Jehan – nice guys, but Enjolras is pretty intense.”
“Intense is one word,” Grantaire agreed.
“Another would be…?”
Grantaire sipped at his coffee. “Holy,” he decided eventually. “Old Testament-style. The righteous fury of God, smiting down anything in his path.”
“Romantic of you.” Bossuet smiled, and Grantaire sighed.
“Well it’s not like the guy’s lacking in charisma.”
“Do you have a crush?” Bossuet was positively delighted at the idea of telling Joly and Jehan. Usually they were the ones with all the good gossip.
Grantaire glared at him. “I do not. He’s my student – it’d be inappropriate.”
“Pretty sure that only counts if they’re underage, which Enjolras definitely isn’t.”
“Shut up. The point stands. Here.” He stood up and got Bossuet’s coffee as the machine beeped. “I’ll walk with you – your station’s on my way anyway.”
It wasn’t, Bossuet knew, but having his hand free would be helpful on the way back, so he didn’t mention it. “Thanks, R.”
“No problem.”
Azelma turned the corner and stared up the blank corridor with growing dismay. She’d been looking for the Kaiju labs for almost half an hour now – it was lucky she made a point to always get to new places early – but almost none of the corridors were marked. How the hell people were meant to know where they were going she didn’t know.
Two corridors later, she felt the floor shake slightly under her feet. After a moment’s hesitation, she followed the vibrations. The level of noise grew the closer she got; people shouting and the sound of running feet, and the bone-shaking thud of something incredibly heavy falling on solid ground.
The end of the corridor opened into a large, dim space, and Azelma followed the flow of people in a sort of daze, already half aware of what she was about to see. The knowledge didn’t make the sight any less breathtaking when she stepped into the hangar and craned her neck up at the Jaeger just coming in to dock. Painted in dazzling stripes of silver, blue, and grey, she recognised it immediately – Typhoon Strike. Jaeger Mk. II, piloted by the ‘brute squad’, as they were affectionately nicknamed. So called because of their punch-happy methods of literally beating Kaiju to death. No fancy footwork, no special weapons – just sheer overwhelming force.
“Wow,” she breathed. If she moved forward a little more she’d be able to see around the corner into the rest of the hangar.
She stood out like a sore thumb among the men and women in jumpsuits and jeans – she’d worn her best suit for the occasion, hair up in a high ponytail and crimson lipstick the only colour on her pale face. Bowtie neat at her throat, shoes shined, she couldn’t have looked more out of place. But she had to see. So she sauntered forward as casually as possible and peeked round the corner.
The first Jaeger she saw was Liberty Blaze, her eyes naturally drawn to the bright red paint. But in the next bay along, graceful even in immobility and coloured to match its name, was Indigo Fury. Éponine’s Jaeger. Azelma gazed at it in awe, imagining her big sister cocooned inside the Jaeger’s head, controlling its movements with the motion of her own body, synchronised with her drift partner.
She had seen the Jaegers on TV and in photos, but nothing could have prepared her for seeing one up close. Though of course, she wasn’t close, and to get close…to see each part of it in real detail would take hours. Even on the other side of the massive hangar she couldn’t fit the entire Jaeger in her field of vision.
Her sister controlled that behemoth. Her sister. For a moment, Azelma could hardly breathe she was so proud.
The moment passed, and she sneaked out of the hanger and back into the maze of identical corridors – she only had twenty minutes before she was due to report to the Kaiju labs.
Being stopped, when it happened, came as something of a relief. “Excuse me,” a man in a military uniform barked, striding towards her briskly. “Don’t believe I’ve seen you before,” he said, looking her up and down pointedly. Azelma bristled despite herself.
“I’m new,” she said. “I’m looking for the Kaiju labs?”
It was obviously the wrong thing to say. “I don’t think so, sister.” He raised an eyebrow. “Face the wall.”
“What?” She backed away when he reached for her. “Hey, excuse you, I’m due in the labs in ten minutes!”
“Sure you are,” he snorted, “and I’m Liberty Blaze’s third pilot. Against the wall, sweetheart.” He grabbed her wrist and yanked.
“Hey! Get off!” She lashed out with her free hand, but he caught it and spun her round, shoving her against the wall. The sudden brutality of it was shocking – she’d never been physically manhandled by a stranger before, and it was horrifying, even more so because of how hideously aware she was of his superior strength. At least with her parents she’d known their limitations and what to expect.
“Hey!” An unfamiliar woman’s voice shouted from the end of the corridor. “Hey!”
Azelma twisted her head and tried to regain some calm as a blonde woman in civilian clothes approached them, eyes sparking with fury. “Get your hands off her right now!” she snarled. “Or so help me.”
“She doesn’t have an identity badge,” the man argued. “And she was looking for the Kaiju labs.”
“And that’s a crime now?” the woman spat. “Get off her right now. She’s with me.”
Reluctantly, the man backed off, and the woman made a show of noting the serial number on his lapel before sending him on his way. Azelma watched him go, and then stared at her rescuer. She looked familiar, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on why.
“He’ll be disciplined for that,” the woman said darkly. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“Um.” Azelma straightened her shirt and touched her bowtie self-consciously. “Not wanting to sound rude, but who are you?”
The woman brightened and held out her hand. “It’s Azelma, isn’t it? I’m Cosette.”
Azelma blinked, then shook her hand hurriedly. “You’re my sister’s drift partner,” she gabbled. “Oh my God. Hi! And, oh, I…thank you, I mean. Thanks.” She was so much shorter in person.
“Not a problem,” Cosette grinned. “Éponine told me you were arriving today. The Kaiju labs, right?”
“Right,” Azelma gazed at her. “That’s me.”
“I’ll walk you there.” Cosette linked their arms as though they’d been friends all their lives (and of course, she’d been in Éponine’s head, and Éponine really had known Azelma all her life, so maybe that had something to do with it). “I’m so glad you’re here! Éponine hasn’t shut up about it for weeks.”
“Really?” Azelma smiled, pleased.
“Absolutely,” Cosette assured her. “I feel like I already know you – I mean, I’ve seen you in the drift, but she talks about you and your brother all the time as well. She’s so proud of you guys, you have no idea.” She beamed at Azelma, and Azelma smiled back instinctively – Éponine had told her how ridiculously charming her co-pilot was, and Azelma now understood exactly what she meant.
Enjolras kept his expression carefully neutral and resisted the urge to ask the interviewer whether his relationship status was really relevant. Combeferre turned slightly, just brushing their shoulders, and Enjolras understood the gesture for the plea for restraint it was.
“My personal life isn’t very interesting,” Enjolras told the interviewer – Marcus somethingorother.
Marcus wiggled his eyebrows. “Oh, I’m sure that’s not true,” he grinned, and spun his chair to face Combeferre a little more. “Come on, Combeferre, throw us a bone – what’s Enjolras like out of the Conn-Pod?”
Combeferre smiled. “Oh, he’s terribly boring – sorry to disappoint you, but he’s not lying at all.”
Enjolras forced a smile. Banter, Courfeyrac had hissed at him repeatedly. Banter was the key to a good interview. Banter and a pretty face, so Enjolras was already halfway there.
“Then what about you?” Marcus asked, obviously sensing the better publicist. “Jaeger in the streets, Kaiju in the sheets?” The audience laughed, and Combeferre laughed with them.
“Afraid not,” he said easily. “I prefer to leave my partners alive afterwards.” Another laugh, and Enjolras curled his toes, needing to release the tension somehow.
“Partners plural?” Marcus grinned. “So what about the rumours about you two – there’re a lot of people who’d like to believe you share more than just a Jaeger – care to comment?”
Enjolras raised his eyebrows and exchanged a look with Combeferre. In just a couple of seconds, they had made a decision without saying a word, and he nodded. “We’re not in a relationship,” he told Marcus. “Combeferre and I are best friends –”
“Like brothers,” Combeferre added.
Enjolras nodded. “But we’re not romantically involved.”
“Proof that sometimes, it’s just brotherly love.” Marcus shot a look at one of the cameras circling the stage before turning back to them. “Do you have anything to say to those who made such a hasty assumption?”
Combeferre nudged Enjolras’ foot with the toe of his shoe, and Enjolras nodded. “It’s not a far-fetched conclusion to come to at all,” he shrugged. “If we were a man and a woman, I have no doubt that many more people would expect us to be in a relationship.”
“It’s not difficult to imagine.” Combeferre leaned forward. “I’m closer to Enjolras than anyone else in the world, and it’s always going to be that way. We’re drift partners – we’re partners in pretty much every sense of the word.”
“With one of the steadiest neural handshakes on record,” Marcus nodded, checking his notes briefly.
“Exactly. A relationship is built on trust as much as love, but how close can you be to someone when they’re sharing every thought in their head regularly with someone else? It must be incredibly hard.”
“When you put it like that, it makes perfect sense.” Marcus sat back in his chair. “Like you’re having an affair every time you drift.”
“If you like,” Combeferre said gracefully.
“Does that mean love’s completely off the cards for you two? Enjolras, you’ve not got your eye on a pretty girl?”
He laughed – his first genuine one of the night. Beside him, Combeferre chuckled, and Marcus looked between them, grinning, sensing a story. “I take it that’s a no?”
“It’s a definite no,” Enjolras grinned.
“Does that mean you’ve already got a special someone?” Marcus grinned.
Enjolras laughed again. “If I did, they wouldn’t be a woman.”
Marcus’ eyes widened comically as he gave a delighted gasp, echoing those coming from the audience. “You mean you’re gay?” The people beyond the lights muttered among themselves, but Enjolras just smiled.
“I am, yes.”
“But…” Marcus looked between him and Combeferre. “You’re not in a relationship?”
“We’ve never been attracted to each other like that,” Combeferre explained. “We’d probably make a terrible couple – we’ve got a perfect dynamic as we are, so why mess with it? Besides, I tend to prefer women.”
When the cameras stopped rolling and they went backstage, Marcus turned to them with a huge grin and shook each of their hands in turn. “I just want to thank you,” he said passionately, “for coming out on my show. Best interview I’ve had for years.”
“You’re welcome,” Enjolras said, amused.
“Blondie!”
They all looked round to see Courfeyrac striding towards them, hair standing on end like he’d been running his fingers through it the whole time they’d been on air. He came to a halt in front of them and gaped. “Did you just come out to the whole world on a chat show?”
Marcus made an affronted noise behind him, but Enjolras just straightened. “Yes?”
Courfeyrac pushed both hands through his curls. “Did you just come out to the whole world on a chat show without telling me you were going to do it first?”
“Surprise,” Combeferre sang. Courfeyrac made a strangled sound.
“It’s not a surprise!” he cried. “I knew he was gay, for Christ’s sake! But do you have any idea what you just jumped into?”
“Millions of hits on YouTube when the video of the interview goes up?” Marcus suggested. Courfeyrac glared at him.
“Thank you for hosting my two pet idiots, but we really have to be going. Muffins, heel. We’ll talk in the car.”
“I don’t mind being a poster boy,” Enjolras told him in the back of the limo. “Honestly.”
“You didn’t think this through at all,” Courfeyrac told him flatly. “This is actually kind of hilarious – you’re the most aggressively interview-shy ranger under my jurisdiction, but then you go and pull a stunt like that, which guarantees you shoot to the top of everyone’s most-wanted interviewee list.”
“As I said,” Enjolras said calmly, “I don’t mind playing nice for the cameras if it’s for a good cause.”
“The cause in this case being an inspirational figure for the gay community?” Courfeyrac asked, and sighed when Enjolras nodded. “You realise you’ll have to go along with him for all these things?” he asked Combeferre.
“I don’t mind,” Combeferre shrugged and leaned back, fitting his shoulder against Enjolras’. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t come off too intense.”
Enjolras huffed, but Courfeyrac made a noise of agreement. “In all other respects though,” he said, reaching for the mini-fridge and the champagne it held. “You’re a damn good poster boy. Squeaky-clean, top Jaeger pilot, and gorgeous to boot. You’ll sell like hotcakes.”
Typhoon Strike was the strongest Jaeger in the Shatterdome. Liberty Blaze may have been the flashiest, Indigo Fury the fastest, but for sheer brute strength and physical endurance, neither of them could touch Typhoon Strike.
Bahorel and Jehan hadn’t said a word out loud for over eight hours now. Prolonged drifting was required for long patrols, and if it wasn’t for the effort a ranger needed to put into piloting a Jaeger, they might have fallen asleep. Drifting outside a battle zone could be disconcertingly like dreaming at times.
Allowed to relax, the human brain didn’t follow discernable patterns or directions. It was like floating underwater, a long, long way beneath the surface. If that was the stuff their nightmares were sometimes made of, it didn’t matter. Not really. Not when they were together (and they were always together).
Typhoon Strike was two hundred and eighty feet high and weighed about two and a half thousand tonnes. It held a nuclear reactor in its core, and missiles in its arms. A marvel of modern engineering, a miracle of cutting-edge science, it was a walking, shooting death machine.
And the only thing that kept it moving (kept it alive) were the two men high up in its head, sweating as their bodies worked the gears, silent as they coasted through the drift. Together, always together, always in synch.
Interviewers asked them how they did it, and not a single one had managed to comprehend the simplest truth – as there were no secrets in the drift, so there could be no grievances or grudges. Rangers accepted their co-pilots or the Jaegers didn’t walk.
Five hours of patrol left, and the whisper of a challenge flew from Bahorel’s mind to Jehan’s – could they keep up the silence till Courfeyrac or Marius called in for a status update?
Sure they could. Why would they need to talk when they were drifting?
Marius stuttered when he collected their reports, and Cosette couldn’t help asking Éponine afterwards, lounging on her bed, “Do we know him? I recognise him from somewhere. As a face, I mean, not just a voice in the Conn-Pod.”
“Pontmercy?” Éponine stretched like a cat. “Mmmm. Yeah – he’s friends with Courfeyrac and those techies. He came to the Musain the other night, remember?”
Cosette nodded, though she couldn’t clearly picture it. The Musain was a café, strictly speaking, but it stayed open late on Saturdays, and it was the only place Grantaire would come out with them. Cosette knew he had some sort of aversion to the bars, though she didn’t know why. She’d been pleased when he turned up though.
She’d never gone out with anyone but the other pilots and Courfeyrac before, and it had been interesting to meet the new people who had turned up last night – Courfeyrac had brought Joly and Marius, who had brought the Drivesuit technicians Feuilly and Musichetta, and Jehan had brought Bossuet. Éponine had dragged Azelma out of the labs for the night to get her to socialise, and she’d gotten on well with Musichetta and Bossuet.
She supposed she didn’t remember Marius because he hadn’t spoken much, and mused on his blushing face just now. “He’s cute.”
“If you’re into that,” Éponine shrugged. “He’s too skinny for me. He’s snap like a twig if you fucked him.”
“Nice and tall though,” Cosette pointed out.
Éponine snickered. “So climb him like a tree.”
Cosette grinned and nudged her. “I just might.”
As a test, Joly sent the first email, hitting ‘send’ before he could change his mind or convince himself that he was kicking a figurative beehive of potential issues, and sending the email was tantamount to standing there like a moron as the swarm attacked.
The figurative doze of apitoxin to the system was anxiety-inducing enough, but then he was called away from his desk by an intern because a technician or a research assistant or someone had fallen down one of the numerous flights of stairs scattered throughout the maze that was the Shatterdome in its entirety, and Joly was needed to assess the damage to their (quite obviously broken) ankle.
Such was life.
He didn’t get to check his inbox until his shift was over, and only remembered that he’d even sent an email when he saw that both Bossuet and Musichetta had eagerly taken up his cautious query with great enthusiasm. Namely: out of interest, purely hypothetically speaking, did they believe that unconventional relationships could work? Relationships such as…oh, perhaps, romantic entanglements involving more than two people?
He’d thought his wording had been a bit more subtle when he’d sent it, but on re-reading he had to actually sit down out of horror, because on reflection it was hideously obvious what he was really asking.
Except neither Bossuet nor Musichetta had mentioned that, and had instead chosen to focus on the details of the question itself. And over the course of the several hours Joly had been absent from the conversation, they’d come to the amiable conclusion that yes, it was absolutely possible for a romantic relationship involving multiple parties to work as happily as a conventional couple, provided there was plenty of communication and honesty, particularly concerning the potential issue of jealousy or accidental offence or exclusion.
It was crazy. It was foolish and absurd and utterly ridiculous to hope, but Joly knew that was exactly what he was doing. He just hoped it wouldn’t be in vain.
Courfeyrac was already in the command centre when the alarm went off. “Breach active,” someone called out unnecessarily.
“Someone wake up Lamarque,” Courfeyrac barked. “Get Marius up here, now. I want that thing on the scale in five minutes, and I want to know where it’s headed.” They’d known an attack was coming – the Kaiju research department had been right when they said the frequency of the attacks was going to increase. If it hadn’t been this week, it would’ve been the next.
This was the part he hated most. There was no course of action he could take until he knew what category the Kaiju was, and which Jaeger would be most suited to its weaknesses. It could take minutes for them to figure out what sort of monster they were facing today and which city it was going to set its sights on (because the Kaiju always seemed to know exactly where the biggest concentrations of human life were).
“Category two,” someone shouted, and Courfeyrac’s heart sank even as he ran over to get a look at the rough specs.
Lamarque and Marius appeared as he was worrying over which Jaeger to pair with Indigo Fury. “Fucking hell,” Marius breathed when he saw the picture. “Sorry, sir,” he added quickly.
Lamarque shook his head. “I quite agree,” he muttered. “Recommendations?”
“Indigo Fury and one other,” Courfeyrac said. “She’s the fastest, and this one’s got a tail. What’re we calling it?” he asked.
“Lasher, sir,” Azelma’s voice came through the link between the Kaiju research centre and the command centre.
“Fitting,” Lamarque grunted. “I think Liberty Blaze. Typhoon Strike’s too slow. Marius?”
“Agreed,” Marius nodded.
“Done.” Courfeyrac ran over to his station to set the alarm ringing in Enjolras and Combeferre’s bedrooms. “Cosette and Éponine are already up. Let’s get this party started.”
Feuilly appreciated Azelma. Not since Musichetta had he connected with someone so quickly and easily, and it was wonderful – real, honest friendship. No strings, no ulterior motives or potential romance. Just immediate, warm companionship.
Azelma could talk for hours about Kaiju, and Feuilly encouraged her at every opportunity, drinking up everything she told him. So much about the Kaiju was unknown to the public (and to him), that it was a rare treat to be given information so freely. In return, he gave her a tour of Indigo Fury’s Conn-Pod (she was fascinated by everything her sister had touched, it seemed) and entertained her with stories of his past, since he had more of that than she did, though from what he could tell hers was only a little less colourful.
Feuilly considered himself a confident person, all things considered, but he admired Azelma’s defiant refusal to conform to anyone else’s expectations. She wore snappy suits and bright lipstick and never dumbed down anything. She’d been captivated by the Kaiju since the first one had crawled out of the Breach, and her relentless pursuit of her ideal job – studying them – was matched by Feuilly’s lifelong determination to learn enough to improve his life. Not many people started out lower than him on the ladder, and he’d had to haul himself all the way up to where he was without anyone’s help.
Azelma understood that, and so did Éponine, though she was less open about it than Azelma, who freely admitted that she’d had to work three jobs at once and apply for dozens of scholarships to get to the Shatterdome. It was good to know somebody who knew how frustrating it was to jump through hoops to get basic rights everyone else took for granted. Someone who knew how many problems could be solved if you just had a little more money. Someone who knew how tired a body could get after a long shift in a shitty night job.
They just got each other. Feuilly could send Azelma pictures of animals falling over and she lent him CDs of music he’d never heard of, and they gushed technobabble at each other over the canteen table. In all this mess, it was good to know someone like Azelma. Proof that even something as horrible and destructive as the Kaiju could accidentally inspire brilliant, dedicated people to contribute to the world.
Feuilly worried sometimes that his own contributions were too small. There always seemed to be something more he could do – another book to read, a documentary to watch, another skill to learn – and there was never enough time to do everything he wanted.
“Get a girlfriend,” Musichetta advised, handing him a pair of goggles as they went to work (the Jaegers always needed repairing and touching up, and he and Musichetta doubled as mechanics when they weren’t buckling pilots into their Drivesuits). “Or a boyfriend. Azelma’s nice. A bit young, but you get on with her, right?”
Feuilly shook his head. “We don’t see each other that way. I don’t know, I just want to do more, that’s all.”
“That’s all,” Musichetta repeated scathingly. “Pah. Don’t forget I knew you in training. If you stop sleeping again, I’ll hold an intervention. Seriously though.” She led the way into the little elevator that took them up to the scaffolding erected around Indigo Fury’s left hip joint. “You should get out there. Live a little.”
Feuilly nudged her and grinned. “You live enough for both of us.”
Romance was just one of those things he didn’t have time for. It required too much, whereas friendship came easily. Friendship was never a trial. Fridays were still reserved for the usual end-of-the-week drink, but Saturdays tended to be better now that they’d discovered the Musain. Grantaire only ever came out there, and his presence was always welcomed – Feuilly liked his sarcasm and quick one-liners. He and Bahorel could heckle each other good-naturedly for hours if allowed.
Even the other pilots were good company. Feuilly had never expected to end up friends with all three teams of rangers, but they were good people. Jehan and Combeferre were as well-read as he was, and they’d been lending and borrowing each other’s books since they met. Éponine was fierce and loud when she wanted to be, and Feuilly had been in awe of her since she’d turned and knocked a guy out with one punch when he’d grabbed her ass. Cosette always thought the best of everyone, much like Enjolras, though he tended to focus on humanity as a whole while Cosette brought attention to individuals.
Whenever he felt like this; like he needed to work harder and learn more and be better, he tried to remember what Enjolras always said about how no contribution was ever too small as long as it was something. As long as people made the effort to work together and help each other, the future would inevitably be brighter.
In the confusing mess that was the present, it was good to know someone like Enjolras. Someone who believed in better things.
“Maybe you could communicate with people beyond your little duo, is all I’m saying.”
Cosette’s tone was acidic, and Grantaire raised his eyebrows as entered the conference room, Courfeyrac and Marius on his heels. Jehan caught his eye and made a face that told him to steer clear, so of course Grantaire grinned and asked, “Is this about Lasher?”
Jehan closed his eyes and Bahorel stifled a laugh. Cosette and Éponine both looked pissed off, Combeferre looked apologetic, and Enjolras was doing an excellent impersonation of a statue. Of course it was about Lasher.
“Nice going,” Courfeyrac muttered, slipping past him. “Okay, ladies and gentlemen, let’s go over the Lasher encounter.”
“Do we have to be here?” Bahorel raised his hand. “We weren’t involved.”
“You and Jehan are rangers, so you’re required to be here,” Courfeyrac sighed. “Don’t hate the messenger, man. I don’t make the rules. And by the way, you two,” he pointed at Enjolras and Combeferre, “you need to be ready to go to another interview this evening. We leave at three, and if you forget to bring your suits, I will actually strangle you and pilot Liberty Blaze on my own. Kay?”
Combeferre smiled, and Enjolras nodded, mouth a tight line.
“How’s being the world’s favourite gay icon going, Enjolras?” Bahorel teased.
“Fine,” Enjolras said flatly.
“If you don’t count how many freaky letters I have to go through, checking for death threats,” Marius muttered.
“Even freakier than the marriage proposals we keep getting?” Éponine teased, and Marius pulled a face.
“I’m not talking about those.”
“Anyway,” Courfeyrac tapped his tablet. “Let’s get to it? Your reports both state that Indigo Fury was first to make contact with Lasher – that right?”
Grantaire leaned against the wall and listened. It didn’t take long for the two teams to turn on each other. “You could have taken us out!” Éponine shouted.
“It was a calculated risk!” Enjolras snapped. “We saw an opportunity and we took it. If we hadn’t –”
“It would’ve only taken us a couple more hits to get it down anyway.” Cosette glared at him.
Combeferre held up his hands. “We had to act – we knew you’d get out of the way in time.”
“No you didn’t!” Éponine insisted. “You could’ve avoided the whole fucking mess if you’d just stuck to the plan!”
“Would it’ve been so difficult to just wait two seconds to deploy?” Cosette added, hands curled into fists.
“We would’ve lost our chance if we had.” Enjolras gave them a withering look that had them both bristling. “And then we both might have sustained more damage.”
“Not if you’d weighed in when you were supposed to!” Éponine growled. “But you were too busy fucking around with your stupid cannon to do that.”
“If we hadn’t –” Combeferre started, but Cosette cut him off.
“No, no excuses. You rely on your long-distance weapons too much. You’re too slow in the field! Back me up here, R.”
Grantaire raised his eyebrows when they all turned to him, and shrugged. “Sorry guys – the ladies are right. You’re too hesitant to use Liberty’s body.”
Enjolras narrowed his eyes. “You’re saying we’re not good enough?”
Grantaire met his gaze evenly. “I’m saying you’re sloppy.” Hell, if they wanted to have this out now, he was more than willing. “Having the strongest neural handshake doesn’t make you the best fighters.”
“But it makes us good rangers,” Enjolras snapped, stepping closer to him.
“Good rangers still need to be able to fight hand-to-hand and win,” Grantaire said in a hard voice.
“I thought students were only as good as their teachers?” Enjolras said snidely, and oh, fuck him.
Grantaire pointed at Éponine, Cosette, Bahorel, and Jehan. “They’re my students too, and y’know what? They’d crush you in a fight. You only get out as much as you put in, and Cosette’s right – you rely too much on your long-range weapons. What happens when a Kaiju gets lucky? Or when your cannons are damaged and you have to get up close and personal?”
Enjolras’ eyes spat fire as he stalked forward, radiant in his fury. “It’s practical to keep a distance. You think it’s easy to just waltz up to a Kaiju and punch it in the face? What the hell would you know?”
Grantaire curled his lip. “I think the fact that I’m the instructor here says plenty about what I know.”
Enjolras snarled. “Then why don’t you pilot a Jaeger if you’re so great? I don’t see you laying your life on the line every time a Kaiju comes out of the Breach!”
Grantaire’s breath caught, and he stared for a second into Enjolras’ icy glare, rage welling up in his chest and burning him up. It took everything he had not to slam Enjolras into the wall. He leaned forward instead, and when he spoke, his voice was low and tight with anger. “Fuck you.”
He didn’t see the others as he stalked out, but he sensed their shock and the sympathy of those who knew his situation on the air like a smell. Metallic and sharp, a tang that spurred him into a run in an attempt to escape it.
Fuck him. Fuck Enjolras, and fuck his arrogant, self-assured indignation. Fuck him.
Enjolras saw Combeferre step up to his side in his periphery, and the reproach was as clear to him as if his partner had spoken. Telling him what he already knew – that he’d been way out of line. “Fuck,” he muttered, closing his eyes on the sight of the empty doorway. “Fuck.”
“Enjolras?” He looked around as Bahorel approached, uncharacteristically severe. “You’re a great guy,” Bahorel said threateningly, “and you’re a great ranger, but I swear to God, if you don’t go after him and apologise right now, I’ll fight you, and I really will crush you.”
Enjolras knew he occasionally had a problem with keeping his temper, but he knew when to swallow his pride, so he just nodded and left, hurrying after Grantaire. Of course, the man had completely vanished by the time he got his ass in gear, so he had to call Bahorel and admit he’d lost him.
“I suppose it’s nice to know that even you can occasionally be a complete idiot,” Bahorel said dryly. “Try the green kwoon. If he’s not in there, try his room.”
“Thanks.”
“Good luck.”
Grantaire was in the green kwoon. It was one of the smallest; bamboo-themed pale green walls with a darker floor, and Enjolras had a moment while Grantaire’s back was turned to just watch as Grantaire bent down and pressed his palms flat against the floor, torso folded against his legs, body completely bent in half. It was clearly effortless for him, and Enjolras hesitated to disturb the bubble of silence Grantaire had put around himself.
But he hadn’t come to watch, so he cleared his throat, and schooled his expression for when Grantaire straightened and turned to face him, face set and eyes narrow. “What?”
“I lost my temper,” Enjolras said, as calmly as he could.
Grantaire raised his eyebrows. “Wow, really? Y’know what, I hadn’t noticed.” He rolled his eyes and turned away, pulling one of his legs up against his chest and staying perfectly steady.
Enjolras floundered for a moment. “Grantaire –”
“Did you know Bossuet was going to be a ranger?” Grantaire interrupted, not looking at him.
Enjolras frowned. “Yes.”
“Oh. And yet, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you have a go at him for not…what was it? Laying his life on the line?”
Enjolras felt a blush rise in his cheeks. “Look, I was out of line, and I’m –”
“Did you know,” Grantaire cut him off again, “that about ninety percent of the instructors – the combat instructors for the Jaeger pilots and the trainees – used to be in the training program?”
Enjolras bit back a sigh. “No.”
“Does it surprise you?” Grantaire swapped legs.
“No.”
“Hm.” Grantaire let go and started stretching his arms, pulling his elbows behind his head and across his chest. “Does it surprise you that while most of those other instructors failed out, I dropped out voluntarily?”
Enjolras considered that before answering. “No.”
Finally, Grantaire looked at him, though his eyes were still cold. “Really? Why’s that?”
Enjolras held his gaze. “You seem to know what you want.”
“Then why would I have joined the program in the first place?”
“I don’t know.”
“No, you don’t.” Grantaire turned to face him properly, and Enjolras was suddenly struck by how broad he was, and how assured his stance. “You don’t actually know much about me. Anything, in fact. So how about you do yourself a favour and never assume anything about me ever again?”
Enjolras took a slow, deep breath, and released it again. “I’m sorry,” he said, not looking away. “I was out of line. And you were right – Combeferre and I rely too much on our long-range weapons. We’ll work harder to improve our close-range combat skills from now on.” It was gratifying to watch the lines of tension lift from Grantaire’s face, and a relief when he nodded.
“Fine. See if you can log in the hours around your exhausting interview schedule.”
Enjolras’ lips twitched. “We’ll manage.” Grantaire nodded again, and turned away, a clear dismissal. But Enjolras couldn’t stop himself asking, “Why did you drop out of the program?”
Grantaire looked over his shoulder, expression guarded. “Come again?”
“You’re obviously physically capable,” Enjolras pointed out. “Why drop out?”
Grantaire’s mouth twisted. “Sure you want to know?”
Enjolras nodded.
Grantaire jerked his head, inviting Enjolras inside. “Stretch then. Don’t waste the floor time.” When Enjolras obediently started rotating his ankles, Grantaire spoke. “When Bahorel and I signed up, it was the first wave. They didn’t even know they needed two pilots for a Jaeger, and we didn’t know anything about the drift. Cause we were the first batch, they didn’t really know what they were looking for at that point – you know how they discourage certain applicants these days? Anyone with trauma, past abuse, that sort of thing?”
“You have trauma?” Enjolras asked, touching his toes and feeling the stretch along the backs of his thighs – how the hell did Grantaire do it so easily?
Grantaire snorted. “No. No, I’m an addict.”
Oh. Enjolras straightened and started stretching his arms the way Grantaire had. “Alcoholism?” It was no secret that Grantaire refused to go near any of the on-site bars.
“Yep.”
“But you’re sober now.”
“Once an addict, always an addict.” Grantaire dropped into a press-up position and held himself there, arms like rock, back straight as a board. “And I’m a relapse waiting to happen – shitty impulse control, y’know? I can’t even be around people if they’re drinking. Can’t set foot in a bar or a club. What’s gonna happen if I chase the rabbit and come straight out of a memory of me being drunk? It’d be like trying to go cold turkey after every drift. Wouldn’t work. And you can’t pilot a Jaeger if you can’t drift. I realised that pretty early on. If I’d stayed in the program, I would’ve only been deluding myself.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. No one’s fault but my own. And it’s worked out okay – I’m the top instructor in this Shatterdome now, aren’t I? Way better than a lowly ranger who should be letting the tension out of his shoulders if he doesn’t want them to ache tomorrow.”
Enjolras pursed his lips and tried to relax. Grantaire just laughed. “Shut up,” Enjolras said irritably.
“Well excuse me.” Grantaire snickered.
Enjolras rolled his shoulders and sighed. “When can we come and train with you?”
Grantaire’s grin was pure evil. “Well, luckily for you I’ve got a slot open tomorrow morning. How does five to eight sound?”
“Five in the morning?”
“The early Jaeger catches the Kaiju.”
Enjolras sighed. “Fine. We’ll take it.”
“You speak for Combeferre as well?”
“Of course,” Enjolras frowned at him. “He speaks for me.”
Grantaire shook his head. “Jaeger pilots. You guys are such freaks.” He stood up and then bowed into a hand-stand, barely wobbling at all. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow then. Have a good interview.”
“What?”
“You’re leaving at three, remember? Don’t forget the suit.”
“Oh, yeah.” Enjolras backed away, unable to look away from Grantaire’s perfectly straight body until he had to, almost tripping up the steps on his way out. “See you later, then.”
“Later, blondie.”
Kill count: four. Sister: safe and accounted for. Brother: AWOL. Partner: going soft over Marius Pontmercy.
Éponine forced herself forward step by determined step, intent on moving. She was like a shark – if she stopped, she’d die. So she kept moving. The Kaiju were getting bigger, but she could handle that as long as Indigo Fury was deployed with other Jaegers to kill them. Azelma was a whirlwind blazing with equations and papers and furious accusations when Éponine brought up the subject of their brother.
(“Don’t you dare blame me! You left us first!” “I was doing this for you!” “Bullshit! You did this for yourself!” “Like you abandoned him for yourself?” “At least I’m honest about it – I had to be selfish or I wouldn’t’ve got anywhere!” “I got you this job!” “Fuck you! I got me this job! Don’t you dare try and take credit for this when I’ve worked my ass off for years to get here!” “And now he’s on his own!” “Better off with Parnasse than Papa!”)
Gavroche was out of the house, living with Montparnasse in some squat or another, probably up to his eyeballs in petty crime, and maybe Éponine had let it slip, but like hell was she going to let it go any further. She’d drag him out of that cesspool kicking and screaming, and she’d use Indigo Fury to do it if she had to.
Cosette was mooning over Marius the beanpole, and Éponine was sick to death of catching the edges of it in the drift. It was sickening, and if they didn’t get their acts together and just fuck already, she was going to kill them just to get rid of the sexual tension.
Her sanity depended on her continued movement. So she trained with Cosette and Grantaire, and she made sure to drag Azelma out of the lab at least once a week for drinks or a decent meal. She called home to make sure that Gavroche was definitely living elsewhere, and started the difficult process of getting hold of Montparnasse, because if Gavroche had a phone, she didn’t know the number.
She smiled for the cameras and she and Cosette walked through a city built in the remains of a Kaiju carcass for a parade to mark its demise, and she kept her eyes faced forward. She got Bahorel drunk and they had fantastic sex against her bedroom wall, and she smoked on the helicopter pad with Jehan and Feuilly. As long as she kept moving, she’d survive. If there was one thing in her life she was absolutely sure of, that was it. Keep moving. Keep moving and don’t look back.
Courfeyrac fell onto his bed with a sigh. Lamarque had been on a rampage today, and when Marius had turned up late, Courfeyrac had taken the fall for it, telling Lamarque that he’d asked Marius to check on the maintenance team working on Indigo Fury’s left sword.
He wasn’t annoyed or anything – he knew Marius hadn’t been sleeping well (the yawning and bags under his eyes gave it away), and though Marius hadn’t told him why yet, it wouldn’t be over something stupid, so Courfeyrac was more than willing to cut him some slack. And when Marius wanted to talk, he’d be there to lend an ear.
He closed his eyes and relaxed.
The quiet got to him after only a few seconds, and he exhaled loudly just to break the silence and sat up, running through options. It was Tuesday, so no one would be up for anything much. Enjolras and Combeferre weren’t on duty tonight – it was Bahorel and Jehan’s turn.
He got changed as he called them, stepping out of his uniform and checking his hair in the mirror as Combeferre’s phone rang. “Courfeyrac?”
Courfeyrac beamed. “Hey, what’re you doing tonight?”
“Nothing planned. Why?”
“You and Enjolras want to watch a movie?”
He could hear Combeferre’s smile in his voice when he answered. “Sure. What’re we watching?”
“No idea, we can decide when we start.”
“Want to get dinner first? Or have you eaten already?”
“Not yet. I’ll meet you in the canteen?”
“Fifteen minutes?”
“You got it. See you there!”
Courfeyrac sighed contentedly after he hung up, and immediately started calling other people. The more the merrier, as far as he was concerned. Joly and Bossuet couldn’t make it, but Musichetta and Feuilly could. Éponine told him Cosette had plans, but she’d be there. Marius yawned as he confirmed his presence, and Courfeyrac made a mental note to somehow trick him into dozing off.
“Any booze?” Bahorel asked.
“Nope,” Courfeyrac said. “R said he’s coming, so I banned it.”
“Sweet. Jehan’s busy, but I’m free.”
Courfeyrac was bubbling by the time he met Enjolras and Combeferre in the canteen, and they both laughed when they saw him. “So who else is coming?” Combeferre asked.
“What makes you think I invited other people?”
Enjolras snorted. “Please. You love company.”
“True.” Courfeyrac slipped between them and grinned, throwing an arm over each of their shoulders. Both were taller than him, so it was a bit of a stretch. “Marius, Bahorel, Grantaire, Éponine, Feuilly, and Chetta, in answer to your question.” His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he grinned when he read the text from Éponine. “And now Azelma too.”
“Sure we’ll all fit?” Combeferre asked, getting a tray. As an officer, Courfeyrac had a larger room than most, with a modest living area.
“Sure,” Courfeyrac grinned. “A few of us can sit on the floor, it’ll be fine. I’ll drag the mattress off my bed – that’ll be better.”
“Anything for your friends,” Enjolras teased, nudging him.
“Anything for my friends,” Courfeyrac agreed cheerfully. It was good to get everyone together, and he never minded hosting. A bit of mess was a small price to pay for the company – he couldn’t stand being on his own with his thoughts. It was far more pleasant to be with other people. More relaxing, and always more fun.
Sometimes he wondered what it would be like to drift like the rangers. To share his mind completely with another person. But then, he wouldn’t want to stop with just one. If he could, he’d open up to everyone, if only to show them that they weren’t alone. But of course, he usually managed to help people without resorting to technology – a friendly face and a willingness to listen was all most people needed, and he was always ready to oblige.
Anything for his friends.
Bossuet’s computer crashed and his change for the laundromat rolled under the dryer. He missed a single character somewhere in the code and the whole program failed. His pen leaked in his pocket, his coffee burned his fingers, and the temperature control broke in his room, so for five nights he slept in his coat because it was so cold.
His name was inexplicably lost in the system and his salary didn’t come through for two months. His iPod was stolen from his jacket in one of the Shatterdome’s bars. He drew the short straw in the office and had to tell Lamarque that they needed to wipe the entire system because somehow they’d caught a virus and lost terabytes of data to the resulting corruption. His clothes shrank and changed colour in the wash more often than not, and if there was a cold going round, he always caught it. He bit into rotten apples, tripped up stairs, and spilled drinks. His bad luck was legendary.
So he let Musichetta stroke his head and always accepted Joly’s offers to lean against him when his knee was playing up. He bought them drinks and hacked their company accounts to give them unlimited bandwidth. He always made sure Joly was the only doctor he ever saw for any of his numerous accidents and ailments, and he gave Musichetta massages whenever she complained of being a bit stiff. Because he still couldn’t quite believe how he had managed to find two literally perfect people and keep them, and he would be damned if he messed it up.
It was rare that the big things fell to pieces for him – usually it was smaller things, like tripping on a shoelace or burning his tongue on hot food – but when the big things did fail, they failed spectacularly. Like the time his bank card had been stolen and his account emptied. And when he put down a deposit for a flat and the ‘landlord’ ran off with it to Spain. Falling down the stairs less than a week after screwing up his knee the first time and practically shattering his kneecap had been one of the big things. So had the time his apartment building had flooded and his ground-floor flat had been utterly destroyed, and when he’d lost his portfolio for his degree and failed the semester.
Losing Joly and Musichetta through some idiotic screw-up would be one of the big things. Possibly the biggest thing – the most spectacularly unfair attack of bad luck in his life. And while most things washed over him, and he was capable of dismissing them with a smile and a shrug, that would be one of the things that would really, really hurt.
He’d never met anyone like Joly – so happy, so willing to laugh and join in on a joke, but so scared of falling ill or dying prematurely. Joly was blindingly clever, with a capacity to soothe and reassure others Bossuet had never seen before, and he was in love with his pale brown hair, and his thin grey-blue eyes (and the way they almost vanished when he laughed), and his ridiculously expressive eyebrows, and his beautiful hands.
And Musichetta…Chetta was loud and bright and bold, peppering her sentences with expletives and talking to anyone who caught her interest. Whenever she said something particularly witty or amusing, she’d scrunch up her nose and her eyes would sparkle. Bossuet had never seen anyone look so drop-dead gorgeous in a jumpsuit with dirt on their face. She always made sure to have a splash of colour on her somewhere – metallic eyeshadow, or a brightly patterned scarf holding her hair back. And her hands were beautiful too – pale brown and smooth, sometimes with painted nails.
Two literally perfect people. Who, by some miracle, seemed to like him as much as he liked them.
If his legendary bad luck messed this up, he didn’t know what he’d do.
“How do you spend your free time?”
Smile wide, head back, exchange a laugh.
“What’s your ideal date?”
Autograph the photo, kiss the cheek, shake the hand.
“How would you like to be remembered?”
Rub shoulders with the rich, appear on panel shows with the famous, be polite to the influential.
“Are you and Bahorel an item? Are you and Enjolras? You and Cosette?”
Hair brushed, suit pressed, teeth white.
“What was your most exciting Kaiju kill?”
Hide any trembling, laugh off any hesitance, push through any awkwardness.
“Who’s the most attractive ranger in your Shatterdome?”
Answer the questions, evade the questions, deflect the questions.
“Do you regret any of your decisions?”
Don’t scream. Don’t snap. Don’t shout.
“What’s the hardest thing about being a Jaeger pilot?”
Keep it together.
“Is it difficult to drift with a ranger as different to you as Bahorel?”
Keep it together.
“Have you ever seen anything in Bahorel’s mind you didn’t like?”
Keep it together.
“Are there ever times you wish you could just get away from Bahorel?”
Keep it together.
“Hey, Jehan? You okay?”
Jehan looked up as Bahorel sat down next to him, tray of food clattering on the table. “Fine,” he managed.
Bahorel raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything, just leaning against Jehan for a moment. When he leaned away, Jehan followed him and rested his head on Bahorel’s shoulder, relaxing at last.
As if he’d ever want to get away from the person who understood him better than anyone else in the world.
Five years, four months, one week, three days.
Some days were worse than others, but Grantaire had learned by now to distract himself. Sometimes he got others to distract him so he wouldn’t have to do all the work. Bahorel could always be relied on. Jehan was wonderful, and Courfeyrac and Marius were always good fun. Éponine liked the same dark humour, Cosette the same sappy movies, Feuilly the same music (they’d gone to a House of Roads gig together once, at a venue that didn’t serve alcohol).
Welcome distractions. Willing distractions.
Enjolras was not a welcome distraction. As he was unaware, he was also unwilling, but Grantaire couldn’t help being distracted by him.
Five years, four months, one week, four days.
He’d never had to impersonate himself teaching before. He’d impersonated himself sober, and attentive, and even caring, but never teaching. He’d never needed to. Now, however, he had to draw on the memories of classes with other students while in a session with Enjolras and Combeferre in order to remember the correct way to behave. So far, he seemed to be doing okay. Hardly a misstep. Scarcely a stutter.
Occasionally a hiccup, however – a moment to swallow down inappropriate desire. Inappropriate because Enjolras was technically his student for at least several hours a week, more than usual now that he and Combeferre had decided to work on their close-combat fighting skills, and inappropriate because everyone knew how much Enjolras secretly hated being the object of affection of so many people. He and Combeferre were literally mobbed on their way to interviews, and Marius had told Grantaire that Enjolras came right after Cosette and Éponine for the most amount of creepy shit sent to them. Including marriage proposals and various threats.
The last thing he’d want was the unsavoury revelation that someone he trusted was lusting after him. So Grantaire kept his mouth shut and touched Enjolras only when absolutely necessary, when sparring or to correct his form.
Five years, four months, one week, five days.
Grantaire sought distractions in his friends, in movies, in music. He chased them in the form of books, long walks, and extra hours in the gym. Bitterness came easy with the knowledge that if he could just drink, he wouldn’t need to hunt for entertainment and occupation elsewhere. He’d be able to go to the bars with his friends and go out into the clubs in town. He’d be funny again, charming, the life of the party the way he’d once been.
How much better would movie night be, if he could laugh at the shitty bits and not see them properly? How much faster would time pass, the hands of the clock lubricated with some whiskey, a little beer, perhaps a couple of shots and cocktails? How much easier would it be to dull the harshness of the world for a while? To relax a little? To escape for a bit?
Five years, four months, one week, six days.
He bought on impulse. The canvases were on offer, but the paint was not. Not that it mattered – his job paid well enough, and one definite bonus to sobriety was actually having money to spend. It had taken a while to get used to that, and to get past the confusion (what did sober people even buy?).
They were out of place in his room – the canvases too chunky for the small space, the paints too expensive and bright. They were out of place in the Shatterdome, and they were out of place in his life. He’d quit painting when he’d quit drinking, all inspiration gone. His creativity had been fed by alcohol, and that was one of the things he missed most about the old days – setting up a canvas, preparing the paints and spirits and brushes, and drinking himself into a blazing blur of activity, so full of ideas and imagination that seeing the result in the morning was a pleasant surprise.
But he had too much time to fill, and while before he’d been content with lesser distractions, the increasing presence of Enjolras in his life demanded something better.
Five years, four months, two weeks.
The paintbrush between his fingers was like benediction. The aroma of paint squeezing from tube to palette was sublime. The first stroke of paint down the canvas was absolution.
Marius worried.
According to the reports landing in his inbox from the Kaiju research department, the Kaiju were getting smarter. They were learning, which was ridiculous, because how could a species learn like that when each individual Kaiju that came through the Breach was killed? But data didn’t lie. Numbers and statistics could mislead, but they couldn’t lie. There was no denying that the Kaiju had learned the locations of the trenches and currents of the Pacific, staying out of reach of the Jaegers until the last possible minute, forcing them to fight closer to shore. And they were getting deadlier – a category one hadn’t been seen for over a year now.
Marius pushed a hand through his already-mussed hair and grimaced.
It was becoming more and more of a struggle to keep the fear and anxiety bottled up, letting it out only in small dribbles if he had to at all. It was difficult, feeling so useless all the time, especially whenever he thought of the furious promise he’d made to his grandfather the day he’d walked away from his old life – to fight the Kaiju or die trying. But he couldn’t fight, and he couldn’t pilot a Jaeger, and he didn’t have a particularly tactical mind. He didn’t have any money, and he wasn’t clever like Joly or Musichetta or the hundreds of other technicians and mathematicians and engineers.
And it just kept getting worse. Even if he could be a ranger, there weren’t any Jaegers for him to pilot. They were so expensive to build and maintain, people had no idea…a billion was just a number; people didn’t understand how much money that really was until it was broken down and split up and paid out, and it wasn’t enough. There just wasn’t enough money. They were already cutting corners, and there was only so much the economy could take – what happened when it couldn’t take any more?
What was going to happen when the Jaegers couldn’t be built, and the last ones became too damaged to function? The Kaiju weren’t going to stop, and people had already given so much…Marius had given everything to the PPDC, and it wasn’t enough.
He worried, that was all. He worried. Especially when a Jaeger (Blizzard Witch, Japan) was destroyed by a Kaiju (Crabface, category three), and they had to send their fastest Jaeger in to try and stop it before it utterly ravaged Sendai. Their fastest Jaeger being Indigo Fury, of course, piloted by Éponine and Cosette.
He was a wreck by the time Crabface was brought down. It was almost two in the morning when Indigo Fury was brought back to the Shatterdome, and he was in his room, having been dismissed once the battle was over.
He wasn’t quite asleep when someone hammered on his door, and he didn’t know who he was expecting to be there when he pulled it open, but it certainly wasn’t Cosette. He blinked at her and she glared up at him, still in the skin-tight uniform that went beneath the Drivesuit. “Cosette?”
“Do you like me or not?” she snapped.
Marius gaped at her. “I –”
“Because I could’ve died today,” she spoke over him furiously. “I could’ve actually died, and we wouldn’t even have kissed! I can’t handle this anymore if you’re not going to do something!”
He was dreaming. He’d fallen asleep, and this was a really, really weird dream he was having. “You want to kiss?” he said stupidly.
Cosette actually stamped her foot and made a high-pitched noise of frustration before stepping up into his room, grabbing the front of shirt, and pulling him down into a kiss that bruised his mouth and told him very definitely that he was awake. “You are such an idiot!” she growled. “And if you’re not going to get off your ass and do something, I’m not…I just…I quit!” And she let go of his shirt and stepped back into the corridor, throwing her hands in the air and stalking away.
This was one of those moments, Marius realised as he watched her. What his grandfather called a defining moment. And if he let it pass, he would regret it for the rest of his life.
That didn’t mean he grabbed it right away – Cosette was almost out of sight by the time he jerked into action, running after her and darting in front of her. “I am an idiot,” he said breathlessly, “you’re right. I was just…I wasn’t sure, because you’re so…you’re all…well, you know, and I didn’t –”
“Oh my God, shut up.” Cosette had tears in her eyes, but her smile was blinding as she pulled him down again and went up on tiptoes. This time the kiss lasted longer than a second, and Marius’ heart sang when she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and arched up into him. He put his arms around her to steady her, and she made a happy sound into his mouth, and he suddenly understood why she had been so angry.
He was just a liaison officer, safe in the Shatterdome, but Cosette was a ranger. She risked her life every time she went out with Éponine in Indigo Fury, and she knew that every time she went out she might not come back. She didn’t have time to waste on dancing around the issue or endlessly flirting. She had to go out and claim what she wanted because she might not be able to if she waited too long. Which meant that she wanted him.
Marius had no idea why – he’d get her to explain it later (much later). For now he was happy just to follow her lead.
“Hey, kid.”
Gavroche closed the door behind him and put the chain on after bolting it. “What?”
Montparnasse blew a long stream of sweet-smelling smoke into the air. He was reclining on the mattress under the window like a king, dressed in a sharp suit with a hat perched on his head. “Your sisters’re looking for you.”
Gavroche went over to the kitchen and opened the fridge, poking through the old takeaway boxes. Montparnasse dressed like a prince, but he lived like an alley cat. “What, both of them?”
“Mmmhmm.” Montparnasse took a long drag. “Told them you came here sometimes. Want their number?”
Gavroche found a bag of spring rolls still half-full and grinned, popping one in his mouth and going over to the sofa cushions opposite the mattress. “Sure. Why not?”
“They’re both in the Shatterdome now. Sounds like they want you to join them.”
“Hm.” He stretched out on the cushions and threw another roll into the air, catching it in his mouth. It was soggy and cold, but it still tasted fine.
“Hm?” Montparnasse grinned. “Not keen to run off and play with Jaegers all day?”
Gavroche pulled a face. “They’d never let me go again if they found me.”
“That’s family.”
They both laughed. “Some family,” Gavroche snorted. They both knew he was referring to his parents.
Montparnasse offered him the joint. Gavroche took it and started practising his smoke rings. Montparnasse made an appreciative noise and threw a piece of cereal off the floor through one as it expanded. “How old’re you again?”
“Fifteen.”
“Not bad for a kid.” He stretched lazily. “Reckon you’re lucky – at least your sisters give a shit.”
“That’s nice.” Gavroche handed the joint back and ate another spring roll. “Where were they when I was twelve?”
“Twelve?”
“That summer – with the wallets?”
“Oh yeah.” Montparnasse finished the joint and stubbed it out on the floorboards. “Lucky you know me then, eh?”
Gavroche snickered. “You’re like a father to me, Parnasse,” he crooned. Montparnasse kicked at him and Gavroche scooted out of the way, grinning. “What’re you doing tonight?”
“Eh, nothing much. I’ll be out – you can stay here if you clean it up a bit. Hey – you around next weekend?”
“Depends. What’s next weekend?”
“Babet’s fingered a guy he knows for chatting up a cop. By next weekend he’ll know if he’s got a traitor on his hands or not.”
“And Babet knows a guy with a knife,” Gavroche smirked. “Guy who dresses real fancy and doesn’t chat.”
Montparnasse flourished his hands, indicating himself. “And I know a kid who’s still skinny enough to squeeze through a little window if I give him a boost. Fancy it?”
Gavroche pursed his lips. “We stripping the place afterwards?”
“Don’t know yet. But if we are, you can have first look.”
Gavroche finished the spring rolls and nodded. “Sure, why not?”
Montparnasse grinned and produced a slip of paper from somewhere. “Your sisters’ numbers, by the way.”
Gavroche took it and put it in his pocket without looking at it. “Cheers.”
Let Azelma and Éponine have their giant aliens and robots. He had more fun on his own.
The danger with being out on patrol was complacency. It was so easy to let the mind go and accidentally chase the rabbit. Combeferre had never gone that far, but he still needed Enjolras to bring him back to the present more often than he’d like.
Usually, anyway.
Recently, Enjolras was the one floating free. Combeferre glanced over at him in the Conn-Pod and wasn’t surprised to see that Enjolras’ eyes were actually closed.
Can’t pilot this Jaeger on my own.
Enjolras jerked and opened his eyes, apologies flowing from his mind to Combeferre’s. Combeferre sent amusement back, and gave him a knowing look.
Enjolras frowned. Combeferre smirked.
A memory of Grantaire as they had last seen him flickered to life in their shared headspace. If the memory was a stage and Grantaire the centrepiece, Enjolras was the one casting the spotlight on him. Combeferre watched from behind the scenes and grinned – Enjolras’ memory showed Grantaire in a softer-sharper way. Colours bright, focus centred on shared looks and the moments when Grantaire had touched him to correct his position. In Combeferre’s memory of it, those moments were missing, and he remembered fewer details overall. He remembered the things Grantaire had taught them, not Grantaire himself.
Enjolras flushed and faced forward, and Combeferre laughed, the sound obscured by the groans and clanks of Liberty Blaze in motion.
There were no secrets in the drift, and Combeferre just wondered how long it would take Enjolras to act on his feelings, obvious to no one but him.
04/28/2019, 23:46.
Musichetta scratched it into the surface of the table in the east bar – the date and time when she’d kissed Bossuet. The numbers would remain there, set in stone for her to remember every time she went there; something to rub her thumb over and smile at. The details of the event she wrote in her journal. It was rare that she used it, but when she did she was meticulous about recording the things she wanted to remember forever.
Such as finally, finally kissing Bossuet. They’d all been laughing – her and Joly and Bossuet giggling as Bossuet told them about finding a junk email he’d been sent and opening it like a complete idiot, only to discover that it was a prank, and his speakers were on full volume so everyone in the office and possibly everyone in the surrounding rooms heard the extremely loud and sexual groans that exploded from his computer.
She’d laughed so hard she’d fallen against him and he’d put his arm around her to stop her falling further. He’d been wearing a dark blue shirt, warm from his skin, and she’d put her face against his neck, still laughing. And then she’d tilted her head up and he’d been right there, lips a perfect distance from hers. And Joly had still been chuckling, and she knew all of them wanted it, and so she did it. And it was perfect.
Marks out of ten, she wrote at the end of the entry, TEN.
04/29/2019, 01:08.
Etched into the wall of the corridor on the way to the residence floors. Small, angular scratches to mark the first time she saw Joly and Bossuet kiss. She’d been teasing them about how close they were, and wondering out loud what they looked like when they kissed, and Joly had laughed and caught Bossuet’s hand, pulling him close and dipping him romantically. Of course Bossuet had overbalanced them and they’d almost fallen over, but Bossuet had pinned Joly against a wall (“Can’t fall over now!”) and made sure Musichetta was watching.
He’d had his hands on Joly’s shoulders, and Joly had a hand on each of Bossuet’s hips. They’d been touching from chest to thigh, Bossuet tilting his head to the side to capture Joly’s lips in a practised, familiar move. Musichetta had leaned against the wall next to them and just watched, smiling, because she was allowed to. Encouraged to, in fact, and it was glorious because usually it was socially unacceptable to watch people making out.
She’d checked the time on her watch, and gotten up early the next morning to scratch the numbers into the wall where they’d been kissing. Her beautiful boys.
04/29/2019, 21:27.
Outside the local cinema, after seeing the latest budget flick (all available money had been filtered into the Jaeger program, so Hollywood had been in decline since about 2014). Bossuet had pointed out that she had popcorn in her hair, and Joly had directed her to stand under a streetlamp so he could pick it out. His fingers had brushed against her cheek, lingering, and she’d smiled invitingly. He’d only hesitated for a moment before ducking his head to kiss her, and that wasn’t hesitant. Bossuet had wolf-whistled and Musichetta had melted because damn, Joly was a good kisser.
Marks out of ten, she wrote in her journal that night, TEN!
And –
I think I’m in love.
They knew she was in a relationship, but they hadn’t met the man yet. This agitated Jean far more than Luc, who was more practical. “She wasn’t going to be single forever,” he reasoned, handing Jean a glass of wine. “She had excellent judgement. Trust her.”
“I trust her,” Jean muttered, taking a gulp. “I just don’t trust this Marius.”
Luc rolled his eyes and turned the volume up on the TV. They both fell silent as the titles rolled and the presenter appeared, grinning bright enough to light the studio. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!” he beamed. “We’ve got some very special guests for you tonight! Up first is up-and-coming actress and songwriter Nadia Ntona, followed by the world-renowned artist Keisuke Shirato, and we’ve got a real treat for you tonight – you may know them better by the name of their Jaeger, the fastest Mark II on duty: Indigo Fury!” He waited for the cheers to die down and his grin seemed to widen. “But since Indigo Fury wouldn’t fit in the studio, we’ve invited her pilots here instead, so let’s give a warm welcome to the team in the Conn-Pod – Cosette Fauchelevent, and Éponine Thénardier!”
Despite his cynicism, Luc felt a thrill of pride at the reaction his daughter’s name got from the crowd. The screams went on for almost thirty seconds, and he smiled at Jean, who couldn’t hide his own pleasure either.
The first two guests were interesting enough – Nadia Ntona was a South African promoting her latest movie; a view of how the Kaiju had affected the Atlantic as well as the Pacific. Specifically the way many African and Middle Eastern countries had been taken advantage of in order to gain more money to fund the Jaeger program.
“I’m not condemning the Jaegers,” she insisted. “They’ve successfully protected us for four years, and I hate to imagine the state of our world now if they’d never been created. But you have to understand that there was a consequence of the swiftness of their construction. Many shortcuts were taken and many people suffered for it. I’m not trying to reflect judgement on either side, but I wanted to give a voice to the people who were treated abominably at the hands of many governments who were motivated by desperation to do terrible things.”
Keisuke Shirato was a Japanese artist who created incredible paintings showing the Kaiju, often facing off against a Jaeger. He worked with materials derived from the biological products salvaged from Kaiju corpses. “I can do maybe only two paintings a year,” he explained slowly, gesturing to a photo of one of his paintings on the screen behind him. “It is very difficult, very hard to obtain raw Kaiju to work with. Dangerous sometimes, but the effect is worth it.”
The paintings actually glowed in places, and they were massive in size – never smaller than ten feet in height.
“Thank you, Mr Shirato,” the presenter shook his hand and waved him back out to the green room. “And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for,” he grinned at the camera. “It is my absolute pleasure to introduce to you today the first woman-only Jaeger team in the world! Cosette Fauchelevent and Éponine Thénardier!”
There was nothing like seeing your child on TV, dressed in designer clothes and made up like a model, smiling for the cameras and waving to the crowd. They’d met Éponine in person once on their only visit to the Shatterdome (it had been the only trip they’d been able to afford), but they saw her fairly often in their Skype sessions with Cosette. It was still a shock to see them together like this, so elegant and radiant.
“Like goddesses,” Jean murmured, and Luc took his hand, squeezing in agreement.
The presenter shook their hands and gestured for them to sit on the sofa opposite him. “So, Cosette and Éponine, welcome to the show! I’m so glad you could make it! But hey – if you’re in here chatting to me, who’s out there guarding the Breach?”
Polite laughter. “Well, with thirty active Jaegers now, I think the Breach is well-guarded,” Éponine smiled.
“Yes!” The presenter seized on that. “The most recent Mark V has just been completed in Australia, hasn’t it?”
“Striker Eureka,” Cosette nodded. “Our new baby brother.”
“Is that how you think of the newer Jaegers? As annoying little siblings?”
More laughter. Cosette’s cheeks dimpled and Éponine smirked. “Oh yeah. Indigo Fury’s like the sarcastic big sister who has to keep them in line.”
“No,” Cosette shook her head and leaned forward. “No, we don’t actually think they’re annoying little siblings, but sometimes we joke about it.”
“The Mark I’s are obviously the cranky old parents,” the presenter grinned. “What do you think of the newer Jaegers though? Updated to digital now, to minimise the risk to the pilots, and they’re very flashy and fast.”
“We still hold the record for fastest kill,” Éponine exchanged a smug smile with Cosette. “They are very pretty, but they’re still newbies. We’ve been in the game since 2016.”
“That’s only three years,” the presenter said.
“Yes, but it’s…” Cosette smiled charmingly. “I don’t want to say easier now, because of course the Kaiju are still a massive threat, but it’s more common these days to send two or more Jaegers to take care of them. When we started out, there just weren’t that many Jaegers to spare, so it was always one-on-one.”
They talked some more about the Jaegers, and then they turned to the subject of family. Éponine’s smile tightened, and Jean frowned. Luc pursed his lips too – they both knew that Éponine’s family life wasn’t something she liked to talk about. Cosette did an excellent job of keeping the presenter focused on her.
“Families of choice are something I’m very supportive of,” she told him firmly. “Especially in the wake of the earlier Kaiju attacks.”
“You mean Kaiju orphans?”
“Yes.”
“I understood you lost somebody in K-Day?”
Cosette nodded, expression grave. “My mother, yes. And that was obviously a big part of my desire to become a pilot – I never wanted anyone to feel even a fraction of her death felt like for me. I was extremely lucky in many ways. My dads – my godfather and his husband – had always been a part of my life, so they were already fathers to me. I’ll always be grateful for their support.” She smiled suddenly and looked at the camera. “I know they’re watching now, so hi, Papa! Hi, Daddy!”
Luc’s heart fluttered, and he held Jean’s hand tight. “Hi, Cosette,” Jean murmured.
“If we’ve giving messages to our families,” Éponine looked at the camera too, with a smile not as cheerful or bright as Cosette’s. “I’ve got one for my little brother – arrows up and go to bed, squirt. Stay out of trouble.”
“Arrows up?” the presenter asked jovially.
“In-joke,” Éponine explained.
“I thought you’d cut contact with your family?”
“Only with my parents,” Éponine said breezily. “My sister actually works at our Shatterdome now.”
“Really?” The presenter leaned forward eagerly. “What does she do?”
“She’s a Kaiju specialist.” Éponine’s pride was obvious. “The youngest in the lab.”
“And does your little brother want to work with Jaegers or Kaiju too?”
Éponine shrugged. “He’s only fifteen, so he’s a wild card, really. He could do anything he wanted to if he set his mind to it.”
“So you’re a big sister in real life as well as through your Jaeger,” the presenter laughed, and the audience chuckled with him. “Does it ever feel like you two have to keep your fellow rangers in line at the Shatterdome?”
“Liberty Blaze and Typhoon Strike, you mean?” Cosette shook her head, blonde hair shining under the lights. “No, they’re all very well behaved. We’re like a big family really.”
“No romantic inclinations there?” The presenter winked. “Or do you see them all as brothers?”
Both women laughed. “I can’t imagine anything worse than going out with another pilot,” Cosette grinned. “I mean, unless they’re your drift partner, obviously, but that’s the only way I can imagine it working.”
“Drift compatibility is obviously of paramount importance for rangers,” the presenter nodded. “Have either of you ever jarred in the drift?”
Cosette and Éponine exchanged looks and shook their heads. “Not that I can remember,” Éponine said. “Though it actually took me ages to find someone I was compatible with – I burned through almost every other recruit in my batch before I got to Cosette, and we just clicked instantly.”
“She’s like my sister,” Cosette agreed, smiling broadly. “We’ve always worked brilliantly together.”
“Could you give us a demonstration of some of your moves?” The presenter gestured to the space in front of the sofas. The audience cheered enthusiastically, and Éponine laughed as Cosette groaned.
“You should’ve told us we needed to turn up in Drivesuits!” she complained good-naturedly.
Éponine snickered. “Just take your shoes off, come on.”
Cosette sighed, but followed suit. Without her heels, she was a good four or so inches shorter than Éponine, who laughed at the difference. The presenter was almost bouncing up and down with excitement, and he went to stand to the side, out of their way. “What are you going to do for us then, girls?”
Cosette scooted over to put a metre of space between her and Éponine, and they both planted their feet firmly on the floor. “So what you have to imagine,” Éponine said, “is that in a Conn-Pod, we’re strapped into the harness, and our feet are locked into the gears below. I’m always on the left, and Cosette’s always on the right.”
“After we calibrate the sides of the Jaeger we individually control,” Cosette picked up the thread, “the drift is initiated and we essentially become Indigo Fury. Two people with one massive body. So together –” She exchanged a quick glance with Éponine, who nodded, and together they pulled their left fists in tight to their bodies and thrust the right out in front of them. In perfect synchronisation, they took a step forward with their left foot and retracted their right fists, angling their bodies in exactly the same way.
The audience broke into applause, and the presenter ran forward excitedly. “Wow! You both look so fierce!”
Both women fell out of their poses and grinned. “Obviously we’re amazing at those dance machines,” Cosette joked.
“Perfectly matched scores every time,” Éponine agreed.
“Well, if I was a Kaiju, I’d think twice about going up against Indigo Fury,” the presenter swept his arm theatrically. “Ladies and gentlemen, Cosette and Éponine! Thank you so much for coming on the show, ladies.” He kissed their cheeks and the camera followed them as they waved on their way back to the green room. “Tune in next week for a conversation with critically acclaimed novelist Tina Farash!” Cheers from the audience. “The hottest comedian in New York, Thomas Jacobson!” Another cheer. “And the band responsible for the current number one in over fifty countries! You’ve guessed it! It’s Alien Ocean!” Whoops and screams, and the camera panned over the clapping audience as the credits rolled.
Luc switched the TV off, and the sudden silence was oppressive. “When’s the next Skype call?” he asked quietly.
Jean sighed and leaned back against the sofa cushions. “Two days.”
“I miss her.” Ridiculous, really. Cosette had been gone for years now. But Luc couldn’t stop the admission slipping out. He felt a little better about it when Jean smiled at him.
“Me too.”
Grantaire laughed, equal parts impressed and frustrated. “This is ridiculous,” he snorted, gesturing to his two most irritating students. “You’re so compatible you can’t actually hurt each other. Jaeger pilots, I swear to God.”
Combeferre and Enjolras both frowned at him, and their expressions were so similar, Grantaire just kept laughing. “No wonder you’ve got the record for the steadiest neural handshake,” he continued, grinning. “You’re in each other’s heads all the time whether you’re drifting or not!”
“Most people think that’s a good thing,” Enjolras said dryly.
“I’m not most people.” Grantaire considered them for a moment. “Okay, Combeferre, with me. Enjolras, you watch. And lose the sticks. Try fighting me hand-to-hand.”
Combeferre exchanged a look Grantaire couldn’t read with Enjolras, then obediently gave his partner his stick and raised his fists. Grantaire bounced loosely on the balls of his feet opposite him. “Relax a little,” he instructed. “Don’t be so tense. Just…go on instinct. Don’t think about the technicalities. You ready?”
“Ready,” Combeferre nodded, and he wasn’t, and Grantaire proved it by darting to the side and lashing out too quickly for Combeferre to counter, slapping the side of his head.
“Be more ready,” he admonished, and grinned when Combeferre narrowed his eyes and struck back, faster than Grantaire had expected. He barely dodged it, and he countered another smack from Combeferre’s other hand. “Good!” he praised. “Watch your feet. Don’t get tangled up. Enjolras, don’t help him,” he added, seeing Enjolras open his mouth out of the corner of his eye. In the moment his attention was distracted, Combeferre’s foot slammed into his side, almost knocking him to the floor. “Shit.” He stumbled and laughed, bending his knees and keeping his fists up against his chest. “Good work, keep going. Keep me on the defensive, come on!”
Combeferre paused for a moment, and Grantaire expressed disapproval by launching his own attack, getting Combeferre’s arm trapped with his own and striking him in the chest and stomach several times until Combeferre got a leg wrapped around his and tripped him up. Grantaire rolled onto his feet, and Combeferre was on him immediately, giving him no time to recover.
“Better!” Grantaire grunted between deflecting Combeferre’s fists. “Good, faster!”
Combeferre huffed and used elbows and knuckles in fast, hard hits. But his feet were too exposed, legs too spread, and Grantaire jumped back, ducked, and swept them out from under him with a graceless kick. Combeferre cried out in shock as he fell, back hitting the mat with a loud bang. Enjolras hissed from his place against the wall, but Grantaire ignored him. “Guard your feet,” he said, nudging Combeferre’s leg with his toe. “You okay?”
Combeferre shook his head, then nodded and waved a hand, motioning to his chest. “Winded,” he mouthed, grimacing, and Grantaire nodded, offering a hand to help him up.
“Take a break. Enjolras, front and centre.”
Fighting together, Combeferre and Enjolras’ styles were identical. Apart, the differences were startling. Combeferre was the obvious source of the restraint Liberty Blaze showed in the field. On his own, Enjolras was a furious whirl of energy. While Combeferre preferred to hang back and assess the situation before tackling it with directed, energy-saving attacks, Enjolras held nothing back. He worked more on instinct than Combeferre, but he was also easier to read, and therefore evade.
“More direction!” Grantaire barked, dodging Enjolras’ attacks and lashing out where he could (despite his failings, Enjolras was very good at keeping him on his toes). “Try to look ahead a bit!”
Enjolras scowled and kicked too high. Grantaire caught his foot and pulled, intending to floor him, but Enjolras jumped, landed, and pulled back. As soon as Grantaire was in his reach, he slammed his knuckles against Grantaire’s fingers, forcing him to let go. “Good!” Grantaire grinned, pleased. Enjolras didn’t say anything. He kept pushing forward, and while Combeferre tended to limit himself to the parts of his body he knew best – hands and elbows in particular – Enjolras used whichever part of his body he thought might hit fastest and hardest. It was impressive (Grantaire was genuinely taken aback when Enjolras headbutted him), but it did mean that he lost control and precision.
“Okay, enough, enough,” Grantaire panted finally. Both he and Enjolras were breathing heavily, but neither of them had been able to defeat the other, which was somewhat surprising. “Okay, take ten, then both of you attack me at the same time.”
“Is that fair?” Combeferre asked concernedly.
Grantaire grinned wickedly. “Don’t worry. You’ll have a disadvantage.”
Their disadvantage was being tethered together at the waist with about three feet of slack between them. All three of them had basic padding on as well, and Grantaire sank into a crouch on the other side of the mat from them. “This one’s easy,” he said. “You’re Liberty Blaze, I’m a Kaiju. If I get to the other end of the room, I win. You floor me, you win. Ready?”
“Ready,” they replied in unison, and Grantaire charged forward before they finished speaking, catching them off-guard.
It was a short, brutal fight, and Grantaire felt both pain and triumph as they tackled him to the ground. “Got you,” Enjolras huffed in his ear, and heat (and embarrassment, because Combeferre was also right there) flared in his stomach.
“Well done,” he grunted. “Now get off, thanks. The two of you together are pretty heavy.”
Combeferre apologised and helped Enjolras up, then Grantaire.
“Good work,” Grantaire told them. “You’re getting better. Let’s try separately again.”
He fought them individually, then together again. After another break, he made them do some yoga. “Balance is important,” he insisted, and, “If you can hold the crane for over a minute, I’ll give you a prize.”
“What’s the prize?” Enjolras grunted, wobbling slightly as he pulled his right foot up against his left thigh.
Grantaire went over and steadied him, Enjolras’ shoulders hot under his palms. “It’s a surprise,” he said, lifting the pressure slowly until Enjolras could keep his balance on his own.
“R?”
Grantaire looked over his shoulder and saw Combeferre holding up an empty water bottle. “Yeah, okay. You mind filling up ours too?”
Combeferre smiled and shook his head. “You keep going,” he told Enjolras. “Salute the sun.”
“Bite me.”
Grantaire and Combeferre both laughed, and Grantaire circled Enjolras as Combeferre went out. “What’s this one called again?” Enjolras asked, eyes fixed on the wall opposite.
“Basic tree pose. Reckon you’re up to a toe stand?”
“What’s a toe stand?”
“Watch me.” He pulled his foot up against the front of his thigh, as Enjolras had done, then bent at the waist and put his hands flat on the floor. He could feel Enjolras watching him as he lowered himself slowly, balancing carefully on the tip-toe of his left foot while he straightened his back again and pressed his palms together. “Ta-da,” he relaxed into it slightly and found Enjolras’ eyes. “The toe stand. Want to try?”
“Show me again? Slowly?”
“You can do it. You’re already about a third of the way there. Just bend down, put your hands on the floor.”
Enjolras took a deep breath and bent on the exhale. Grantaire unfolded out of his own pose and walked round to Enjolras’ side. “Can you get your hands any flatter?”
“No.”
Grantaire smiled. “That’s fine. Go down slow, like you’re sitting down.” He nodded as Enjolras complied, leaning heavily on his hands. “Put your weight on your toe. Don’t look down – look at the wall, like you were a moment ago.”
“I wasn’t looking at the wall,” Enjolras leaned more on his toe but didn’t take his hands off the floor. “I was looking at you.”
Grantaire swallowed and focused resolutely on Enjolras’ balance, not on the curve of his spine or the strength in his long fingers. Or his blonde curls, or the edge of his jaw. “Right,” he said, moving to crouch in front of Enjolras. “Look at me again then.”
Enjolras’ eyes met his and held them with an almost physical intensity. Grantaire bit the tip of his tongue to stop himself licking his lips or something equally idiotic, and forced himself to observe Enjolras’ form. “Lean into your toes, not your hands. If I could do it, you can.”
Enjolras made a determined sound and slowly lifted one hand in front of his chest, then the other. “Good,” Grantaire beamed when he finally pressed them together and held the pose, only the tension in his body betraying the strain he was under. “Relax a little,” Grantaire urged. “Don’t pull yourself in so much.”
“I’m losing it,” Enjolras warned, starting to wobble.
“Hands on the ground then,” Grantaire said, “and come back up.” He stood up and watched as Enjolras obeyed, rising too fast, but keeping his back straight through it. He made a sound of relief when he had both feet back on the ground, and Grantaire laughed. “You should do it again with your other leg,” he said, and Enjolras groaned.
“Really?”
“It’s good for you. What’s that thing called, when there’s the same thing on both sides?” He waved his hands inarticulately and Enjolras raised an amused eyebrow.
“Symmetry?”
“Yes!” Grantaire grinned. “That’s it. Symmetry. It’s important, especially for rangers, I would’ve thought.”
“Because there’re two of us?”
“Yeah.”
Enjolras pursed his lips. “Not really. I mean…a bit, I guess, but not…it’s not like we’re two people driving different sides of Liberty Blaze when we’re up there.”
“It’s like you’re one mind?”
“Yeah.” Enjolras looked at him quizzically and Grantaire smiled.
“Bahorel’s explained a lot about the drift to me.”
Enjolras pulled the foot he’d been standing on up over the front of his other thigh and sighed. “And I always thought yoga was meant to be relaxing.”
“Oh, it is.” Grantaire reached out and put a hand on Enjolras’ shoulder to steady him. “Once you get past the physical difficulty of holding a tricky pose and trying to breathe properly at the same time.”
Enjolras snorted and caught Grantaire’s wrist just before he pulled it away, keeping his fingertips pressed lightly against his shoulder, thumb on his collarbone. Grantaire’s smile faded slightly as Enjolras met his eyes, his smile also gone.
What was he doing?
Grantaire couldn’t move, and he didn’t want to speak, but he had to anyway. “Enjolras…”
Enjolras’ fingers tightened and he ducked his head, looking at his hand on Grantaire’s wrist. “Sorry,” he said, seemingly more out of reflex than genuine apology (apology for what, in any case?), and Grantaire felt the fingers relax and begin to loosen.
On some sort of half-understood instinct, he shifted his hand so his fingers were against Enjolras’ neck and jaw instead, a far more intimate touch, and his heart leapt when Enjolras’ breath hitched and he turned his head quickly to stare at Grantaire, the barest hint of a smile at the corners of his lips.
Oh. Oh.
Grantaire wasn’t an idiot. He knew how to read body language like that. He pulled Enjolras’ head towards him as he moved forward himself, and Enjolras leaned against him as their lips collided, still standing absurdly on one leg. His lips were soft, and they opened immediately under Grantaire’s, and it was incredible. It was…it was as if Grantaire’s point of view had split in half, and while one half registered the physical –
(Enjolras’ fingers tight again on his wrist, Grantaire bracing his feet because of Enjolras leaning into him, the wet heat of their mouths, the way their lips fit together with his around Enjolras’ bottom lip and Enjolras’ around his top and the slide of tongues as they moved together, his other hand on Enjolras’ shoulder, Enjolras’ on his hip, warm and firm through his shirt –)
– the other half was exploding with breathless wonderment, hardly daring to believe that this was happening at all, that he had dared…there were no words that explained the feeling of something opening inside him, unfolding, blossoming like a flower exposed to sunlight for the first time, petals uncurling and drinking it in with a relief that ached with its intensity.
Everything he’d felt for Enjolras since first meeting him after coming to the Shatterdome – every frustration, every surprise, every admiration and longing – welled up at once under his skin, and he squeezed the side of Enjolras’ neck, thumb against the corner of his jaw, fingertips on his spine, pulling him as close as possible.
Enjolras wobbled, and Grantaire laughed, moving back a little to slide one arm around Enjolras’ waist and use his other hand to push Enjolras’ foot off his thigh.
“Better,” Enjolras decided, sliding a hand into Grantaire’s hair and kissing him fiercely (he wanted him). Grantaire pulled him into it hungrily (Enjolras wanted him) and started to walk him backwards until Enjolras hit the wall, a hum of satisfaction escaping him as it happened. Grantaire swallowed the sound and pressed him against it, forgetting everything about Enjolras technically being a student and any illusion of being in control of himself. Enjolras just pulled him closer and made a contented sound that did funny things to Grantaire’s insides.
“Wait,” Enjolras breathed suddenly, pulling back. “Combeferre.”
Grantaire drew away instantly. “What?”
“He’ll be back in a second,” Enjolras explained, and Grantaire relaxed, absurdly relieved.
“Right. Shit, right, um. We should…” He reluctantly released Enjolras and stood back.
Enjolras’ cheeks were flushed and he licked his wet lips and cast a quick glance at the door before saying, “We could…I mean, if you want, obviously, we could…I mean. We could go out? Later? If you’re free, of course.”
Grantaire suspected his cheeks were going to start aching if he grinned any wider. “I’m free. I know a few places in town we could go. Places you won’t be mobbed, I mean.” He knew the rangers rarely ventured beyond the Shatterdome because of the press and the public.
Enjolras smiled, and his obvious pleasure sent goosebumps racing across Grantaire’s bare arms. “That’d be great.”
“Great,” Grantaire echoed, still beaming, and that was when Combeferre returned.
He took one look at them and rolled his eyes. “I leave for ten minutes and look what happens.”
Grantaire could feel his face heating up, but Enjolras just grinned. “Lunch?” he suggested lightly.
Combeferre sighed and threw each of them a bottle of water. “Why not?” he said. “Grantaire?”
“What?” He was utterly lost.
Combeferre smiled, taking pity on him. “Lunch? It’s past two.”
“Shit, really?” Grantaire raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, okay. Let’s eat. Might as well leave it there, actually.” He had them till three, but there was no way he was going to be able to concentrate now.
Combeferre nodded sagely. “Probably for the best. Shall we?” He left, and Enjolras gave a soft laugh. As he passed Grantaire, he snagged his hand.
“Coming?”
Grantaire slid his fingers through Enjolras’ and followed, sure he was grinning like an idiot. “Definitely.”
Technically, phones weren’t supposed to be switched on during lab hours, but it was Azelma’s lunch break when hers rang, so all she got were a few dirty looks. She smiled beatifically and answered. “Yo.”
“Don’t tell Éponine.”
“Gavroche?”
“If you tell her I’ll hang up.”
“Why can’t I tell her?” Azelma stood up and went into the corridor, seeking privacy.
“She’ll come after me.”
“Why is that a bad thing? Haven’t you been hanging out with Montparnasse?”
“Better Parnasse than Papa, right?”
He had a point. Azelma sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Gavroche, please tell me you’re not involved in anything illegal.”
“I thought you never wanted me to lie to you?”
“Fucking hell, Gavroche, you’re only fifteen!”
“Nearly sixteen.”
“Oh great, that just makes it all better.”
Gavroche huffed. “This is why I didn’t get in touch, you know. You’re both way too touchy about this stuff.”
“This stuff?” Azelma hissed. “Gavroche, if you get caught –”
“I never get caught,” he interrupted, smug.
She bit back a snarl and squeezed the phone tight. “Listen here, you little shit. You think this is a joke? If you get caught shoplifting, you get a warning. You get caught running the kind of games Montparnasse plays? You’ll go to jail.”
“I’m underage.”
“Kiddie jail is still jail, Gavroche, and you’ll have that record for life. Your horizons will be so limited –”
Gavroche sighed. “Relax, will you? I’m fine. I’m always fine. Just wanted you guys to know, that’s all.”
“Come here, Gavroche. Éponine can pull strings, you can live in the Shatterdome with us.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“A significantly improved future,” Azelma snapped, “and probably an improved life expectancy. You could work here if you like – we could set you up with something.”
“Like what?”
Azelma thought fast. “A couple of friends of ours are Drivesuit technicians, and the repair crews can always use an extra pair of hands. You’re smart, you could do anything if you wanted.”
Gavroche hummed. “What if I don’t want to though? What if I like it here?”
“Where’s here that could be so much better than a Shatterdome?”
“The big wide world,” Gavroche laughed. “Not having anyone tell me what to do or where to go.”
Azelma squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. “Just think about it,” she said finally. “Please? We’re just worried about you, Gavroche. We don’t want you getting hurt, and we don’t like you hanging around with Montparnasse.”
“He’s alright.”
“He’s a murderer,” she hissed.
“So’re lots of people. He’s alright.”
“Just…tell us where you are, Gavroche. Let us help you.”
“I don’t need your help.” His voice went sharp. “I don’t anyone’s help. I can take care of myself.”
“Gavroche –”
“Have fun fighting monsters,” he said breezily. “Later.”
He hung up before she could say another word, and she listened to the tone for a long second before swallowing a scream and standing up very straight, sucking in three deep, slow breaths. “Fuck,” she whispered. Then again, because it was the most adequate expression of her frustration. “Fucking fuck fuck fuck.”
The door into the lab opened and Terri popped her head out. “Azelma? Lunch break’s over.”
“Right.” Azelma nodded. “Two seconds, okay?”
Terri gave her a warning look, but retreated. Azelma immediately texted Éponine, because when it came down to it, she owed her sister far more than her brother, and Éponine deserved to be in the know when it came to information about Gavroche.
Gavroche just called me, she texted. I’m in labs till five, meet me after.
She turned her phone off rather than wait for a reply, and drew herself up tall before striding back into the lab. She had work to do.
It had taken Bahorel a long time to figure out that not everyone was as physically tactile as he was, or as physically strong.
He hadn’t been a brawny kid, but he’d come off as a bit of a bully simply because he didn’t know to hold back when he was lashing out. Others play-fought but he really went for it, and kids came away crying with bloody knees and bleeding noses while he stood there in bewilderment, unable to understand why they were so breakable when he didn’t seem to be.
He never meant to hurt anyone, not really. He just didn’t know how to hold back.
This knowledge was only gained in retrospect, many years after childhood. After learning the hard way that most people were only posturing when they said they wanted a fight, and most people didn’t really know how to be properly vicious when their posturing got them into a real fight. Violence just came easily to him the way it didn’t seem to for other people. Even when he got into martial arts and street fighting, a lot of people there weren’t naturally violent. A lot of them wanted to defend themselves from the naturally violent. Like Bahorel.
Grantaire wasn’t naturally violent, but he never held back in a fight, and Bahorel had liked him immediately for that. Jehan wasn’t naturally violent either, but he had one hell of a vicious streak when he was riled up. In another life, Bahorel suspected he might have been a berserker. Éponine and Cosette were a little like that – both were generally calm and rational, but if challenged they became forces of nature.
Neither Enjolras nor Combeferre were like that. Not naturally inclined to fighting, not easy to provoke. Violence didn’t come easily to them and it was never their first resort. They were talkers, not fighters. It had set Bahorel on edge when he first met them. Unsettled him. Confused him. He understood them more now, and he was glad he could call them his friends.
It took a while for him to work up to it, but when he asked, voice quiet in the hubbub of the canteen, Combeferre nodded immediately. “I can’t always tell if they’re mine or his,” he admitted to Bahorel. “I mean, sometimes we don’t wake up at the same time, but then I thought, what if it was his dream originally, but I’m just picking up where he left off?”
“They’re usually my nightmares,” Bahorel muttered. “I guess that just pisses me off more. I can’t fight my own head.”
“And I wouldn’t advise trying.” Combeferre smiled at the server and took his tray over to a free table. Bahorel followed, frowning. “There’s not really much you can do.”
“I know.” Bahorel sat down heavily. “It’s better knowing you guys get that as well though.”
“Every ranger does, I expect.” Combeferre pushed his food around his plate. “We fight monsters for a living. It’d be surprising if we didn’t have nightmares about it.”
Bahorel almost asked him whether he thought any of them would live to retire, but he swallowed the question at the last minute. Jehan knew his secret fears about that, and no one else needed to. He wasn’t scared of death so much as the process of dying itself, and he couldn’t bring himself to tell Combeferre that almost none of his nightmares featured the Kaiju.
In his nightmares, there was only Typhoon Strike and the ocean. In the worst of his nightmares, he was piloting the Jaeger alone, and the comm. was down, and he screamed for someone (anyone) to hear him as he waded along the ocean bed. He would go one careful shuffling step at a time, and still he would always fall, and the water would come pouring in, and he’d wake up to Jehan’s pale face (he never locked his door anymore). They’d sleep in the same bed after a nightmare.
He didn’t tell Combeferre, because he didn’t want anyone apart from Jehan to know the full extent of his fear.
“If we die,” Jehan told him a week later, sitting on Bahorel’s bed after a nightmare. “You know, if we go down, we probably won’t drown.” It was more likely that they’d burn – if they went down, the nuclear reactor would probably explode and take them with it.
“Yeah.”
“And there are always the escape pods.”
Bahorel nodded, still breathing fast and holding on tight to the sheets (he wasn’t underwater, he wasn’t strapped into the Conn-Pod, he was safe safe safe).
Jehan sighed and put an arm around him, and Bahorel closed his eyes. “If we go, we go together.”
Bahorel nodded and leaned into him, drawing from his warmth (so different from the cold of the dreams). “Thanks, man.”
“No problem.”
Grantaire measured him up the next day as they went through their warm-ups, and immediately started telling Jehan about the time Bahorel had been arrested for indecent exposure, getting them all laughing and ribbing each other. “Laughter’s a great tonic,” Grantaire told them at the end of their session. “You guys busy tonight?”
Bahorel exchanged a glance with Jehan and shook his head. “What did you have in mind?”
“Enjolras and Combeferre are signing shit or something like that tonight – we could hitch a lift and wander round the city while they’re busy, and get a ride back with them when they’re done. You know Courfeyrac would be cool with it.”
Bahorel grinned. “I’m in.”
The bright lights and sea of faces were perfect to disappear into. By the time the three of them returned to the chopper Courfeyrac had arranged to take them back to the Shatterdome, Bahorel’s feet were aching and his spirits were high again.
He missed the days before the madness when he and Grantaire had wandered for hours around their home city, together and separately, each searching for hidden gems to show the other. Back before the Kaiju had appeared, before Jaegers had even been dreamed about, when he and Grantaire were just two idiots too eager to start a fight. Before nightmares and monsters and being cooped up in a Shatterdome that seemed to shrink to cell-size the longer Bahorel stayed there.
“One day at a time,” Grantaire reminded him in an undertone when they got back, and Bahorel pulled him into a bone-cracking hug before kissing his forehead and letting him go. Grantaire punched his shoulder and grinned, and as they walked to their rooms, Jehan smiled at him knowingly.
Only Bahorel knew by experience what Grantaire had been like before he finally got sober, so Jehan alone understood the pride Bahorel felt whenever he compared the memory of Grantaire’s unfocused eyes to his bright concentration now.
“One day at a time,” Jehan told him before going into his own bedroom, and Bahorel slept well for the first time in weeks, untroubled by dreams or nightmares.
They were in the middle of fighting off a category two Kaiju when Combeferre blacked out. Enjolras felt it happen – sudden, shocking pain, and then nothing. A hideous emptiness in his head where Combeferre should have been. And then the weight of the entire Jaeger crashing through his brain, buckling his knees for a moment and making him cry out.
He killed the Kaiju on his own, barely holding it together with Courfeyrac shouting orders at him through the comm., fighting through the pain and the panic until the Kaiju was dead and he could shove the helmet and the Pons from his head.
The agony was indescribable, and his vision kept blacking out, but he still forced himself to get Combeferre out of his harness and safely laid out on the floor of the Conn-Pod, checking his pulse when Courfeyrac told him too, and checking his nose and ears for blood. He didn’t mention that his own nose was dripping red – had been since full control of Liberty Blaze had been thrust on his mind alone.
Alone, alone. Everything was quiet without Combeferre, everything tilted, skewed, off-balance. Enjolras choked on terror when he pulled Combeferre into the recovery position and saw blood on his back, staining the white Drivesuit dark red as it rose up from the cracks along the spine.
Courfeyrac called for a Drivesuit technician, and Feuilly was the first on the scene, followed by Musichetta and Joly (as medical advisor). They guided him through removing the spine of the suit, and Enjolras’ breathing came short and fast as he peeled the spine back and revealed the mangled underside and the places where the hooks had somehow pierced the undersuit and gone through to Combeferre’s skin.
The whole event was a blur of colours, panic, and pain. By the time backup arrived, Enjolras was barely clinging to consciousness, drifting without the drift, flying solo without Combeferre in his head.
They sedated him when they got back, and Combeferre was still unconscious when he woke up. Joly explained that the Drivesuit had malfunctioned – no one’s fault. A chance in a million. Linked to Combeferre’s nervous system as it was, when it crashed, so did Combeferre. He was likely to make a full recovery – no lasting damage.
They kept him under for another day, just to be sure, and Enjolras was there when he woke up. Combeferre had slept for two days, but Enjolras had been awake since waking up from his own sedation, scared of sleeping without knowing for sure Combeferre would be in his dreams.
“Hey,” Combeferre whispered when Enjolras met his eyes. “What happened?”
The relief was like a tsunami slamming through him. Enjolras had to fight to keep his voice steady as he pulled his chair closer to the bed. “Your suit malfunctioned. You’ve been unconscious for two days.”
“You flew solo?” Combeferre breathed, and Enjolras nodded. “The Kaiju?”
“I killed it.”
Combeferre smiled, and Enjolras looked down, then reached for Combeferre’s hand, still too pale for his liking. He clutched it and leaned forward, pressing his forehead to it and swallowing. He didn’t need to tell Combeferre how frightened he’d been. Combeferre didn’t need to tell him how proud and relieved he was. Next time they drifted, Combeferre would see how Enjolras had begged him in the Conn-Pod to be alright, to wake up, heedless of anyone in the command centre who could hear him. In the meantime, before a doctor came to check on Combeferre, before the reality of their situation came falling back on their heads, they just sat in silence, conversing without saying a single word.
Eventually though, he had to leave. Combeferre told him to get some sleep, and when Joly took Enjolras to the exit of the med bay, Grantaire was waiting. “I thought you maybe shouldn’t be alone?” Joly said quietly.
Grantaire looked up as they approached and Enjolras nodded, turning to catch Joly’s eye before he went back inside. “Thank you,” he muttered. Joly smiled and exchanged a look with Grantaire over Enjolras’ shoulder before returning to Combeferre.
“Hey,” Grantaire’s voice was warm and reassuring. “You okay?”
Enjolras turned and walked into him, leaning his forehead on Grantaire’s shoulder and inhaling deeply. Grantaire made a surprised sound, but then lifted his arms and hugged Enjolras tightly. “You look beat,” he murmured. “Let’s get you to bed, huh?”
Enjolras closed his eyes and nodded, leaning into Grantaire heavily as they walked. “Can you stay?” he asked after a while.
Grantaire pressed a kiss to his jaw. “Sure.”
It was easier to fall asleep with Grantaire sharing his bed, and when he slept, Combeferre’s mind whispered in his dreams. Held between them, Enjolras finally rested.
For the first few days of his week off, Feuilly went alone to Hong Kong. He walked through the parts of town built around and out of the carcass of Kaiju and marvelled at the ingenuity of the human race. It was freeing, really; having the week to himself without any other obligations. Others had family and friends they had to see, but not him. The world was his garden. The planet itself was his home neighbourhood.
Musichetta texted him – If you don’t bring me back a present, I’ll be very disappointed.
He wandered through tacky shops filled with cheap crap and grinned as he paid for a Kaiju plushie toy. It would probably fall apart in his suitcase, but he could sew it back together if its stitches didn’t hold.
He did have family. They weren’t related to him by blood, but that didn’t mean they weren’t family.
He caught a plane to Vancouver and woke up halfway there. He stared out of the window into the blackness and wondered how many miles below the Pacific lay, and how many Kaiju bones and Jaeger parts littered its floor. No one else on the plane was awake, and the only sound was the background hum of the engines.
It was like he was the only person alive, sailing above the world like a thread cut free. It was strangely lonely, and Feuilly couldn’t get back to sleep until the sky began to lighten, illuminating the void beyond his window.
In Vancouver, he found the apartment building he was looking for and relaxed on a bench outside, pretending to read a book while he watched the people come and go. It was useful to be able to blend into his surroundings. Just another scruffy guy killing some time. It took a few hours, but eventually he saw a sandy-haired teenager slope out of the building and zip up his jacket before heading off.
Gavroche Thénardier.
Feuilly didn’t bother trying to follow him far. He just caught up with him and grabbed his shoulder. Gavroche spun away immediately, eyes narrow with suspicion and hand deep in his pocket. Knife or something else? “What?”
“You’re Gavroche?”
“Who wants to know?”
Feuilly smiled. “I’m a friend of your sisters.”
Gavroche raised an eyebrow and didn’t relax. “That’s nice. See you round.”
“Hey, wait.” Feuilly slipped round to stand in front of him as he turned to leave. “You’re sixteen now, right?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Sixteen means you’ve got a job if you want it,” Feuilly told him calmly. “Decent work, good benefits. A lot of people would climb over each other to work in a Shatterdome.”
“I’m not a lot of people.” Gavroche shrugged and gave Feuilly an unimpressed once-over. “Benefits can’t be that good if you’re dressed like that.”
Feuilly laughed. “I spend my bonuses on other things. Look, can I ask you something?”
“Free country, isn’t it?”
“Okay then. Where do you see yourself in ten years?”
Gavroche snorted. “Get bent, asshole.”
Feuilly grinned again – he couldn’t help it. “Think about it, okay? I can get you a ticket back to the Shatterdome with me if you’re interested. Think of it as a trial – if you don’t like it, you can leave.”
Gavroche laughed then, eyes creased with amusement. “Oh yeah, Ponine and Zelma’ll just let me walk right back out.”
“I’ll help you leave if you don’t want to stay.”
Gavroche made a disbelieving sound. “What’s in it for you?”
Feuilly shrugged. “Professional interest. I hear you’ve got light fingers – there’s delicate work needs doing in mechanics if you’re up to it. And if you’d rather be here than there, who am I to stop you? Freedom for all, right?”
“And you reckon my sisters’ll be alright with that?” Gavroche asked sardonically.
“No. But the way I see it, they either let you do what you want or they never see you again. That’s the way you’re playing this, isn’t it?”
“Damn straight.” Gavroche straightened his skinny shoulders and squinted at Feuilly for a long moment. “You swear you’ll help me leave if I want to?”
“On my life.”
“How do I know you’re not stitching me up?”
“Well how about this.” Feuilly leaned against the wall next to him and grinned. “I’ll get you a return ticket, open-ended. You can leave whenever you like and no one can stop you.”
Gavroche pursed his lips. “I’ll think about it.”
“Think fast – my plane leaves this evening. If you’re up for it, meet me back here at four.”
Gavroche frowned at him. “This job – is it difficult?”
“No harder than picking locks and cracking safes.” Feuilly laughed at Gavroche’s raised eyebrows. “What, you don’t think I know anything about that?”
“Come off it.”
“Come to the Shatterdome and I’ll give you a demonstration.” He backed away and lifted a hand. “Think about it, alright?”
At four, Feuilly returned to the spot where he’d left Gavroche and his heart leapt when he saw the kid slouched against the wall, a backpack at his feet. He still looked suspicious, but he followed Feuilly anyway. On the plane ride back, Feuilly glanced every so often at his new companion and smiled to himself.
Neither of them were truly floating free, cut off from the rest of the world. Despite appearances, they both had ties to earth; people who cared and were ready to risk disappointment and pain for them. It was a good feeling. It felt, Feuilly realised, like home.
Chapter 3: Decline
Summary:
From about 2020, the world begins to fall apart.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Jehan snarled, the sound echoed and magnified by Bahorel as they swung Typhoon’s right arm round and slammed it into the Kaiju’s head. Category three, codename Gurosu. It had driven them right up into the Salish Sea, close to Victoria, way over the boundary of the Miracle Mile. Typhoon Strike was damaged. Badly damaged, and its pilots both screamed in mixed fury and pain as Gurosu turned and clamped its jaws down on the arm they’d punched at it, pulling them down.
“Where the hell is backup?” Bahorel roared, and Jehan’s breath caught as he felt the arm begin to tear off.
“En route,” Courfeyrac shouted through the comm.. “ETA ten minutes. Just hold it off a little longer, the girls are nearly with you!”
“Fuck!” Jehan howled, and Bahorel’s horror drove through his brain like a spike as the arm was finally torn away. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” His arm was in agony, every muscle screaming.
“Right arm gone,” Bahorel gasped. They staggered backwards, barely avoiding a strike to the chest. “Shit, shit –”
“Keep it occupied!” Courfeyrac told them, and Jehan could hear the fear in his voice. “You’ve got to keep it away from Victoria, the people –”
“Reactor compromised,” Typhoon Strike’s AI reported coolly a split second before Gurosu screeched at them and crouched low in the waves. Its hind legs were like a toad’s or a frog’s, and the only possible counter move flashed through Jehan and Bahorel’s minds at the same time.
Wordless, they crouched as well, and when Gurosu leapt into the air, intending to jump over them and make for shore, they sprang up and used their left arm to grab its back leg. The jerk shook their bodies through to their bones, and Jehan felt Bahorel’s suppressed terror as Gurosu fell and they fell after it, no right arm to balance or brace them.
Luckily, they were in the shallows now, so the water didn’t come up to the Conn-Pod, but now they had an angry Kaiju literally in their hand. Jehan was reminded absurdly of The Jungle Book. Next to him, Bahorel laughed hysterically at the image of Baloo holding tight to Shere Khan’s tail, the two of them running in frantic circles.
They held tight to Gurosu for as long as they could, but it moved faster in the water than they could, and they were keenly feeling the loss of a limb. Jehan felt bruises bloom on his body where the harness bit into his skin, the frame shaking every time Gurosu attacked. They held it off as best they could, but it was a losing battle.
“Indigo Fury has you in her sights!” Courfeyrac shouted. Jehan opened his mouth to reply, but it was cut off as Gurosu gathered momentum and leapt right into them. It shoved them back through the water and onto the beach, leaving Typhoon Strike flat on its back as it jumped over them and went for the buildings.
“No!” Bahorel yelled. They struggled to their feet and ran after it, the radiation warning blaring like a siren in the Conn-Pod. “Gotcha!”
They tackled the Kaiju and slammed it into the ground. It squealed and twisted under them, claws raking long lines down Typhoon’s front, tearing through the reinforced metal and further damaging the core. Jehan growled, and experienced a flash of intense fear when he saw Gurosu focus its eyes on Typhoon Strike’s head. They had only that second of warning before it unhinged its jaw like a snake and lunged for them. The cameras went dark and Jehan screamed, the din of screeching metal filling his ears and drowning everything else out. He reached for Bahorel as light poured suddenly into the chamber, blotted out a moment later by teeth as large as their bodies.
His panic and Bahorel’s swirled together, and then Bahorel had activated the escape pod command. Jehan shouted as he was torn away, the link severed as he was sucked into a tiny coffin and ejected from the Conn-Pod.
“Bahorel!” he screamed, ears popping as his escape pod tumbled over and over in a terrifying freefall, too fast for him to see anything until it slammed into the ground with a thud that sent black dots bursting through his vision.
He groaned, scrabbling at the hatch and forcing his way out in an adrenalin-fuelled daze, blood on his face, a high-pitched whining in his ears. “Bahorel!” he shouted, and he couldn’t hear it clearly. The escape pod had landed in a street, and the ground shuddered beneath him, vibrations of a deafening roar making his head pound. “Bahorel…Bahorel…”
He stumbled, almost fell, and turned dizzily in place, stopping dead when he saw it. He couldn’t hear himself whimper, but that didn’t matter. Gurosu was…there weren’t words. He’d never seen a Kaiju as a human, not really. He’d always been in Typhoon Strike, a match for any monster. From here, eyes mere feet from the ground, Gurosu was like a mythical beast, too large to be described. Too frightening, too loud, too much…too much of everything.
“Bahorel.” His mouth formed the name though he couldn’t hear it as anything more than a dull noise, and he swallowed his fear and started to run towards the nightmare. Gurosu’s every step made the ground crack beneath him, buildings shaking with it. There was no one else around – either long gone or in evacuation shelters underground.
“Bahorel!” he bellowed, almost crying as he ran. “Bahorel!” At the end of the street, he gasped and staggered, falling against a wall as Gurosu leapt right over him. For a long second, he saw the monster’s wounded belly, deep blackened holes dripping blue where they’d tried to gut the creature. When Gurosu landed, Jehan went sprawling on the road, unable to stay on his feet. He cowered and crawled around the corner, a primal part of him convinced that as long as it didn’t see him, he would live.
And there was Typhoon Strike. Torn almost to pieces, machinery and metal strewn across several buildings and streets, their Jaeger damaged beyond repair. Destroyed for good.
He could see the sea. And something else, something huge and blue approaching from the ocean, twin swords drawn. Indigo Fury had finally arrived, but he was still missing Bahorel. Gurosu jumped again, and when it landed, Jehan’s head knocked against the ground. Colours exploded behind his eyes and something familiar flickered in his head – Bahorel. Close by.
Possessed, he hauled himself upright and started running (half-falling) eastwards. Indigo Fury ran past the wreck of Typhoon Fury and he barely noticed as Éponine and Cosette engaged Gurosu. It took too long to get to the other side of the building Typhoon Strike’s head had crashed into, but he made it eventually, and there was Bahorel’s escape pod.
Jehan only realised he was crying when he wiped his face and his hand didn’t come away covered in blood, but tears. He wrenched the pod’s hatch open and reached in, shaking Bahorel desperately. Of course there was no blood on his face, of course not, of course not – all the blood was in here, Bahorel had all the blood with him, and Jehan was empty empty empty empty because Bahorel wouldn’t wake up.
Courfeyrac’s chest was tight, his breathing coming in harsh pants and shallow gasps. His inhaler (more a relic from childhood than a thing he ever needed to use) was in his room. Eighteen levels down, it might as well have been eighteen miles away.
But Éponine and Cosette had called it in, and he had to report. He moved his mouth, but couldn’t get enough air into his lungs to say the words. A hand squeezed his elbow – Marius to the rescue. “Typhoon Strike down,” he said clearly. “Rangers non-responsive.”
“Sir!” one of the maintenance technicians shouted. “Typhoon’s escape pods were ejected!”
“Get a crew out there now!” Lamarque bellowed. “Scan the area! And for Christ’s sake, keep the press out of the perimeter! Damn reporters’ll kill themselves trying to get a photo!”
Marius kept his hand on Courfeyrac’s elbow, and they watched the numbers for Indigo Fury stream across their screens, Éponine and Cosette almost silent as they took on Gurosu. Grunts and bitten-off curses as the numbers showed that they took hits and dealt them out, the charges of their swords decreasing with each successful strike.
“Put out a radiation warning!” Lamarque ordered, and Courfeyrac didn’t even blink, staring at the screens until his eyes hurt, focusing on Éponine and Cosette fighting (alive).
“Got the fucker!” Éponine spat suddenly. “Got him, right…”
“There!” both women shouted together, and one of their swords was drained of the last of its energy, presumably buried deep in Gurosu’s bastard body.
“Double tap,” Lamarque reminded them. It was standard procedure after what had happened to Gipsy Danger three years ago.
“On it,” Cosette huffed. Their other sword charged up, fuelled by their reactor, the power percentage inching up to sixty percent…seventy…seventy-five…
Courfeyrac wheezed and Marius’ whole body seized up as both pilots suddenly screamed, filling their earpieces with static and white noise. Marius gripped the edge of the desk immediately (Courfeyrac staggered without someone holding onto him), shouting, “Cosette! Cosette!”
“Shut him up!” Lamarque roared, fingers flying over the screens as technicians shouted across the room.
“Sword power depleted!”
“Weapon deployed!”
“Conn-Pod compromised!”
“Cosette!” Marius screamed, and Courfeyrac wrapped his arms around him from behind and pulled him away from the desk, feet skidding on the floor, dragging the taller man back as his brain went into autopilot.
Marius was being too loud: Courfeyrac held his hand over his mouth. Marius was struggling: Courfeyrac dug his elbow into his side to subdue him a little. In his ear, Éponine and Cosette had stopped screaming and were making pained noises instead, pants and moans. Courfeyrac couldn’t speak: there wasn’t enough air.
Lamarque spoke for him, sounding shaken. “Rangers, do you copy?”
“We copy,” Éponine gasped. “We need help, we need help, Cosette…” Marius made a scared noise under Courfeyrac’s hand. “She’s…her legs, the Kaiju, I can’t…”
Courfeyrac’s chest heaved. “Focus,” he managed to say, his voice a rasping exhale. “Breathe, Éponine. Explain…the situation…”
Éponine sobbed, and Courfeyrac struggled to keep his knees from buckling. “We need help, do you copy? Please, please, we need help, Cosette…fuck, fuck, please, Cosette…”
“We copy,” Lamarque assured her. “A team is on its way, ETA three minutes.”
“We need help now!” Éponine shrieked, and Marius started to shake.
Enjolras hadn’t screamed – he’d begged. Pleaded with his unconscious partner to wake up, please Combeferre, please wake up. Courfeyrac had gotten him through that, guided him and kept him talking, kept reassuring him that everything would be fine. He had to do that now. That was what he did.
“Ponine!” Loud as he could with the limited air. “Ponine, what’s Cosette’s status?”
“Injured,” Éponine panted. “Her legs, fuck…the Kaiju, it had a tongue, like a spear, and it…her legs, oh my god, Courfeyrac –”
“Is she unconscious?” Courfeyrac interrupted.
“Yes, she –”
“The speared tongue hit her in the legs – where? Above or below the knee?”
“Both, it was so big!”
“Response team on-site!” someone shouted. “Chopper descending!”
“Hear that?” Courfeyrac wheezed. “We’re getting you…out of there, Ponine…Cosette’ll be fine.” He squeezed Marius harder as he said it. “She’ll be fine…I promise.” Rash, but what else could he do?
“Indigo Fury under supervision,” a technician said. “Kaiju death confirmed.”
“Get a team on those escape pods!” Lamarque snarled. “Find our brute squad, right now! You two, get out,” he added, glaring at Courfeyrac and Marius. “You, breathe like a human, and you, calm down, your girlfriend’s still alive. Go!”
They didn’t make it to the end of the corridor before Marius dropped to his knees, shoulders heaving. Courfeyrac crouched in front of him and pulled him into a hug, only noticing then how much he was trembling.
Éponine: alive. Cosette: severely, possibly critically injured. Jehan: MIA. Bahorel: MIA. One Jaeger destroyed, another seriously damaged.
How could they go on after this?
One of the things he loved the most about whisky was the colour. It just looked beautiful. Vodka was tragically lacking in the visual department, and beer was distressingly pale (much like white wine), and while he adored the deep, dark burgundy of red wine, there was nothing that could really match the honey-tinted amber that was whisky.
The taste wasn’t bad either, of course, but the colour was drop-dead gorgeous, especially in a room with the right lighting. A smoky bar was best, preferably underground or with blacked-out windows, but Grantaire could remember a particularly beautiful brand he’d once had outside a bar, sitting on a wobbly metal chair as the sun went down, the last of the light catching the liquid in the bottle and setting it alight, autumn shades of gold and saffron glinting alongside the deeper shadows in the centre.
This whisky was nothing like that. This whisky was too pale, too cheap. The bottle was thin, the label small. All he could get at such short notice. He sat on the other side of the room from it and tried to name the exact hue of it. Citrine? Aureolin? Jonquil? Names far too pretty for what the bottle contained. But it would do the job. It would dull the ache. It would soothe the residual panic from seeing his best friend lying too still on a hospital bed, machines beeping and wires and tubes feeding into his motionless body. A drink would make that fade, at least for a while. He could relax a little. He could escape the numb horror that was his current existence. It would be so easy.
He heard someone coming down the corridor, so he didn’t jump when Enjolras came in, a little out of breath. “Grantaire?”
Grantaire didn’t move, and he knew when Enjolras turned to see what he was staring at by the sharp intake of breath. There was a beat of silence, and then Enjolras had stooped to pick up the bottle from the floor where Grantaire had carefully placed it. Grantaire twitched when his fingers closed around the neck, eyes following the bottle’s course through the air. Enjolras was eying it like something distasteful, and Grantaire bit his lip, trying to concentrate on the sting of the physical instead of the desperate, stupid desire to go over and snatch the whisky from Enjolras’ hand; to crack it open (the delicious snap of the seal breaking) and swallow as much as he could take before it started to dribble down his chin.
It would take effect quickly, he knew. His system, once strong enough to withstand an entire bottle that size and more on top, was weak now. Atrophied from lack of use. He might not be able to finish the contents without throwing some back up, but it would be worth it. To disappear for a little bit. To vanish into a delirious haze. To drift, unconcerned and lazy, his head fogged and his thoughts splintered, both ponderingly slow and whip-fast by turns. He remembered the giddy feeling of that. He wanted it so badly his mouth was dry.
Enjolras tucked the bottle under his arm and grabbed a piece of paper from Grantaire’s dresser, pulled a pen from his own pocket. He wrote something down, then opened the door and put both whisky and note outside. The door closed with a very final sound, and Grantaire closed his eyes, curling in on himself as Enjolras came over and knelt in front of him, hands firm on his thighs.
“Grantaire,” he whispered, and Grantaire fell into him, clinging too tightly to his clothes and skin so that he wouldn’t shove him aside and run out to get the whisky back. Breathing in the smell of him to try and forget the memory of whisky’s enticing aroma. Enjolras smelled of his laundry detergent, his shampoo, and himself, soft and warm and not dangerous like alcohol was dangerous. Addictive in a completely different way.
Enjolras stayed with him that night, and didn’t say anything when Grantaire started to cry in the dark, huge heaving sobs that shook his entire body and still didn’t properly express the agonising roar contained just under his skin like the ocean in a storm, or the howling winds of a hurricane. It felt too big to be held back, like it would erupt from his mouth and nose and ears, like his skin would split from the pressure and the screams would burst forth like a tsunami, destroying everything in its path.
“He’s meant to give me a present next year,” he gasped, voice raw. “A fucking…surprise, for getting to ten years.”
Enjolras held him tightly and pressed kisses to his shoulders and the back of his neck, but he had no answers. Grantaire wept into the mattress, powerless to stop and unable to focus on anything but the question of whether the bottle would still be outside, and whether Enjolras would fall asleep so he could sneak out and get it back.
His throat was sore from crying, not from the burn of whisky, and he cried harder knowing that it was only the thin possibility that Bahorel would wake up that stopped him from pushing Enjolras off and running to the nearest liquor store.
Nine years, five months, three weeks, six days.
He would go back to day one if it meant Bahorel would wake up.
Jean watched Cosette sleep, Luc snoring in the chair in the corner. She’d been in the operating theatre for almost two days solid, and they were all stretched to breaking point. Marius had called them before the news that Indigo Fury had taken heavy damage and Cosette had been badly injured was made public, and Jean would always be grateful for that.
He’d been ready to resent the younger man, though they’d met through Skype several times already. It wasn’t the same as meeting in person, as Luc often said, but Marius had called them first, and they’d heard the raw quality to his voice as he told them that Cosette was hurt, but she was alive, and she wasn’t likely to die any time soon.
Hurt was a gross understatement.
The Kaiju tongue had been roughly three feet in diameter, and it had plunged through the Conn-Pod and directly into Cosette’s legs. Everything from below her mid-thigh was pulverised, and without the loss of momentum the Kaiju’s tongue had taken by going through the harder barrier of Indigo Fury’s outer shell, it was likely that Cosette’s legs would have been torn from their sockets.
It didn’t bear thinking about, but Jean couldn’t stop turning it over in his head. The mental image of the monster’s tongue slamming into his daughter’s body was enough to make his hands clench in his pockets. He turned away abruptly, the idea of a coffee forming in his mind. He couldn’t sleep yet. Not yet. Not until Cosette woke up and he could be truly sure that she was alright.
In the corridor, he stopped and stared. On one of the uncomfortable benches, Marius had stretched his lanky body out and was sleeping with a frown on his face. His legs were hanging over the end and Jean’s lips actually twitched at the image – he hadn’t realised how tall Marius was until they had met face-to-face. He was tall himself (irritatingly so, according to Luc), but Marius could meet his eyes with no problems at all. He was certainly too tall to be sleeping there, but Jean didn’t want to wake him. He doubted Marius had slept properly since Cosette had been injured.
Taking a detour from his planned coffee run, he managed to locate a man in a white coat and cleared his throat to get his attention. “Oh,” the doctor said, turning around and smiling slightly. “Hi. Can I help you?”
“I wondered if you had a couple of spare blankets?” Jean asked quietly. “For my husband and…my daughter’s boyfriend.”
The doctor tilted his head. “Are you Cosette’s father?”
“I am, yes. One of them.”
The doctor broke into a wide smile and extended his hand. “I’m Joly. Where did Marius fall asleep, by the way? Oh, blankets, yes – just a second.”
Jean followed him, a little bemused. “You know Cosette?”
“We’re friends. Marius too, obviously. It’s good to meet you, though obviously the circumstances aren’t fantastic. Cosette’s doing really well though.” He glanced over his shoulder as he opened a cupboard full of blankets and smiled again. He had the sort of face made for smiling. “She’ll have no problems in a wheelchair, I’ll bet. It takes a lot of people a while to get good at it, you know? Because of all the upper arm strength they have to build up? But she’s really strong already, so I think she’ll handle it really well.”
Jean blinked at him as Joly pulled three blankets out and bumped it closed with his elbow, leading the way back to Cosette’s room. “Are you her doctor?”
“One of them. The staff’s been reduced recently, but we’re still fine. After this…well, our only active rangers are Enjolras and Combeferre now.”
Jean nodded. “How’s the other ranger doing? The one from Typhoon Strike? Batiste?”
“Bahorel,” Joly corrected, his smile fading. “He’s stable, and his partner says they’re still ghost drifting, which is encouraging. He’s not brain-dead, but it’s unclear how long his coma will last. Oh no.” They turned the corner and Joly’s face fell further on seeing Marius’ uncomfortable position. “His neck, that is just the worst position to sleep in…would you mind holding these?” he asked, raising the blankets. Jean shook his head.
“Not at all.”
“Thank you. I’ll be through in just a moment, but I really can’t let him sleep there.” He gestured for Jean to go ahead and Jean did so, slowly. He looked back to watch Joly kneel by Marius’ head and gently shake his shoulder. “Marius,” he murmured. “Marius, come on. There’s a bed literally five steps away from you.” Marius mumbled something, and Joly smiled, helping him get up and putting an arm around his shoulders to guide him into the closest room.
Luc had stopped snoring, and Jean leaned down to kiss his forehead before spreading a blanket over him. Joly appeared in the doorway a minute later. “You can have a bed too if you like,” he said quietly. “There are plenty free.”
Jean shook his head and sank down into the other chair. “Thank you, but…I think I’ll stay here.”
Joly didn’t try to persuade him, and just gave him one parting smile and a, “Good night then,” before leaving as unobtrusively as he’d arrived.
Cosette remained still and silent, eyelids bruised and dark against her too-pale face, and Jean shifted uncomfortably in his chair, more than a little jealous of Luc’s uncanny ability to fall asleep anywhere he dropped. He couldn’t sleep yet. Not until Cosette woke up. Not until he knew for sure that his daughter was alright.
“Can’t you just find another partner?”
Éponine tipped her head back and swallowed the shot, grimacing at the burn. “Come and talk to me when you’ve drifted with someone, kid, and then ask if I can’t just find another partner.” She saw Courfeyrac beckon Gavroche close and mutter something into his ear – probably telling him how long it had taken Éponine to find a drift-compatible partner in the first place – and she turned away and sighed.
Cosette had been awake for a week, and Éponine hadn’t been to see her yet. She didn’t need to, really. Broken legs didn’t get in the way of the neural link. And besides, there was nothing to say.
The bar brightened briefly as the door opened, and Éponine looked round to see Jehan enter, looking about twenty years older than he had before Gurosu attacked. She waved him over and gestured for the bartender to get her another few shots. Jehan sat down next to her with a sigh and took the shot she offered him. “Cheers,” he muttered, tossing it back quickly.
“How’s Bahorel?”
“Still being a lazy fuck,” he said dully. “Did you know that the longer a coma patient remains in a coma, the less likely it is that they’ll wake up?”
“Yeah.”
“Hm.” He had another shot, and shuddered. “How’s Cosette?”
“She seems fine.”
“Been to see her yet?”
Éponine glared at him, but Jehan just shrugged. “Go fuck yourself.”
“I’d love to, but I’m exhausted.”
The door opened again and they both looked round to see Combeferre and Feuilly walk in. Neither were smiling. Jehan lifted another shot and motioned for them to come over. “No Enjolras?”
“He’s with Grantaire,” Combeferre explained. “No thanks,” he added when Éponine offered him a shot. She shrugged and drank it herself, holding onto the edge of the bar for support. A smaller hand sneaked into her view and she slapped at it sharply.
“What did I say?” she glared at Gavroche. “You can only come in here if you don’t drink.”
“But you’re allowed to get wasted?” he countered. She clamped down hard on the urge to smack the mutinous expression off his face.
“My partner may never walk again. I think I’m entitled to a drink or two.”
“Or ten,” he snorted. Éponine rubbed her temples with the tips of her fingers.
“Courfeyrac, remove him.”
“Why’d you get me to come here in the first place then?” he hissed before Courfeyrac could pull him away. “Bitch.”
Éponine had the front of his shirt in her fist before he could make a sound, and she ignored Courfeyrac’s protests and Feuilly’s half-hearted attempt to block her way as she dragged Gavroche out of the bar and into the corridor, ignoring his angry protests and struggles.
“Listen here,” she snarled, shoving him none-too-gently against the wall. “I know I’ve been a shitty big sister and a crappy person in general, but I’d really fucking appreciate it if you could just lay off for maybe three minutes and let me mourn the loss of my career in peace.”
Gavroche glared up at her, eyes narrow in his thin face. “You could get another partner, couldn’t you?”
Éponine closed her eyes and thought of Cosette, because Cosette would never dream of punching a sixteen year-old in the face. “It’s not that easy,” she said finally through gritted teeth. “People aren’t immediately drift compatible. It took me ages to find Cosette – she’s one in a billion.”
“So why haven’t you been to see her yet?” Gavroche challenged.
“Why do you care?” she snapped, and took a deep breath. “Why are you so determined to rile me up?”
Gavroche just shrugged, and she sighed, leaning back and giving him access to the bar again. There was a moment before he slipped away when she could have said more. Things like I’m sorry, and you make me act like our parents, and forgive me. But the moment passed and Gavroche was back inside and she’d once again resisted the urge to give him a good smack.
Cosette would understand. She’d been in care for a while when she was little, due to complications with her adoption, and she hadn’t had the best time. She’d seen that in Cosette’s mind, as Cosette had seen her childhood in hers. Cosette would understand.
Éponine leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, the shots she’d had going to her head. It felt like she was in the drift for a moment, in the Conn-Pod during the drop, gravity turned on its head and her body pushing upwards against physical restraints.
The door opened and Feuilly came out. “Hey,” he said quietly. “You okay?”
“Thanks for bringing him here,” she muttered, and shoved herself upright. “I’ll see you later. Make sure he doesn’t have anything to drink.”
“Courfeyrac’s keeping an eye on him.”
They were much better role models than her. Honorary siblings that were much better than the real thing. She sighed and nodded. “Thanks. I’m going to the hospital.”
“You feeling okay?”
She smirked at him. “I’m going to see Cosette.”
He nodded, silently approving, and she walked off, carefully not swaying. Maybe this was why she had needed to get drunk – she probably couldn’t have done this sober.
This late, Cosette didn’t have any visitors, and Éponine approached her room slowly, probing at the neural link for a sign to tell her whether Cosette was awake. A frustrated curse from inside the room answered her, and she barged in without hesitation. “Cosette?”
Cosette was on the floor, face red and blotchy, and Éponine caught her breath when she looked at her legs. Or what was left – no more than a foot or so of thigh encased in thick bandages. She blinked and saw for a moment Cosette’s legs as they had been – long and pale, strong and well-muscled with surprisingly large feet.
“Did they keep your legs?” she asked thoughtlessly. “Like, are your feet in a jar somewhere?”
Cosette burst into laughter that was still comprised partly of crying. “Where the hell have you been?” she asked.
“Can’t you tell?” Éponine swayed slightly as she crouched down to be on Cosette’s level, and she sat down with a bump. “Obviously I’ve been drinking everything I could get my hands on because we’re never going to get to fight Kaiju ever again. No more rangering for us. We’re done. Why are we on the floor, by the way?”
“I couldn’t reach my e-reader.” Cosette nodded to the table next to her. “But then when I got down here I realised it was in the middle of the table and I couldn’t reach from way down here. And I just…” She sniffed and gestured with a self-deprecating laugh to her snotty face. “Typical you should turn up the first time I cry about this whole thing. I thought I was doing really well, y’know? I’ll use a wheelchair, maybe get prosthetics one day if I can, but I couldn’t reach my fucking e-reader and it’s just…shit. It’s just really shit. And now I’m crying again!”
“Well I almost punched Gavroche in the face for being a mouthy little fucker,” Éponine offered, shuffling round to Cosette’s side. “Okay, tell me if this hurts.”
Cosette grabbed onto her shoulders as Éponine slid one arm under her butt and put another under her arms and lifted her unsteadily against her front, then rose slowly to her feet and placed Cosette as gently as she could on the bed. “Wow,” she gasped, a surprised grin spreading across her face. “That actually went much better than expected.”
“My fucking hero,” Cosette smiled, still crying a bit. “You can sit on here too, you know; there’s loads of room.”
“Thanks.” Éponine flopped down next to her and sighed when Cosette leaned her head on her shoulder. “Sorry I’ve been shit.”
“It’s okay, I know.”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll be okay.”
“Yeah.”
“At least we’re alive.”
So they’d get to see the world destroyed by Kaiju when the Jaegers ran out. With Typhoon Strike and Indigo Fury no longer in play, there were only thirteen Jaegers left. “Yay.”
Cosette grabbed her hand and squeezed, and Éponine squeezed back automatically. “We’ll be okay,” she whispered again, and Éponine nodded. Coming from anyone but Cosette, she wouldn’t have believed it. But Cosette had a way of inspiring hope and confidence in the darkest moments, and Éponine was fiercely glad of it, because if it had just been her on her own, she might have stayed in the bar and drunk herself to sleep, and she might have lashed out harder at Gavroche, and she might have gone to the top of the Shatterdome and thrown herself off because being a ranger was the only thing she had ever been truly good at, and now she would never be able to do it again.
But she wasn’t alone: she had Cosette, and so maybe they really would be okay.
The Jaeger program had been on the downward curve since 2019 or maybe 2020, but it hadn’t really touched their Shatterdome until now. Combeferre said little and watched everything as their world began to crash down around them. He’d become a ranger with Enjolras expecting to fight monsters and protect people. There were lots of things he hadn’t expected – the publicity, the physical strain, the incredible friends they’d made – but he’d never dreamed of it ending like this.
Liberty Blaze was now the only active Jaeger in their Shatterdome. Typhoon Strike (what was left of it) and Indigo Fury had been transported to Oblivion Bay. Liberty Blaze stood alone in the main chamber, the two docking ports either side gaping and empty.
Combeferre sat on the scaffolding opposite his Jaeger and leaned his chin on the railing, legs dangling over the edge. He wasn’t like some of the others – alcohol and tobacco didn’t have the same pull, and he didn’t have a significant other (or others) to take more intimate comfort in. He had Enjolras, but Enjolras also had Grantaire, and Grantaire was currently breaking down over Bahorel. Jehan put on a calmer front, but Combeferre knew how many hours a day he spent at Bahorel’s bedside, and he noted the diminishing number of smiles and laughs.
Cosette was holding up well, and Éponine was doing better now that they were talking properly again, but Combeferre could only imagine how horrible it would be to lose both your legs and your career in the same moment. Marius was still getting over the incident.
With Indigo Fury’s removal, Musichetta had been laid off, and Feuilly wouldn’t be far behind. Bossuet had been given notice earlier today (no need for so many programmers when there was only one Jaeger to run, after all) and Joly would be leaving with them when they went. Combeferre’s fingers tightened on the railing, everything in him rebelling at the idea of their close-knit group falling apart.
It had been stupid and short-sighted to think it would never end, but it hurt all the same. Gavroche had come to the Shatterdome at the worst time possible, it seemed – he’d barely had time to settle in before he was being told to leave. Azelma was fighting tooth and nail with the rest of the Kaiju research department to keep their budget and retain their staff numbers. Fighting a losing battle, but fighting nonetheless.
And Courfeyrac…Courfeyrac was going to break his own neck trying to please everyone. Combeferre closed his eyes for a long minute, opening them quickly when a door opened somewhere below him. He decided not to alert them to his presence, even when they started coming up the stairs towards him. When they reached his level, there was a familiar laugh.
“Fancy seeing you here.”
Combeferre turned and smiled, and Courfeyrac came over to sit beside him. “Did you want to be alone?”
“Who, me?” Courfeyrac snorted. “Please. No, Enjolras told me you were here. Thought I’d see if you wanted company.”
Combeferre smiled. “You don’t have to put yourself out for me, you know.”
“Ah, now, you see,” Courfeyrac put an arm around his shoulders and leaned close. “I don’t think it counts as putting myself out if other people being happy genuinely just makes me happy.”
Combeferre leaned into him a little. “Okay then.”
“Cool.” Courfeyrac relaxed and Combeferre slouched a little to lean their heads together.
“Quick question?”
“Fire away.”
“Does anyone ever put themselves out for you?”
Courfeyrac laughed after a barely-noticeable hesitation. “They don’t need to. I’m fine.”
“Yeah?” Combeferre pulled back to fix Courfeyrac with a penetrating look. “That’s not what I’ve heard.”
Courfeyrac narrowed his eyes. “If Pontmercy’s been blabbing, it’s all lies. Lies, slander, and calumny.”
“So you didn’t have an asthma attack in the control centre when Gurosu was tearing Typhoon and Indigo to shreds?”
“Who the hell told you that?”
Combeferre shrugged. “I have my sources.”
“You’re an asshole.”
Combeferre grinned. It was actually quite refreshing to see Courfeyrac irritated instead of cheerful. “Only on special occasions.”
“What’s this occasion meant to be then?” Courfeyrac grumbled. “The bi-annual bring-Courfeyrac-down day?”
“More like the bi-annual reminder that you don’t have to do everything on your own,” Combeferre said gently. “Not that people don’t appreciate and need your special brand of cheering up, but it’s okay not to be happy all the time.”
“No one likes a downer,” Courfeyrac said sternly, but he drew away slightly, taking his arm from Combeferre’s shoulders and pulling into himself. “Especially with things the way they are now.”
“The way they are now?”
“You know,” Courfeyrac said sharply, glancing at him quickly and then away, biting his lip as though regretting his tone. Combeferre nudged him, letting him know it was okay.
“You mean the way the Shatterdome is closing down and we’re all pretending not to notice?” he said lightly. “Or the way more Kaiju are attacking every year? Or the way no new Jaegers are going to be built, and Liberty Blaze is falling apart a little bit at a time because she’s so old?”
“Shut up,” Courfeyrac whispered. Combeferre sighed and nudged him again.
“It’s okay. It’s not your responsibility to make everyone happy.”
“But I’m good at it, aren’t I?” Courfeyrac shot him a surprisingly pleading look, and Combeferre considered that he may have been a little harsh. He smiled reassuringly and nodded.
“You’re better than good. But you shouldn’t feel like you have to put yourself last for the sake of everyone else.”
“I don’t,” Courfeyrac protested. Combeferre raised an eyebrow. “What? I don’t!”
“Why did you come and find me?”
“I thought you might want the company!” Courfeyrac started getting to his feet. “If you wanted to be alone, you should’ve just said.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” Combeferre cursed inwardly as he followed suit. “Sorry, that’s not what I meant to say at all.”
“Then what are you getting at?” Courfeyrac asked, exasperated.
“I just wanted to see if you were okay for once.” Combeferre pushed a hand through his hair and sighed. “You do so much for everyone else…you’re everyone’s shoulder to cry on and you always drop everything if you think someone needs you…I just wanted you to know that, well…it’s appreciated. And we’d drop everything for you if you needed it, but you always pretend never to need anything, so it’s hard to tell –”
“I don’t need anything,” Courfeyrac cut him off, shaking his head wildly. “I’m fine, really, I’m always fine.”
“Even with things ‘the way they are now’?” Combeferre asked pointedly, and Courfeyrac shrank into himself. “It’s okay to need things, you know. You just have to ask.”
Courfeyrac laughed humourlessly. “The thing is though,” he said bleakly, “what I really need is for everything to go back to the way it was. And I don’t think anyone can manage that, so why bother whining about it?”
Combeferre held his gaze for a long moment, then stepped over and draped an arm over Courfeyrac’s shoulders. It was easy with the advantage of his height, and Courfeyrac slumped almost imperceptibly against him. “It’s okay to be sad sometimes, you know,” Combeferre told him.
Courfeyrac sighed. “Yeah, but it’s no fun. No one likes hanging out with sad people.”
“They do if they’re friends with them. No one’s exactly overjoyed about anything right now, so you’re in good company.” He squeezed Courfeyrac’s shoulders. “Want to watch a movie or something?”
Courfeyrac nodded and they started to walk. “Want to help me organise a surprise party for Joly, Bossuet, and Chetta? For when they leave?”
“Sure.” Combeferre grinned, and they went down the metal stairs, away from the lonely sight of Liberty Blaze alone in the hangar.
“You’re a freaking giant, you know that?”
“Says the hobbit.”
“Do the others know you’re secretly a massive dick?”
“Only Enjolras. Keep it quiet.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
Grantaire spent more time with Jehan than he used to. They would sit together in Bahorel’s room, in the Musain, in one of the kwoons, or in the hangar where Typhoon Strike used to twitch as its pilots dreamed. While Enjolras and Combeferre were out on patrol, Grantaire slept in Bahorel’s room or with Jehan, not trusting himself to be left alone.
The others helped too, and sometimes it was grating, like he was a collective pet or a child to be babysat, but with Jehan it was alright. Jehan knew when to speak and when to be quiet. Jehan held Bahorel in his head, and he was safe and understanding. He couldn’t replace Bahorel – no one would ever do that – but he filled the hole somewhat.
When Liberty Blaze was called out to assist another Jaeger (Matador Fury, the last Mexican Jaeger) with a category three Kaiju, Grantaire twisted lengths of wire into the shape of Typhoon Strike (Bahorel had always bugged him to try his hand at sculpture) and drank enough coffee to shake his limbs like branches in a breeze. Across the room, Jehan sat with a book he wasn’t reading, eyes flicking between the muted TV screen and Grantaire.
Jehan and Enjolras were the only ones who could look at him now without making him feel self-conscious and prickly.
“If Enjolras dies,” Jehan said suddenly, and Grantaire nearly sliced his finger open on the wire-cutters. “What will you do?”
“Jesus Christ, Jehan,” Grantaire snapped. “Don’t dance around it, will you?”
Jehan shrugged, meeting his glare with a passive look. “Sometimes blunt is best. So?”
Grantaire looked at the (frankly, appalling) model of Typhoon Strike and clenched his fists to stop them pummelling the thing into a misshapen lump. “I don’t know.”
“You haven’t thought about it?”
Grantaire rubbed his eyes, exhausted despite all the caffeine in his system. “Of course I have. I just…I don’t like thinking about it. That’s all.”
“Only three months left now.” Until he reached ten years. A full decade of sobriety.
“Yeah.” Grantaire’s voice cracked, and he pushed the wire model away, dropping his head into his hands. “Great. God, I feel old. And it’s two months, actually. Two months, three weeks, five days. If we’re being specific, I mean.”
“Not long at all,” Jehan said encouragingly.
“Yeah, well what’s the point?” Grantaire muttered. Enjolras and Combeferre were in the Conn-Pod now, being flown to where the action was. The second Jaeger on the scene usually came out better than the first, but usually wasn’t always. He swallowed and fisted his hand in his hair. “If Enjolras dies…” Just saying it was hard enough. “If they’re both gone, what’s the point?”
“Do it for yourself,” Jehan said quietly. Grantaire could just see his frown of concern, and he snorted.
“I’m not worth that much.”
“Hey!”
Grantaire raised his head to see Jehan coming over, a scowl on his face. “You’re worth a hell of a lot more than you think,” he said fiercely, pulling a chair around to sit opposite him.
Grantaire raised a tired eyebrow. “Save it, Jehan. You know as well as I do that the only thing that’s stopping me drowning myself in whisky is Enjolras, so if he dies, why stick around?”
“Bahorel’s not dead,” Jehan said sharply. “Stick around for him.”
“I’m not that strong.”
Jehan frowned. “Almost ten years of sobriety isn’t strength?”
Grantaire rolled his eyes. “You know, it’d be longer if it weren’t for my relapses. Eleven relapses. I’m not strong, Jehan. And I don’t know why Bahorel stuck with me through that, because I sure as hell wouldn’t have. I can’t even imagine how fucking annoying it must’ve been.”
Jehan stared at him, looking suddenly puzzled. “He was never annoyed.”
Grantaire sat up a little. Coming from anyone else, he would have ignored it, but Jehan had been in Bahorel’s head, and he didn’t lie. It was one of the things Grantaire liked most about him. “He wasn’t?”
Jehan shook his head. “He was sad, but not annoyed. He…” He leaned back in his chair, pursing his lips. Grantaire waited – he knew it was difficult to put experiences and memories seen and shared in the drift into words. “There was a time when you’d gone out with a bunch of other people?” he said hesitantly. Grantaire nodded and he went on. “You’d tried to get clean a few times already, and…well obviously it didn’t work this time, and Bahorel was furious with pretty much everyone but you.”
Grantaire frowned. “But…I’m the one who fucked up. It’s not like anyone tied me to a chair and poured beer down my throat – it was always my choice. It was always me.”
“He doesn’t really see it that way,” Jehan tried to explain, fingers gesturing. “You’re…you’re predisposed to addiction, and it’s…you tried, you know? You kept trying. That’s the important thing. You didn’t give up. You have no idea,” he added warmly, leaning forward and fixing Grantaire with an intense look. “You have no idea how proud of you he is.”
Grantaire’s cheeks heated, and he ducked his head. Questions and sarcastic responses whirled through his mind, all too fast and numerous for him to choose just one, so he settled on, “Why?” What was there to be proud of? He’d satisfactorily achieved the level of competence in life most people didn’t have to work for because they weren’t complete fuck-ups. He’d managed to make it into his thirties without dying of alcohol poisoning. Well done him.
Jehan grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly. When Grantaire lifted his head to look at him, he was smiling slightly. “Because look at how far you’ve come,” he said. “Training three ranger teams on your own, doing art again, with a gorgeous, loving boyfriend and a bunch of friends who know exactly how brilliant you are. People who see what Bahorel always has. And you’ve done all of that while struggling every day with addiction.” Grantaire knew he was blushing and Jehan grinned, leaning further forward to pull him into a slightly uncomfortable hug. “Duh.”
Grantaire gave a wobbly smile when Jehan sat back. “It’s not every day,” he mumbled. “Some days are better than others.”
“You can tell me down to the day how long you’ve been sober,” Jehan said dryly. “It’s clearly not easy.”
The silent TV screen flickered in the background, and Grantaire stiffened as footage of the Kaiju fighting Matador Fury came on the screen. “Jehan.”
Jehan got up to turn the sound on, then came back and took his hand again. They watched in silence as the Kaiju attacked the Jaeger ferociously, and the Jaeger hit back just as hard. When Liberty Blaze arrived, Grantaire clutched Jehan’s hand so tightly it hurt and prayed to entities he didn’t believe in for Enjolras and Combeferre to survive.
Together, the Jaegers killed the Kaiju, and Grantaire held back sobs of relief. It had never been this bad before Bahorel had been hurt. He’d never been this scared before. But he couldn’t ask Enjolras to stop – it was his job, and he wouldn’t be able to stand making Enjolras say no. He’d always thought he’d be dead by now, and now that he wasn’t and he had Enjolras, he didn’t want it to end.
But the monsters wouldn’t stop coming, and he couldn’t stop the love of his life going out to fight them, and it really wasn’t any surprise that it felt like the world was genuinely coming to an end.
There were a lot of them leaving by the time they actually had the party. It was difficult to find a time when Enjolras and Combeferre weren’t on duty, but eventually an evening rolled round, and just in time – on the following morning, she would be leaving with Éponine and Gavroche. Musichetta and Bossuet had been staying in Joly’s room for the past week (against the rules, but no one cared), and Marius would be following her as soon as the month was up. Feuilly had been staying in town while he searched for jobs elsewhere, but there was very little available.
Everything was ending, and every time Cosette thought about it too much, her throat tightened.
The official leaving party had been last week, but they were having one of their own in Courfeyrac’s rooms (the Musain had finally closed down with so few customers to support it), partially because they couldn’t have any alcohol because of Grantaire, and partially because they all wanted to say goodbye properly.
“I’ll join a wheelchair basketball team,” Cosette grinned up at Musichetta and Azelma. Looking up at everyone all the time had been one of the more unexpected disadvantages of being in a chair. “It looks sufficiently violent.”
“What about Éponine?” Musichetta glanced over at her partner and Cosette smirked.
“Roller derby. It’s perfect – look it up. Just what we’ll need to let off steam.”
Jehan darted in with his camera raised. “Smile!”
“Again?” Azelma complained, but obligingly looped an arm round Musichetta’s waist and bared her teeth. “You think he’ll really look through all of these?”
Jehan had decided to start keeping a diary for Bahorel to read when he woke up so he wouldn’t feel like he’d missed anything. “Of course,” he said snootily. “Wouldn’t you?”
“I think I’d prefer videos, actually.”
Jehan’s expression brightened and he started fiddling with the camera settings. “That is brilliant, why didn’t I think of that? From now on, this is a video diary.”
Cosette laughed, and smiled wider when familiar hands landed on her shoulders. She tilted her head back to look up at Marius, who smiled down at her. That was unchanged – he’d always been much taller than her. He dipped down to kiss her quickly, and Jehan whistled. “Perfect!”
Cosette flipped him off and laced her fingers with Marius’ on her shoulders, keeping him there while she looked around.
Éponine was laughing with Grantaire, Enjolras, and Bossuet in the corner; Joly, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac were laughing about something on the sofa; and Feuilly and Azelma were babbling excitedly at each other. Jehan had pulled Musichetta aside and was showing her some of the photos he’d taken earlier, and Marius tightened his hands on her shoulders.
It was so much like their old informal parties, but Bahorel’s missing presence gaped like an open wound. His deep laugh and easy physicality with everyone threw the equilibrium off just slightly. Bahorel had always acted as Grantaire’s buffer, Cosette realised now. Without him, Grantaire tended to wander less, sticking closer to Enjolras than before, and Jehan looked like he was always on the edge of falling over, like his sense of balance relied on Bahorel standing at his side.
“We should all go to the Atlantic region,” Marius whispered. “Somewhere safe. Safer.”
Cosette squeezed his hands and called, “Feuilly!” He and Azelma both turned around. “How’s the job-searching going?”
He grimaced. “I’m probably going to end up working on the Wall.”
Enjolras overheard and scoffed. “I can’t believe they’re going through with that bullshit.”
“Save it for your next interview,” Jehan grinned, sounding for a moment so much like Bahorel that Cosette almost did a double-take. “But seriously,” he added in a voice more his own, “don’t go to the Wall. It’s dangerous there.”
“It’s a job,” Feuilly said gently. “Man can’t live on air alone.”
“Come with us,” Cosette said impulsively. She glanced quickly at Éponine and saw that she was surprised, but in complete agreement. Feuilly frowned, looking between them.
“What?”
“Come with us tomorrow morning,” Éponine nodded, stepping forward. “We’re going to Cosette’s parents, and then to Paris – Luc has an apartment there. You should come.”
“I couldn’t –” Feuilly started, and Grantaire interrupted with an exasperated sigh.
“You fucking idiot, just go. Get a job in Paris selling bread or something and stay the hell away from the Pacific.”
“Wow, R,” Feuilly said dryly. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to get rid of me.”
“If he doesn’t go, can I?” Musichetta said brightly. “I’ve always wanted to go to Paris.”
“What about us?” Bossuet protested indignantly. Musichetta went over to pat his head, grinning.
“You can be my hand luggage. Joly can go in the hold.”
Joly huffed. “Charming, I feel so loved.”
Musichetta leaned over the back of the sofa and kissed him on the mouth, ignoring Courfeyrac’s, “Oi! Get a room that isn’t mine!” and Jehan’s wolf-whistles as he filmed the whole thing.
It was Azelma and Enjolras who persuaded Feuilly in the end, cornering him and giving him every argument under the sun in favour of leaving in the morning. Gavroche sealed the deal – when Feuilly grabbed his arm and asked quietly, “What do you think?” Gavroche just shrugged.
“You’ve never been to Paris, have you?”
“No.”
“Well then.”
They stayed up all night, none of them wanting the party to end. Cosette hugged everyone and got quite weepy when Courfeyrac made a toast to the Shatterdome as it had been before, and she laughed tearfully as his voice grew hoarse with unshed tears of his own. He did cry when Combeferre pulled him into a hug and toasted to his excellent work as their liaison over the years. Éponine kissed him full on the mouth to a round of catcalls and cheers and Enjolras gave him a chef’s hat and an apron in reference to some weird in-joke of theirs.
Amid the chaos, Marius shuffled close to where she’d seated herself on the sofa and said quietly, “Hypothetically, if I asked you to marry me, how would you respond?”
Her chest grew tight and she was careful not to look at him as she whispered, “Hypothetically, I’d say yes.”
“Oh.” He sighed with relief and slipped down to kneel in front of her, pulling a small box out of his pocket and was this really happening to her? “Um, that makes this a lot less terrifying,” he smiled, maybe a little tearful himself. The box opened and she stopped breathing, because if she didn’t she’d make a really undignified squeaking sound and this really wasn’t the time.
Someone (Éponine, she thought) shrieked and everyone turned to look as Marius took a little breath and said, “Cosette, will you –”
“Yes!” She couldn’t hold it back anymore, and the word was embarrassingly high-pitched, but she didn’t even care because they were hugging and everyone was clapping and cheering and when Marius pulled back and got the ring out of the box, she got a decent look at it. There was no jewel, and the metal of the ring was a strangely familiar shade of blue.
“You fucking didn’t,” Éponine gasped from somewhere behind her, and Cosette suddenly understood.
“Is that a piece of Indigo Fury?”
“The tiniest piece ever, probably,” Marius nodded sheepishly, and Cosette did make an undignified squeaking sound and launched herself at him again. Her mascara was probably halfway down her face, but she didn’t care at all. Marius slid the ring onto her finger and Éponine was the first to grab her hand to get a closer look.
“That’s actually really cool,” she admitted, and Cosette giggled, feeling like she could float.
“Tell me you got that on film,” Grantaire asked Jehan, who nodded happily, somehow managing to hold the camera steady as he cried.
“Of course!” he hiccupped. “Bahorel’s gonna love it.”
They left the Shatterdome just before the sun rose, while the sky was a pale grey-blue and the ocean was a steely grey-white, Marius pushing her chair and Éponine holding her hand, Feuilly and Gavroche walking together a little behind them.
“When you think of home,” Cosette whispered so only Éponine would hear, “where do you think of?”
“Here,” Éponine answered unhesitatingly. “You know that. We have lived here for about seven years, after all.”
Cosette squeezed her hand, her new ring unfamiliar on her finger, and wondered where ‘home’ would be now.
It was funny how the end of the world reshuffled priorities. If the world was different, and they weren’t seeing Kaiju on the news every night between pictures of the construction on the Anti-Kaiju Wall, it might have seemed like a stupid idea to go to Paris. But Feuilly had told them that it was actually okay, and Marius had moved there with no problems, and Éponine had dropped hints about local businesses wanting to invest in engineering specialists and programmers, and there were always openings for more doctors.
So they’d gone to Paris.
Bossuet gazed down at the Atlantic Ocean and gripped Musichetta’s hand tightly. It wasn’t that he was afraid of flying, he’d explained to her earlier – more that he was reasonably nervous because of the unnerving tendency for the universe to malfunction around him. She and Joly had kissed him to distract him, and in the end the worst thing that happened was his suitcase going missing (there had been a mix-up and it had ended up on another baggage conveyer, luckily in the same airport and not in another country).
“What do you think would’ve happened if the Breach had been in the Atlantic instead of the Pacific?” he wondered aloud as they stepped outside into Parisian sunshine.
“I saw something about that online, actually,” Musichetta said, leading the way to the road where Marius would hopefully be waiting to pick them up. “Like, an alternate history scenario. Because when you think about it, it’s really lucky the Kaiju decided to hit some of the biggest, wealthiest countries in the world.”
“Yeah, I feel so lucky,” Bossuet snorted, catching Joly’s grin and laughing. Musichetta rolled her eyes indulgently.
“You know what I mean. It was interesting – I’ll try and find it when we figure out how to set our stuff up.” They’d already found an apartment with Feuilly’s help, and Bossuet was not-so-secretly incredibly excited about having their own place just to themselves.
“Can you see Marius anywhere?” Joly asked, craning his neck.
“Nope.” Musichetta peered around as well.
“What kind of car are we looking for again?” Bossuet asked, squinting against the sun.
A horn honked three times and Joly pointed. “That one!”
Marius got out as they approached and flung his arms around Musichetta, who hugged him back enthusiastically. “Good to see you too!” He hugged Bossuet and Joly too, a broad grin on his face.
“You’re late!” he accused, helping load their suitcases into the car.
“Guess whose suitcase went missing and had to be tracked down by a crack team of airport officials?” Bossuet said cheerfully, and Marius snorted.
“Typical. You have the address for your place, right? The GPS is broken, but if we get lost we can call Cosette.”
“And you say he’s unlucky,” Musichetta laughed, jerking her thumb at Bossuet as he clambered into the back next to Joly. “Housewarming party tomorrow, right? I hope you got us presents.”
“Of course,” Marius said, pretending to be offended. “What do you take me for?”
“God,” Joly breathed as they drove through Paris. “It’s like a whole other world, isn’t it? Compared to the Shatterdome?”
“It’s really weird walking through streets instead of corridors,” Marius told them seriously. “And I can’t get used to the lack of stairs. Everything’s so flat here.”
“Not every building can have over fifty floors, Marius, God, lower your expectations will you?” Musichetta teased, reaching out to ruffle his hair. Marius ducked away with a grin.
“You wait. I’m so used to climbing endless stairs I think my legs have gone into shock.”
“And speaking of people with leg problems,” Bossuet said, because he generally avoided tact when it concerned his friends. “How’s Cosette?”
“Secretly really frustrated that she can’t climb stairs at all now,” Marius sighed. “And it turns out that this isn’t really the best city for wheelchair access. Like, it’s okay, but she’s basically given up on using the metro.”
Their new apartment was beautiful, and Joly grabbed his hand as soon as they entered to squeeze it and whisper, “We should get a dancemat,” in his ear.
“Oh my God.” Musichetta sat down on the sofa and stared at the wall for a moment. “Oh my God. We have an apartment. We officially live together. We’re an actual ménage à trois. Someone pinch me.” Marius flicked her ear and skittered backwards with a laugh when she screeched at him. “I wasn’t serious, what the hell is wrong with you?”
They unpacked what little they had brought (a side-effect of living in what was essentially a military complex was a serious lack of luggage) and blessed their new apartment with giggly, over-excited sex on their new bed, which, while bigger than the double beds in the Shatterdome, wasn’t quite big enough for all three of them.
Bossuet lay with his head on Joly’s chest and his hand in Musichetta’s hair, the breeze from the open window cool on his bare skin, and prayed silently that this would last. The Atlantic was a long way from the Pacific. No Kaiju had ever touched these shores. Maybe here they would find some measure of peace, at least for a while.
She would not cry. She would not cry because she was a fucking professional goddammit, and she had known this was coming anyway. It wasn’t like it was unexpected. The comments on the official Kaiju research forums were full of people complaining about their departments being downsized, their budgets being cut, their equipment not being replaced, their requests put on the back burner by those in power.
It was enough to make her want to cry. But she wouldn’t. She lifted her eyes from the sink and smiled brightly at her reflection, holding it until she was satisfied that it looked good enough. Then she leaned forward and re-applied a coat of red lipstick, stood up straight, and nodded at the mirror before walking out with her head held high.
There had been rumours of a position opening up in the Hong Kong Shatterdome, but that had turned out to be bullshit, and there weren’t many career options for biochemists who specialised in Kaiju classification and physiology. Without the Shatterdome, what was she going to do?
That evening, one of the researchers she knew from the Panama City Shatterdome (closed down the previous month) posted a joke on the message board.
Q: What’s the difference between a Kaiju specialist and a pizza?
A: A pizza can feed a family.
She laughed until she wanted to cry, then swallowed her tears and Skyped Jehan. Bahorel had been transferred to a hospital in Montreal, and Jehan had gone with him, stubborn to the last. Of course, he was painfully lonely in a new place with no one familiar to talk to, so she tried to call him as often as possible. Sometimes she stumbled into a conversation he was already having with one of the others – Grantaire, usually, or one or more of the Paris group. Sometimes Courfeyrac organised a group call and they all crowded around one computer and sent their love to Jehan, thousands of miles away in a room on his own.
Tonight, she was alone, and Jehan beamed when he answered, face filling her screen. “Holy shit,” she gaped. “You cut your hair.”
“Do you like it?” he asked, pulling a dubious expression and patting at his newly-shorn head. “It was kind of a spur of the moment decision. But Louisa cut Bahorel’s hair today and she said she’d do mine for free if I wanted, and who could turn down a free haircut?”
“At least it’s even,” she nodded. “I liked your hair though.”
“Best thing about hair,” he smiled. “It grows back. What’s new with you?”
“Well, how would you like a roommate?” she asked, smiling the carefree smile she’d been practising. “I have to be out of here by the end of the month.”
Jehan’s eyes widened. “Oh no. The research department?”
“Shut down.” She couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of her voice. “It was only a matter of time. Might as well see if any universities in Montreal need another broke, starving scientist to do stuff for them.”
“Don’t come here,” Jehan told her firmly.
She raised her eyebrows. “Why not? Do I smell bad?”
Jehan laughed. “No, no. But it’s pretty shitty out here, and I just think you’d be better off in Paris.”
“What’s the difference? They speak French in both places, don’t they?”
“Paris is Atlantic, for one thing,” Jehan said, “and your family’s there.”
Azelma rolled her eyes. “I need to base this on my career, not the people I’m accidentally related to by blood.”
“Cold.” Jehan raised an eyebrow, and she shrugged.
“I am a scientist who studies monsters for a living.” Or at least she had been.
“Gosh, really, tell me more,” he said sarcastically, and she grinned.
“Bite me, ranger. Come on, Montreal can’t be that bad.”
Jehan sighed. “The place is lovely. It’s safely land-locked, the architecture is to die for, and I think I’m beginning to understand ice hockey by some sort of human osmosis. But…y’know.”
“You’re still lonely.”
“There’s only so many melancholy walks a guy can take,” Jehan said simply. “Seriously, go to Paris. At least you’ll have people to talk to.”
“If I come to Montreal, I’ll have you to talk to.”
“I’m not enough. You should be with family.”
“And what about you?”
Jehan shrugged. “I’m with family. Bahorel’s family.”
“Bahorel’s comatose.”
“So I actually get to finish my sentences around him for once.” Jehan smiled, and Azelma recognised an expression that had been practised in a mirror. “I’m dealing. I can’t leave him. You should go to Paris.”
“Jehan –”
“The more of us that are safe, the better I feel,” he said seriously, letting the fake smile drop. “Every time I think of Liberty Blaze going out, I feel sick. I can’t imagine what it’s like for Grantaire.”
Azelma shrugged awkwardly. She wasn’t as close to Grantaire as some of the others. “Awful, probably. Like it was for me when Éponine went out. I nearly punched my supervisor in the face when Gurosu attacked.”
“You should go to Paris to live with her and Gavroche,” Jehan insisted. “There’re only nine Jaegers left now.”
Azelma bit back a retort, hearing the defeat underlying his words. “There’s still the wall.”
Jehan snorted. “Sure, yeah. The Wall of Life. Can’t wait to see how that works out. God, did you watch Enjolras and Combeferre’s interview where he brought that up?” A genuine grin broke across his face and Azelma smiled too.
“Oh yeah. It was broadcast in the break room – everyone was cheering so loudly we had to have the subtitles on so we could tell what they were saying.”
“I downloaded it for Bahorel,” Jehan laughed. “I think that’s pretty much put paid to any future live appearances they might’ve had lined up.”
“Enjolras probably wishes he’d done it years ago,” Azelma smirked. “Seriously though, the bit where he called Senator Johnson a puffed-up, ignorant murderer in the making was the best.”
“No way!” Jehan protested. “Are you telling me that Combeferre challenging the people supporting the Wall to go toe-to-toe with a Kaiju didn’t give you goosebumps? It had so much more impact because he’s always the calm, rational ones in their interviews!”
“He doesn’t have the same fire,” Azelma argued, and Jehan gasped in mock-outrage.
“You take that back! Come on, when he described the experience of taking on a Kaiju and feeling the force of the attack in your bones didn’t you just want to cheer?”
“I did,” Azelma admitted. “Everyone did.”
Jehan pointed at her triumphantly. “Exactly. It was poetry, the way he described it. I couldn’t have put it better myself. And when he and Enjolras showed off the bruises the Drivesuits left on their skin…it was incredible. Bahorel’s going to be so mad he missed it.”
Azelma smiled, hoping her sadness wasn’t showing. Jehan talked about Bahorel all the time, always speaking about him as though he was going to wake up any second, and sometimes it just made her want to cry a bit. “Yeah, I’ll bet. I’ve got to start getting my stuff in order before I even think about moving out, so I’ve got to go, okay?”
“No problem,” Jehan said easily. “R’s meant to call in about ten minutes anyway. I’ll see you later. Go to Paris!”
“Bye, Jehan,” she sing-songed, and closed the window. The sudden silence was oppressive, and she got to her feet just to hear her heels clack on the floor of her room.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if she went to Paris. She knew Éponine would be in favour, and it would mean being closer to Feuilly – she missed him especially. But what could she do in Paris that would even come close to what she’d been doing here? She’d worked for pretty much her entire life to get to where she was, and now that she was being told to go, she had no idea what to do.
On the upside, with the Jaegers being slowly and steadily destroyed and the Kaiju coming through the Breach with increasing frequency, she might not have to worry about her future for much longer.
It was too soon. They didn’t want to die now, not here, and not like this.
The Kaiju – category three, Enjolras couldn’t remember its name; they all started to blend together after a while – screamed at them and Combeferre shouted a challenge back at it, their arms coming up in tandem to counter its attack.
Enjolras took control of both arms for a moment as Combeferre reached up to activate the cannons. “Initiating weapons sequence,” the AI said coolly. Words they’d heard dozens of times before. He didn’t want this to be the last time.
Combeferre’s mind sang with sympathy and fear of his own, and Enjolras had never been so glad that they had to do this together. He couldn’t have done this alone.
He hadn’t kissed Grantaire goodbye properly. They’d been called out during the night and he’d just kissed his shoulder and run out, because he’d thought if he pretended he’d be able to kiss him properly later, everything would be okay. He was such an idiot. He was going to die and he hadn’t even said goodbye.
“Don’t chase the rabbit!” Combeferre shouted, and Enjolras wrenched himself away from his memories and they both gasped in harmony as the Kaiju barrelled into them at full speed. Gravity hitched and realigned behind them, Liberty Blaze falling backwards towards the freezing Alaskan sea. They moved fast, synchronised motions and matching grunts as they twisted, getting an arm under them and a leg bent, bracing against the impact as the Kaiju clung to their back and ripped into the metal.
“Warning,” the AI said, the red alarm light flaring in the Conn-Pod. “Warning.”
They didn’t say a word, and Enjolras didn’t know which one of them had thought of it or if they’d both thought of it at the same time, but they pushed back with the leg bent underneath them and let gravity do its work, massive arms holding the Kaiju in place like they were giving it some sort of piggy-back as they crashed backwards into the sea.
“Warning, warning, hull breach, warning, warning, water damage, warning, warning –”
“Shut up!” Enjolras screamed at it.
“Warning, cannon damaged, warning.”
“No no no,” Combeferre muttered, fingers shaky on the command keypad. Enjolras felt his fear and regret and it mirrored his own.
The Kaiju latched into their sides and spun them like a crocodile, putting them on the bottom and holding them face-down as it attacked Liberty Blaze’s head with its jaws.
They jerked an elbow back and hit it (where, he couldn’t tell), trying to get their legs underneath them to stand up.
“Warning, water damage, warning.”
Enjolras had always put the need of the many above the need of the few in principle, but that had been shaken when Typhoon Strike and Indigo Fury had been destroyed. Only Combeferre knew the depth of his doubts – if it had meant Bahorel and Cosette had escaped unharmed, would he have allowed Gurosu to ravage Victoria? He couldn’t say for sure.
It was snowing. The Alaskan shore was within spitting distance, and the Wall was on the horizon. Hundreds, thousands of men and women living and working there. If it meant he and Combeferre could live (if he could see Grantaire again) would he let this Kaiju kill them all?
He didn’t really have much of a choice right now anyway – they were going to die pretty soon.
Still, it was human nature to fight the inevitable, so they dragged a leg underneath them and shoved upwards. “Activate right cannon!” Combeferre bellowed, and Enjolras took control of the weapon as they angled their trapped arm underneath the Kaiju and let rip.
The monster screeched as a hole was blown through its chest, and they didn’t let up. The left cannon swung round and blasted a blue dent in its shoulder, and before the wound burned closed, acidic blue blood splattered across Liberty Blaze’s neck.
“Warning, breach, warning,” the AI said, and Enjolras’ fevered imagination made it sound a little more frantic than it had before. The neck was a vulnerable area – if the neck was damaged, the connection from the Conn-Pod to the body was damaged, and if they couldn’t control Liberty Blaze as fully as they controlled their own bodies they wouldn’t last long.
“Enjolras!” Combeferre shouted, and they kicked up, landing a punch on the Kaiju’s jaw and shoving it away with their next motion, shooting two quick blasts at its flailing body, churning up the icy sea around it and tainting it with its toxic blood.
They might live. God, please, they might live.
Then the Kaiju spun, lashed its tail, and flew at them with a ferocious roar. They fell back again, one cannon firing accidentally into the air.
“Warning, hull breach, warning, water damage, warning, connection links damaged, warning, warning –”
There was a terrifying jolt and a scream of rupturing metal, and the AI’s voice glitched, sticking on the word ‘water’ as Liberty Blaze’s head came loose from the body and they both shouted as it spun, flying through the air before stopping with a terrifying smack. “Water, water, water, water, water, water –”
“Combeferre!” Enjolras shouted, the Conn-Pod going dark, water bubbling up around their feet too fast, too fast.
Combeferre told him without words to get out of the harness, now. Enjolras didn’t want to remove the Pons; didn’t want to lose the easy connection to Combeferre, but he had to, and the water turned his feet to ice as it came up to his knees and paused for a moment. His ears popped, and he realised very suddenly that the head was sinking in the water.
He stumbled over and grabbed Combeferre’s hand, his movement jolting the head and tilting it so more water started to come in. “Quick,” he gasped, “now, we have to go now!” Before they hit the bottom and they couldn’t get out. He didn’t even know whether they’d be able to swim through the wrecked mess of gears and machinery below them, but they had to try. The water came up to his waist and he yanked Combeferre towards the hole below their harnesses that he couldn’t see, but knew was there.
The water turned the breath he’d taken into ice in his lungs, and if Combeferre hadn’t been pulling at his hand he might have been unable to follow him into the freezing, dark water.
It was so salty, he realised with some surprise, forcing his eyes to open and seeing absolutely nothing in the darkness. He hadn’t expected it to be so salty…he’d have to tell Grantaire he had to tell Grantaire…
“Keep him sober,” Courfeyrac snarled down the phone to Azelma. “I don’t care if you have to lock him in his room or bribe someone to sedate him, just keep him sober until I get back.”
“And then he can go and drown himself in peace?” Azelma asked bitingly. “His boyfriend just died, don’t you think he has the right –”
“He has the right to kill himself only when I have conclusively proved that my rangers are actually dead,” Courfeyrac snapped.
“Liberty Blaze is in pieces, the escape pods weren’t ejected – how is this even a question?”
“They’re not dead until I pull their bodies from the ocean!” Courfeyrac started down the stairs that led to the helipad. “I’ve got to go, I’ll call you when I get there.”
Azelma huffed, then drew in a sharp breath. “Oh shit.”
“What?”
“He’s not here.”
Courfeyrac stopped dead. There was nothing he could currently do about the Liberty Blaze situation (he might have a bit of a cry on the helicopter if he could get his shaking under control) so Grantaire was now his number one priority. “Sit-rep, Thénardier.”
“I’m not my sister,” she snapped. “He’s gone, he’s just gone, I don’t understand how the hell he got out, there’s only one door!”
“I’ll call you back,” Courfeyrac said, and started calling Grantaire as soon as he’d hung up. “Pick up, or so help me,” he muttered. “I swear to God –”
“Hi,” Grantaire picked up, sounding out of breath, and Courfeyrac let out a sigh of relief.
“Where the hell are you?”
“I don’t need a babysitter.” His voice was raw and tight. “I’m coming with you.”
“You’re what?”
A door opened somewhere above him and Grantaire shouted down. “I’m coming with you!”
Courfeyrac hung up and waited for Grantaire to stumble down the stairs to him. There were protestations on the tip of his tongue – there were rules, regulation, and quite frankly if Courfeyrac was making this trip to drag his friends’ bodies out of the ocean he didn’t want Grantaire within a hundred miles of it – but when he saw Grantaire’s shuttered expression they died, and he just jerked his head.
“Come on then, or we’ll miss the chopper.”
He called Azelma on the way to tell her Grantaire was coming with him, and he promised the pilot a favour if he looked the other way and ignored the unsigned extra passenger. The trip took several hours, and Grantaire didn’t say a word, hands unfolding and clenching on his knees, fingers twisting together and feet tapping out a restless rhythm on the floor. Courfeyrac couldn’t imagine what was going through his head.
It probably wasn’t far off to what was going through his own.
Grantaire kept his face to the window for the whole ride, and the flight was blessedly loud, so Courfeyrac managed to cry a bit without anyone noticing.
He’d been liaison to the other teams as well, and he’d been just as scared and horrified when Typhoon Strike had gone down and Indigo Fury had been irreparably damaged, but Enjolras and Combeferre were special. He’d found them, all those years ago in the kwoon. He’d picked them out of the class of other trainees. He’d championed them and chaperoned them and hassled them and congratulated them, and he’d given them stupid nicknames and watched their faces when he pointed to Liberty Blaze in the hangar and told them that was their Jaeger. They’d been his team. His responsibility.
And it was a good thing he’d taken to carrying his inhaler around with him, because when he’d seen the data on the screens showing him that Liberty Blaze had just been decapitated, he might have passed out from lack of air if he hadn’t been able to suck on that and clear his tightening lungs.
He wouldn’t believe it. He wouldn’t believe it until bodies were retrieved. The clean-up crew were already on-site, and until his rangers appeared they were only missing, not dead.
Grantaire grabbed his sleeve suddenly as they were nearing the end of the flight, and Courfeyrac shifted over to look out of his window. Below them, the corpse of the Kaiju was just visible as a shadow below the surface of the slate-grey sea. Close by, another shadow had a reddish hue beneath the waves. Courfeyrac found Grantaire’s hand and laced their fingers together – Grantaire’s skin was clammy and cold, and this close Courfeyrac could see that his eyes were red and sore-looking.
There were huge boats clustering around the shadows like ants around dead giants, and Courfeyrac sat back, still squeezing Grantaire’s hand. There was nothing he could say, nothing he could offer to make this even remotely okay. And somewhere along the way, he realised with a sick feeling in his stomach, at some point during the flight he’d accepted the fact that his friends were dead, and now he was just trying to figure out how to contain the damage.
He had to let go of Grantaire as they came in to land, and he clenched his jaw when he saw the cluster of people below them. “Fucking seriously?” he muttered, because what sort of idiot had let the press through?
“Courfeyrac,” Grantaire said suddenly, his first word for hours, and something in his voice made Courfeyrac turn round and scooch back over to his window. “There,” Grantaire breathed, pointing at the mass of people below them. There was a section of them who weren’t holding any cameras or satellite dishes – the PPDC officials from the clean-up crew, Courfeyrac supposed.
“What?” he asked, a second before he saw the flash of blonde hair in the middle of them, a pale brown one next to it. “No way,” he breathed, pressing a hand against the window. “No way.”
“In your seats, guys,” the pilot shouted, and Courfeyrac sat back, leaning against Grantaire.
“Is it them?” he asked. “R? R, is it them?”
Grantaire made a choked sound and nodded, nose practically against the window. “It’s them, it’s him, he’s okay –”
Courfeyrac had the door open before they actually touched the ground and he and Grantaire hit the ground at the same time, running around to the uniformed men and ignoring the shouts and flashes around them. The uniforms parted and they were there, alive, alive.
Grantaire ran straight into Enjolras and Courfeyrac threw himself at Combeferre, unconsciously giving Grantaire a moment before he pulled him and Enjolras close and hugged them as well, shaking with tears. “You bastards!” he croaked, kissing both of their cheeks, feeling like his heart was going to leap out of his chest and his lungs were going to collapse in on themselves. “You fucking bastards, do you have any idea –”
Combeferre reached into Courfeyrac’s pocket and pulled out his inhaler. “Breathe,” he ordered, eyes shining, and Courfeyrac would work up the energy to give a shit about the impossibility of their survival and the hundreds of cameras capturing every angle of their reunion later.
Enjolras and Grantaire were holding each other so close there wasn’t a whisper of space between them, and Courfeyrac felt Grantaire crying when he hugged him from behind, so relieved he thought for a moment he would faint. Grantaire would be okay. Enjolras and Combeferre – his blondie and brownie – were alive, and everything would be okay.
Their apartment was full of noise and people, and Joly loved it. They’d pushed the sofa against the wall to make more room, and it was currently occupied by Marius, Musichetta, Feuilly, and Gavroche. Bossuet had his arm around Courfeyrac, both of them talking to Enjolras and Grantaire, and Combeferre, Azelma, and Cosette were arguing about something by the table.
The only ones missing were Jehan and Bahorel, and Joly was currently trying to remedy at least half of that problem. The internet was being irritatingly patchy today though, and Joly really hoped there wasn’t another power cut. Usually they were scheduled, but recently the Pacific region had been needing to call on Atlantic assistance with less and less warning.
But then the loading circle finally disappeared and Jehan appeared on the screen, grinning broadly. “Hey!” he sang. “Wow, you guys are loud!”
“Everyone’s here,” Joly explained, lifting the tablet and shouting. “Guys! Jehan’s here!”
There was a chorus of greetings and everyone waved as Joly turned the tablet so Jehan could see them all. “How’s Bahorel?” he asked once Jehan was facing him again.
Jehan shrugged uncomfortably. “Silent and stationary. As always. What about you? How’re the others settling in?”
“You can ask them yourself,” Joly smiled, going over to Enjolras, Grantaire, Courfeyrac, and Bossuet. “Grantaire blushes every time we mention the photos of him and Enjolras in Alaska,” he teased, and Grantaire groaned, pretending to hide his face against Enjolras’ neck.
“You are such an ass. You said you’d stop bringing it up!”
“We’ll stop bringing it up when you stop being embarrassed,” Bossuet laughed, and Jehan laughed with him. Joly passed the tablet to Courfeyrac, who immediately started telling Jehan about moving to Paris and how Azelma had found a job in one of the technological institutes and he was sorry for not calling since they’d arrived but everything in their new place was a mess and they had no real furniture and was it snowing yet in Montreal?
Joly pulled Bossuet away and looped his arms round his waist from behind, leaning his chin on his shoulder and sighing. Bossuet grinned and kissed his cheek. “Gonna ask about moving Bahorel?”
Joly nodded. “After he’s had a chance to talk to some of the others.”
“Better do it before the power dies again.”
“There’s no cut tonight, is there?” Joly drew away, frowning, and Bossuet turned in his arms, raising an eyebrow.
“Better safe than sorry, right?”
Joly hummed. “I’ll wait till Courfeyrac’s done, at least.”
They both looked at Courfeyrac gabbling to the tablet at top speed, and Bossuet snorted. “You might be waiting a while.”
Joly snickered against his shoulder and Bossuet jabbed a finger into the ticklish spot on his waist just to make him squeak and squirm away. “Hey! Hey, no, stop!”
Bossuet just laughed harder, but he did let Joly escape and put a foot’s distance between them. On the sofa, he could see Musichetta laughing at them and warmth blossomed in his chest. If they could get Jehan and Bahorel to Paris by Christmas, everything would be pretty much perfect. He didn’t want to welcome the new year without his friends.
Because the inevitable feeling of doom that had always simmered inside him was focusing less on the nagging fear of random aches and twinges and tickles being terminal illnesses and hidden diseases, and more on the slow acceptance that this year might very well be his last, and the last of everyone he knew as well. There were only five Jaegers left now, and the Kaiju weren’t slowing down. He didn’t believe the Wall would hold – and even if it did, what did people expect the Kaiju to do? Go back to the Breach like whipped puppies? Azelma had assured them darkly that a Kaiju was more than capable of surviving through long periods of hardship and hunger. Even if the Wall could keep them out, more would come until it broke under the strain, and then what?
If the Kaiju couldn’t be stopped, how long would it take them to reach the Atlantic? How long before they came to Europe, from land or sea, east or west?
For the first time in his life, Joly didn’t worry so much about whether his headache was a tumour, or if his sore throat signalled the onset of a rare non-genetic disorder. It felt like death was settling over everyone equally, and it didn’t matter whether it happened because of a Kaiju or an uncommon form of cancer, because they would all die anyway.
As long as he died with the people he loved around him, it might actually be okay. If they had to go, he would rather they went together.
“I went there once,” Feuilly said, and his voice came out hoarse.
Next to him on the sofa, Gavroche looked up at him. He was the only one who seemed to have the ability to look away from the TV, which was currently showing broken, shaky live footage from Hong Kong, where two category four Kaiju had attacked at the same time. An unprecedented event.
Jehan flinched as one of the cameras went dark, the fate of the cameraman in no way uncertain – the last shot had been of a huge piece of concrete falling from above, knocked out of a building by either Otachi or the unknown Jaeger (Éponine swore blind it was Gipsy Danger, but everyone knew that the Mark III had been put out of action in 2020).
“When were you there?” Gavroche asked.
Feuilly squeezed his hands together and shuddered. “A few years ago. I visited the Bone Slums, got Chetta a stuffed Kaiju toy.”
“No offence,” Courfeyrac said, “but I hope she burned it.”
“Yeah.” Feuilly gazed at the fire-filled screen. “Me too.”
The reporter informed them in a shaking voice that the destruction of Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon had been confirmed – both Jaegers were down, their pilots dead – and Striker Eureka was currently non-operational. Hong Kong was in chaos, its citizens killing each other to get to the shelters as their city was destroyed around them.
“God, can you imagine?” Éponine whispered as they were shown footage of a crowd of people screaming and hammering on the door of a closed bunker.
“It gets real quiet inside,” Azelma said suddenly. “After they close the doors. Quiet and hot.”
“And it stinks after a while,” Gavroche added. At Éponine’s shocked look, he shrugged. “I was in Seattle the first time it was attacked.”
“Yabanjin,” Azelma said flatly. “Twenty-nineteen. Killed by Chrome Brutus before it reached the city.”
“Flint and Amarok,” Éponine stared at the TV. “Cousins. Killed by Cutfang in the Bering Sea, twenty twenty-three.”
None of them ever mentioned how lucky they had been, compared to the other rangers. Crimson Typhoon’s destruction meant that there were no Mark IV pilots left. The Hansons were the only living Mark V pilots, and there were no more active Mark II or Mark III pilots anymore. The older Hanson was the only Mark I pilot still in service.
“It was calmer in Seattle,” Gavroche said. Everyone recoiled at the same time as another camera went black, the last thing it recorded a blur of motion cut off by a flying car. “People had more of a warning.”
“Oh my god,” Jehan breathed, leaning forward. “Is that –”
“It’s flying,” Éponine affirmed.
“We appear to be witnessing a never-before-seen event,” the news reporter gasped as the footage on screen switched to a high view of the city – someone clearly filming from the top of a tall building. “The Kaiju Otachi has…has taken flight, and…the Jaeger is…my God, Otachi is carrying the unnamed Jaeger away from the city!”
Courfeyrac excused himself, and Feuilly saw him fumble his inhaler out of his pocket as he left the room. Next to Gavroche on the sofa, Azelma was pale, her eyes unblinkingly fixed on the screen. “It’s out of proportion,” she whispered.
Gavroche turned to her. “What?”
She cleared her throat and pointed at the screen with a trembling hand. “The wings aren’t big enough; it shouldn’t be able to fly like that. It must be different to the others somehow; a different internal structure, or…hollow bones, like a bird. Its wings are too small – it shouldn’t be able to fly on its own, let alone carrying a two-thousand tonne Jaeger.”
“Why don’t you go tell it that?” Éponine muttered. “I’m sure that’ll just make it fall out of the sky.”
“Don’t,” Jehan said before Azelma could retort. Only Jehan could plead and command in the same word, and they all fell silent, watching the TV.
The Jaeger fell from the sky and stood up afterwards, the floodlights of the PPDC helicopters lighting up what was unmistakably Gipsy Danger’s head. “Told you,” Éponine hissed.
They stayed the night at Feuilly’s little apartment. Azelma took the bed, and the rest of them slept uncomfortably on the floor or slumped on the sofa. First thing next morning they went over to Cosette’s father’s apartment. It was the biggest available, and everyone was congregating there at Cosette’s request.
On the way, Feuilly caught Courfeyrac’s eye and wondered if they shared the same haunted look. The city was unusually quiet – people talked in quiet murmurs and whispers, hurrying through the streets with downcast eyes. Most of the shops were closed – even though it was a weekday, Feuilly doubted many people had turned up for work. He’d emailed his boss with a flimsy excuse, but he doubted it would matter.
Everyone seemed to believe they had days to live, at most. Why would anyone pick a fight over something as temporary as a job now?
Cosette turned the camera she’d borrowed from Jehan over and over in her hands. The noise from the living room was just audible through the closed door, and she put the camera on the bed and put the brakes on her chair so she could swing herself across onto the mattress. She and Marius had gotten a low bedframe to make it easier for her to get in and out of bed – another thing she’d never had to think about before losing her legs.
She turned the camera on, checked it was recording, and then held it at arm’s distance from her face. “Hi, Bahorel. I probably look a real mess right now, but you probably don’t care. I don’t care very much at the moment, to be honest.” She took a deep breath and looked around at the door. “It feels so strange talking to you without you being here. But Jehan said he hadn’t updated this yet, and I said I’d do it because…well, I guess I just wanted a bit of space for a few minutes.”
She looked back and gave the camera a small smile. “So, update. It’s January ninth, about six in the evening. Everyone’s been here all day, but nothing much has happened apart from a load of contradicting news reports and confusion. They’re calling what happened yesterday a double event – two Kaiju coming through the Breach at the same time.
“I’m glad none of us are in this fight anymore,” she admitted. “It was different when we were all active. It was still dangerous, but it was fun too. More like a game than a war. And now…Jehan’s probably told you about Mutavore getting through the Wall in Sydney. Anti-Kaiju my ass. Enjolras and Azelma are spitting fire about how stupid everyone’s been, especially the politicians and the investors, but it’s a bit late now.
“No one wants to go home. We all want to stay together. All day, there’s been at least one person in my dads’ office, calling friends and family. We’re all kind of…saying goodbye, I guess. I feel really lucky that my family is here with me. It’s the same for some of the others – Éponine’s got Azelma and Gavroche where she can see them, so she’s okay, and R hasn’t got anyone to call. He won’t let Enjolras out of his sight though.
“Actually, that’s not true.” She laughed and switched the camera to her other hand. “The bit about R having no one to call, I mean – he called your mum earlier. Jehan was with him. I don’t know what they told her, but at least she knows you’re in good hands, right?” She sniffed, the weight of the situation suddenly crashing down on her.
“I think sometimes you’re the lucky one,” she whispered. “If everything does go to shit, and the Kaiju win, at least you won’t know about it. Maybe that’s horrible, I don’t know. And if you do wake up…at least you’ll be able to walk.” She gave the camera a slightly bitter smile, then forced it into something sweeter. “I’m just in a bad mood because none of us have any idea what’s going on. Even Courfeyrac can’t get anything yet – he’s been trying all day to contact one of his friends at the Hong Kong Shatterdome, but so far nothing’s gone through. They’re probably really busy.
“I don’t know if Jehan’s told you yet, but Crimson Typhoon and Cherno Alpha were destroyed last night. Both teams confirmed dead now. We’ve been so lucky. You and Jehan met the Kaidonovskys once on a press thing, didn’t you? Enjolras and Combeferre met the Wei Tang triplets quite recently – they were on standby when that Kaiju attacked Taiwan. Really into basketball, apparently.
“I can’t believe so many of us are dead.” She was quiet for a moment, then took a deep breath and smiled. “Well there’s nothing we can do now. I’m just glad everyone’s here. We’re coming to visit you tomorrow, if we can. So I’ll see you soon.” She blew a kiss at the camera, and switched it off just as there was a knock at the door. “Come in.”
“Hey.” Marius poked his head around and came in all the way when she smiled.
“Hi.” She opened her arms and he came over and hugged her, her head pressed against his sternum. “Marry me.”
Marius laughed and sat down. She wriggled into his lap, a stump over each of his thighs. It had taken them a while to get used to the loss of two familiar limbs in intimate situations, but they managed. “Okay,” he said easily, stroking a lock of hair back from her face. “I’ll book the chapel, you call the minister.”
“I mean it,” she said, squeezing his shoulders, and he raised his eyebrows.
“Really?”
“I want to. And…am I the only one who feels like we’re living on borrowed time already?” she asked in a small voice. He shook his head and kissed her, holding her close.
“Okay,” he said again when they parted, a wondering smile on his lips. “Let’s do this.”
Cosette beamed and flung her arms around him, squeezing until he made a little breathless sound and then releasing him with a giggle and shuffling quickly back into her chair. “Come on, let’s tell them.” If they were going to die, she wanted to die officially married to the man she loved.
Enjolras woke up screaming, lungs tight from holding his breath and body shivering with the phantom cold of the Alaskan sea. The lights were on, and he sat up in a rush, panting and shaking. “Enjolras?” He turned and saw Grantaire standing next to the bed (they’d learned from experience that Enjolras couldn’t be woken from these nightmares, and after he’d accidentally punched Grantaire in the face in his sleep, he’d made Grantaire promise not to try). “You awake?”
Enjolras nodded, chest heaving, and reached out with a trembling hand. Grantaire took it and crawled across the bed to him, pulling Enjolras’ back against his chest and holding him loosely. “It’s okay,” he whispered into Enjolras’ ear. “We’re awake. It’s okay. Breathe with me.”
Enjolras closed his eyes and tried, squeezing Grantaire’s hand so hard it almost hurt. He could still feel the icy cold water around him, and he dug the fingernails of his other hand into his thigh, trying to anchor himself. Grantaire noticed (Grantaire always noticed, and it made everything so much easier) and slid the fingers of his free hand between Enjolras’. “You’re here,” he said. “You’re awake. It’s okay, just breathe.”
Enjolras nodded and opened his eyes (he’d never been scared of the dark as a child, but he was now), leaning back into Grantaire’s solid bulk and sucking deep, shuddering breaths into his lungs. There was a knock on the door – Combeferre – and Grantaire called, “Yeah.”
Combeferre brought two hot water bottles, one for Enjolras and one for himself, and Enjolras hugged his to his chest and curled into the glorious heat. “Sorry,” he croaked, meeting Combeferre’s eyes. His partner shook his head with a smile and came to sit at Enjolras’ feet, lifting his shirt to put them against his own stomach.
It was stupid, to have to be coddled like this. Enjolras had resisted the first few times, feeling hideously guilty about waking Combeferre up with the strength of his nightmares, but then Combeferre had had a flashback of his own and Enjolras would have ripped the world apart to make him feel better again. He understood now that it was better just to let them take care of him. For some reason the nightmares were usually his, and the flashbacks Combeferre’s. Like the trauma had been split between them.
Both of them were haunted by the memory of the Conn-Pod filling with water, dark but for a few automatic warning lights, the cold hole below them gurgling and yawning. The terrifying swim down through the neck, clinging tight to each other’s hands so they wouldn’t get lost. The darkness. The bone-deep cold. The desperate, breathless swim to the surface.
Enjolras shivered and Grantaire pulled a blanket from the floor and draped it over them, letting go of one of Enjolras’ hands to try and chafe some warmth back into him. Combeferre settled his hot water bottle over Enjolras’ numb feet and started rubbing his legs. It would be easier and faster to get into a hot bath or shower, but he couldn’t do that anymore. Neither could Combeferre – they washed with wet cloths and no running water, and had stopped washing their hair completely. Combeferre’s first flashback had been triggered when he tried to wash his hair in the sink.
The grease went away after a while. Combeferre said that hair naturally took care of itself, and no one mentioned it.
“You okay?” Combeferre asked after a while.
“What time is it?” Enjolras asked.
“Uh…” Grantaire twisted to look at the clock. “Almost six. We could get up if you like.”
“Might as well,” Combeferre shrugged. They all knew Enjolras wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep now. “Tea?”
“Please.” Grantaire hugged Enjolras tight for a moment and kissed his shoulder.
“Yes, thank you.” Enjolras nodded, and Combeferre gave him a smile before he unfolded his legs and slipped out, leaving the hot water bottle behind. Enjolras crossed his legs and Grantaire curled around him, broader body enveloping his.
“Better?” he asked quietly.
“Mm-hm.” Enjolras sighed and pulled Grantaire’s arms tighter around him. “Thanks.”
Grantaire buried his face in Enjolras’ neck, making him squirm and smile. They stayed like that for a moment, warm and dry, and then got up together to go into the kitchen. Four days since the double event, and it was like they were all walking on eggshells. Courfeyrac’s contact at the Hong Kong Shatterdome had finally come through and given them a few answers – the Jaeger in Hong Kong had indeed been a restored Gipsy Danger, piloted by the surviving Becket brother and the first new ranger in almost six years. The old Mark III and Striker Eureka were the only Jaegers left, and Courfeyrac’s contact had hinted at a last-ditch assault on the Breach.
A suicide mission, essentially, since everyone knew the Breach couldn’t be destroyed. And when they failed and the last two Jaegers were gone, there would be nothing but the Wall to hold off the Kaiju. And when the Wall inevitably failed, it wouldn’t take long before they were overrun and the world really did end. The world as they knew it at any rate.
Combeferre handed steaming mugs to him and Grantaire, and they curled up together on the sofa with Enjolras between them to watch TV. There was a whole channel for old kids’ shows, and Enjolras smiled when Grantaire laughed out loud at them, holding Enjolras’ hand under the blanket he’d brought with them from the bedroom. They were all sick of the news.
When Combeferre’s phone rang, he put it on speaker. “Hey, Courfeyrac.”
“Turn on the news!” Courfeyrac screamed, making them all jump. Grantaire immediately grabbed the remote and Enjolras leaned forward, heart thumping wildly.
“What is it? What’s going on?”
“It’s over!” It sounded like Courfeyrac was crying, and Enjolras exchanged a shocked look with Combeferre.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s over! It’s done! We won! They won, they…” Courfeyrac trailed off into hysterical laughter, and someone else shouted something in the background.
Grantaire found a news channel and they turned their attention to that, and the reporter sitting at her desk with a slightly hyper-looking smile. “– confirmed that the rookie pilot’s name is Mako Mori, otherwise known as Tokyo’s daughter.” Behind her, the world-famous photo was flashed up, the little Japanese girl in the blue coat holding her red shoe amid the rubble. “One of the only survivors of the twenty-sixteen Kaiju attack on Japan.”
Grantaire huffed. “Courfeyrac, what is going on?”
“They destroyed the Breach!” Courfeyrac shouted, static distorting his voice. “They destroyed the Breach! It’s gone! It’s over!”
Enjolras stared at the TV, and then down at the phone, feeling strangely weightless.
“Are you sure?” Combeferre asked, always the first to recover.
Courfeyrac let out an inhuman shriek and laughed. “It’s on the news, you fucking morons! They did it! They fucking did it! I need to call Marius! Feuilly’s calling Azelma and Éponine, you guys call Jehan and the trio! It’s over!”
He hung up, and the voice of the reporter filled the silence. “No Jaegers survived the final assault on the Breach, and rangers Stacker Pentecost and Chuck Hanson have been killed in action. We go now to our live reporter in Hong Kong, where the streets are full of celebrating people.”
They all stared at the shots of partially-destroyed Hong Kong, the rubble-strewn roads packed with screaming people, paper flying through the air and streamers and sheets billowing from the windows. “It’s real,” Enjolras realised, and next to him Combeferre let out a sudden laugh, grabbing the phone from the table and pulling Enjolras into a hug. Enjolras laughed too, breathless, and Combeferre kissed his forehead before turning his attention to the phone.
Enjolras turned around and looked at Grantaire, who was still staring at the TV, mouth slightly open. “Hey, R.”
He turned his head, eyes still on the screen until the last moment, and Enjolras reached out and pulled him closer with a hand on the back of his neck, black curls soft on his skin. Grantaire came willingly, a disbelieving smile spreading across his face, and Enjolras kissed him, putting everything he had into it. Grantaire made a high sound and came closer, hands cradling Enjolras’ face as Combeferre started to shout down the phone.
“Joly! Joly wake up, wake up, turn on the news!”
Enjolras laughed against Grantaire’s lips and got up, pulling Grantaire after him. They had to call Jehan – they could kiss later. They had all the time in the world now. They had years. A whole lifetime.
He was drifting, floating free…
Just…drifting…
…weightless…
…insubstantial and thoughtless…timeless…less…less than present…
Jehan was suddenly there, clear and bright in a world without light or the possibility of clarity. He was just there, and Bahorel –
(Bahorel, his name; that was what he called himself.)
– woke up.
“This is you, right?” Bahorel asked, looking at the door and back at Jehan, a hesitant smile on his face. Jehan grinned and nodded.
“Yup. Us now, don’t forget.”
Bahorel rolled his eyes. “As if I could forget that.”
“You forgot what grapes were called yesterday,” Jehan reminded him dryly, and Bahorel shouldered him with a huff.
“Yeah, well who needs to remember stuff like that anyway?”
Using the Pons with a comatose drift partner had been almost impossible to authorise, but Jehan had bullied, bribed, and outright threatened until he’d been given the go-ahead. Bahorel had woken up after the first session, and after the third he started talking. His memory was patchy, and he moved with less certainty and ease, but he was on the mend.
Jehan shoved him back and laughed, and they both looked round as a car honked its horn, and Marius pulled his car up to the pavement. Jehan crowed, “Beat you!” and Marius flipped him off as the passenger door opened and Cosette pushed her chair out and swung into it.
“Still weird,” Bahorel muttered. Jehan linked their arms and grinned, pulling him over to the apartment building’s door.
“She can still take you on, you know. She’s got knives hidden in the framework, so you’d better watch it.”
Bahorel laughed, the sound both familiar and achingly fresh, still new enough to make Jehan’s heart clench. It felt like he’d been living half a life since Gurosu’s attack, a jagged hole punched through his chest when Bahorel had fallen asleep and not woken up. As he got the door open, Bossuet ran up, panting slightly. He’d dropped them off at the corner and gone to try and find a parking spot.
“How far away’s the car?” Bahorel asked, amused.
Bossuet puffed. “About five blocks. Not a single space, would you believe it?”
“Marius got one,” Cosette appeared next to them. “Some guy pulled out just as we turned the corner.” Bossuet rolled his eyes long-sufferingly, and she laughed.
Some things never changed. Jehan caught the edge of Bahorel’s thought and threw him a bright smile. They’d been drifting so much to wake Bahorel up that they were bordering on telepathic now, and it reminded Jehan of those hours and hours spent patrolling, their minds so aligned that their thoughts had been the same, neither of them knowing where one of them ended and the other began.
“Third floor?” Bahorel checked, and Jehan nodded. They stood back to let Cosette into the elevator first, and Jehan ended up crowded against Bossuet. Without hesitation, he leaned his chin on Bossuet’s shoulder and blew into his ear to make him squirm.
“You’re awful,” he complained, and Jehan grinned.
“I’m excellent.”
Everyone else was already upstairs, squeezed into Jehan’s tiny two-bedroom apartment (chosen out of stubborn hope that his partner would wake up and move in, and it felt so good to have his decision vindicated), and they were probably as excited as he was. This was the first time they were all going to be together properly – Bahorel’s visitors had been strictly limited in the hospital – and Jehan let out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding when he opened the door and led Bahorel in.
“Welcome back,” he said, just loud enough for Bahorel to hear, and Bahorel pulled him into a one-armed hug, laughter vibrating through his body. Grantaire stole Bahorel’s next embrace, grinning wide enough to make Jehan’s cheeks ache in sympathy. Grantaire had been Bahorel’s third most-frequent visitor, after Jehan and Bahorel’s mother, who had flown to Paris when Bahorel had started to regain consciousness and practically camped out in his hospital room.
Bossuet bumped his shoulder as Bahorel made the rounds, hugging everyone who came within arm’s length. “Feel good?”
Jehan laughed, the sound carefree and light. “Yeah. I’m feeling good.”
Notes:
AND THEN THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER IN PARIS THE END.
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