#but I was pretty melancholy the whole day and any time I'd get another ask in my inbox I'd have a small feeling of dread

[jjba-smash-or-pass]

clash skipped? no shark? chomp chomp?

yeah sorry. young man rule. you know how it is.

[soybeantree]

pairing: johnny x reader

genre/warning: fluff, magic!au

word count: 3k

description: you hated him. his stupid face smiling. his stupid charisma that would always woo the customers - of which you had no doubt was aided by the use of magic. his stupid cousin - that you actually adored and would kill to have him even notice you, but who continuously chose johnny over you for assistance. and most of all you hated how your lungs forgot their one job whenever he was within 5 feet of you.  

a/n: from the essem: rosemary by moonlight universe. not necessary to read that first, but some things may not make complete sense.

"I'd like an iced caramel Frappuccino with low fat milk and a pump of pep. To go." The customer rattles off her order as she approaches the counter, never sparing you a greeting or even a glance. From her clean-cut bob to her khaki shorts and salmon button down, you know exactly how this conversation is going to go.

Contorting your cheeks into your best customer service smile and using your most pleasant tone, you inform her, "I'm sorry ma'am, but any drinks with magical add-ins must be consumed within the cafe."

Now, she glances at you, her wallet poised in her hand as her face falls into what you refer to as the entitled scowl. "Excuse me?"

“Any drinks with magical add-ins must be consumed within the café.” You repeat, despite the fact that you enunciated clearly the first time. To help with any possible confusion, you gesture to the bright golden script at the bottom of the menu which states the same.

The woman scoffs, and you inhale a deep, imperceptible breath. “Why?” Indignation laces the word and colors her cheeks red.

Many reasons. Most of which revolve around negligence and exploitation, but that explanation drags. Reminding yourself that you want this job and have jumped through hoops to get it, you dredge up every ounce of patience in your body. With a smile still in place, you say. “We strive to abide by the standards set forth within the Council’s Magical Charter. I would be more than happy to complete your order, but any drink with magical add-ins must be consumed on property.”

“I-“ You brace yourself for the entitled tirade, but the woman’s face melts into a bewildered smile. A glance over your shoulder reveals the reason. Johnny, your fellow barista, stands behind you, his cheeks pulled back by a swoon worthy grin. 

With a sigh, you step away from the counter and let Johnny work his magic. Quite literally. Johnny, like you, has the skill of enchantment. As a member of the Essem Family, he has had access to training and knowledge all his life. You on the other hand come from a no name family who has one grimoire passed down from generation to generation, and the two-page section on enchantment only works for curing melancholy. 

In moments, Johnny has the woman pacified with an iced caramel Frappuccino with low fat milk and no pump of pep, to go. She sends him another smile before she nearly collides with the door on her way out. After a giggle which Johnny echoes, she is gone, and you’re ready to vomit. 

"Did you add a shot of charm to your coffee this morning?" You ask as you resume your position.

Johnny flashes you a grin while raising a single smug eyebrow. "No, I'm just naturally this charming." You gag as you turn away which elicits a chuckle from him. “What, you don’t think I’m charming?”

“I think you are a talented witch.” You say as you reorganize your station. While leaning over the counter to schmooze the woman, Johnny managed to throw the entire place into disarray. You return the business cards to their holder and the pencils to their cup.

“You really think I’m using magic when I calm irritated customers?” 

A twang in his voice draws your attention back to him. Glancing over your shoulder, your stomach twists. For such a tall man, he can make himself appear so small. His shoulders hunch in as he fiddles with the ties on his apron. The posture throws his long bangs into his eyes, obscuring them from your scrutiny.

The answer to his question is “yes”, but the answer brews from a petty spite which you stoke every time Minseok, the café’s owner and the foremost expert on enchantment magic, chooses him as an assistant over you. The whole reason you strived for a position at the café was to become Minseok’s apprentice, but every day he chooses Johnny to help with his brews. While you enjoy blaming Johnny, you know the favoritism is due to the inclusiveness of the covens. After all, Johnny is Minseok’s cousin. 

“Since when do you care what I think? I thought I was just the hired help.” 

His head snaps up, the ties of his apron forgotten as he gazes into your eyes. The contact cools your spite, and it sours. Your stomach rolls at the discomfort, and you clear your throat and return to your reorganization.  

“Minseok doesn’t hire just anyone to help in the café.”

You know this. You badgered him for a job ever since Johnny told you about his cousin and his café. Minseok had been the sole employee for years after the café’s inception, hiring Johnny only when the café’s popularity grew. Eventually, the work became too much for the two of them, and rather than hire a qualified enchantment witch, Minseok had hired the girl with little-to-no skill who practically lived at the shop.

“Whatever.” You grumble as you throw another pencil into the holder. The force sends the jar spinning. It falls on its side spilling its contents across the counter. With a growl, you reach for the scattered pencils, but Johnny’s long arms reach around you. The pencils disappear into one hand as his other rights the holder before returning the contents. 

You duck out from under Johnny’s unintentional embrace, your cheeks burning. He has to be using his magic. You hold tight to this belief as you breathe to calm your racing heart. 

“Minseok likes having you here. You’re as detail oriented as he is.” Johnny nods to the front and back counters both of which have everything in their place and a place for everything. “I’m pretty certain you’re the only person in the world who understands his organizational method.”

“It’s not that hard. Ingredients are organized first by purchase date and then alphabetical. Supplies are..." You trail off as you catch sight of Johnny’s smirk out of the corner of your eye. “You really expect me not to think you’re using magic when you always seem to know exactly what to say to distract me?”

He shrugs, but his smirk only grows. “There are other reasons, I might know that.” Before you can question him further, the bell above the front door jingles. “Duty calls.” He tips his head to you before disappearing back into the brewing room. 

With a deep breath, you shove the conversation from your mind and rattle off the customary greeting as you turn to face the new customer. 

“Good morning, Y/N. How goes the grind?” You blink a moment as your brain registers that your cousin is here. She misses your confusion as she is too busy chuckling at her pun.

"It’s great. How goes your fruitless endeavor to start a school of magic?"

She scowls which brings a genuine smile to your face. "It's not fruitless. It's slow moving because covens are full of stuck up assholes who refuse to share their knowledge because of what? They're afraid it will diminish their power and their prestige. They need to get their heads out of their asses and think about how much better the world would be if we all worked together and shared our knowledge." 

This tirade is as familiar as the Entitled tirade. "And yet, you always get coffee at an Essem café?" You comment as you punch her order into the register.

"Minseok has the best coffee.” She hands you her card. “Everyone in the city knows that. Everyone in the world probably knows it too."

"But you're supporting the coven with the most stuck up assholes." You return the card to her.

"You're working at the coffee shop."

"But I don't have the same issues with them that you do." Not mostly at least. You would appreciate it if Minseok occasionally asked you back into the brewing room. 

She shrugs. “Did you place that order for here or to go?”

“To go?” You raise a brow. 

“I need it for here.”

“Why?” You stretch the word into two syllables. 

“Because I’m staying here.” Rolling your eyes, you adjust the order. "I'm supposed to be meeting up with Yuri." She explains as she checks her watch. "But, she's late as usual."

Your finger pauses above the register as you gawk at your cousin. "Yuri? As in the hedge-witch of the Stahn Family?"

"Yuri is much more than a hedge witch."

"Okay, whatever,” You hold up your hands, stopping whatever tirade she will surely start. “But she’s a Stahn and this is an Essem cafe?"

"Yes,” she crosses her arm, and there is no stopping this coming tirade. “Why is it so hard to understand what me and the Fantagios are trying to do? We want to create a world where people can see beyond their family covens and share knowledge for the benefit of the world."

Leaning forward, you shorten the distance between you and your cousin. The more heated she becomes the louder she gets. The customers have already started to side eye her, and the last thing you need is for Johnny and, especially, Minseok to hear her. "That's great and all. But your dream is not reality and you agreed to meet up with a Stahn on Essem territory. They're basically mortal enemies. This could end in bloodshed, and I could lose my job because I'm related to you."

"Calm down. Yuri wouldn't have agreed to meet here if she was worried for her safety."

You swallow your rebuttal as you hear the hinges of the brewing room door squeak. Your cousin’s eyes grow to the size of saucers, and you wonder why Minseok is delivering her coffee. He rarely leaves the brewing room, leaving all the deliveries to Johnny.

Minseok extends a mug to your cousin who whimpers a “thank you” as she takes it. She sips. Her cheeks flush, but whether that is due to Minseok or the heat of the coffee only your cousin knows. 

“Is it good?” Minseok’s question raises one of your brows. In the year and a half that you’ve been working for Minseok, you have never heard him ask a customer’s opinion of his work. Pink tinges the tips of his ears, and you have to refrain from pinching yourself. Maybe, this whole day has been a dream.

“It’s delicious.” Your cousin, the queen of social justice tirades, simpers.

The nausea from earlier returns as you suffer through the ensuing conversation. Despite your effort to tune it out, you hear Minseok comment on your cousin’s frequent visits to the café. She explains that you’re her cousin, which you wish she would have left out given what is about to happen, and that he makes the best coffee in the city. His whole ears brighten at the compliment, the red creeping into his cheeks. Surely, a customer is bound to come in soon and end this disgusting display of emotions.

“Y/N can keep you company while you wait.”

 Your name snaps your attention back to the conversation. You blink as you search your brain for the lead into the statement but find nothing. “What?”

 “I was telling Uko,” Your cousin must have introduced herself while you attempted disassociation, “that you can take your break early to wait with her.”

“Oh, I mean sure if you’re okay with that.” The look on Minseok’s face screams that he would be okay with anything that your cousin wanted. 

“Go ahead.” He motions for you to be on your way, and with a slight nod, you head into the brewing room which offers the exit into the main area.

Johnny, busy at a cauldron, eyes you as you walk past him and remove your apron. “Where are you going?”

“I’m taking my break.” You say with a shake of your head as you hang your apron on its hook.

A glance at the clock scrunches up Johnny’s face and puffs out his already large lips. “But, your break’s in an hour?”

“Listen,” you say, turning to face him completely. “I don’t know what I just witnessed out there.” You gesture to the door behind which you are certain the uncomfortable situation is continuing. “But, Minseok said go to break, so I am going to break.”

“What did you witness?” Johnny grabs a mortar and pestle from the counter and adds three pinches to his cauldron. A faint smell of strawberries wafts through the room bringing with it the image of sunlight fields and a gentle breeze. He’s brewing happiness. The ingredient he added was green. Was it an herb? A stone? A mixture of different things? “Y/N?”

“What?” Your mind snaps back to the moment as you remember that Johnny did ask a question. “Is your cousin dating anyone?” You ask rather than answer.

Johnny pauses mid-stir and stares at you. “No.” He draws out the word as he slowly starts to stir the cauldron counter clockwise. “Are you asking for a friend?”

Your eyes narrow at his tone. “No, I’m asking because he’s currently flirting with my cousin, and it’s gross.”

“What?!” His whole face lights up, and he nearly spills the cauldron in his haste to reach the door to the order counter. Sprinting across the room, you reach the door before he does and block it with your body.

“What are you doing?” You pant as your lungs struggle to refill.

“Our family, at least the cool people in our family, have a bet going that Minseok has a wife and two kids in hiding or that he is a celibate monk. I bet that he hasn’t found the right one. Now move, so I can prove I was right and win the bet.” He tries to shove you to the side, but you dig your heels in and refuse to budge. “Come on.” He whines, pulling his bottom lip up into a pout.

“If you want me to move, then you had better use your magic because this is already ridiculous enough.” Fortifying yourself for the oncoming attack, you blink in surprise when Johnny steps back with a shrug.

“I don’t need to. I can ask Minseok about it when he comes back here.” He returns to the cauldron. The potion has turned a putrid shade of green, and Johnny hisses as he tries to fix the problem. 

Staying would provide you valuable knowledge, but Minseok has yet to approve your assistance with the brewing. Staying also means you would witness the next installment of this non-thrilling saga.

Minseok and your cousin are still talking when you exit the brewing room into the main area. They probably haven’t even realized how long you’ve been gone or that their conversation was almost interrupted by an overly inquisitive mind.  

“There’s a free table over there.” You bust into the middle of a conversation about magical vs. non-magical cleaning products. 

“Right.” Your cousin looks to you, then back to Minseok. “It was very nice talking with you.” Her smile stretches across her face. “Maybe we could talk more later.”

Minseok’s smile is more subdued than your cousin’s, but it’s more than what you witness on a typical Tuesday. “Yes, I would like that.”

“Minseok.” Johnny’s head pops out of the brewing room. “I need your help with something.” The stench of rotten fruit leaks through the open door. Minseok mutters a quick apology before disappearing into the brewing room. 

You take a seat at the free table, a smug smile on your face. Your cousin is slower to take her seat, her smile still in place. “Is this really the first time you’ve met Minseok?” You ask when she finally settles in her seat.

“Yes,” she answers though her eyes remain on the brewing room door. “He had already graduated when I started high school. I heard about him from the upperclassmen, but they did not do him justice. He is one fine man.”

“Gross. Can you take your thirsty ass and get out of my place of work?”

“You work in a coffee shop, a place where thirsty people are literally supposed to come.” She quips back, finally glancing at you.

“Please, people don’t come to cafes because they’re thirsty. They come to work, socialize, or take aesthetic photos, and maybe sometimes for caffeine.” 

Before she can formulate a rebuttal, the bell above the front door jingles, and in walks the reason for your cousin’s visit. In your disgust, you had forgotten the threat to your job. Panic races through your veins as your attention shifts to the counter. You wish for all the luck in the world, but luck abandons you. Instead of Johnny coming to greet the new customer, Minseok emerges once again. Habit controls him as he smiles and gives the customary greeting. Only after the last word leaves his mouth does recognition register in his eyes. 

"Yuri." The name is a question and a greeting.

The hedge-witch tilts her head a fraction of a degree in the semblance of a nod. "Minseok." She returns the greeting. You wait - breath held, heart racing - for the coming altercation.

"Kyungsoo's been looking for you. He seems to be worried about something. Is everything okay?"

"You can mind your own damn business." She huffs, her arms crossing over her chest.

You flinch, but Minseok chuckles. "I'm merely a messenger."

"Well messenger, you can tell Kyungsoo - and please make this verbatim - 'I'm fine. Thank you. You can suck my dick'."

Minseok jots the message down on his guest check book, glancing up at Yuri when he finishes. "Anything else?"

"No, that's all."

"Would you like to order anything?"

"Hell, no. I'm here to meet with someone." She glances around the shop. 

You shrink down in your chair, hoping to avoid detection, but your cousin shreds that hope. She waves her hand, drawing both of their attention to you two. Minseok’s eyes rest on you for a moment before shifting to your cousin. 

Yuri returns the wave as she walks to your table. "Hey Uko, sorry I'm late. The potion needed to brew a little longer this morning than I anticipated. I blame this muggy weather. It's messing with everything I make. Is this your cousin?" She nods to you as she plunks into the last of the three chairs at your table. Uko nods her head. "Nice to meet you."

"You might not think it's so nice. She works here."

A hiss slips out as Yuri shakes her head. "Why must the young always be corrupted?"

"Don't worry. I might not have a job for much longer." You sigh as you push yourself out of your chair. "Breaks over. I’ll find out soon enough if I do or not."

"Minseok might be an Essem, but he's not going to fire you because you have a connection to me.” Yuri assures you. “If he does though, let me know and I'll kick his ass." Yuri grins, showing all of her teeth, and you chuckle despite the anxieties waging war in your stomach.

Walking back into the brewing room, you grab your apron and slip it on while keeping your back to Minseok and Johnny. With a deep breath, you turn to face them. Johnny stands over the cauldron which is a deep forest green and simmering pleasantly. You breathe in the smell of strawberries and hope the happiness has rubbed off on Minseok who is standing beside Johnny and whispering instructions. 

With a glance up, Minseok pats Johnny on the shoulder and walks towards you. Lifting leaden feet, you meet him by the door to the ordering counter. 

A volley of words waits on your tongue, but they retreat when Minseok asks, “Can you give this to your cousin?” The “this” he is referring to is a folded scrap of paper.

You take the paper, nodding as you slip it into the back pocket of your jeans. “Sure. What is it?”

A small smile lifts his cheeks, and his voice is soft when he says, “My number.”

You choke on your response, and you can hear Johnny chuckling as you attempt to regain your breath. Minseok offers to get you a drink, but you wave off his concern. “What?” You finally manage to get out.

“I forgot to ask for your cousin’s number when we were talking.” He pouts. “I was hoping you would give her mine and tell her she can text me whenever.” 

“Sure.” You pause before asking, “Should I go back to work now?”

“Of course.” His response is instantaneous and a flood of relief washes through you. “And thank you.” He adds, the corners of his mouth quirking up. With a nod, he returns to Johnny’s side. 

Exiting the brewing room, you shake your head. On the plus side, you still have your job. On the negative side, your cousin might start dating your boss which may not be a complete negative but it definitely isn’t a positive.

[aboutlouishofmann]

A Life Devoted To Music

[Original interview here which is already in English. I'm just testing. All images curtesy of cinema.de]

FRIDAY, 7/5/2019

A LIFE DEVOTED TO MUSIC

In PRÉLUDE Louis Hofmann plays a talented pianist.

Rising star Louis Hofmann has often been seen at FILMFEST MÜNCHEN — for example, in the tender coming-of-age drama CENTER OF MY WORLD. By now, Hofmann is well-known all over Germany thanks to the captivating mystery series DARK. This makes us all the more delighted that this up-and-coming actor is returning to Munich this year with not one, but two exciting films. In PRÉLUDE, he plays a talented musician who experiences the downside of being an artist; and he also has a role in THE WHITE CROW, about Soviet ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev. We met the amiable actor at the world premiere of PRÉLUDE and asked him about his own experiences as an artist and how life in the spotlight affects a person.

In PRÉLUDE, you play an aspiring pianist named David, a freshman at a conservatory who's under pressure from the beginning. What was it about this story that caught your interest?

In 2015, I was invited to a casting for PRÉLUDE. I think I'd read only a small blurb about it, but it won me over right away and I knew I absolutely had to play this part. I don't know whether I'd already seen WHIPLASH. I grew up around lots of music and have an affinity to it — and probably a fascination with sadness as well. I thought if the script fulfills the promise of that little blurb, I've got to be a part of things. Then I went to the first casting with director Sabrina Sarabi and we simply got along very well and I noticed that she does very fine work.

When did you finally shoot the film?

Two years ago. It was hard to get all the money that was necessary. It is just a small film, after all. I'm still glad that we made it even though we didn't have much money. Being so close on set was also great. On the first day of shooting, there were maybe 15 of us on the set. It took some getting used to, because I'd just come from DARK, where we'd had 100 to 150 people. That was our own little microcosm, and working with such a small team was something I enjoyed to the fullest.

Is that something you generally prefer: a smaller scale?

No. I just prefer good material.

What does good material consist of?

That's the question. There are only the standard responses: well-developed characters, a nice development of the role, a story that's exciting, not one that's narrated. David is somebody I can identify with to a good extent. He's sensitive. He has this great ambition that I carry within myself. When he does something, he jumps in wholeheartedly. That's also the approach I take to my own work. That's why I understood him right away.

You mentioned that music has always been very important to you. Do you play an instrument?

I played violin for a year, because my brother played violin. I stopped pretty soon after that. Then, at age eight or nine, I began to play the drums. I did that for eight years.

Do you still play?

I stopped when I moved from Cologne to Berlin. I didn't have a drum set there, nor did I have the infrastructure: a place to rehearse and so on. I didn't take it up again until this year. I rediscovered how awesome it is and how much I'd missed it — how I'd totally been caught up in the piano as well. I used to be able to play chords or three-finger accompaniment. Classical pieces, though, were pretty foreign to me. I somehow put in a lot of effort with a teacher, without being able to read music. We did it with videos. I think it helped me a little to be able to play the drums. But to learn a new instrument and suddenly understand how it works and to be familiar with the keyboard and to get into the groove when playing: that really did a lot for me. In addition, it was just extremely good preparation for the part. It made the character accessible to me, which is something I hadn't really expected.

How long did you practice?

After I got the role, we did two years of workshops. In the end, we had two-hour lessons, five days a week for three months, and then two to four more hours a day of practice.

That's a lot.

You're right. But it's great. At first it's so difficult. The first two weeks were so rough: you're really just searching for the notes; your fingers don't understand it all just yet. You feel like a dyslexic on the piano, just so amateurish. And suddenly after two or three weeks, your fingers start doing what they should. You follow the instrument, and it's simply awesome.

Are you still doing it?

Unfortunately not. No, because I can't read music and because I'd noticed that I get bored easily because I only ever play the same pieces. My roommates and I have a piano, and I play it sometimes, but not like before.

What kind of music do you listen to?

Mainly indie rock, indie pop, alternative. Sometimes soul classics, chansons, or jazz hip-hop.

Can you name two or three artists?

Two or three artists I can name... Somehow that's always pretty hard to do. Right now I'm really looking forward to the new Dope Lemon album that's coming out soon. As for indie pop, Bon Iver is one of my heroes. Parcels is great. I could go on forever. Music is a really important part of my life. I just immerse myself in it and discover new artists. It's a lot of fun.

There's this gotcha question that I once picked up from a job interview: If you were a song, what song would you be? That is, a song that describes you very well.

I have no idea. I think the songs we listen to speak to only part of ourselves. The first song I thought of is "8 (Circle)" by Bon Iver. But that's just my melancholy side. It wouldn't describe me completely, because I also have a non-melancholy side, a very happy side, that I wouldn't be doing justice to.

Now that you've had a brief look at the life of a musician, even indirectly, what would you say is similar to or different from the life of an actor?

The pressure is what they have in common. The expectations one has of oneself. The competition. Although I have to say we're a generation, I think, who fight more alongside each other than against each other. For a pianist, it's a more individual fight than for an actor, because as an actor you normally don't perform alone.

In the film, David has to put his personal life on the back burner in order to get somewhere as a musician. Since you said that you enjoy immersing yourself, to what extent do you find yourself having to put your personal life on the back burner?

Since the work always comes in phases, you only have to do that in phases. And then I do that. In recent years, I've also learned that you can't completely separate the two — that the project phases should intersect more with the phases of free time. I've always felt that I've completely forgone personal life while working, up until the end of shooting. At some point, I no longer thought that was a good thing. In this line of work, you have to watch out, otherwise you'll start thinking of the year only in terms of blocks of time. I've resolved to be aware of this for more than a whole year again. Theater actors can probably do that a lot better, because they have regular work. They're able to balance their personal lives and their work more easily. That's a small obstacle that a film actor has to overcome at some point.

Let's assume you have free time. What do you do to unwind after work?

I had a hard time of that in Berlin. But this year, I went back to some old hobbies, like the drums. Also skateboarding, climbing, bouldering, and so on, to find balance. It's just about doing something that no one judges and where there's no output. Where you're not forced to deliver output. Because all you do when playing is give, give, give. You learn something, too, of course, and it gives you something back. But it's very relaxing to just do something that no one is appraising.

And where you're not being watched.

That, too, yes.

How often does it happen nowadays that you're recognized out on the street?

Sometimes. Occasionally. There are days when nothing happens, and other days when it happens several times. It also depends on whether I'm in a bar or another place where people gather.

Imagine that for some reason you had to do something other than act.

What would I do?

Exactly.

Hm. That's difficult.

Did you always want to be an actor, or were there alternatives?

A soccer player, of course. I definitely wanted to be a soccer player. When I finished high school, I was also very interested in psychology — and art. But I don't believe that I'd study art or psychology, even though I was still saying that two or three years ago. I also have a lot of fun working behind the camera, and I've been a set manager for short films. I enjoy organizing a set in the extreme, because I also have experience in how these things work. I'd probably still prefer to stay in the world of film and then maybe try to develop material or help to see it realized.

So you could also imagine directing and scriptwriting?

Probably not scriptwriting. I'm more the kind of person who reads the script and says, "Oh, that's what happens. I think it'd be great if this and that also happened." I don't think I could write a story myself. I have a lot of respect for those who can.

What else are you up to next?

On Monday, we started filming the third season of DARK, so I'll just do that for now. That'll probably take another six months. After that, we'll be done. The series was planned as a trilogy from the beginning, so the story will conclude with the third season.

That's all from me. In closing, do you have any more comments you'd like to make about your film?

I think Sabrina is very talented, and I'm very proud of this film and hope that people will see it.

[thesummoningdark]

Okay, while I love everything you write I think for the DVD commentary I'd like a behind-the-scenes look into chapter 3 of At the Edge of the World. The entire fic is lush and gorgeous but I'm a sucker for the bits where Goody and Sam interact, and with the easy, sure steadiness that Billy brings to this experience that's so harrowing for Goody and would love your additional thoughts on either/both. -The Anon Formerly Known As Thrillingest

So this took forever. I’m happy to do more of these DVD commentaries (you can hit me up over on my writing sideblog!) if anyone’s interested, but I’d appreciate it if any further requests are for scenes rather than whole chapters. A chapter takes too long to do.

Anyway, answer below the cut~

When I originally set out to write this fic, the first neural handshake was what I’d actually been prompted to write (as a christmas present for @b-r-a-h iirc). It grew and took on a life of its own in the writing, but even so, that one scene was always going to make or break the whole fic. I spent a lot of time working on getting it just right.

It’s late enough by the time he finally leaves the kwoon that he doesn’t expect to find Sam in his office; he hesitates before going looking for him at all. But the prospect of another night stewing is unbearable. He doesn’t trust himself not to have lost his nerve by morning if he doesn’t commit to this now.

The shatterdome is quiet as he makes his way through. The overhead lights, motion-activated, flare one by one as he passes and settle into a steadily glowing trail behind him. It does nothing to quiet the sick unease simmering under his skin, feeling painfully exposed as his footsteps echo loudly in the silence of the bare corridors. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say. He can’t shake the conviction that there’s no choice he can make here which won’t turn out to have been a horrible mistake.

I was very pleased with the description of the shatterdome late at night, of how the quiet makes Goody feel so much more exposed and on edge. This opening part of the chapter was all about really showing his unease and how trapped he feels by the situation.

He hesitates in front of Sam’s door. Raises his hand; lowers it again.

He takes a deep breath, swears, and knocks.

These two lines work very well as punctuation to the scene, I think, slowing things down and underlining Goody’s hesitation. The short, sharp phrases are very different from how I normally write prose from Goody’s point of view - it’s actually a lot more like how I’d write Billy, oddly enough - but I like the sense it gives of these jerky, aborted movements and Goody second-guessing himself.

There are a few endless moments of silence before the sounds of movement emerge faintly from the other side of the door, a few muffled thumps and the quiet shuffle of footsteps. Goody hears the hollow clunk of the lock sliding back, but somehow it still startles him when the door swings open, his heart in his throat as he takes a step back and meets Sam’s tired eyes.

“I’ll do it,” he says in a rush before Sam can ask why he’s here. Sam regards him solemnly for a long moment before nodding.

“Good.”

“…I have some conditions,” Goody clarifies in a more measured tone, something sick and shocked crawling feverishly over the back of his neck as the magnitude of what he’s just agreed to tries to sink in. He pushes it away.

Sam sighs, and glances up and down the corridor before stepping aside. “Why don’t you come in.”

Writing this fic was the first time I really got to write interactions between Sam and Goody, and honestly, at first it was a little intimidating. Their conversation in the first chapter was the first time I’d ever written Sam period. I pretty much wrote this fic sequentially from start to finish, so by this point I was a lot more comfortable in their dynamic. I really love the ease between them, the sense of history in how well they know each other. A lot goes unspoken in their conversations because of it.

The Marshall’s quarters are larger than most others in the shatterdome, designed with the thought in mind that the occupant would be entertaining visiting dignitaries and the like. Still, it would take an impressive stretch of the definition to call any of the living quarters homey, and Sam’s have a certain barren neatness about them that speaks of a man who doesn’t own enough to clutter them, or spend enough time there to generate other mess. It’s very clearly a space where someone comes to sleep, not to live; there’s a distinct lack of personal touches. Save one.

Tacked to the back of the door is a single photo, unframed and a touch singed along one side, depicting a laughing family. Goody looks at it for a long moment before lowering his eyes out of some vestigial sense of respect. They all have their ghosts.

He sits on one of the spartan sofas, his gaze catching on the neat stacks of files spread out over the coffee table. Some he can identify; repair and maintenance records, duty reports, cadet evaluations. Others he doesn’t recognise at all. It’s truly startling, the amount of paperwork an organisation like the PPDC can generate in a day. “Has no-one ever told you it’s unhealthy to bring your work home with you?” he asks lightly. Sam snorts.

Some nice little set-dressing pieces of characterisation for Sam here. It doesn’t come up in any detail, but I imagine that he would have lost his family in a kaiju attack sometime before meeting Goody/joining the PPDC. That very clear sense of what he’s fighting for and why is something I consider to be pretty central to Sam’s character. I like having the old family photo there as a nod to his backstory - it crops up in the polyamory fill from KTT as well.

His room being fairly spartan is another hint at his character - very focused, all business - but it also handily doubles as a way of reinforcing the uncomfortable nature of Goody’s situation. The scene just wouldn’t feel quite the same if Sam’s quarters were cosy and welcoming.

“You mentioned conditions,” he says, sitting down opposite Goody and reaching for a gently steaming mug.

“Privacy,” Goody replies without hesitation. “And for it to be kept quiet. I’d rather not have an audience for this. And what a failed handshake would do to morale is the last thing the shatterdome needs right now.”

“We can arrange that,” Sam says, giving a nod, and Goody hadn’t even realised he was anticipating a fight until suddenly the tension is flowing out of him at the easy agreement. He sighs and sinks a little deeper into the sofa, scrubbing a weary hand over his face. Some part of him had half been hoping for an argument, for a refusal, but…here they are. For better or for worse, this is happening.

“For the record,” he says, “I’m still not convinced this is going to work.”

Sam considers him for a long moment. “So why agree?”

“Because…” Goody shakes his head, swallowing the sudden bitter taste at the back of his throat, some choking tightness wrapping around his chest. “Because in six months or a year, some green pilot pair riding a shaky drift are going to die in that damn jaeger.” He can see it clear as day from inside and out. The alarms screaming in the red-lit cockpit, the searing shock of the connection being violently severed; the roar of chaos over the radio back in the LOCCENT before everything goes abruptly, horribly silent. “I don’t need another what if to carry around.”

It was important to me in writing the first half of this fic to really work through Goody’s motivations: why he’s initially reluctant, and why he ultimately agrees. The progression from wanting to run from this to being willing to stand and fight even knowing how it’s likely to end for him is a parallel to canon I really wanted to keep. In a way this whole fic is about how he comes to that decision in this particular universe.

“I know the feeling,” Sam says quietly.

Goody gives him a thin, exhausted ghost of a grin. “Remember when we were young and bold and going to live forever?”

Sam snorts and shakes his head. “No.”

Have I mentioned that I really enjoyed writing their interactions?

Perhaps unsurprisingly he doesn’t sleep well that night. He can feel the enormity of the decision he’s just committed to hanging over him, a frozen tidal wave poised to come crashing down if he dares acknowledge it. He dozes restlessly and wakes often to the lingering claws of formless nightmares, a cold sweat on his skin and his heart beating too fast in his chest, fighting his way free of tangled sheets in a panic. The darkness of his quarters is heavy and close.

He finally gives up on sleep entirely sometime before dawn. A few of the night shift are haunting corners of the mess hall; he keeps his head down so as to not inadvertently provoke a conversation through eye contact as he pours himself a coffee and walks out again with tin mug in hand. On autopilot his feet carry him to the gantry behind the loading docks. The ocean is invisible somewhere in the inky blackness below, the steady crash of breaking waves drifting up out of the darkness. The wind plucks at his coat and snatches away the smoke from his cigarette as he exhales, watching clouds scud by above in the pale moonlight.

Slowly the sky starts to lighten, dawn breaking somewhere behind the clouds. Goody flicks away the spent end of his cigarette, sighs, and heads back inside.

I always enjoy writing Goody alone with his thoughts. As I’ve said before, writing from his point of view makes it easy to lend a poetic bent to the prose, and in this kind of context you end up with this lovely evocative melancholy air. Especially when coupled with the imagery of the cold, stormy sea that crops up so much in this fic.

He considers breakfast for token moment, but even the thought of food has the knots in his stomach tightening nauseously; he drops his empty mug off in the slowly-filling mess hall and instead traces the familiar path up to the kwoon. A few diligent souls are already warming up beside the sparring mat. Goody does his best to ignore them as he skirts the opposite edge of the kwoon and makes his way to the door of the attached office.

Billy is sitting at his desk, an empty mess hall tray by his elbow and a mess of papers spread out in front of him. A hint of surprise flickers across his expression as Goody enters.

“Twice in as many days?” He raises his eyebrows. “Did you make some kind of late new year’s resolution?”

Billy’s sense of humour delights me. It’s something we only really see brief glimpses of in canon, but I’ve really enjoyed fleshing it out a little more in writing him. It’s an interesting contrast to Goody, who tends to use a self-deprecating sort of humour to deflect; Billy uses humour in a more pointed way.

Goody chooses not to dignify that with a response. He takes a moment to close the door behind him before taking a deep breath and saying with no preamble, “I agreed to it.”

There’s a drawn out moment of silence.

“…you talked to Chisholm already?” Billy asks, carefully noncommittal. His expression is unreadable.

“Yes.” Goody pauses, his gaze dropping a little as he considers his next words. “….I’ve asked for it to be kept quiet.”

There’s the soft rush of a sigh from the other side of the table, followed by the creak of a chair; Goody glances up to see Billy standing. He circles around and twitches the blinds aside to look out into the kwoon.

“You still don’t think this is going to work,” he says.

Goody gives a small shrug. “I’d rather be prepared if it doesn’t.”

“And if it does?”

Even before they ever actually drift, Billy and Goody know each other very well, and it comes through in the way they talk to each other. Especially about important things. There’s a lot that goes unspoken because it’s already understood. They get straight to the point..which would be the case anyway, I think, but it’s particularly pronounced here because Goody is still in that mode of powering through as much of this as he can before he loses his nerve.

Something icy crawls down Goody’s spine. It seems a touch ridiculous, now he suddenly has cause to admit it aloud, but he honestly hadn’t given any thought to what would come next if they were successful. He hadn’t seriously entertained the possibility that they might be.

If somehow, against all reason and experience this works, if they make it through the joint drop sims and every other test and barrier between them and that conn pod…he’ll be a pilot again. He’ll be back out there facing the kaiju. Just the thought is enough to have the sick stirrings of panic clawing their way up his throat.

It made sense to me that, being so caught up in all the ways the handshake could go wrong and what happens if it does, Goody hadn’t even stopped to seriously consider the possibility that it might succeed, much less think about what he’ll do if it does. He can’t let himself think about what happens if they succeed, because that’s the only outcome worse than failure. If trying to drift again is bad, trying to pilot again is so much worse. He’s found himself backed into a catch-22 where there’s no good outcome, and a lot of what I was trying to do with the first half of this chapter was to really get across his sense of dread.

A firm hand lands on his shoulder and he starts, blinking wide-eyed at Billy, who’s suddenly beside him. His expression is calm, but there’s a spark of something in his eyes that Goody doesn’t know how to read; something implacable and determined, something fierce enough to be alien after so long without allowing himself the luxury of hope.

“Goody,” he says, steady and certain in a way that brooks no disagreement. “We’ll figure it out.”

Goody takes a deep, steadying breath and gives a shaky nod. Billy’s right. What happens will happen, and while he may lack Billy’s confidence that they’ll be equal to whichever challenge comes of it, he can’t let himself get tangled up in anticipating it when it’s going to take everything he has just to get through what’s coming next.

The next few days are nothing but the gnawing unease of anticipation, part of him desperate to have this over and done with, another hopelessly wishing he could put it off indefinitely. It’ll be a relief for it to be over, even if he already knows that relief will be tainted with an old, familiar kind of shame. But to get it over with, he has to get through it, and some nagging voice at the back of his mind is constantly whispering that maybe he can’t. He doesn’t know if he has another handshake left in him. He’s so, so tired of wondering every time if this trip down the rabbit hole will be the one that finally breaks him.

It’s not something I chose to dig into a lot in this fic, but this paragraph right here is actually a very important insight into where Goody’s at in this place in time. It’s not that he doesn’t want to move on from the trauma of losing his copilot, or that he couldn’t do it under the right circumstances, but he’s trapped in this cycle of having to relive it and be traumatised anew every time he tries to enter the drift. He’s in this limbo space where he wants to move on but he can’t. He’s not being allowed to.

In a way, his psychological situation parallels his real life one very neatly. He’s not a pilot any more, but his experience is too useful to waste, so he’s still a part of a jaeger program. The fight his copilot died in was a long time ago, but he can’t heal from it when he’s still having to relieve it. Both leave him in a situation where he can’t do anything to help himself where he is, but he can’t distance himself either.

More than anything else in those achingly empty days, he finds himself seeking out Billy’s company. Perhaps it’s a good sign that the undemanding quiet of Billy’s presence steadies him in a way that not much that doesn’t come in a bottle can these days. But some darker, more pessimistic part of him can’t help but wonder if this is nothing but him savouring the last days of this friendship while he can, before the handshake ruins it.

He feels a pang of guilt for it, occasionally. It seems disloyal even to entertain the thought that Billy wouldn’t be better than that. But he can’t bring himself to believe that anyone could be exposed to the wreckage of his subconscious, and not want to do the smart thing and distance themselves. Lord knows he would if he could.

This comes up a lot in writing their relationship from Goody’s point of view: that he feels it’s a disservice to Billy to think that their relationship is on such a shaky foundation, but he still can’t help but be afraid of it.

The few days they spend waiting seem to last an eternity. But when word finally comes that LOCCENT are ready for them, the only thought in Goody’s head is that an eternity wouldn’t be long enough to let him be ready for this.

The solid warmth of Billy’s shoulder against his is a comfort he desperately needs as they walk into the drivesuit room side by side to be met by a skeleton crew of technicians. He hasn’t set foot in this part of the shatterdome since that last disastrous failed handshake; just the familiar smell of relay gel and oiled metal is enough to have his heart beating faster, a slight tremor shaking through his hands.

Generally it’s a more relaxed process, preparing for a handshake. In a combat drop there would be alarms blaring, the countdown displayed on every screen, running out the seven minutes they have after an event to get into the cockpit and be ready to launch. There’s none of that time pressure here. No rush, although the technicians pride themselves on their speed and efficiency even when it isn’t a matter of life and death. And yet he knows he’s never been this nervous before a combat drop, sick with the anticipation of what’s waiting for him in the conn pod.

He closes his eyes and tunes out the low murmurs of the technicians, clinging to a fragile sense of calm numbness as he lets himself be turned and posed and strapped into the drivesuit. At least there won’t be an audience. Sam has been true to his word about keeping it quiet, hand-picking staff he trusts to run LOCCENT and the drivesuit room, and choosing a time toward the end of the nightshift when the few people still awake will be tired and incurious. However badly this goes, at least he won’t have to deal with stares and whispers following him around the shatterdome for the next week.

The technician at his shoulder gives his backplate one last solid thump and steps away. He sighs, gathers what little courage he has left, and walks forward.

If he thought the drivesuit room was sickeningly familiar, it’s nothing beside the conn pod, the lights of the control panels and the waiting cradle of the command platform. For an endless moment he finds himself frozen in the doorway. He’s never set foot inside Widow Rose before - she was built long after his last drop, and quickly filled by a copilot pair of her own - but knowing that doesn’t help. It’s still horribly, achingly familiar.

Billy nudges his shoulder gently, startling him out of his reverie. He swallows down the pathetic part of him that wants so desperately to find some way, any way of delaying this even if only for a second, and gives a shaky nod. This is happening one way or another. The least he can do is face it with what little dignity he has left.

Obviously any writer’s work is informed by their own experiences, but for me, this part was a lot closer to the bone than most others. In this case I was drawing on my own memories of having to go through with crash escape/sea survival training despite having a massive phobia of water. That feeling of forcing yourself to go through with something you’re desperately afraid of, how badly you want to grab any chance to delay it just a little longer…it definitely stays with you.

“Breathe,” Billy says, low and even. “You’ll get through it.”

“Said the butcher to the cow,” Goody mutters.

Billy huffs a laugh. “I’ll make it quick and painless.”

Despite himself, he can’t help but be lulled a little by Billy’s easy calm, even as he feels a pitiful stab of envy for it. He gives a thin, tired ghost of a smile and nudges Billy’s shoulder lightly in return. If he always would have had to find himself here again, he’s glad at least that it’s Billy here with him. He doesn’t know that he could have faced it with anyone other than Billy by his side.

I really enjoy writing these little exchanges that show how easily they play off of each other, especially in stressful situations. And the lighter flashes of humour that come from their conversations were something the first half of this chapter really needed. 

Harness set for test mode is flashing on the screens as they strap themselves in. Goody’s hands are shaking badly enough to have him fumbling the controllers as he threads his fingers through them, sick unease prickling feverishly over the back of his neck and cold sweat crawling down his skin under the drivesuit. He can feel his heart pounding in his chest, his breath coming fast and shallow; lord only knows what his vitals readout in LOCCENT must look like.

“Pilots on board and ready to connect,” Teddy’s voice filters in tinnily over the comms. Goody sucks in a sharp breath.

“Steady,” Billy murmurs.

“Initiating neural handshake.”

This is mostly an inside joke, of course, but the thought of Teddy as Tendo makes me laugh.

For an endless moment there’s nothing but the visceral rush of sense memory, too quick and tangled to make any sense of, the sudden feeling of everyone opening and unfolding, of the mind flowing out into the space suddenly opened to it. He hears his mother’s voice, sees a fleeting glimpse of her face from a child’s low perspective. Somewhere behind it is another woman’s voice, words in a language he doesn’t speak but somehow understands. A sharp stab of unease; a man’s voice this time, abrupt and angry. Helpless frustration. Silence.

There’s a mirror in front of him and bruises on his face and the taste of blood in his mouth, and pain comes tearing up his flank, alarms blaring in the desperate red pulse of the conn pod emergency lighting, and in the last screaming moments he feels something snap with a brutal whiplash leaving behind nothing, nothing, nothing—

There’s a lot going on here. Some memories, like the image of the red-lit conn pod and the loss of a copilot, are very clearly Goody’s. but a lot of the rest don’t distinctly belong to one or the other - it was a conscious decision on my part to leave it ambiguous which memories are coming from who. I wanted to run with the idea that a flash of memory from one would pull up similar memories from the other, and they’d keep feeding into each other. 

Off the record, the start and the end are Goody, and the middle (everything from another woman’s voice to blood in his mouth) is Billy.

Except that there isn’t nothing. Under it all there’s something solid, an unexpected rock to cling to and keep his head above water while he gasps for air. Just the shock of it, of being caught when he expected to fall, is enough to snap him out of the inward spiral for a precious, fleeting moment. It’s so very little, an eye in the storm of crushing panic. But it’s enough for something warm and steady to wrap in around him, and push back the howling dark.

It’s not the panicked clawing he remembers, the fingers of a doomed attempt to reel him in frantically scrabbling to find purchase on his spiralling subconscious. Instead it’s a mere brush of a touch, nudging him back toward an even keel so gently he might not have noticed it if he hadn’t been waiting for it.

That sea/storm imagery coming up again here. That second paragraph was actually the first part of this scene I wrote, and it’s definitely something I wanted to run with for the whole thing: the idea that rather than trying to keep too tight a rein like previous candidates have tried and failed to do, Billy has a knack for gently nudging Goody at the right moments to keep him from spiralling.

“Billy?” he mumbles uncertainly, his voice cracking. He’s here in the conn pod, but no, the alarms are silent. The lights are a calm, steady blue. The only pain is sense memory.

“Breathe,” Billy says again, just as calm and steady as the lights. “I’ve got you.”

He takes a deep, shuddering breath and slowly exhales. The rabbit hole is right there, aching emptily like a missing tooth, but no sooner do his thoughts drift toward it than they’re steered in another direction; a flashing school of fish easily startled into darting off by a dark shape slowly cruising by below.

With every step he expects to fall. But the connection stays steady, grounding him in the here and now. The jaeger is alive under his hands, and now he’s not so tangled in the cobwebs of painful memory…she feels different from Aura Blue. Lighter. And Billy is right there with him every inch of the way as he slowly settles back into the old familiar feeling of a jaeger’s heart beating with his, filling the drift with the undemanding quiet he’s always associated with Billy’s presence.

I liked the idea that once he’s been steadied enough to stop that spiral before it starts, Goody actually can more or less keep a handle on himself. Once again that reference to a light touch rather than a tight rein comes up, with bonus sea imagery - a flashing school of fish easily startled into darting off by a dark shape slowly cruising by below.

There’s definitely a turning point here: it’s the first time we really see Goody start to focus in on new things, things that are different, rather than the ways in which he’s reminded of painful memories.

Also fun fact, it took me for-fucking-ever to settle on a name for Goody and Sam’s jaeger. In early drafts it was referred to as “Ash” as a placeholder. It was that deleted scene that came out with Goody at the piano which gave me the inspiration to finally pick an actual name for it.

Tentatively he reaches out, testing the shape of their connection. There’s satisfaction radiating from Billy, pride tinged with relief, and— there, sitting at the centre of it all so deceptively unassuming that he scarcely recognises it for what it is, the cold certainty of what this means for them.

His own fears are skittering things, slipping away when his thoughts land on them in daylight; leaving only trails of lingering unease behind until they creep back up on him in the silence of his bunk at night. He half expects this one to do the same, but it doesn’t.

You’re afraid too he thinks, the realisation distant and dazed. He can’t see Billy’s smile, but he feels it. Grim amusement. Fatalism. Acceptance.

This was something I really wanted to put front and centre when they drifted: the idea that Billy knows what this means for them just as well as Goody does, but they handle that knowledge so differently that Goody almost doesn’t recognise it for what it is. Goody is the kind of person who tries to ignore his fears until he can’t any more. He’s not well equipped to get his head around the way Billy can look this in the face and accept it.

Goody says you’re afraid too, but he still isn’t quite grasping it. Billy isn’t afraid of this. Not in the same way Goody is. He knows that stepping into that conn pod together ultimately means dying there, but in his mind, he’s already weighed up the possibility and decided that it’s worth the cost. To paraphrase the original Pacific Rim: they’re all going to die one way or the other. He’d rather die in a jaeger.

Goody hasn’t accepted the inevitability of his own mortality; he’s still caught up in wanting to put it off for as long as possible. Billy has. It’s more important to him to die for something worthwhile than to avoid it for a little longer. When you get right down to it, I think this is probably the most fundamental difference in who they are are people.

The readouts on the screens are all in the green, the conn pod humming around them. “Full alignment,” Teddy’s voice comes again over the comms, static crackling on the line. “Handshake holding steady.”

“Congratulations,” Sam adds. To anyone else he might sound perfectly professional, but Goody knows him well enough to know what ‘self-satisfied’ sounds like on him. He’s sure that the fond exasperation that suffuses the link is wholly his, but the answering flicker of amusement is definitely Billy’s.

There is honestly no interaction between Sam and Goody in this entire fic that I’m not delighted by. There’s always such a sense of history and familiarity between them.

The process of disconnecting and powering down passes in something of a daze. It’s been so long since the last time a handshake ended in anything other than a spiral and an emergency shutdown for him that distance has made the standard procedure unfamiliar. It’s calm, matter of fact; clearly routine for everyone present but him. He barely has the presence of mind to follow what’s happening.

Fortunately, little is required of him other than moving when he’s told. In some kind of stunned trance he allows himself to be led from the conn pod and methodically peeled out of the drivesuit, the murmurs of the technicians and the voices from LOCCENT filtering over the radio so much white noise in his ears. […] 

It honestly wasn’t until I hit the end of the neural handshake scene that it really dawned on me how long it would have been since Goody actually experienced a normal disconnection. It isn’t something we see in Pacific Rim either, so unlike the initial connection (most of the procedure for which I lifted directly from the movie), I didn’t have anything to go on. Fortunately under the circumstances it made sense for Goody to be in a bit of a daze, so I was spared the necessity of getting into specifics.

[…]Everything seems distant and hazy and unreal.

Everything apart from Billy.

It’s momentarily disorienting to turn and see Billy facing him when instinct insists that they should be moving as one. Billy tilts his head, considering; Goody notices himself mirroring the motion half a heartbeat after he does it, the two of them still half in sync as they ride out the echoes of the drift. His heart is still racing, hardly able to believe that they really did it. He hadn’t believed it could ever flow that smooth and easy again. After all this time he’d forgotten what it could be like to slip into a solid, comfortable connection.

They’re close, he realises belatedly; enough so to look odd to outside eyes. So soon after the handshake his instincts don’t even question that of course Billy belongs in his personal space as much as he does himself. A day ago he might have felt exposed under that searching gaze. Now it’s nothing but familiar.

This part got written out of order very early on as well. The image of them moving together, still half in sync, was something I had very clearly in my head when I set out to start writing this, and I wanted to get it down before it faded.

“You could have said something,” Billy says after a long pause.

There’s no point in pretending not to know exactly what he’s talking about. A flush creeps up Goody’s cheeks, but he doesn’t lower his eyes. “It never seemed like a good time,” he replies with a small shrug.

It’s strange to think how recently the idea of having every fleeting want and idle fantasy laid bare would have been mortifying. Here and now, still half in the drift, the idea that Billy knows seems as natural and unremarkable as admitting it to himself in the privacy of his own thoughts. There’s no unease, no knee-jerk revulsion. There’s nothing but slightly startled curiosity, and a trace of what might be cautious interest.

I toyed with a few different ways of approaching this conversation, but ultimately I decided that it would have to be very matter-of-fact. How could it be anything else, when they’ve just been inside each other’s heads? It’s not something that’s explicitly explored in Pacific Rim, but I figured that for a little while right after drifting successfully, you’d still be thinking of your copilot as essentially the same entity as you. 

As it says above, the idea that Billy knows seems as natural and unremarkable as admitting it to himself in the privacy of his own thoughts. It couldn’t work any other way, really, or the whole premise falls apart a little. They both know exactly what they’re talking about, how they both feel about it…the fact that Goody now knows beyond question that while startled Billy isn’t opposed to the idea is definitely helping him keep his cool.

One of the technicians clears her throat, breaking their shared reverie, unfazed as only a long-term drivesuit tech can be when their attention snaps to her in perfect unison. She informs them that the Marshal is expecting them for a debrief, and politely ejects them from the drivesuit room to make the walk to LOCCENT.

“I knew you had another one in you,” is the first thing Sam says, smiling broadly.

Goody huffs a laugh and lets himself be pulled into a hug. “We’ll see,” he replies, noncommittal. “One successful handshake doesn’t mean a combat-ready link.”

Sam shrugs. “We’ll schedule a joint drop sim tomorrow. In the meantime—” He gives a wry grin. “—why don’t you give me five damn minutes to enjoy something going right for once.”

“Yes sir,” Goody replies with an entirely spurious dutiful air, throwing a mock salute.

“Very funny,” Sam says, a hint of a smile curling the corner of his lips. “Go on, get out of here. Both of you. Sleep. You’ve earned it.”

I find something about the phrase politely ejects them inherently hilarious. I also enjoy the image of the techs being utterly unimpressed by all this drift bullshit just through sheer exposure wearing the mystique off of it.

As previously noted, I love writing Sam and Goody interacting, and it was particularly nice to write this conversation. It’s the first one in this fic where they’re both happy and relieved, and it gives it a much lighter feel.

The first hints of the shatterdome waking are starting to drift through the air around them as they make their way back down from LOCCENT; internal lights slowly brightening, footfalls and distant chatter in the air as the oncoming day shift begin the sleepy shuffle from quarters to showers to mess hall. No matter what else may be happening, the rhythm of shifts and rotations carries stubbornly on like the slow beat of some colossal heart.

They get a few glances and mumbled greetings in passing, but no-one seems to pay them much mind. After the last few days of aching uncertainty, it’s an indescribable relief to walk through the halls of the shatterdome with the weight of the handshake off of his mind, with the lingering echoes of Billy’s utter self-confidence bolstering him. It’s a relief to find himself not avoiding anyone’s eyes.

It doesn’t feel real yet. Part of him remains convinced that some other stumbling block up ahead will catch them out, that they’ll trip over a reason why it can’t work when they’re least expecting it. He doesn’t know if he’s afraid of it or hoping for it.

The theme of people coming together to form some joint entity greater than the sum of its parts is, of course, a powerful recurring theme in Pacific Rim. It’s most overt in the copilot pairs, but I wanted to throw in these occasional reminders that even the jaegers themselves are just one part of the greater entity that is the shatterdome itself.

The end of this chapter is probably the lightest and most hopeful in tone of any part of the fic, but Goody is definitely still unsure if he’s really prepared for what success means for them. He doesn’t want to have to go back out there and fight. 

“You’re still not sure about this, are you,” Billy says aloud.

Goody gives a small shrug. “As I said to Sam, compatibility doesn’t necessarily mean a link stable enough for combat.” Keeping the drift steady in the calm, controlled environment of a test handshake is a very different thing to maintaining it under the stress and demanding neural load of combat.

“Tell me you don’t think I can hold it,” Billy says, flat and matter of fact. Goody sighs.

“No,” he says. “No, when you put it like that, I suppose I don’t doubt that you can.”

One of my favourite things about Goody and Billy’s relationship, the thing which drew me to them in the first place, is how much trust there is between them. Goody still isn’t sure that he can do this, but he believes completely that Billy can. And he’s willing to trust that Billy can steady him when he needs it.

As I think I’ve mentioned in previous replies, I do struggle with ending chapters sometimes. In this fic I actually did it differently to how I normally would: I wrote most of the fic as if it was a one-shot, and then went back and divided it up into chapters based on where it felt natural to pause. It was a much easier way of doing it, and I think the transitions from one chapter to the next after are definitely improved by it.