#zephyr rhea is their jaeger if that wasn't clear

[frogsinflannel]

for the make me write, if you're still doing that: 🌊🌊🌊

Oooh yes, always! I actually just rewatched Pacific Rim today, so the timing is perfect, thank you!

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The sun burns behind him, stamping the edge of the earth in fiery gold. Everything is waking up, shaky-limbed and bright-eyed at the dawn of a new day. Not just a new day, though, a new world. Everyone who wakes up today will wake up safer, the threat of the kaiju finally eliminated.

The breach is sealed.

And beside him on their raft, Tommy lays still and cold.

He is gold-lined, too, the pale skin of his face burnished bright and rosy. But he won't move, and the little breaths coming from his barely parted mouth are getting harder and harder to detect.

Buck fists a hand into Tommy's suit, right over his heart. Everyone who wakes up today will have a new world, and he'll be damned if that doesn't include Tommy.

"Come on," he tries again, crawling onto Tommy's body. "Wake up. Y-you gotta wake up." Buck's face is snotty and the hair at his temple is matted with blood. His blood, he thinks, though he can't be sure. "Tommy please." He presses his face into the juncture of Tommy's neck. He smells musky and sweet, with sweat and adrenaline clinging to his skin. "Please." His eyes squeeze shut, and Buck feels something swelling in his chest, a bubble that's about to burst.

They did it. They completed the mission. They saved the whole fucking world and this is what they get in return? The ocean around them is dark but never still - there's a gentle rocking as they move further and further away from their last drop zone. Someone should be coming for them. Maybe. Comms were lost long before Zephyr Rhea was, but if anyone can find them Buck knows that Bobby can.

Exhaustion presses down on him, heavy and oppressive. His whole body hurts, except his leg. He can't feel anything there, can't move it, and maybe he should be concerned but right now all he cares about is waking Tommy up.

"We did it, so you... you gotta help us celebrate. That's what we were gonna do, right? When we got back? Breach is sealed, no more kaiju, we're all having a party. Hen was going to get us a cake," he says, his face wet. He's getting tears on Tommy's neck but he can't bring himself to care. One arm worms it's way under Tommy's chest, and he presses their bodies together as tight as he can. "You think Eddie's going to forgive me if I don't bring you back? He's going to be so pissed. Chim, too. You promised..." He sniffs and buries his head further into the crook of Tommy's neck, mashing his nose in and getting his mouth as close as he can to his skin. "You promised Bobby and Maddie and... and everyone. You promised them that I'd be safe. That I'd make it back okay. Well fuck that, Tommy, because what about you? How'm I supposed to be okay without you?"

There's a cough that shakes the raft beneath him, the body beneath him, and a ragged, half-conscious voice says "Okay with... Me? You really have to raise your bar, kid."

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make me write