[ Yancy catches the cords easy, frowns when he looks at the state of them -- knots, worn in places that electrical things shouldn't be if they were in tip-top form, and runs his fingers absently over the spot where the melted parts have fused onto something else.
He's never voiced how he feels like an outsider to the cohesive unit that the rest of the jaeger pilots have made themselves to be; the one player come to the game late when everyone else is already on the field or the ice, or whatever surface they're playing on.
Five years gone is five years gone and for how long he can make his time in Zelien matter, he'll take it. ]
On it. [ He hunkers down, crosses his legs and sits like a kid might on the floor and traces his fingers along the path of the cords to see where they go so he can figure out the process of taking them apart and making them look more like they should.
When he hits a spot where he needs to cut, he makes the faintest of face and speaks up: ] Might need to cut some of these. [ He knows the basics of getting electrical back together, things that he'd picked up while getting to know the crew that had once looked after Gipsy. ] You got a wire cutter there?
[ trust is a strange concept for rangers. it is as much a current (mutable, powerful, invisible) as it is a currency. absolutes are found in one's copilot- the be all end all of a ranger's existence. when they become every inch of who they were and are and might be, lined up against someone else's. where synapses and nerve endings are forged like steel and turn out weapons all the same.
chuck had never met yancy becket. he was one of the faces that circled on static filled television screens and was a name thrown around over mess hall dinners. it isn't personal, whatever they are, but it doesn't need to be. becket is a ranger, a jaeger pilot. blood bonds and life long friendships aren't necessary parts of the equation.
the man settles on the floor, dutifully plucking at his appointed task and neither one of them mention that they should be sleeping. that there are other things to do. that in the grand scheme of things, this is somewhere closer to the middle of the priority roster. chuck throws another mangled patch of wire in his direction without a backwards glance and still manages to gouge his elbow on a stay coil. ]
Kickin' around here somewhere. [ he offers instead, and it is the closest to an invitation chuck ever really comes. when he speaks again it's a beat later. a stretch long enough for him to reconsider opening his mouth at all and his voice is quieter than anything he's let loose so far. ]
It's gonna take awhile. [ you don't have to stay. ]
[ yancy looks up just enough to reach for the wire--
--and then pauses when he sees the beginnings of blood welling on the fresh cut on chuck's arm.
it has to be understood: before he was a ranger, before he was a cadet going through the ppdc's rigorous requirements to make the inevitable cut, yancy becket was a brother to two younger siblings first. he was a son to a mother fighting a losing war to cancer, a son to a man who walked out without so much of a backwards glance at the family he decided he no longer wanted.
chuck and him... they're not friends. he can't even call them 'comrades at arms' because they never served together. chuck's father is a different story -- hero, icon, someone yancy had seen in action in manila just months before. if the five years felt like five years, maybe the awe deep in his gut at the mention of the name HANSEN would be settled into something less... visceral. but those five years have been five years for everyone else -- not so for him.
he doesn't remark on the wound, just stands to look around for anything to offer to chuck to staunch the wound with as much as he is also looking for the wire cutter. ]
Got time. [ sleep is going to be shot for a while. might as well be, anyway. given how things have been. ]
[ it'll bruise, which makes the slash on his elbow one more irritant to grumble over in the morning- but chuck is largely unconcerned otherwise. mori had made as much of a fuss as she was ever inclined to for leaving a brand new scar across his brow, but chuck thinks that the two are probably close in significance. his body isn't going to dredged up from the pacific, if any of it was left recognizable in the first place- and what is there to mourn by way of new scars and burns on a body he no longer owns.
becket is moving around some short distance off, likely after the cutters, and chuck leaves him to it. he isn't unguarded (because chuck has never learned how to be that. how to be a person. flesh and blood beneath a drive suit.) but in his lack of attention, of wary observation- it's near enough. yancy becket is surprisingly easy company, and chuck hasn't yet dug up an interest in tearing the foundation out. ]
Avoiding them too? [ it isn't a give away because it isn't inclusive. chuck isn't like them- isn't mori or becket or his old man- and he never will be. but he's been used like this before; a distraction. a tool. and at least this he knows. ]
[ the question makes him stall a little, just as he's about to ball up a piece of discarded fabric that at least looks like it's closer to clean than anything else in the area. ]
What makes you say that? [ in other words: yeah. maybe. but the words are a question and not an outright confirmation.
[ chuck nods by way of reply and wipes his palms over the fabric at his thighs. the sink- like most of their shoddy stand-in for a house, works, but it isn't pretty. they aren't exactly going for home & garden magazine, and he gets that. but the trouble with being a perfectionist is that the standards tend to run across the board. the hot water tap takes a few minutes to warm up. the cold comes out like a waterfall.
at least the pipes don't rattle. ]
Only come down here when the rest of 'em are out.
[ the words are quiet, which is as close to a truce as anything. there's a certain brand of confession in that as well. a modicum of understanding. chuck isn't the type to walk on eggshells. to play it safe, quiet, close to the chest for the sake of other people- and sure as hell doesn't do it for himself. but becket tries to keep out of sight the same way chuck does. like they could somehow make it easier on everyone around them. on their copilots. families.
like they could make death easier for the living.
chuck notices absently that the collar of his shirt is plastered to his chest and smells a little like burning plastic. hot metal. ]
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no subject
He's never voiced how he feels like an outsider to the cohesive unit that the rest of the jaeger pilots have made themselves to be; the one player come to the game late when everyone else is already on the field or the ice, or whatever surface they're playing on.
Five years gone is five years gone and for how long he can make his time in Zelien matter, he'll take it. ]
On it. [ He hunkers down, crosses his legs and sits like a kid might on the floor and traces his fingers along the path of the cords to see where they go so he can figure out the process of taking them apart and making them look more like they should.
When he hits a spot where he needs to cut, he makes the faintest of face and speaks up: ] Might need to cut some of these. [ He knows the basics of getting electrical back together, things that he'd picked up while getting to know the crew that had once looked after Gipsy. ] You got a wire cutter there?
no subject
chuck had never met yancy becket. he was one of the faces that circled on static filled television screens and was a name thrown around over mess hall dinners. it isn't personal, whatever they are, but it doesn't need to be. becket is a ranger, a jaeger pilot. blood bonds and life long friendships aren't necessary parts of the equation.
the man settles on the floor, dutifully plucking at his appointed task and neither one of them mention that they should be sleeping. that there are other things to do. that in the grand scheme of things, this is somewhere closer to the middle of the priority roster. chuck throws another mangled patch of wire in his direction without a backwards glance and still manages to gouge his elbow on a stay coil. ]
Kickin' around here somewhere. [ he offers instead, and it is the closest to an invitation chuck ever really comes. when he speaks again it's a beat later. a stretch long enough for him to reconsider opening his mouth at all and his voice is quieter than anything he's let loose so far. ]
It's gonna take awhile. [ you don't have to stay. ]
no subject
--and then pauses when he sees the beginnings of blood welling on the fresh cut on chuck's arm.
it has to be understood: before he was a ranger, before he was a cadet going through the ppdc's rigorous requirements to make the inevitable cut, yancy becket was a brother to two younger siblings first. he was a son to a mother fighting a losing war to cancer, a son to a man who walked out without so much of a backwards glance at the family he decided he no longer wanted.
chuck and him... they're not friends. he can't even call them 'comrades at arms' because they never served together. chuck's father is a different story -- hero, icon, someone yancy had seen in action in manila just months before. if the five years felt like five years, maybe the awe deep in his gut at the mention of the name HANSEN would be settled into something less... visceral. but those five years have been five years for everyone else -- not so for him.
he doesn't remark on the wound, just stands to look around for anything to offer to chuck to staunch the wound with as much as he is also looking for the wire cutter. ]
Got time. [ sleep is going to be shot for a while. might as well be, anyway. given how things have been. ]
no subject
becket is moving around some short distance off, likely after the cutters, and chuck leaves him to it. he isn't unguarded (because chuck has never learned how to be that. how to be a person. flesh and blood beneath a drive suit.) but in his lack of attention, of wary observation- it's near enough. yancy becket is surprisingly easy company, and chuck hasn't yet dug up an interest in tearing the foundation out. ]
Avoiding them too? [ it isn't a give away because it isn't inclusive. chuck isn't like them- isn't mori or becket or his old man- and he never will be. but he's been used like this before; a distraction. a tool. and at least this he knows. ]
no subject
What makes you say that? [ in other words: yeah. maybe. but the words are a question and not an outright confirmation.
he looks over. ]
Does the sink work?
no subject
at least the pipes don't rattle. ]
Only come down here when the rest of 'em are out.
[ the words are quiet, which is as close to a truce as anything. there's a certain brand of confession in that as well. a modicum of understanding. chuck isn't the type to walk on eggshells. to play it safe, quiet, close to the chest for the sake of other people- and sure as hell doesn't do it for himself. but becket tries to keep out of sight the same way chuck does. like they could somehow make it easier on everyone around them. on their copilots. families.
like they could make death easier for the living.
chuck notices absently that the collar of his shirt is plastered to his chest and smells a little like burning plastic. hot metal. ]