[ it's only one part of the dozens of differences between them. chuck knows it for what it is- a line that doesn't get crossed. a line he toes but doesn't commit to.
raleigh is a survivor. maybe it's not entirely by choice, but at the end of the day, his heart's still beating. mori's the same way. and so is his old man. but being alive isn't the same as being whole and there are times that chuck will catch the shadows beneath their eyes or the flicker of their fingers or the set of their shoulders and he knows. because sometimes being alive means you're the one left behind.
it isn't something the rangers talk about. loss can't be personal when you're a jaeger pilot.
chuck's voice is quiet in the space between them and he falls into step without a second thought. ]
[ Don't ask me that ever again are the words that sit heavily on Raleigh's tongue as the question brings him up short, full stop - like his heart's stopped, all the warmth in his blood frozen up. His hands are balled up into fists, the knuckles white - his teeth gnashing at the pressure he puts on his jaw.
All pilots never come whole. Maybe they were, before they put themselves into the connpod; they certainly never come out of it the same way. Every kaiju knocked back into the sea carries away with it pieces of who they are, like waves raking over the sand and dragging bits of other people's lives into the water. They made monsters of their own - they made monsters of their own, out of people, until they don't remember what it was they were before.
[ it comes out quick, as much defiance as it is certainty. because there's a difference between separation and death. between the massive yawning absence of the space someone used to fill- and a sudden quiet. chuck wasn't the one to have to pick up the pieces, but he feels the tension of becket's jaw in his own mouth and he thinks that if anyone would know- it'd be raleigh.
they wouldn't be out here looking if there wasn't a chance in hell she'd turn up.
chuck isn't saying it because he needs to make that affirmation more true. it is what it is. he's saying it because raleigh needs to hear it- and chuck can give him that. ]
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w13 d5;
raleigh is a survivor.
maybe it's not entirely by choice, but at the end of the day, his heart's still beating. mori's the same way. and so is his old man. but being alive isn't the same as being whole and there are times that chuck will catch the shadows beneath their eyes or the flicker of their fingers or the set of their shoulders and he knows. because sometimes being alive means you're the one left behind.
it isn't something the rangers talk about.
loss can't be personal when you're a jaeger pilot.
chuck's voice is quiet in the space between them and he falls into step without a second thought. ]
You can't feel her?
w13 d5;
All pilots never come whole. Maybe they were, before they put themselves into the connpod; they certainly never come out of it the same way. Every kaiju knocked back into the sea carries away with it pieces of who they are, like waves raking over the sand and dragging bits of other people's lives into the water. They made monsters of their own - they made monsters of their own, out of people, until they don't remember what it was they were before.
(And then the world left them behind.)
(Raleigh can't do that again.) ]
No.
w13 d5;
[ it comes out quick, as much defiance as it is certainty. because there's a difference between separation and death. between the massive yawning absence of the space someone used to fill- and a sudden quiet. chuck wasn't the one to have to pick up the pieces, but he feels the tension of becket's jaw in his own mouth and he thinks that if anyone would know- it'd be raleigh.
they wouldn't be out here looking if there wasn't a chance in hell she'd turn up.
chuck isn't saying it because he needs to make that affirmation more true. it is what it is. he's saying it because raleigh needs to hear it- and chuck can give him that. ]