Tsukishima/Yamaguchi, Pacific Rim
Yamaguchi and his crew have been working hard overtime to repair Lunar Kozane after her last fight ended in near disaster, almost a week ago. He’s running exclusively on caffeine and adrenaline at this point. Lunar’s entire left side is trashed, and Yamaguchi is probably more sensitive than most to the particular kind of goriness that is the exposed cable tubes and shattered muscle plating of a broken Jaeger.
Which isn’t to say that the iron-rust bloodstains in the wreck of the cockpit don’t fill him with nauseating horror. Kei and Akiteru were lucky to escape with their lives. Beyond lucky. Yamaguchi went down to try to see them, once, the day after the battle, but Akiteru’d still been in surgery, and Kei was asleep. In the days since, he hasn’t had a free moment -- even his sleep has been caught in fits and trips on various parts of Lunar Kozane’s anatomy. He hasn’t taken his safety harness off in almost three days.
And that’s how he finds Kei -- or rather, how Kei finds him. Yamaguchi is snatching a quick nap in Lunar’s cockpit. The right side, where the blood was thinnest and has already been scraped and cleaned off. He wakes with a start when someone -- Suga, he thinks, probably -- starts up a blowtorch on Lunar’s shoulder.
It takes him a moment to notice Kei, but when he does he startles again, body reacting on instinct before his mind can catch up.
“Tsukki?” he says, half worried. “Hey, Tsukki! I’m sorry I haven’t been down to see you, we’ve been working non-stop, and you were asleep the first time, and… are you okay?”
Kei is standing still and silent as he leans against his interfacer. Akiteru’s is gone. Broken beyond repair, and Yamaguchi had helped to remove the remnants just the day before.
“Tsukki?” Yamaguchi asks again.
Kei finally blinks. “I’m fine,” he says, voice rough, and he immediately betrays himself with the few halting, limping steps he takes to maneuver himself to sit down. Yamaguchi lets him have his lie, though, and scoots the short distance to Kei’s side.
“Good,” he whispers against Kei’s cheek. Kei is stiff in Yamaguchi’s gentle hug, looking down at a scrap of black fabric in his hands.
“Is that --?”
“Akiteru’s suit,” Kei says. He sounds robotic. He looks robotic.
“Is he okay?” Yamaguchi asks the question, and dreads the answer.
Kei’s jaw clenches and unclenches, and Yamaguchi feels is on the side of his head. “Don’t know,” Kei eventually answers. “Still critical.”
“Oh, Tsukki.” Yamaguchi holds him tighter.