Kuroo & Yaku, Pacific Rim AU
Kuroo still feels Kenma in his mind and his bones and his soul when a category four kaiju breaches the rift just north of Hokkaido. He’s nowhere near healthy, physically or mentally, but Marshal Sawamura comes to him personally, in his little sickbay bed. And Daichi doesn’t need to say anything. Kuroo knows. And nothing, in the last four days since Neko Heartshield went down, has been harder than getting out of that bed, feeling the phantom crush around his arm and leg and ribcage, but he goes anyway.
He knows, better than most, that there’s nobody else.
Tigerstrike was lost with her captains a month ago, in a co-ordinated multinational attack on the breach that left not a single pilot left alive. Silver Ace went down a week previous, broken and scattered across the continental shelf in a million pieces, and Kuroo has heard the beeping of machines and soft groans and whimpers from the Haibas as they convalesce behind a canvas curtain on the other side of the room.
Kuroo sets his jaw against a wince and straightens his back. “Neko repaired?” he manages to ask as his fingers twitch reflexively for a gauntlet and control panel that aren’t there.
Daichi twists his lips and shakes his head. “Salvage teams are still working,” he says, and he seems to take a bracing breath. “You’ll be going out in Guardian Night.”
Kuroo stops in his tracks. “No,” he says. And louder, “No.”
A few feet ahead of him, Daichi stops, too. “You don’t have a choice,” he says, and while there’s sympathy, there, the statement is iron. “There is nobody else. You will co-pilot Guardian and you will protect our nation.” Daichi spins, then, and wheels into Kuroo’s space until the front of his chair bump against Kuroo’s shins. He looks up at Kuroo, steely-eyed, and adds, “That’s an order.”
Kuroo thinks about sharing his mind (sharing Kenma, a part of him whispers) with Yaku, and he feels nauseous.
“Yes, sir.”
Guardian Night is nothing like Neko Heartshield. It’s small and tough and built for brawling, and its remaining pilot is the same. Kuroo sees Yaku tense when he walks into the cockpit, and really, it’s a mutual reaction. They wordlessly take their places, Kuroo trying not to think about old resentments and fresh pains.
Yaku breaks the silence first. “You look like shit,” he comments, to which Kuroo raises an eyebrow and nods towards the space where Yaku’s left hand should be. Yaku’s lips twitch in something that could be a grimace or a grin, or both, and he shakes his head.
“Kai says that if we, quote, can’t get along for once in our stupid lives, he’ll kick both our asses and then handcuff us together for a week.”
Kuroo can’t help but crack a grin at that, and Yaku grins back. Kai’s voice buzzes across the comm lines -- “That’s right. Initializing drift now.” -- and he feels the neural link firing up.
“I swear to god, Yaku, don’t go poking around in my head.”
“You stay the fuck out of mine,” Yaku retorts.
And then they drift.