Work Text:
They hadn't meant to. Sometimes things just happened. Because the world looked at them and they saw heroes, celebrities, people whose lives they felt they had some sort of right to. The right to invade their privacy. The right to comment on their lifestyles. The right to every inch of their bodies, minds and souls. They hadn't the slightest clue how much work it was. They didn't know how stressful the job could be. The emotions that rode pilots hard. The memories they couldn't shake. They weren't privy to the nightmares, or the near crippling sense of guilt or the nearly unbearable weight of responsibility whenever the Kaiju claimed another life. They didn't keep a never ending tally, didn't have to take a hit, or stare a Kaiju in the face and push back.
It could be too much. It could be entirely too much. Their demands. Their expectations. Their assumptions. Their presumptions. Sometimes, even the calmest, most reserved and professional pilots could snap...just a little.
The hostess smiled too much. Laughed too long. Kept too close. Touched a lot. When she grasped Trevin's wrist and tugged up his sleeve, running her fingers over the edges of his drivesuit scar, Bruce's entire body went rigid in fury. Trevin managed not to snatch his arm back. Their faces remained charming, but between them, in the ghost of their connection they felt nothing but violated.
"Is this some new trend among pilots?" she asked with a too broad grin. Knowing she had caught them, knowing she had cornered them. That they would have to respond, and she would be the one to break the story.
Bruce reached across his brother's body and removed her hand. To the camera, the movement appeared gentle, perhaps even affectionate. It didn't stop the tight, momentary bite of his fingertips. She was not as good an actress, though as she merely registered surprise, the audience failed to notice anything was wrong.
"You could call it a trend, I suppose," Trevin replied, rubbing at his wrist. Bruce's thumb traced over the scars with the faintest brush of skin. Sweeping away her invasive, uninvited touch and replacing it with a tender, understanding one. Trevin's jaw relaxed slowly. "All Jaeger pilots end up with them at some point."
She raised both brows, widening her eyes in feigned surprise. "Is it some sort of secret initiation rite?" she teased.
"It's what happens when a Kaiju comes too close," Bruce replied, chest tight.
She blinked at that, as the audience tittered.
The twins looked at one another and made a decision. Standing up in perfect synchronization, they began to unbutton. The audience threw catcalls their way, and the hostess gasped an overly playful "Oh my!" before fanning herself with her subject cards.
They slipped their jackets off, moving as one, minds falling into the steadying reach of the conn-pod and the reassurance of the drift. They removed their ties to the whispered, "Are they really taking off their shirts?!" hiss of an assistant director.
Their shirts were carefully folded and set down, but by then, the audience was already distracted. Reaching for the hem of their military issue tanks, they pulled them over their heads and set them aside. The audience gasped, voices rising in excitement.
The hostess had risen from her seat and was reaching for Trevin's side. Bruce caught her hand and moved it away from his brother. "These," he said, turning to the camera to showcase the patterned circuitry burns. "Are the brands we wear. The price we pay for holding the line. Every mark is a million lives."
"Where do they come from?" she asked again, hand already reaching. Bruce and Trevin both stepped aside, in an unconscious display of compatibility. It got Trevin out of range at any rate.
"Gifts," Trevin replied. "From the Kaiju. Reminders, from our Jaegers."
"Of what?"
"Of why we fight. Of who we're climbing into the conn-pod for."
"These," Trevin continued, looking to the audience, and facing the camera. "Are how we remember you."
They hadn't meant to romanticize it, but they couldn't help but be honest. Drivesuit scars were more than burns. They were histories. Appendixes. They were the way pilots mapped their lives. The line between reality and drift. The last part of your co-pilot when they were gone.
Drivesuit scars were the marks of their souls on one another. The world's way of distinguishing the people too stubborn to lay down and be stomped on. The ones who ran toward the monsters and spat in their eye.
They were a vital aspect of Ranger culture. Which naturally meant they were misappropriated and bastardized within the hour. Bruce and Trevin hadn't even gotten a chance to conclude their interview and escape in veiled disgust. No sooner were their shirts back on, their uniforms neatly tucked and ordered, than the studio were showing social media feedback. Markered on, doctored together with makeup, tacked on with stickers, photoshopped, and several people sitting in tattoo chairs grinning broadly as they etched their legacy into their skin.
The twins made it through the rest of the interview, managing to skillfully avoid commenting on viewer photos. They knew before the show went to final commercial break, they'd be singlehandedly responsible for exposing one of the best kept secrets of their kind. The loss of one more thing, in the wake of everything they had already been forced to give was suffocating. What made it worse was knowing that children would dream of their scars, wanting ones of their own someday, without ever knowing that every scar was a scream.