Chapter Text
Everyone who stepped foot onto the Phthia was required to drift with a fellow recruit in a simulation, their commanders attempts at making sure that if there were to be an unknown diamond in the rough, it would not go overlooked. Everyone was required, except for Patroclus, and for this he was grateful. His father had made a very convincing case that Patroclus might have certain memories that would disturb the other recruits and ostracize him even more than he already would be, and that there was no chance of him having any untapped potential for combat. It was a shameless attempt at saving face by his father but it did not stop him from being grateful. He knew no one would look at him and see an ace pilot in the making, he certainly did not see one when he looked in the mirror, so no one would find it strange when he was immediately placed under the care of the head medic on board and skipped any combat training.
He was one of the youngest in his batch of recruits, only just making the thirteen year old minimum by two weeks. As he was jostled around by the other boys and girls his age he couldn't help the wandering of his eyes as he surveyed the launch bay. Towering Jaegers went for as far as the eye could see, and it was truly difficult to imagine that two average sized pilots could possibly control such monsters. At the center of it all was the newly retired Deus Machina, their commanders old Jaeger with one of the highest recorded kill streaks. Gleaming a polished silver and bronze it seemed to shine like a beacon to the prospective pilots around him. Everyone knew that barely half of them would become pilots, but it had become the dream of nearly every child in the world. And standing at the helm of all this was Commander Peleus, a beaming man about his fathers age in a crisp blue suit decorated with medals that gleamed as brightly as his Jaeger. And by his side was his son, the golden boy that at 13, had already been hailed as the probable savior of humanity against the Kaiju.
Patroclus could still hear his father's words ringing in his head. That is what a son should be. Patroclus had been only nine when the special had aired on the news, that the son of two of the greatest pilots had already been accepted into the pilot academy and was being trained by the best tutors the world had to offer. He had watched as a clip ran of Achilles sparring with adult men nearly twice his size and beating them easily, his simulator scores nearly beating that of his father and mother. Practically super human, he sat in the richly plushed chair between his father and the host and beamed like a child let loose in a candy store. He knew the entire world was counting on him, and rather than running and hiding as Patroclus was sure he would have done in that situation, he seemed to embrace it all as if it were one glorious game just for him.
"That is what a son should be." He looked to his father, who was staring intently at the television, a grim look on his face. He was no star athlete, no great pilot to be. In a time before parents might want children to be doctors or lawyers, or perhaps to follow in their footsteps career-wise. But ever since the Jaeger program, everyone wanted a pilot. And if a parent learned that their child would never become one, even the best could not hide their disappointment. And his father was hardly the best.
Shying away from the memory, Patroclus looked back up at Achilles, still smiling as if he had not stopped in the last four years. His dark skin seemed to make his golden hair shine even brighter in the brightly lit bay. The boy was looking down at the batch of new recruits happily, surveying them with glee. His own face flushed and he looked down. The less he was noticed by anyone, the better.
"Welcome!" A booming voice rang out and he could not stop himself from jumping slightly. He looked back up to see Commander Peleus smiling warmly down at them. "We are happy to welcome you new recruits aboard the great Phthia! You are the best and brightest of your age and I know that you will make us all proud in our fight against the Kaiju terror!"
The crowd around him clapped and cheered and even Patroclus felt his spirits somewhat lift. Even if he couldn't be a pilot, he felt he could at least do something to help the Jaeger program.
His temporary lift of spirit very quickly fell when he saw he was being herded along with the rest of the recruits to the test chambers for their first drift.
"Wait! Wait I'm not supposed to do this, I'm not a candidate!" His heart hammered in his chest and he could feel his breath quicken. Luckily he felt a large hand clamp down on his shoulder and he turned to see one of the biggest men he'd ever seen. Dark, broad, and so tall he had to tilt his head back to see his face, Chiron was not what he would have imagined a medic to be. He looked more like a pilot than a man on the side working with bandages and salves, but he'd heard that Chiron was as good a medic as Peleus had been as a pilot. He had saved more pilots more times than anyone could count. He smiled ever so slightly down at Patroclus.
"Relax, recruit. You're to come with me." He began steering him away and Patroclus felt his shoulders sag with immense relief. The chatter of the others fell away as he was led to the sick wing. Pilots covered in bandages were milling about, laughing and bumping each others shoulders good naturedly. He was the youngest of anyone there but that was alright. He felt at ease among the smell of antiseptic and freshly laundered hospital sheets. It smelled clean and safe, a place for getting better, not getting hurt.
Chiron led him past a wall of photos and pretended not to notice as Patroclus slowed down to look at them all. He recognized almost all of them from the trading cards everyone at school had. He'd never bought them, he did not want to open the discussion of pilots with his father, but he had borrowed enough during free time to know all their faces. Helen and Menelaus in the Trojan Horse, gleaming golden and powerful. Odysseus and Penelope beside The Cyclops and it's signature single large and unblinking eye.
Finally he came to a full stop in front of the largest photo of a young commander Peleus and his ex co pilot, Thetis. Even in the faded old picture she was intimidating. Nearly two inches taller than her co pilot, she stood deathly pale and unsmiling, her fingers like claws as she clutched her helmet at her side, an excuse to not hold her partners hand. It was a poorly kept secret that she had been the first choice for commander but had turned it down. Many secrets about the two of them were poorly kept. She had only grudgingly allowed herself to be partnered with Peleus, who she saw as grossly inferior. The commander at the time had given her very little choice; he wanted his two best to be paired together. It was either work with Peleus or find herself a new job. It was also no secret that Peleus had been in love with her and that she had been far less than enthused with him. When she had tried to retire, he had made it nearly impossible, signing them up for nearly every drop to keep her too occupied to go through the proper procedures. It wasn't until she seduced him and purposely became pregnant that she was able to escape. Pregnant pilots were immediately grounded and could not fight.
Peleus had seen it as the opportunity he had been hoping for, that Thetis had come around and they could have a family. Only, Thetis disappeared immediately and was unreachable for the full nine months of her pregnancy. By the time the child was born, all the paper work had been filled and she was officially deactivated. She meant too leave with the child and never see Peleus or the Jaeger program again, but he was not satisfied with the situation. At six he had Achilles tested for his pilot potential, far too early for anyone else but even at that age he was showing promise. When a minor showed promise in becoming a pilot the government had the authority to take custody, especially when one of the parents could continue to be their legal guardian. It was said that when Peleus had come to take Achilles, she had promised that if they made her son a pilot he would be killed in the war, an eerie prediction that everyone openly regarded as the words of a concerned mother, but worried it was an accurate forecast by someone who knew the war better than anyone else, who had watched pilot after pilot killed alongside her. She still visited occasionally, but only off the ship and away from the Jaegers and everything to do with her past.
Chiron gently cleared his throat and Patroclus hurried to catch up, embarrassed by his staring. He was to be living with people like this now, he couldn't see them as heroes. Not if it was his job to to bandage them and take care of them. They had to be just like anyone else. But as he looked at the slightly wounded pilots around him, it was hard. These were people he had grown up watching on television and idolizing. He had spent two weeks piecing together the shakily recorded footage of Cyclops' first fight that he found online just so he could watch their fighting style, the way they moved with such precision and speed, like it was controlled by one person rather than two. He could still run through every move in his head when he closed his eyes. It was hard not to see them as god-like when they could defeat monsters like Kaiju. One minute they were men and women milling about and drinking coffee, but in a moment they could be hundreds of stories tall and nearly invincible. He imagined it was as close to being a god that someone could be.
Setting his things down on a small cot by the wall, he surveyed the surroundings that would be his new home from now on. He had been on board for less than an hour but he already felt more at home than he ever did with his father. The pilots and fellow medics were smiling at him, no one was yelling. Maybe he really could be happy here. He just had to write to his father and tell him he was unhappy to ensure his stay, and everything would be fine.
--
His days were busy, but enjoyable. He woke early to help Chiron gather the supplies needed for the day. Days when there were no attacks meant tending to the healing or helping anyone who sprained a wrist or an ankle during training. He cleaned, he cooked, he carried boxes from one end of the sick wing to another, and it wasn't long before he could feel his muscles firming and the work becoming easier. He grew tall and strong and occasionally wished his father could see that he had grown out of the thin little child he used to be.
His only time with the other children his age were during meals, which Chiron insisted he eat with them. It was awkward at first, he had missed out on the bonding of training, but he soon found a friend in a girl his age named Briseis. She did not speak English as well as the others and had not become close with many of the other children, so Patroclus would talk with her as much as he could, although most of their conversations quickly fell into a game of charades that left them both laughing until their sides hurt. When this happened, he would often look up to see Achilles watching him from another table with a strange look on his face that made his stomach flip in a strange way. He could never meet his gaze very long, his face heating with embarrassment for an unknown reason.
This went on for five mostly quiet years. After two, Achilles was officially deployed as a Jaeger pilot with his mentor Phoinix in the Aristos Achaion, an enormous gleaming Jaeger that, to Patroclus, seemed to make all others fall dim in comparison. He was the youngest pilot and soon proved that his age was not a hindrance as he killed Kaiju after Kaiju with apparent ease, often laughing that he had hoped for more of a challenge.
After any fight that ended on land Chiron would take him to where it fell to harvest whatever parts could be useful. His stomach often turned at the sight of the great dead monsters, but he prided himself in being able to keep the down the bile and help Chiron as best he could to get them both out of there as soon as possible. He hated the scent of the monster's burnt flesh or the unblinking stare of its dead eyes. He did not understand how Achilles could look at something like that and not think of it as a challenge.
The day it all changed, everything started as usual. He ate with Briseis and her training partner Deidameia, both laughing as Briseis mimed the dying Kaiju clip that played at the end of every simulations when an alarm sounded overhead, signaling an attack. In a moment, everyone was running. The pilots and the recruits who had become engineers to their Jaegers to hear if they were being dropped, those still in training to the control room to watch the monitors along with the recruits who had become technicians, and Patroclus and those who had become medics to the sick bay to prepare any materials they might need if the pilots came back injured.
Chiron was setting down a radio as the entered. "The Aristos is going in, I want duplicates of any medicines we might need ready within the hour. If you do not know how to account for height and weight, ask Patroclus for assistance. If not, help anyone who needs it so we can be ready as soon as they need us." They all nodded and hurried to their stations. In instances like this, Patroclus was in charge of the painkillers. As he gathered and measured, he found a thick knot of worry in the pit of his stomach. He had heard it was the biggest category three they had seen so far. As a few recruits asked him about what antibiotics would be needed and if they should reclean any surgical tools, he tried to tell himself that Achilles was more than capable of handling this as he had all the others. And if not, what did it matter to him? Achilles was just another pilot, one he did not even know. It was his job to worry after someone got hurt, not before.
It was nearly two hours later that Chiron burst back into the sick bay. "We're needed on the deck ASAP, we've got one unconscious pilot and one that spent eighteen minutes piloting solo. I need four with me and four waiting here as backup." Patroclus ran after Chiron while the other medics carried the supplies, his heart beating the fastest it had in years. Achilles was hurt, no matter which he was. When they reached the deck he saw Achilles, still in his full gear, covered in water and being supported by two other pilots, tracks of blood running along his jaw and down his neck. He had the overwhelming urge to go to him, but Chiron pointed him towards where Phoinix lay on a blanket to his left, his forehead bleeding. As he cleaned the wound and checked for signs of a concussion as Phoinix slowly woke, he couldn't stop his mind from wandering back to Achilles and whether he really was going to be alright. He had heard of pilots in other parts of the world piloting alone, but never successfully, and never for that long. And yet, even with what should have been enough to possibly kill him, he was still laughing weakly and cracking jokes to the recruits cleaning him and giving him intravenous painkillers as they prepped him for more extensive tests. Patroclus could not help but admire him. Peleus was standing to the side and beaming proudly as Achilles walked away with some assistance to the sick wing. He really is everything a son should be.
That night, Patroclus let his mind wander to Achilles again. Although this time, it was not Achilles the pilot or Achilles the patient that he found himself thinking of, but Achilles the rather attractive man he had become. He had grown tall and lean, his skin having grown even darker by hard training sessions out in the sun that Patroclus had occasionally watched with the other recruits, his muscles moving fluidly as he practiced fighting with a staff, a sword, a spear, or simply his bare hands. Almost everyone had fought him at some point for the challenge and excitement, but Patroclus had always hung back. He was strong, and he had grown fast out of necessity, but he was no fighter. He lacked the instincts or the finesse for anything but a challenge of brute strength. And even then, he often threw the competitions to make the other recruits happy. But as he imagined those training sessions again, he began to wish he could fight Achilles, wish he could get up close to those lithe muscles and those brilliant green eyes.
Shaking his head, he tried to distract himself. These were not things he should be thinking about, not about one of the pilots. Sure everyone on board had crushes occasionally, especially on Achilles, but Patroclus could not afford to do that. Not on someone whose life could depend on him one day. He couldn't afford to let himself be compromised, not like earlier. It was dangerous for him and it could be dangerous for Achilles. He sighed, covering his eyes with his forearm and distracted himself by reciting every medicine they had on hand and what they were used for.
The next morning he thought his temporary madness might have subsided and left him perfectly fine with no emotional attachments to Achilles or any other pilot, all until Achilles walked into the sick wing, asking for him. Warily he walked over, a question poised on his lips when Achilles simply told him to walk with him, which he did silently, confused and awestruck. They headed out of the sick wing and towards the center of the base, Achilles staying silent except for his occasional humming or friendly greetings to anyone who passed them. After a few silent minutes, Patroclus awkwardly cleared his throat.
"Um, Achilles?"
"Yes?" Achilles turned his head slightly towards Patroclus without breaking his quick stride, taking a sharp left and leading them further down a corridor Patroclus did not recognize.
"Where exactly are we going?" He looked around, trying to remember what this part of the ship was used for.
"Drift simulation. Chiron says to heal I need to drift under stressless conditions to reacclimate."
Patroclus was speechless with nausea and horror as Achilles held open the simulator door for him and waved for him to step inside. He wanted to protest, dig his heels in and blatantly refuse, claim an excuse, or simply run the other way, but Achilles was watching him expectantly and he found himself walking inside and over to the drift helmet on the far side of the room, his legs barely supporting his weight as Achilles followed on his heels and began strapping himself in.
With shaking fingers, Patroclus did the same.