Chapter Text
Louis is sitting on his bench in Jackson Square when the call comes in. Glancing down at his phone, he sees Bricktop’s name and answers. Looking back, that was his first mistake.
“Hey, Bricks.” He can't remember the last time he spoke to her.
“That's Marshal Williams to you, Ranger Du Lac.”
“What? No fucking way!” Louis yells loudly enough to draw the attention of a passing family. He smiles inoffensively and lowers his voice. “Congratulations. That’s great.” He didn't know she was in line for a promotion, but then he's been out of that world for a while now. He hasn't even seen a Jaeger in months, apart from the images he sometimes catches on the news.
“Thanks. But I ain't calling just to soak up some well-deserved adulation. We need you back in the field.”
Louis sighs. “Bricks, no.” He's a little hurt she’d even ask, honestly. She knows as well as anyone why he stepped away.
“Just hear me out. I’ve got word of a fantastic jockey with a beautiful Jaeger. Dual core nuclear reactor and everything. Wolfkiller.” Louis assumes this is the name of the rig and not the jockey. Not that it matters.
“I really don't–”
“He's been partnering with Lily lately, but you know she don't like to stay with anyone for long. This guy needs someone permanent.”
“I can't, Bricks.”
“I know you think that.” Her voice softens a little. “You’re an incredible jockey, Louis.”
“I was incredible with Paul.”
“And you could be incredible with someone else. I know it don't feel like that's possible,” she goes on, before Louis can say it, “but I thought you could at least meet this guy. See where it goes. I know you miss being out there. Unless you got something else going on right now?” He doesn't.
Louis feels his resolve wavering. Bricks always has that effect on people. Everyone says she could talk a class 4 Kaiju back into the rift if she had a big enough megaphone. And the Kaiju spoke English. “Is he based out of San Francisco?”
“Sydney.”
Louis groans. “Are you kidding? No way.” He's never met a male Australian jockey that wasn't a handsome, macho meathead. Which is fine for a one-night stand, but not when you're talking about drift compatibility.
“Don't be so fucking prejudiced,” Bricks scolds him. “Anyway, he ain't Australian. He's French.”
“French?” European jockeys are pretty rare. Louis has worked with a few, mostly Brits and Germans. He can't remember ever meeting a French one before.
“He’s called Lestat de Lioncourt. Used to partner with his husband, until the husband died. So you’ve got that in common.”
“That’ll make for some really uplifting conversation.”
Apparently, the sarcasm is lost on Bricks. “So I'll tell Sydney to expect you in a couple of days?”
No. That's the obvious answer. Thanks for thinking of me. Take care. That's what Louis should say, but he can't quite get the words out.
The truth is, he does miss it. Misses being inside a Jaeger, misses fighting Kaijus, misses having a soul-deep connection with another person. Misses having a reason to get up every morning. There's no way he’ll end up partnering with this Lioncourt guy. Louis was only ever drift compatible with Paul. But would it hurt to go out to Sydney and meet him? If nothing else, Bricks would owe him one.
Louis sighs. “Okay,” he says, before he changes his mind. Before he comes to his senses. “But don't be disappointed when it doesn't work out.”
“Oh, I ain't worried about that, Louis.” She sounds far too confident. Damn promotion’s going to her head, Louis thinks irritably, and heads home to get his uniform out of storage.
***
Louis and Paul spent their whole career based out of the San Francisco Shatterdome.
It was one of the biggest in the world, with the highest number of Jaegers and jockeys. That meant a lot of time sitting around. They would have probably seen more frequent action if they transferred to a smaller Shatterdome, like Sydney or Vancouver, but Paul wouldn't consider it.
“We need to stay close to Mama,” he always said. Louis couldn't blame him really. Mama always loved Paul.
Sydney isn't much different from San Francisco. It's built on a smaller scale, but it's the same industrial design, all cold metal walls and poured concrete floors.
Louis arrives late in the afternoon, and is met by Lily.
Her hair is shorter than he remembers, dyed with copper-coloured stripes. She's leaning against a railing. For a second, when she sees him, she stays still, then she comes toward him, her boots clanging against the metal floor. Louis stops a few metres away, suddenly unsure what to do with his hands. They used to hug, before everything went wrong. Before Paul died. Before Louis left. That was a long time ago.
“Ranger Du Lac,” Lily says, with a smile.
“Ranger Bradley,” he replies automatically.
They stare at each other for a minute, then she laughs. “You look like shit.” That breaks the tension.
He shakes his head, grinning. “Good to see you too.”
Lily steps forward and pulls him into a quick, tight hug. When she says, “You’re so thin!” she sounds almost as critical as his mother.
“Yeah,” Louis replies easily, “well, you’re mean. And I can eat a protein shake or two.”
She hoots with laughter.
They were never drift compatible, and they never climbed into a Jaeger together, but he always liked Lily. In another world, a different world, maybe there could have been something between them.
“Come on,” she says, putting her arm through his. “I’ll show you around this dump.”
Lily and Louis walk side by side along the catwalk overlooking the hangar. Below them, a shining silver Jaeger hangs suspended in its maintenance cradle, its armour panels removed while techs work on it like doctors. Even after all this time, after everything he’s been through, Louis can’t help but stare at the scale of it.
When he continues speaking, he tries to sound casual. “So. You’ve been partnering with this guy Bricks told me about? The French one?”
“On and off. He's made quite a stir since he's been here. There's a lot of gossip about him.”
Louis never cared about gossip, although he knows it’s the backbone of any Shatterdome. He glances sideways at her. “And what’s the truth?”
For the first time since he’s seen her, Lily looks uncertain. “The truth is, he doesn’t really need a partner. At least, he doesn’t need me.”
Louis frowns. “What does that mean?”
They stop at the end of the catwalk, overlooking the furthest bay. It’s darker here, quieter. One rig stands apart from the others, like it’s being given a wide berth. Even powered down, it’s intimidating, more aggressive-looking than most.
“That’s Wolfkiller?” Louis guesses.
Lily nods. “He can almost run it alone,” she says. “Not safely. But he comes closer than anyone I’ve ever seen.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Tell that to him.”
Louis studies the Jaeger for a moment longer, then rests his forearms on the railing. “What’s he like?”
Lily is quiet for so long he thinks she’s going to dodge the question. Instead, she says, “He’s complicated.”
Louis snorts. “That’s not reassuring.”
“No,” she admits.
Another pause. The normal noises of a hangar–clangs, shouting, the aborted blips of quickly switched-off alarms–echo around them.
“I haven’t seen you in a long time,” she says abruptly.
Louis lets out a long breath. “Yeah. I know.”
“I was there,” she adds. “At Paul’s funeral, and after. You didn’t want to speak to anyone.”
“I know,” he says again, his throat tight. “I’m sorry.”
“You don't need to be. But when you disappeared, I figured that was the end of the line for Ranger Du Lac.”
“So did I.” Louis licks his lips. “Bricks told me this Lestat guy lost his partner too. His husband.”
Lily’s gaze drops to the darkened Jaeger below.
“Yeah,” she says. “He did.” She taps her fingers against the railing, then looks up at him. “Lestat de Lioncourt,” Lily says, “is the best jockey I’ve ever drifted with. It's not even close. He’s brilliant and so fucking intense it feels like your brain’s on fire just standing next to him.”
“I’ve met intense jockeys before.” Paul was nobody's idea of a relaxing time, that was for damn sure.
“That’s the problem,” she says. “You’ll think he's normal. At first.”
“Lily…”
She cuts him off. “He will get inside your head, Louis. Not just through the Drift. By being him. He doesn’t do things halfway. He doesn’t feel things halfway, and with a guy like that, shit never ends cleanly, even if you make it out alive.”
Louis stares at her, his pulse suddenly loud in his ears. “Why are you telling me this?” he asks.
“Because,” she replies, “I think you’ve already decided you’re going to be his next partner.”
Louis scoffs. “I haven't even met him yet.”
“No.” She looks at the Jaeger below them, tracing its lines with her gaze. “I wasn't there, so take this with a grain of salt. They say he and his husband were in a class of their own. Perfect neural sync. Watching them drift was like watching a single mind in two bodies. No one could keep up with them.”
“What happened?”
“The breach at Honolulu."
Louis remembers seeing the report: a catastrophic kaiju event, an emergency deployment, a comms blackout, one Jaeger recovered, one pilot lost, one pilot injured. He hadn’t read the names at the time. He’d been busy drowning in his own grief.
“What went wrong?” he asks quietly.
Lily shakes her head. “Depends who you ask. Officially, Nicki died during a system overload caused by a neural feedback surge.”
“Unofficially?”
“Some people think Nicki went out there with no intention of coming back."
Louis stares at her.
"They say Lestat pushed it too far," she goes on. "That he tried to hold the Drift alone after his partner lost sync. That he tried to keep Nicki there when he was already gone.”
A cold shiver crawls down Louis’s spine. “You can’t do that,” he says. “If one mind drops, the other has to disengage or it fries them both.”
She doesn’t answer. Louis imagines it anyway: the sudden silence where another mind–a mind you love–should be. Holding on to an empty space in the Drift like it might answer back if he just tries hard enough. His heart aches for Lestat, and for himself.
“Lestat survived, though,” Louis says after a moment. Just like he himself survived.
“Barely,” Lily replies. “He spent a week in a coma.”
Louis looks back down at the beautiful, dormant Jaeger. “And they let him pilot again?”
“He’s very persuasive when he wants something.”
“Lily, are you telling me he's a nutjob?" \
“He can be,” she says frankly. Then, she adds, “He’s also the reason Wolfkiller has the highest kaiju kill count in the southern hemisphere.”
“But he still can’t find a permanent partner?” A guy as skilled as that should have people lined up to test their drift compatibility. Unless there's something else wrong with him.
She shrugs. “A few other candidates have tried. Two of them couldn’t hold sync past fifty percent. One panicked and forced an emergency disconnect.” Lily grimaces. “She said drifting with him felt like standing too close to a star. Beautiful, but you can feel your skin starting to burn. And she's not wrong.”
Louis’s mouth goes dry. “So why me?”
“Because I recommended you."
"You did?"
"Lestat needs someone experienced. Someone stubborn enough not to get swept under.” Lily studies him carefully. “Someone who knows what it is to lose a co-pilot and keep going anyway.”
Louis clenches his jaw. “Grief doesn’t make us automatically compatible.”
“No,” Lily agrees gently. “It doesn’t.” She straightens up and glances toward the access lifts. "Come on, Louis." She smiles, bright and sunny the way Louis remembers her being, and like she didn't she just tell him a story that's worrying at best, downright terrifying at worst. “Let's go meet him.”
***
Louis has spent a lot of time–and even more after that talk with Lily–thinking about what kind of person Lestat de Lioncourt might be. He never paused to wonder what the man might look like.
If he did, he would probably have pictured a grizzled old veteran, one of the men with shaved heads and battle-scarred faces he knew in San Francisco. Someone with iron in his voice and hardness in his eyes, a person worn down by too many years spent fighting monsters inside a machine that could kill him nearly as easily as them.
He does not expect Lestat.
“Oh, please, mon ami.” The accent sounds like honey poured languidly over broken glass. “You’re bluffing so hard I can hear the gears in your mind grinding.”
Louis stops.
Lily has brought him to a wide mess hall overlooking the docking bays. In the centre, around a circular table scattered with cards and credits, sits a man who looks like he stepped out of Louis most private dreams.
His long, gold hair is pulled back in a careless ponytail, tendrils escaping over both of his ears. His skin is pale in a way that isn’t sickly so much as luminous, as if he's being lit from some inner source. His jumpsuit is pulled down to his waist, revealing muscular shoulders beneath a black tank top. There's a large, dark tattoo on the inside of his right forearm. Even from a distance, Louis can read the word “Nicki.”
Lestat leans back in his chair like a king bored with his court, his long fingers fanned around a hand of cards. Rings on both hands flash when he moves. A plume of smoke curls from a cigarette in his hand up towards the ceiling. His eyes flick up at one of the other pilots with delight just this side of predatory.
“Unless,” Lestat adds, his smile widening, “you truly believe I can’t tell that sweat gathers on your forehead every time you start to lie. In which case, by all means, go all in. I adore confidence in a man. It’s so sexy.”
One of the other pilots, an older man with a moustache, groans and throws his cards down. “You’re cheating.” His accent is American, from the South like Louis.
“My dear Tom!” Lestat sounds happily scandalised. “It’s not my fault you all broadcast your intentions like unsecured comms.”
From across the room, Lily calls, “Stop hustling the new guys, Lestat.”
Lestat turns his gaze on them. Suddenly, Louis becomes acutely aware of himself, of the stiffness in his shoulders, of the way his hands still shake on bad days, of the way Paul's departure left a hole inside him that nothing's come close to filling. Lestat rises in one smooth motion, stubbing out his cigarette and abandoning the table. The other pilots protest.
“Hey—”
“Lestat, you can’t just—”
“I’m out, ladies and gentlemen,” Lestat tosses over his shoulder. “Feel free to divide my chips amongst yourselves.”
He crosses the room with slow confidence. Up close, he’s even more beautiful. He looks like a weapon crafted for looks as much as for skill. Louis hates that his first thought is No wonder no one can keep up with you.
Lestat stops a respectful distance away, but it's still close enough for Louis to smell the tobacco on him. His head tilts slightly.
“You must be the famous Louis,” he says. There's a smile in his voice, like the two of them share some private joke.
Louis holds his gaze. “Wasn’t aware I was famous.”
“Maybe not to the public."
Lily clears her throat pointedly. “Lestat, this is not supposed to be a dramatic entrance. This is a meeting.”
He does not look away from Louis. “Everything is dramatic if you do it properly, ma belle.”
Louis’s heartrate quickens. He tells himself it’s due to annoyance. It must be that.
“Has dear Lily warned you what it's like?” Lestat asks, peering interestedly at Louis. “To drift with me?”
“She has.”
“And yet here you are. Either you are very brave, or a little bit foolish.”
“Or,” Louis replies, casually, “Maybe I just ain't convinced you’re as incredible as everyone claims.”
Surprise flickers on Lestat's face. For a moment, they look at each other. Louis is even more uncomfortably aware of how incredibly beautiful Lestat is, of how insanely blue his eyes are, but also of the massive amount of tension coiled inside him. He feels like a Jaeger running just below redline with no one else at the controls. In an instant, Louis understands this man with a clarity that unsettles him. It's not that Lestat burns too hot, it's that he’s always burned alone. Always.
“Well,” Lestat says, brightness snapping back into place like armour. Louis is glad of it. How do you tell someone you’ve just met that you know–just know–the man he married, the man whose name is tattooed on his arm, was never right for him? “We should at least see if we can tolerate each other before I let you inside me. Neurologically speaking, of course,” he adds, with a cheeky grin that makes Louis smile despite himself.
“What do you suggest?” Louis asks. “Poker?”
“God, no,” Lestat says, grinning. “Mon cher, I want to fight you.”