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WHO Chris Halliwell (

aggrandize) / Cole Turner (

devilsinthedetails)
WHAT Pacific Rim AU. Chris is the neurotic, traumatized would-be Jaeger pilot and Cole used to be the neural handshake test dummy for newbies on account of having a rare mental disorder. Then Chris came along.
WHEN uh ider the dates in PacRim. Sometime. It happens sometime.
WHERE SHATTERDOOOOME
WHY Leo why did you leave your family, Leo why did you leave your oldest son to go crazy, LEO WHY DIDN'T YOU TAKE GUARDIANSHIP OF YOUR YOUNGEST

This was just a formality, really. Their neural handshake had already gone smooth as could be when they were found out to be a compatible pairing. Chris had to keep telling himself that, because the stories he'd heard of other recruits trying to make sense of Cole Turner's mind while it split apart around them only made him wonder more and more what kind of fluke of nature had caused his compatibility. Maybe it was because he was broken inside, too, but that was too depressing a thought and he shoved it away.

Suited up and entering the test room, Chris took a deep breath to steel himself. This time was for real, for keeps, minds introduced to each other and pressed until they opened up and shared what needed to be in order to clear the air. There wasn't any room for surprises in a Jaeger; the kaiju weren't going to give anyone a moment's rest, so they had to be ready.

He could do this. He would do this. There was no other choice.

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Cole didn't need to psych himself up before the drift. It is--well, was--his job to attempt to drift with potential Jaeger pilots and this wasn't much different besides the fact that they were actually going to initiate a successful handshake. They needed the practice and Cole didn't mind since it meant that he was finally going to fulfill his dream of becoming a Jaeger pilot like he's wanted to be since he was a child.

Stretching and flexing his limbs inside of the suit to get himself used to the feeling of wearing it, he looked over to Chris to see how he was doing. He was still new to all of this and Cole knew that he'd have to help out with his own knowledge and experience until until things fit together right.

"There's nothing to worry about," he said easily enough, sounding way too calm about connecting to another person's mind. "We've already shown we're compatible. This is just for the records."

Practice in both the sense of linking their minds and using their Jaeger. Their Jaeger. It was still all something foreign to Chris, an idea he was striving toward with grand dreams and furious vengeance that seemed to come all too easily. What an opportunity to drop right into his lap. If all went well with this test, they would see what linking up to the actual machine did rather than only simulating the stress of the machine on their minds. It was intimidating, exciting, enthralling and terrifying all at once.

Chris already knew they could do it. Now they needed to prove it to the higher-ups; more than that, they needed to achieve a true drift. Formality though it might have been, they were going to be opening each other up and looking for that spot in their minds where harmony could be achieved.

"No pressure, right?" said Chris, brow raised over at Cole. "Just all the officials watching as we Vulcan mind meld and see what comes out on the other end. Easy."

"Don't pay attention to them," Cole replied as he shrugged slightly. It was easy for him to ignore everyone there since he had dealt with worse during his life with all of the scans and tests that the doctors had been performing on him since he was a child. A group of officials seeing if they really could achieve a proper neural handshake? That was easy.

"All else fails, you could always imagine them in nothing but their underwear," he said with a soft laugh before he got serious, slipping back into his teacher role as he looked over at him. "You've got the training, Chris. Relax and let the memories flow past you and don't forget to not chase the rabbit."

For Chris, it wasn't so easy. Having strangers pry into his life was a necessary evil rather than something that could be ignored. Drifting was the same, a sharing of the minds that could easily go sour if they ended up in the wrong corners; Chris doubted anything in Cole's head to could match the memories of his own, but he wasn't going to let his guard down. He'd noticed something afoot during their first test run, that introduction that was meant to shake the newbies rather than start a partnership. They were in for something, at the very least.

"I know the drill," he said, only half as snappish as he felt. He was moving now, heading to the interface where they would link in and get the show started. The room was built to act like a Jaeger core, moving parts and panels, without being actually hooked up to anything. Part of the simulation was getting used to the environment as much as the neural handshake itself. "Just keep hold on whatever weirdness it is that gets everyone's panties in a twist and we'll be fine. Think you can do that?"

"If I could, I wouldn't be compatible with only you," he answered lightly as he followed Chris to the interface, sticking to the left instead of the right where most people would expect him to go. Cole knew his own limitations and thanks to his issues, he sure as hell wasn't going to take the lead when there was someone seemingly more mentally stable to take control.

"Think you can handle taking the right for this?" There was a hint in his voice like he was testing to see his reaction to being asked to take charge. Would he take control or would Cole have to? It was better to learn now than out in battle, after all. "Or do you want to trust my brain damaged self to take the lead?"

Chris scoffed at the movement, the question, and simply took his place at the right without even needing to be asked. Taking the lead wasn't his style, but he also wasn't someone that would balk at the idea of pressure. His life had been nothing but pressures and hardships, things he pushed his way through with aplomb. The fact that he was still alive spoke well of that.

"Don't flatter yourself too hard there," Chris quipped. It was some kind of power play and Chris didn't care. He would do what looked like the good option to him, regardless of how it would affect him politically or with his partner. That was part of the compatibility, wasn't it? They were on the same wavelength somewhere, able to pick at each other's weaknesses and make up for any slack. "We'll see how this configuration works first. Good with you?"

That was what he wanted to hear and he tilted his head in acquiescence. Cole wasn't really the one in the spotlight right now, but instead it was Chris. He had all of the training a ranger needed, but Chris only completed part of it before their drift compatibility was found out and there was a lot of suspicion that they weren't actually compatible. Cole knew otherwise, but the officials needed proof before they'd sign off on allowing the two of them into an actual Jaeger.

"You haven't seen anything yet," he replied with a quiet laugh and started to check his side of the interface to get ready for the handshake. "Good with me. Prepping for neural handshake." There was a pause and he glanced over at Chris. "No pressure."

At the echo, Chris gave a light huff. Whatever happened was going to determine whether Chris would get to pilot a Jaeger once he was more formally-trained. The whole process was backwards, but no one was in a position to deny that finding a drift-compatible partner at any point along the way made him a prime candidate even if he hadn't proven his battle-readiness yet. People who were drift-compatible were far too rare to let any slip away no matter their unique conditions.

"Prepping for neural handshake," Chris said, an agreement for them to move on. He was checking the interface just like Cole, reading the information fast as he could and tucking it away for later. This part was just slightly beyond his ken but he would do everything he could to play catch-up once this show was over with. Their handler for today came up over the speakers.

Neural handshake in 15... 14... 13...

This was the worst part, hearing the countdown in his head over the machinery and the sound of his partner. Sure, he might have seemed calm, but every other time except for the first drift with Chris ended with the pain of the other pilot coursing through his head as they panicked and screamed around him. To say he was a little bit tense about this was an understatement.

8...7...6...

That wasn't going to happen this time. Chris was compatible which means that they could do this, the two of them together. They could handle each other and Cole stole a quick glance over to Chris, not saying a thing. From what Cole had gleaned from the last time they drifted, he knew that he was tough and could handle this. He was calming down, which would definitely help for the drift and keeping their neural handshake stable.

3...2...1

His eyes shut and he felt the mental tug pulling him back and down, like someone was trying to pull him under and drown. Instinct took over and his other side forced itself through, strong where the other was weak, and rode the drift like it was nothing. Memories flitted by, Dad spinning him around like he was an airplane, Mom knocking him down to the mat when he was still a kid "You can do better, you were raised better. Get up and go again", his father's body sprawled on the floor with skin the color of kaiju blue, doctors standing above him with machines surrounding him in an almost suffocating manner. Memories layered upon each other, two different outlooks of the same scenes playing, flipping through memories to the point where it could almost be headache inducing.

And his eyes opened.

Compatibility and understanding were two very different things. Chris was ready for whatever would hit, having the brief taste of Cole's mindset the first time had him bracing for impact. It was something else entirely, that was for sure, not anything like what Chris had been told to expect. And yet... whatever it was that pulled everyone else apart merely melded together when met with Chris's mind, splitting over the jagged ends and meeting on the other side. He would let it happen again, less resistance than before.

3... 2... 1.

It hit like a truck, brain grabbed and split open and dropped into the mixer. Where Cole's mind went to younger years, Chris was much more focused on the present. His past was some other age entirely, a gulf between that one moment and the next and they were two very separate places. Everything was black, the sky grey, caskets lowered into the ground and the only point of color being the blond of his father's head walking away and not looking back; his grandfather was there one moment, gone the next in a haze of unbearable smoke, and then Chris was on his own. Fighting for his life, his right to succeed, pushing and pushing where people would knock him down until he could catch the eye of just the right person.

Those multiple outlooks were almost grounding in comparison. One, a view from the Chris Before and the other coming from the angle of the Chris After. It made sense to him, differences so extreme that they would be incomprehensible to anyone else who felt such a polarizing strain trying to meld with what singular life they knew. Chris, on the other hand, knew what had been and what was now. It fit.

He opened his eyes.

Neural handshake confirmed.

Neural handshake confirmed.

Now that's what he wanted to hear. Chris's memories were ones Cole could handle and he grinned widely at the fact that they had succeeded. So much for everyone thinking that they couldn't make this work. He couldn't help but laugh like a madman about this. They were proving everyone wrong and it was wonderful.

"How are you doing over there, Chris? Handling my brain well enough?" He didn't need to hear the answer thanks to them being connected, but it'd be better if he vocalized at first. Cole did remember his training, as long as it's been since he had gone through it. Tapping a button on the interface, he turned on the radio to everyone watching. "We looking good over there, eggheads? Or are you worried we'll break down and start crying because we can't handle each other?"

"I seriously don't see what everyone else freaks out about," Chris said, an honest reply as he sifted through these melded thoughts. There was a part which was still definitely his and part that was still definitely Cole's, yet they were open to each other if they saw fit to wander around. It was like a large, open house that had been stitched together and all the locks removed. Being in proximity was the only option, no way to fully disconnect, and the movements of Cole's body felt like an echo of Chris's own.

Floating was the best way to put it. Being sent adrift in the newly-made mind that resulted in the mishmash. Chris could see how easy it would be to get lost, follow the proverbial rabbit, just one wrong move sending thoughts spiraling off in the wrong direction and taking the house of cards down with him.

He focused. Extended their right arm, twisted their wrist, stretched their fingers before folding the hand into a fist. Thumbs up. Those eggheads could suck it, no matter whatever placating drivel they were giving over the radio now that contact had been established. Easy-peasy.

"They can't handle the fact that my mind's split in two instead of being whole like a normal person," Cole explained as he let his mind float along the river of memories that was the drift. He didn't let his mind linger for a second so that he wouldn't get lost among them. It was easier for him, since one half of him was dormant at any given time. "Mental disorder causing a split in the mind thanks to exposure to kaiju blue in the womb."

His body copied Chris's movement down to the nearest muscle twitch. They were very much in sync right now and it was even better than previously thought. He moved his left hand, curling it into a fist and punching it forward sharply, too fast for a Jaeger to mimic, but they weren't in one yet and Cole wanted to test their reflexes. "Can't wait to go out there and kill some kaiju."

Well, that was certainly more of a concrete explanation than Chris had been expecting. Even as Cole explained, Chris understood; he felt the diagnosis, the knowledge of the two halves that made Cole. Understood that the one in charge during the drift was different than the one acting out his daily life. It was forced symbiosis of a single being, the opposite of a drift and what would make everyone else shrink away from lack of comprehension.

Not Chris, though. He knew what it was like to be split by something so amazingly polarizing that to look at it with one pair of eyes gave an entirely different perspective than to look at it with the other. When Cole moved with such a quick and violent snap, Chris followed along. His mind stretched and pulled taut at the sudden burst of fighting spirit coursing through his veins. Like adrenaline reacting to sudden terror, kaiju at the center of it all like they always were—

"Come on, Chris, open my present first."

Chris jerked back. He was at home. It was his birthday. His heart was pounding and things were wrong. There was blood on the floor and the walls, his brother standing over him and the lifeless body of their mother. His hands were slick and he could hardly see for the tears in his eyes. Wyatt was talking and Chris would never forget those crazed words, the last things his brother would ever say.

"Please, don't run! Stop—this is okay, Chris, I promise! I love you, and I love Mom, and don't you see? It's okay, I'm just doing what I have to do," he was explaining, like it was the simplest thing in the world. "Everyone's always said I have to be the strongest and that's what I'm doing. Those kaiju aren't going to stop, so this way you'll be safe. We'll all be safe."

His throat was raw, words weren't coming. That's right; his ear was bleeding where a bullet had already clipped it, an accidental discharge when Chris had charged against his brother and been tossed to the ground next to Piper's corpse. Their aunt was dead. Cousins hiding. Father absent entirely. It was just them now, Wyatt and Chris and whatever demons had destroyed his brother's sanity.

It was like whiplash hitting them and Cole felt himself being dragged back under more painfully, like someone forcing him underwater until he could no longer breathe and started to drown. Something went wrong, one side of him thought as everything seemed to come into focus.

Chris.

This was unfamiliar to Cole outside of Chris and he--they--moved closer to him, trying to get close enough so that he could pull him out of the memory and back to the present. He noticed everything around them, the death and blood and the world being upside down. The exact moment may be unfamiliar to him, but the general idea was one he was far too familiar with in his life.

"Chris!" "Chris." Two sides of Cole, one side gentle and the other side rougher, more panicked, called out to Chris to try and pull his attention away. "It's just a memory. You need to focus!" "This isn't real, Chris. You need to pull yourself out of this."

He couldn't hear anything but his brother. His world was focused on that gun being waved around, pointed at him, the gun that had stolen so much life around them already. He couldn't even speak. His world had basically crumbled under his feet and there was still more to be taken away. His shoulders heaved from the effort of merely continuing to exist in the face of this devastation because it wasn't over. There was more to come and Chris had to do something.

Wyatt was still talking, genuine care and emotion in his pleas that would always stand out against the pain of Chris's heart splitting in two. He had to do something and part of him already knew how this would end. Faster than he'd ever moved before, faster than he could think about it, Chris surged up from the floor and took Wyatt's arms, tackled him to the ground. They were rolling and fighting and yelling and the gun went off one more time. He'd lost count of how many shots were fired, had no idea how many the gun could even hold. It didn't matter.

Those few moments were everything. His grip was slick with blood and sweat, Wyatt's size and strength overpowering but Chris's determination unwavering. He had nothing left but this fight in him, this destructive rage that told him to survive and they struggled. Wyatt twisted and turned, pushed his own hand to try and force the muzzle at Chris's face and he put all of his weight into keeping it turned away, hands grasping in futility for control of the gun.

It all happened pretty quickly after that. Wyatt's hand slipped, blood or a cramp or something else weakening his hold, and Chris had the gun, sat up long enough to turn it around and aim.

Bang.

Everything was over quickly and when they saw a moment, they took it, both halves of Cole rushing over to Chris and pulling him away from the strongest parts of the memory. Both halves stayed close and they grabbed him into a hug, holding him and trying to comfort him, one half petting his hair gently.

"It's okay Chris, we've got you." "Come on Chris, come back to us." Both sides were doing their best to draw him out of the memory without resorting to cutting the link entirely, knowing that would shake Chris up more on top of the memory. Cole could hear over the radio the sounds of their handler panicking and calling for them to respond, but he blocked that out. Their partner was more important. "It's over, it's just a memory." "A really bad one, yeah, but still a memory. You can go back into the drift now, Chris. We won't let you go."

Chris struggled at first. His mind couldn't comprehend the change going on around him, part memory and part reality clashing in terrible ways that he couldn't reconcile. Contact with Cole helped, and he soon quieted, his mind slowly pulling together to focus. They were still in the house — not the Manor, which had been destroyed when they were just little kids and was more of a dream than even a memory — and not in the drift. The house was no longer safe, covered in everything that formed the Chris After and separated him from the Chris Before.

This was the moment that pulled him apart in two, completely unlike what Cole went through and yet the exact thing that made them fit. All of it was right here, Chris and Cole coming together, and Chris found his breaths turning into sobs and an anguished yell where he could no longer hold himself up or fight. The gun was still in his hand, purpose served and forgotten, still warm with the breath that had killed his brother.

"This is real," he said. Awareness filtered in slowly. He was talking not to himself, but someone. Someone here where no one else belonged. "This is real, dammit!"

Two hands reached for the forgotten gun in Chris's hand, one from each Cole, working together to separate Chris from the memory in any way that they could. It was the first time the two halves have actually interacted and neither took the time to take advantage of that fact. Right now, Chris needed them more than they needed to be in contact with each other.

"Not anymore." "This is just your memory of what happened, Chris." Both were trying to get him to focus so that they could get him out without any harm done to him. He was their partner and they were going to make sure he stayed that way. "You chased the rabbit." "Now you need to come back, okay?"

There was a voice. Two voices belonging to one. Chris shook his head, trying to make sense of what was happening, sat back into the arms whatever was holding him. He could tell that much was safe, his mind reeling too far to make out anything else. Being separated from the gun was okay, it was more than okay, better than when he ended up almost shooting his grandfather in an adrenaline-fueled reaction when Victor showed up late to the birthday party. This was okay.

Everything was losing its focus around him. Was that okay? He wasn't sure. "There's nowhere else to go," he said plaintively. If everything was disappearing, would he disappear, too? No. No, he couldn't do that. He couldn't disappear with all of this still pent up inside him, this rage and boiling anger ready to burst at any moment, uncontrolled without a focus. He couldn't just lay down and die after all that.

They held onto him, comforting and protective. Both made a whole and right now that whole was focused on getting Chris out of this memory without issue. Cole put down the gun from the memory, moving it away and letting it fade of out of mind. It no longer mattered and if they could get Chris to focus, everything would be fine.

"Yes there is. You're our partner now, remember?" "We're drifting together right now, Chris. You fell into a memory and now you need to pull yourself back out." Hopefully, this would help pull Chris together enough to realize what had happened. "You remember who we are, don't you?" "Guy who can't drift right? Brain damaged beyond all repair?"

There was a scoff at the comment about brain damage, the first real, immediate reaction to their presence. Chris was slowly coming back to himself, back to Cole. This was real, but it wasn't current. That was the important part. He had to fight to return to the present, to right himself for both their sakes'.

"Turner," Chris said after a moment. That was a memory. Memory inside of a memory helping to pull him out of his mind. Something about that seemed just circular enough to work. "Cole Turner. You're... an instructor. We're drifting."

He was mostly repeating what had been said, but vocalizing it for himself was helping. The house was breaking down around them now, losing its solidity and fading into the background. It wasn't quite like awakening but there was the same kind of slow-returning lucidity to it.

Hearing their name made both Coles smile in their helmets and they knew that their time together was ending. As the memory was starting to fade, so too was their existence as two separate parts. One started to fade back into the other as the one in control kept Chris in the hug that they had started, not wanting to let until until he knew that Chris was truly pulling out of it.

"That's right," he said, his voice having a slight echo to it now that everything was starting to change. "We're drifting and you were stuck pretty hard in that memory. I can definitely understand why though."

He let out an annoyed sigh and turned his head to the right. "They're not going to be happy with us when we're done."

"They're buzzing around a lot," Chris said helpfully. He couldn't really hear the intercom yet, not while he was still pulling himself out of the memory and back into the drift. His external sensory input was still not quite reconnected with the rest of his brain. Slowly but surely he was pulling himself back.

He could still feel blood dripping, wet and sticky and drying, and tried to figure out which sense was real. "Why? We drifted. This was my fault."

"They do that when they're worried." He gave a little shrug alongside it like he doesn't see why they're making such a fuss when they can't really help from where they're at. Cole knows that they're trying to see if they can pull back out first before pulling the plug completely, but they don't have to be so noisy about it.

"It's both of our faults. As the more experienced ranger, I should have made sure you didn't drop like you did." As he spoke, he looked down at his left hand and clenched it into a fist. "Besides, I think I might have triggered it. You were fine until I got a bit too excited."

He was making headway, clearing out. His lungs felt full, eyes blinking against the light, but he could still stand where he was and be with Cole rather than separated by their interfaces. They were still in each others' minds, closer than ever before. They didn't need to speak aloud right now even if it wasn't as completely accurate as direct verbal communication.

"Not like you knew," he said indifferently. "I try not to think about it normally. That rush was just... similar, you know?"

Cole could tell that Chris was doing better and he was genuinely glad. They were partners now, connected by the drift and never going to be quite the same ever again, and Cole was content with the idea that Chris was the one that was compatible with him over everyone else.

"Now I know. And I understand," he replied with a nod. This side of him knew better than anyone else how similar it was. "I'm a different person when I'm drifting. I can't change that, so we're going to see about making sure you don't fall again."

That gladness was transferring over, the lack of secrecy between them something that should have felt invasive. Right now, it only felt welcome for being a stabilizing influence — as much as Cole was torn in two, those two halves were steady in their own right. It wasn't a war, it was a timeshare.

"Should be pretty easy now that I know what to expect," said Chris. He wanted more than anyone not to revisit that memory. Sleep was not going to come tonight, he knew that much. "Our compatibility isn't that mysterious anymore, though. You saw what I saw, right?"

He had his entire life to get used to being two parts of a whole torn apart from each other, so it was really no surprise that he was incredibly stable despite the obvious instability of having his entire personality split between two very different parts. Cole would gladly help Chris out in keeping him from falling back in and train him how to be the pilot that Cole could see he was meant to be.

"It usually is. First time drifting's always the worst, especially when you get caught off guard like that," he replied with a slight teacher tone in his voice. After having been in charge of training others for so long, it was second nature for him to slip back, even when the other half was in charge like it was now. "Sure I did. Didn't think you were aware of much until I helped pull you out."

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