When Nova had piloted with Liam, he had been told that his connection ran so deep because they were brothers. Because all their experiences had been shared since they had been children. Because they had such a long and extensive history together. Because he had never needed to ask Liam how he felt; each time they piloted, their minds slotted together easily. They rarely used to have a need for words.
Now, all they had left was words.
His mind still remembered the scream that had pierced the cockpit. The memory surfaced whenever the calibration sequence ran in the background. He remembered his nervous system being torn apart, the pain radiating across his back was just as real as his own, as was the shattered spine.
It drew cold sweat to his back, but just like every time before, he pushed it to the side.
This bond didn’t compare to what he’d had before. The simulation of Tiger was not the same as the real thing, Anders was slow and tense compared to Liam. Caspian was a stranger who did not know all the quirks Nova and Liam were used to.
“All right, I’m seeing a lot of stress signals on both vitals,” Caspian’s voice appeared to the headset, as if summoned by Nova’s thoughts. “Steady, pilots. Take a deep breath, try to sync it up. The system will help with the synchronisation, but you have to give it something to work with.”
Then again, there was a reason why Nova had insisted that Caspian would become his new operator. These were people he had chosen to be the best possible replacement for Liam. He drew a deep breath and heard Anders do the same. The anxiety tided over; Nova did not need the reminders after this many years of piloting, but Anders was still new to this. He would have to learn a lot in a short time, and he would have to learn how to adapt. Nova would not wait or slow down for anyone.
“Connection established.”
Nova took a moment to stretch his hands and arms. He felt the information carrying over to Tiger, saw the feedback of the mecha doing the same, heard a small rustle when Anders mirrored his gesture.
“That’s looking a lot better,” Caspian’s voice declared, “run through the calibration.” Nova started to perform the calibration sequence, Anders following and trying to match his pace. He had gotten better - in a way that Nova no longer had to tolerate actual mistakes in a simple, ten-minute coordinated routine. Once he had wryly commented to Anders that even underage pilots could learn it in less than a week, Anders had not fucked it up anymore.
“See? It’s not that hard.” Anders smiled briefly at Nova’s comment, but underneath the facade he could feel the more true emotions radiating across their bond. Sense of achievement, yes, but also frustration, well-tempered shame and tension.
Imperfections which would need to be purged. As long as they were connected, the two of them would be one.
Nova refused to be dragged down into Anders’s level.
“Calibration complete,” Anders declared. 16 minutes, well over what Nova considered an optimal result, but they would be getting there.
“That’s one minute faster than yesterday,” Caspian observed, and Nova heard him typing down something on his laptop, “all right. I’m starting up the standard simulation. Try to clear it in under ninety minutes, and that should be good. If you can’t-”
“If we take more than that on a standard simulation, both of you can go back home,” Nova interjected, annoyed. With him and Liam, clearing the simulation took a good, leisure hour, 50 minutes if they felt like speeding through it.
Through their connection, Nova felt Anders’s heart sink.
“Starting the simulation,” Caspian replied, and the familiar simulation landscape opened up before them.
Three weeks. It had been three weeks, starting on the fourth. It was undeniable that Anders was making progress, their required flight hours were almost completed, but he was still tense like a beginner. So much of piloting came down to instinct, and it seemed Anders simply couldn’t let go.
Nova sensed his own regret, frustration and pain reflected back through the connection between him and Anders as they proceeded through the simulation. Every second they spent connected gave Nova more information about Anders, how he felt, his determination, his drive.
But Anders was not the person he wanted to be here with.
If only he could go to the cockpit with Liam.
If only they could just go to the cockpit. Liam would sense ‘decommissioned’ as clearly as if Nova would speak it aloud, along with everything else that seemed much harder to put to words.
Perhaps Liam had sensed something was wrong. They had been brothers even before they became pilots, and Liam knew his tone of voice, expressions, the tiny things nobody else could read on Nova other than Liam. Nova knew Liam down to every twitch of an eyebrow and was always able to sense when he was angry or tired.
A thought about coffee appeared in Nova’s mind. The lukewarm, burnt coffee one could only get from the canteen.
Nova loved the taste. Loved how it brought back every memory of his and Liam’s morning practice.
Liam.
Grief gripped his chest so tightly it hurt.
“Are you shitting me?” Nova snapped and made such an abrupt turn Anders did not keep up. The clash of intentions felt like a brief flash of tension headache, before Tiger jarred to a stop.
“What?” Anders asked, his tone now impatient and frustrated as well. Nova shifted enough on his spot to be able to fully turn to Anders. His grief was rapidly turning to anger, which was good. Anger he could use. Anger he could direct, and most importantly, anger he could direct at others than himself or Liam.
“You are getting distracted by wanting coffee,” he raised his voice. “While we are in the middle of a simulation, you don’t think about wanting coffee, you think about piloting. Were you hired here to daydream?”
“Take it easy, you’re both doing good,” Caspian’s voice appeared through the comms.
“Stay out of this,” Nova snapped and killed the communication channel without having to look at the board, without having to take his eyes away from Anders. “Answer me. Are you here to daydream, or are you here to focus? Because if you’re not taking this seriously, you can fuck right off.”
Anders stared back at him. His eyes sparked with anger, but only a fraction of it made it to his expression. If not for the connection rippling between the two of them, Nova might not have even noticed.
“Sorry,” Anders finally replied, turning his eyes back at the monitor. “You’re right, I got distracted. I’m taking this seriously.”
“You’d better,” Nova said, latching onto the last fading embers of his anger as it started to die down. His hands were shaking just slightly as he turned back to the controls, feeling the simulator purring under his touch, mimicking how it felt to actually pilot Tiger. A quick glance to the corner of the screen confirmed that they would still be able to clear the simulation in good time.
“Caspian, you there?” Nova asked and activated the communication channel again.
“Right where you left me, pilot Creed,” Caspian confirmed, and if there was even a note of disapproval in his voice, Nova could not detect it. “You two finished sorting out your disagreements yet?”
“Yes,” Nova confirmed, “let’s go. We can still clear this under the allocated time.”
It had been an olive branch - at least sort of. They finished barely under 90 minutes, Anders tense and brief in his words, Nova just barely satisfied but determined to not scold Anders further. He needed time. As much was obvious. Even when time was something they did not have.
“All right, we got there in just under the allocated time,” Caspian stated, “good job, both. I’ll send a copy of the data to you both, so you can discuss what to do better next time.” Nova admired the way Caspian ejected himself from the potentially tense future conversation with both wordings and tone.
“Thanks, you’re dismissed for today,” Nova sighed and closed the channel. Anders leaned against the backrest as the simulation started to undo their connection thread by thread. The lights dimmed, and little by little Nova was peeled away from feelings that were not his. Sweaty palms, heart beating from frustration, deep-seated shame and inadequacy.
“You did alright for a beginner,” Nova said when the last strand of shared consciousness snapped between them like a taut string. As always, it sent a jolt through his mind, momentarily causing him to feel like his own body and head were too small, too tight, before settling. “But I don’t work with beginners. You’re going to have to do better.”
“I’m trying to figure out how to do that,” Anders replied, his voice strained from held-back emotion. “Every waking moment I have, I’m reading or going through the system manual. I feel like our connection holds. I’m not sure what exactly to do to make it happen better.”
Nova bit back an annoyed comment. Their connection was adequate at best, and Anders only claimed it held because he did not know any better.
His annoyance also came from knowing that Anders was doing everything he could. He had been through the same simulations Nova had, he had the same manuals, same knowledge. Everything could be simulated, except the connection.
Although, from what Nova had heard…
There existed some shortcuts to make pilots bond faster.
“Come with me,” he demanded and stepped down from the control area. “Let’s go to Hangar.”
Tiger was not yet fully fixed, but the connection system seemed mostly intact. The Hangar area was rarely guarded; all information of unauthorised activation went directly to the analytic team, and once they would check the monitor data, they could see the vital data login matching with Nova’s.
They would not bother him.
Outside, he knew everyone was finishing up, reading the last of the data, checking numbers and turning off the panels after a long day.
In here, it was just the soft glow of the blue lights, occasional sound of him or Anders shifting, their steady breathing and beating of their hearts.
“So we are just… going to sit here?” Anders asked carefully when the connection was established but Nova made no gesture to touch on the control panel.
“What, you wanted to take her out for a proper ride?” Nova sneered and felt embarrassment echoing through from Anders like ripples.
“No,” Anders replied obediently. “So what are we doing?”
“I know her inside out,” Nova told him as he reached over for the information panel, clicking open a hologram of the mecha, the two of them marked inside it as red, living dots of heat. “The weapon systems, the hull, the electronics, the whole walking arsenal.”
He swiped open different submenus from the hologram as he spoke and felt Anders getting more and more overwhelmed with each new piece of information presented to him. Then he clicked all of them shut and turned to look at Anders.
“Even if we would be called on a mission tomorrow, I can handle her,” he said firmly. “I have trained ever since I was a child, I have been on official missions for eight years. More simulation hours than most rookies here combined, sixty kills and counting Tiger has been a part of. You just need to do what I say, and we’ll work it up from there. Okay?”
Nova did not usually boast, but every now and then he liked to remind people that despite his age, he was not a rookie.
“Okay,” Anders replied and sighed out something that felt like relief in the connection. “I’ll do my best. I’ll do anything to keep up.”
Nova nodded in approval and turned to Anders. The blue light gave his eyes an eerie tint and made his white skin look ghastly. He could not have looked more different from Liam, and seeing what they were about to do, it was only a good thing.
“So,” Nova started, reaching over to adjust the strap on Anders’s shoulder and stepping closer with the excuse of pushing a stray bunch of wires back to their place. He stepped so close he could feel Anders breathing against his cheek. “How do you like Tiger?”
The connection between them filled with thoughts and emotions between the moment Nova lingered near Anders and the moment he stepped away. Some were easy to understand - confusion, slight fluster over sudden proximity, wariness over Nova’s sudden casual tone. Others were flattering, like the small pleasant grip at the pit of Nova’s stomach, the small flare of idle wanting.
Then there were the things that were not memories, but to a human brain, just as real - idle daydreams, fleeting and fickle. They were less logical and less tangible than real memories, but it was still difficult to separate one from the other unless you really, really knew your piloting partner well.
“She’s beautiful,” Anders admitted openly and laughed. Nova grinned.
“Sure is. And his pilot?”
When Nova saw Anders briefly glance at Nova’s lips and swallow, he registered an image of him and Anders kissing, then a furious attempt on Anders’s side to push the thought away. Nova grinned when Anders jerked his gaze back up from where he had been staring.
“Very skilled,” Anders said, his tone a desperate attempt at normalcy. “Very driven.”
“Uhuh. Is that all?” Nova leaned back to prop himself in a half-leaning position against the backrest, making sure to support his body partially with his arms. It did not escape him how Anders flicked his eyes down on the flexed muscles and then firmly to the monitors.
“I - somehow, I have a feeling you already have an answer to that,” he replied. Nova sighed and pushed himself off from the pedestal, his pilot suit dragging several cords and wires with it as he stopped to stand straight in front of Anders.
“Maybe I want to hear you say it,” Nova suggested, leaning closer as he reached for the clasp at Anders’s back, lips only a breath away from Anders’s.
Anders didn’t pull away, just like Nova knew he wouldn’t.
“There are some analysts who insist that having sex while connected helps you for a better bond,” Nova said and placed his hand on Anders’s chest. “Helps you get really close, really fast. Do you want to see if they are right?”
Sex was a poor replacement to piloting, but it was probably as close to being connected to another human as life could get. It was why Nova preferred to spend the majority of his time outside the cockpit engaged in the activity. Even when it left him wanting more, wanting to push more, press closer and closer and closer until he would not be able to tell apart himself from the other anymore - it was still the next best thing.
So, logically, this was just him combining the two things he liked doing the most.
Distantly he acknowledged that he had not actually had sex with anyone while connected to the mecha, nor did he know if the analyst rumors were actually based on anything. But he was frustrated, and this would not be the worst way to deal with it.
If it would have an actual positive effect on how Anders piloted, that would be a plus.
Anders did not respond immediately and instead just looked at Nova.
"It's up to you," Nova said and withdrew his hand with a sigh. It took a single second for Anders to nod.
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