Themes: sci-fi, Pacific Rim AU, romance/love (of course), giant robots, giant kaiju, tropey goodness, sort-of-enemies to lovers, Sehun being loyal, survival, trust, ex/late-boyfriend Johnny (i’m sorry!) 

TW: character death

Pairing: Sehun x fem!Reader 

Description: At the frontlines of the battle to save humanity from extraterrestrial threats, trust is the most important currency when baring every inch of your soul in a neural link to a military mech co-pilot. The last person that Sehun, an experienced Jaeger pilot, expects to have for a partner candidate is you -- especially when he knows a secret from your past that must be kept hidden. From you. 

Word Count: 3800

*Don’t bypass the prereading notes if you’ve never watched the film!*

Prereading Notes:

The Pacific Rim universe can be summed up as: giant Godzilla-type monsters (kaiju) keep emerging from ocean trenches in the Pacific Ocean, which has a direct link to extraterrestrial forces looking to remove humans for Earth in order to claim it for their own. Kaiju attack coastal cities in order to eradicate the human race. Humans build giant bipedal combat machines called Jaegers (German, meaning hunters) that must be piloted by two humans neurally (the mental load of controlling a Jaeger is too much for a human and also exposes them to radiation, something something). Jaegers help defend the “Miracle Mile,” meaning the strip of ocean within ten miles of Pacific coasts. ‘Shatterdomes’ are facilities built to manage the entire Jaeger process; most large coastal cities have their own with a few Jaegers to defend themselves. Pilots, techs, marshals, trainers, etc all live within the Shatterdome, ready for immediate deployment when a kaiju is detected. 

In order for two pilots (also called Rangers) to work together, they must enter the “Drift,” which exposes the deepest recesses of their minds to each other. Trust, compatibility, and complete openness is imperative, which is why many co-pilots are siblings or family members. 

My fic essentially kills off the main character from the canon film before most of the film’s events happen, in order to pave the way for Sehun to replace him as the main protagonist. I’m loosely following the timeline from the PacRim wiki, found here: https://pacificrim.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline_(Pacific_Rim). 

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2020

Two more pilot lives have been lost in the fight against Kaiju Knifehead. We mourn the loss of the legendary Jaeger plots, Ranger brothers Becket, but we as humanity have to press onward. 

The Pan-Pacific Defense Corps worries about the future of their funding, knowing they’re Earth’s last defense. But global politicians have other plans, other agendas, and other priorities like profit and power -- and they begin to whisper about a concrete wall built five times thicker than the Hoover Dam and eight times higher. 

A wall may protect the coast, but bandages to solutions never hold for long. 

All we can do is hope. 

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Busan Shatterdome, 2023

Alarms blare, and the wall monitor in the barracks blows up with a flurry of flashing lights. 

Sehun twitches awake, limbs flailing as he nearly tangles himself in the rough, PPDC-provided sheets. All but spilling out of his cot, he dashes over to his co-pilot’s bunk as other bodies in nearby bunks spring to life around him. Men in white tank tops shrug themselves into their uniforms while sleepily threading legs into fatigues, heads shaking as they attempt to snap into the alert.

“Dude. DUDE, Johnny, get UP, it’s a Cat-3 headed for Jeju and we have to go, all of us, come on!” 

He receives a muffled gurgle in response, but an arm juts out beyond the sheets to let Sehun know his partner is ready to go. Or will be soon, at least. 

With an adrenaline-fueled holler, he slaps Johnny’s cheeks and snatches his jacket from where it’s slung over the rungs of his bunk’s ladder. Sehun dashes for the door, yanking the hunk of metal with a loud creak and disappearing in an instant.

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The sirens only intensify in the massive chamber as mechanical clangs sound with each Jaeger that powers on. People scurry in every direction, some barking orders and some taking them, with others hopping onto cargo trucks or pallet jacks and zooming across the busy floor. Through the glass of his own elevator to his comm-pod, Sehun can see that Jaegers Tornado Spiral and Deux Lunes are preparing to be lifted, their pilots already calibrated, suited, and plunged into Drift. 

A screeching halt pulls the elevator into position. Sehun and Johnny file out, jogging along the metal grate walkway with hands raised in front of their eyes to reduce the glare from brightly flickering sensors. The floor is slick from constant cleaning -- military-standard scrubbings are absolutely necessary to ensure that all engineering operations and robot-operated vehicles move quickly and safely. 

Humanity is at stake -- there’s no margin of error.

Technicians run after them, handing the two men every piece of their uniform and ensuring every wire is rigged properly. Brushed metallic blue plates are thrown over their torsos, with a horde of helpers tightening every clasp  Staff in hard hats usher them through the halls and into their comm-pod, before pressing the keypad on the wall to force the hydraulic door shut. 

“Lock in,” Sehun instructs, tossing Johnny’s neural helmet to him. He steps towards the harness, stretching his spine before attaching his Drivesuit to the harness by the lumbar panel.

His partner responds with a wry chuckle. “Lock in, eh? Latched into our doom, with no escape.” 

But Sehun only shakes his head. It’s the last fluff his hair can get until the Kaiju is taken down. “Think of it this way; if we don’t lock in, humanity’s fate is sealed.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Johnny’s helmet hisses as it pressurizes to the oxygen line in the comm-pod. He steps backward with the muscle memory of several missions, and the harness adjoins to his Drivesuit seamlessly.

Reaching up to flick on the communications unit, Sehun establishes last checks with their technician, J-Tech Officer Zhang Yixing. “Yo, Lay,” he starts, referring to the man by his nickname. “We ready to drift?” 

The crackle of a reply takes a few beats to stabilize, but before long, Yixing’s affirmative response rings out in the chamber. “Everything’s a go.” 

Sehun inhales deeply, preparing for his mind to be laid fully bare before his closest friend. The warmth of the little LED lights illuminating his helmet’s face panel comfort him as they always do. He exhales, glancing over and expecting to see a nod of readiness, but instead Johnny faces forward with a tight jaw. 

“What’s wrong?” Sehun asks. Sure, it’s been months before any of the Seoul-based Jaegers were called into combat, but he’s seen Johnny almost daily. Everything should be normal, systems ready as usual. It’s rare for them to not perform their own little pre-Drift ritual; eye contact shared between best friends and the promise that they’ll make it out alive, together.

Johnny doesn’t reply. His eyes narrow, and he clears his throat.

Slightly alarmed, Sehun shakes it off, and tells Yixing to throw them into Drift. 

Yixing throws the switch forward at his control panel, and the two men in the comm-pod lurch forward. Blinking lights in the unit flicker and the comm-pod beeps to life. 

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The expected memories flicker by as usual while the neural link is established, always painted in a strange sepia hue. He witnesses familiar images: basic scenes from Johnny’s American upbringing, flashbacks of their shared ranger training, drunken nights out, and the like. 

Johnny’s partner always comes up towards the end of the link formation; Sehun can always feel the smile on Johnny’s face as Johnny notices her eyes on him. Sehun’s watched Johnny’s dates and some of his … more exciting evenings with her so many times, and Johnny’s seen inside Sehun’s life and relationships as well. There’s nothing new under the sun; everything’s going as planned. So Sehun relaxes, doing everything he can to keep his muscles limber and ready for the fight. 

And then the connection stutters; the memories are different. Something in Johnny’s mind is different. There’s something Johnny wants to hide. 

Then Sehun sees her -- one of the newest recruits, a pretty little thing looking to impress the more established pilots. Scenes from the combat training room flash before his eyes, then different settings. Shared glances in the cafeteria. Stolen moments in supply closets. Time in the Jaeger simulation unit, testing each other’s Drift compatibility. 

But the last scene to play out from the recesses of Johnny’s brain makes Sehun recoil in his haptic suit: limbs straining against the rough sheets of the bunks, soft gasps echoing out below. He was cheating on her. Johnny, his best friend and the man he quite literally trusted with his secrets and his life, was cheating on his partner.

“Uh,” Yixing’s uncertain voice echoes through the pod. “Something’s up with the Drift, but I can’t figure out what. The neural link has been established and it looks to me that you should be good to go -- but if you don’t feel safe, we’ll fix it and send in Rising Sun with Yunho and Changmin instead.” 

Johnny objects. “No, we’ve got this,” and he mutes their communications. 

Sehun gapes at him, speaking directly through their internal speaker link. “What the hell?” 

Johnny’s eyes say it all; he’s guarded, reluctant, but he can’t hide the truth. “I’m sorry,” he says, unsure if he’s apologizing to her or to Sehun. 

“I didn’t think you were the type to destroy someone’s loyalty like that,” Sehun spits. “Is that what you’ve been doing for the past few months? Sneaking around with a damn trainee behind her back?” 

But Johnny grits his teeth and looks upward as the small armada of Boeing Chinooks hook up to Black Pearl and begin to lift the giant feat of engineering up and into the sky for transport into the East China Sea.

“Life happens,” he says. “And that’s what we’re supposed to be doing right now. Making sure it continues to do so.” 

For the first time in all of the missions they’ve flown together, the comm-pod is silent as Black Pearl is airlifted to the coastline.

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Sehun has always had a low tolerance for dishonesty and disloyalty -- that propensity made him an excellent Jaeger pilot, and he was never the problem vector during simulations.

It worked that way when you were a blank slate with an unwavering set of virtues. Funny, he thought, there was always a group of other trainees in his class that avoided being partnered with him. But not Johnny -- never Johnny. Johnny had been one of his first friends; someone who wasn’t put off by his ferocious and ‘un-trendy’ moral code. 

That was the problem. Johnny had always been someone Sehun could trust and believe in, and look up to. 

This… this was an erosion of that trustworthy image. How could he have hidden it for so long? Sehun saw Johnny nearly every day, and not once did his own, neurally-linked partner think to confide in him. 

He knew why Johnny hid. Sehun’s sense of honor certainly frowned upon infidelity, and Johnny knew it. But wasn’t it better to at least say so in person, betraying Sehun’s image of him outside of the Drift rather than within it? Wasn’t that less risky for not only their lives, but for the entire coastline of Korea that they were being expected to protect? 

Sehun curses himself for not noticing the growing distance between himself and his friend, but he forces his disdain and betrayal down deep. 

They have a monster to kill, and that takes priority. 

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The Chinooks release the straps a few hundred meters behind close-range Jaegers Tornado Spiral and Deux Lunes. 

Usually, Sehun tells Johnny to brace himself, but he figures the other man knows. He relaxes his knees, keeping them loose, and fights the feeling in his stomach as Black Pearl free-falls towards the ocean. 

Giant waves crash away from where Black Pearl’s sudden weight displaces the water. For a brief second, Sehun sees jeweled greens and blues -- but as the ocean rushes back and the automated voice assistant alerts the two pilots of all the feedback from the oceanic cooling vents, the water turns black with depth and the oncoming dusk. 

In the distance, Sehun sees the three-armed Tornado Spiral rearing up its sawblade-ended limbs for a flurry of slices into the monstrosity’s body. 

This kaiju is a Category-3, all right -- all mass and muscle, brawn and breadth. Six buggy, sightless eyes line either side of a lopsided face. Sehun conjures up a distorted image of a wild boar-panther hybrid, except one with leathery skin instead of fur, and the ability to swim up from the greatest depths of the Pacific. As with all kaiju, this one -- unaffectionately named Yami (meaning darkness) by K-scientists Yunho and Changmin -- is disgusting, a hulking mass of ferocity. 

The intercom crackles. 

“Tornado Spiral to Control. This is one of the strongest Cat-3’s we’ve seen in a while; we can fight this off here and hold its attention, but we’ll need those detonating arrows from Black Pearl if we want to keep all of our Jaegers from becoming scrap metal.” 

“Copy that,” Sehun replies first, recognizing the voice from Tornado Spiral to be Jongdae’s -- always loud and clear no matter how fuzzy the communication line was. ‘Nice,’ he thinks to himself as he watches two of the three limbs sink their whirring teeth into the flesh of the kaiju. Must be Baekhyun and Minseok’s work, then, if Jongdae was at the intercom. 

Johnny grunts at Sehun’s right, reaching up with his right arm as the virtual indicators erupt around his Drivesuit for visual feedback. 

Outside, the mechanical arm of Black Pearl whines and creaks and hisses, a variety of pistons and sensors working together to lift the arm and curl the plate-metal fingers around a slim missile attached to the backplate of the Jaeger. 

Sometimes Sehun wonders why they outfitted ‘ole Pearl with a sort of makeshift bow and arrow when she could just as easily fire missiles from chambers, but he remembers that he and Johnny were both recruited for their archery skills. That -- and a Jaeger’s width wouldn’t be amenable to the kind of precision required for long-ranged attacks using ‘arrows’ the size of three eighteen-wheelers in a row. 

Their weapon isn’t so much a bow with a string attached, as it is an intricate barrel unfolding and re-locking itself along the length of Black Pearl’s left arm. Johnny inserts the extracted missile into the barrel’s opening on his end, and on their comm-pod visual displays, the weapon’s ‘bow’ illuminates. 

Even if Sehun can’t trust his friend to keep it in his pants, he knows in the least he can always trust the thing he needs right now: Johnny’s perfect aim when synchronized with his. Both men raise their left hands, gripping at the air around the hologrammed bow as the Drivesuit provides haptic feedback. With the visually represented ‘string’ loaded with the missile in the collapsible chamber, the two squint and wait for the kaiju to stop wriggling fo