#pinksnikt

quentin hasn't told anyone, but piloting riot alone has been taking its toll. migraines with vicious auras, absence seizures, the occasional bout of bleeding from the face - he's got it all! but nobody gets to know, or he'll be shackled to some shiny, fresh-faced newbie who's only ever run sims, making a mess of his conn-pod and his mind. hell, he doesn't even want a veteran at his side - after jean died, the utopia shatterdome tried having him and her widower drift, but even scott - perfect, golden, practically raised in the program scott summers, compatible with anyone - couldn't handle him. the failure wasn't even quentin's fault, really - the feeling of their drift, of another limitless mind touching his, had sent scott chasing rabbits, lost in memories of jean that quentin had to tear away from to force an eject.

he's not doing that again. if he goes down, he goes down - and it'll be him and riot and no one else.

which is all fine and well, except the ppdc needs him. it needs all their active pilots and battle-ready jaegers, recalling all teams and staff to utopia to make the program's final stand - which is how quentin meets logan.

logan howlett is old guard, for the jaeger program - his first deployment was in a mark i, weapon x, out of anchorage, until it was eventually phased out. his copilot, victor creed, stayed in anchorage while logan sought a transfer, working with commands and jaeger engineers around the pacific rim to improve the program. when he did get back in the cockpit, it was with his son, running several missions out of the tokyo shatterdome until their jaeger was destroyed, leaving logan severely injured. by the time he reaches utopia, he's got enough pins and screws in him to rival a jaeger, and most of his job is overseeing personnel, both cadets and rangers. he's got a keen eye - and seeing quire in person for the first time, instead of just studying footage of omega riot, he can tell something's up with the kid.

and he's right. riot comes in from a run and, while quire tells the ground team he's fine, just needs a shower and sleep, logan trails the kid to the lockers and finds him snorting a glob of red into a sink. when he asks if that's what passes for fine at utopia, quire bares his teeth and tells him to fuck off, and his mouth is stained with blood.

so logan leaves quire there to go ask the ground team if he can see riot's conn-pod - he's never worked with a one-man rig - and lets them find the blood all on their own.

one workup in medical later and quentin is benched, the threat of disassembling omega riot hanging over his head if he pushes back too hard against any intervention. he needs scans, he needs preventatives - and he needs, xavier insists, a copilot. he still doesn't want one, but the idea of having his jaeger scrapped makes him sick to his stomach, so quentin acquiesces to compatibility testing, after some enforced rest. it's not like it'll be any different from the past two hundred times they tried finding him a copilot - he's going to chew through a batch of cadets who can't keep up, whose attempts at dialogue in the ring feel like they're stuttering through a prom proposal instead of offering a partnership, and end up sitting on his ass, quietly stewing in his own bitterness, until command decides they can't afford to have him out of commission.

logan's never been here before, though. he studies the placement rounds, watches the way quire aggresses - and of course he's never found a copilot, because he doesn't even consider the cadets they put in front of him. sure, they're all a little nervous - quire's a damn prodigy, a living legend - but the kid sees it and immediately discards the idea that his opponent is even an option. he's ruthless, unceasing, a barrage of blows and takedowns until his partner is forced off the mat, and a good few are nursing more than just sore pride as they watch their classmates approach quire like a wild animal.

he leans over to chuck to ask if he can get in the ring with quire, and xavier seems bemused - but he allows it, stops quire from leaving in a huff after he's beaten his last cadet into submission and tells him he's got one more fight. when charles says it's logan, quentin looks at both of them like they've lost their minds. he's not sticking around to entertain some has-been's pride, or whatever the hell this is about. bad enough they keep trying to make him babysit - riot's conn-pod isn't a goddamn retirement home.

logan asks if he's really that scared of him, and quentin gives him that same snarl as before, in the lockers, teeth blessedly free of red, before telling him to get in the fucking ring.

neither of them expect anything more than bruises from a fight - logan just wants to put the kid in his place, and quentin wants to make the old man eat his words. but from the first time their staffs meet, something just... clicks. the last thing logan expected was to actually find out they're compatible, but he can tell, from the look in quire's eyes, that he knows it, too. the mean little smirk quire had approached the mat with turns to something that, if logan were stupider, he'd call out as enjoyment - there's a thrill in every point scored, each strike and dodge, quentin's strange elegance complimenting logan's long-trained discipline until they feel like one damn unit.

quentin's the one to call the spar, breaking a hold with a sharp elbow to logan's gut before scrambling to his feet and spitting that he's done. the cadets got trashed, the relic got to relive his glory days - if they need him for anything else, don't.

logan shouldn't care - the kid's right, after all, that he is past his prime - but, god, he hasn't felt that in years. still, he's not gonna beg his way into a conn-pod with someone who won't even give him a shot, who's more likely to chase the RABIT out of pure spite than let them get a foot out of the jaeger bay, so he leaves it.

it's his son that gets him to reconsider, practically bristling as he hunts logan down in the base. he and the kid are friends, or something like it, and akihiro knows about quentin's medical shit. he also knows they can drift, thanks to laura's former classmates quire had bullied in the ring, and he insists logan get the fuck over himself and keep the kid from killing himself. he wants to argue - wants to say that quentin's not his responsibility - but the words fall short. logan was the one to suss out quire wasn't well, the one to lead his team to the proof they needed to bench him - he'd already made quentin his responsibility. backing down now because the kid's got a bad attitude, especially when they're drift compatible, is shitty of him.

so he asks... charles. quire's been dodging him like he's venomous, but if they can get in one damn pod together, drift one damn time, maybe he can show him. maybe the kid'll get it. quentin's obviously not happy when he makes it to the top of utopia and finds logan waiting for him, with someone else's two-pilot conn-pod - but fine. he'll try.

logan gives him everything. lets the memories wash over him - the son who'd hated him, the daughter he'd barely known, the people he'd let down, over and over - without an ounce of the shame that could screw them up, so damn bad. he wants it to work. and quentin - hesitantly, gives back. pressures, fears, the ghost of a dead woman, beloved, adored, a hero, hanging over him every time they put another potential copilot in front of him. the terror of realizing what solo piloting was doing and how desperately he didn't want to drag anyone else down with him.

neither shies away, but neither chases, either. they complete the handshake, and it holds, strong. they're drifting.