Yancy Becket appeared for the first ten minutes and had barely a dozen lines, and somehow, still, I managed to get attached enough to him and his relationship with Raleigh that I wrote this rewrite. It was supposed to be a 5k oneshot, max, and now it has five fully planned parts and is looking to be around 20k of self-indulgent Becket Brother nonsense.

Shoutout to Sabrina and Jaz who have been listening to me yell about the Becket Brothers for over a month.

__

Raleigh Becket disappeared from the Anchorage Shatterdome, one month after Knifehead, and barely two days after he rose from his coma. They find his bed empty, heart monitor unplugged and the bloody tubes draped messily over the sheets. His room had been cleaned out almost completely, the photographs ripped off the wall, the dressers still half open, and only a few piles of paper still spread haphazardly over the desk. Raleigh''s bomber jacket, which had spent the past four weeks hanging stiffly in the closet, was folded neatly on the bottom bunk.

He'd taken Yancy's jacket with him.

...

Raleigh doesn't remember much about his first awake day in the hospital. It's all blurry flashes, the stinging smell of antiseptic, and Tendo telling him in a painfully soft voice that he'd been in a coma for a bloody month after somehow piloting Gipsy Danger to shore. Alone.

He remembers the second day with an almost painful clarity.

Flashes of the battle had haunted his dreams. A swirling blurred mix of the storm, the ship, the waves crashing into Gipsy's legs, the Kaiju blue staining the ocean, the screech of metal as Gypsy's left arm was ripped off, the searing pain that followed, Knifehead rising from the deep, a talon tearing through the conn pod, falling fast towards the ocean, and Yancy, Yancy, YANCY!

He was ripped from sleep at ten past two in the morning. A nurse shook him awake with Yancy's name still tearing itself halfway out of his throat as the heart monitor went wild. He could barely breathe and he shook violently, his vision blurred and behind a wall of static he could barely hear the nurse talking to him.

"Y-Yancy..." He croaked, staring blankly ahead. Tears tracked down his cheeks. "Yancy, Yancy."

The nurse started talking again, only not to him. He thought there may have been another nurse standing in the doorway. Maybe it was a doctor. He doesn't remember what she said because he didn't hear it, shaking so much it hurt and struggling to breath. He vaguely remembered the words unresponsive and panic attack.

"Yancy..." He said again. Yancy had always come when he called didn't he? When they were kids with the monsters under the bed, and when they'd grown up and the monsters had migrated to the ocean. Yancy was always there for him, a rock for him to lean on and, more recently, a steady flame always flickering in the back of his brain where the ghost drift lingered between missions. Yancy had always come when he called, but maybe he just couldn't hear him. "YANCY!"

A doctor leaned down next to his bed and in front of the IV stand. He didn't remember her entering the room. She placed one hand on the railing of the bed, "Raleigh ," She said, voice calm, "Can you hear me?"

"Yancy." He told her, forcibly jerking his head over in her direction. It's not a question, but a demand. It's like he's three years old again, sitting on the ground, and reaching his hands up for his older brother. Where is Yancy. Bring him to me. Barely a second passed before he insisted again, "Yancy."

"Raleigh ," The doctor said, taking his jolted movements as affirmation, "Everything is alright. You're safe."

"Yancy."

"I need you to breath with me, alright? Breath in..." The doctor sucked a breath of air in and held it for a moment. Blinking fast, Raleigh watched her, almost transfixed. She hadn't answered him. "And breath out..."

He shook his head with a violent jerk. He couldn't stop shaking. Where was Yancy? Why couldn't Yancy hear him? He raised one of his hands to his face and sloppily tried to wipe the tear tracks away. God, he really still was the three-year old kid crying for his older brother wasn't he?

The nurse who had been trying to talk to him initially came back into the room (although Raleigh wasn't sure when she'd left). He barely registered her walking over to the doctor, instead turned his gaze back to the wall and tried to clamp his hands down on his arms in an attempt to steady himself. He couldn't get a steady grip, and the vicious shaking made the needles in his arms ache painfully. He thought he saw her reach for his IV tubes.

"Yancy..." He mumbled, tripping over the name. Where was he? Raleigh didn't know. The doctors and nurses clearly didn't know. Tendo would know wouldn't he?

"I'm sorry Becket Boy." Tendo had folded his hands in his lap and looked at Raleigh with tears in his eyes, "Yancy's..." He swallowed once, glancing at the ground before looking up to meet his eyes again, "We lost him to Knifehead."

"No!" He grabbed his head with both hands, palmed pressed flat against his temples. He convulsed violently, hunching over into himself, "No, NO, NO!" Pressure built in his chest, " YANCY!"

The nurse fiddled with his IV tubes. It wasn't denial that shock his hands and sent a steady stream of tears dripping down his face as he struggled to take a breath. It was unadulterated terror that sent the heart monitor screaming and made the blood roar in his ears, because Yancy had always been there for him, whether it be growing up or, more recently, in the back of his brain brushing against his consciousness, and now he wasn't and Raleigh didn't know what to do, oh God, he didn't know what to do.

He reached, almost instinctively, to the Ghost Drift. It had been there, ever present, for the past three years, lingering at the fuzzy corners of his mind and connecting him to his brother in the moments between their deployments. He'd expected to grasp at strings, to find only the cold lingering connection to Gypsy Danger, and the raw fear and hopelessness of Yancy's last moments.

"Raleigh, listen to me—"

Pain flared sharply in his right eye, hot and white and throbbing across his temples and dripping down his cheeks into the back of his throat. Raleigh let out a wordless shout, folding over himself and grasping the side of his face with two shaking hands as his pulse pounded. He vaguely heard the doctor bark orders at the nurse, and then there was a rush of cold in his veins that sent goosebumps trailing along his arms.

The right side of his face burned so much it had gone numb, and as his vision swam he watched, almost intrigued, as drops of blood fell from his nose and landed in spots on his gown.

Raleigh, breath!

Raleigh sucked in a breath immediately at the words, sharp and painful. It caught in his chest and left him coughing violently over his lap. The world had begun to look fuzzy at the edges; his vision, the pain, all of it began to fade. His muscles forcibly relaxed and the shaking was replaced with a bone tired exhaustion. Someone gently straighten him out and pushed him back until his head hit the pillow. In the background his heart monitor had begun to slow.

His eyes had begun to drift shut, and for a moment, as he slowly blinked at the wall in his last moments of consciousness, he heard a sigh of relief in the back of his head.

There you go, kid. Yancy soothed, Now just go back to sleep.

...

Raleigh woke up six hours later because he's an insomniac with a fast metabolism.

He was groggy at first, a mixture of exhaustion and drugs, and his right eye ached even before he opened it. His entire body was sore, and he reached a languid hand up to itch at the bandages that swathed his left shoulder. He'd stiffened, suddenly remembering where he was, and more importantly why.

Raleigh sat up immediately, and he couldn't tell if the nausea came from the sudden jolt in position, the flare of pain along his side, or the horror at the sudden remembrance of Knifehead. It might've been all three. He didn't care.

A jolt of pain shot through his eye again. The steady beep of the heart monitor started to turn erratic. A steady presence suddenly pressed up against the part of his brain that had grown faded without the drift, turning it and the headspace into something sharp again, something real.

Breathe, kid. I thought we went over this last night.

His breath hitched, but the heart monitor had already began to calm. "Y-Yancy?"

In the flesh, kiddo. Or well, your flesh. Amusement tingled in the back of his head, it flowed freely into their shared headspace and gave Raleigh the impression that Yancy was smirking at his own joke.

"Yancy?" He repeated, disbelief etched into the word. "Yancy?"

What are you, three again? Don't you know any other words besides my name? Or have you regressed to being a toddler, Rals. He heard the laughter on the edge of Yancy's words, but more importantly he felt the familiar pulse of memories alongside them. (He knows his first word was his brother's name, because how could Yancy ever let him forget it? But he doesn't remember it, or it's fuzzy edges and warm feelings, or his brother's cry of Mommy, Mommy Raleigh said my name! Yancy does.)

"Yancy?" He said again, voice hoarse and throat raw. He absently realized he hadn't said anything but his brother's name since he'd woken up yesterday. "How are you—I mean—where are you—are you even... alive?"

I have no clue, kiddo. I just... Yancy hesitated, I just sort of... woke up, I guess? Same time you did, only in your body. And you couldn't hear me last night until... I don't know, you activated the drift?

"The drift?" Raleigh reached up a hand to rub at his eye, and for a moment felt a phantom stab of sharp pain. His shoulders stiffened. "Does that make you a ghost?"

Oh my god, I think that's the dumbest thing you've ever said! Yancy laughed, loud and clear, sending warmth spiraling across the bond until it sat comfortably in Raleigh's chest. I'm not dead, kiddo. If I was I wouldn't be here, would I?

The reassurance was so simple, so Yancy, that Raleigh couldn't help but smile slightly into his lap. "Yeah...Sorry... " He trailed, "Yeah, you're right." But he still remembered the screech of metal and the shower of sparks as the Kaiju claw tore through the conn pod. The way Yancy had only been able to half turn toward him, cut off as the Kaiju ripped him out, leaving the only torn straps of the harness hanging and the drift bursting with desperation and terror until it finally cut off with a snap so painful it had left him stumbling inside Gypsy.

Of course I'm right. Yancy said smugly, as if they were back in their room in the Shatterdome, lying on their respective bunk beds and Yancy had just won another dumb argument about another dumb thing. As if Raleigh hadn't spent the past month comatose in the hospital after overdoing his neural load. I'm the oldest, aren't I?

"If you're so right all the time then what even happened?" Raleigh snapped, squeezing his eyes shut so hard it hurt, "We were supposed to save the boat, beat the Kaiju, and get back to the Dome in time for breakfast. Fifth notch on the belt, man! But instead I'm in a hospital covered in circuitry burns that I got because I piloted Gypsy back to shore on my own. Because you died , Yance."

Raleigh—

"And now you're stuck in my head because of the drift. And we don't know why. And you won't take it seriously, Yancy. And I just, I can't — " Raleigh sucked in a breath, then pressed the palm of his hand hard against his chest, "You were gone."

I... yeah. You're right, kiddo. I was. And I don't know how I'm even alive, but Rals, I am. Yancy's voice was strained, and Raleigh was suddenly vividly reminded of when his brother broke the news of their mother's cancer, of Dad's abandonment, of Jaz's death. He'd already lost one sibling to the Kaiju. He didn't think he could stand to lose another. And it's terrifying. I gave you that nightmare last night. I was the one who couldn't get Knifehead out of my head. I stepped into your head a month ago, Raleigh, and for some fucking reason even death couldn't get me to step back out. So we have to live with this, kid. Yancy sighed heavily, and Raleigh heard every inch of exhaustion in his words, But at least we're gonna live.

...

Raleigh spent the majority of his second day awake in the hospital pacing the space between his bed and the bathroom door. Well, limping.

You should sit down, Raleigh . Yancy chided, Your legs are shaking. Besides, that's a new record.

Raleigh rolled his eyes, but he could feel the burn in the back of his calves and the sharp stabbing of pain all along the muscle. He sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed, letting go of his tight grip on the IV stand. "Twenty minutes this time." He mumbled, glancing up at the clock. "That's pathetic."

Cut yourself some slack, kid. Your left side is covered in scabs from circuitry burns and you just woke up from a month long nap. Did you expect to be able to run a marathon?

"No, but I expected to be able to walk!" Raleigh scrubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. "I'm a jaeger pilot for fuck's sake. Or I was..."

What did I tell you about getting cocky, Rals? Yancy had always been able to illicit a perfect eye roll over the drift. We've been at this for like two hours, you're not suddenly gonna magically recover your stamina. We have time, kiddo. And physical therapy, probably.

"Yeah, right..." Raleigh fell backwards on the bed, head flopping onto the pillows, "Time."

Okay, I'll bite. What's with the attitude?

"What attitude?"

That attitude, kid. Yancy's exasperation flooded across the link before settling, thick and dense, in their shared headspace, Everytime I mention the future, or whatever you get all weird.

"Well, yeah." Raleigh turned his head to the side, switching his gaze from the ceiling to the plain white walls with his cheek pressed against the pillow. "We have no fucking idea what's gonna happen. Tendo said the Marshall was in Australia, but when he comes back I'm either getting discharged because disobeyed orders going after that boat or he's gonna shove me back into a Jaeger." Raleigh pinched his eyes closed at the thought, breath hitched in his chest. "And even if I can drift with someone, they're gonna see that you're in my head, and then they're either gonna lock us up for being lunatics or they're going to try and get you out, which means you're gonna die again Yancy, and I can't—"

Slow down kid, come on, take a few deep breaths and stop spiraling for a moment.

"I'm breathing already, Yancy!"

Well you're not doing it well. Come on, now, breath with me, kiddo.

"What —how?"

Breath in, two, three, four. Breath out, two, three four. Yancy's voice was achingly gentle, and some of his calm seeped into the bond, flowing warmly into Raleigh 's chest. On his brother's next repeat, Raleigh attempted to breath along with the count. Breath in, two, three four—Good job, Rals—breath out, two, three, four.

Raleigh hadn't had a panic in years. Not when a poorly timed Kaiju attack on Anchorage claimed Jazmine, not when Mom finally succumbed to the cancer tugging at the last dredges of her life barely a week later, or not even when Dad, before Mom had even been put in the ground, had abandoned him and Yancy in his grief. His last panic had been when he was fifteen, watching as Trespasser tore through the the Golden Gate Bridge and every cheesy horror movie he'd ever watched with Jaz came to life. Yancy had talked him down from that one too, holding his hands so tightly they turned whiter with each minute. By the time Raleigh had calmed down his hands were painfully numb, but as soon as he'd caught his breath for good Yancy had engulfed him in a hug. His head had been pressed against Yancy's chest, and he still remembered how fast his brother's pulse had raced. He could still hear it in his memories and in it found a form of relief. It was a reminder that Yancy was still alive, even if he didn't have his own body, his own heartbeat , anymore.

Look at that! Raleigh could feel Yancy's grin as his breathing evened out, Seems like someone remembered how breathing works.

"Yancy..." Raleigh croaked, suddenly aware of how heavy his body felt and the ache in all of his limbs, "What are we going to do?"

There's not much we can do right now but wait, Rals. Yancy told him, and sent a vague feeling reminiscent of a half-shrug across the bond, Tendo said the Marshall would be back in a couple of days. But honestly? I don't think you'll get discharged. You were pretty out of it yesterday, but they took brain scans. You can still drift kiddo, even with me in your head,

For a moment, Raleigh couldn't tell whether the news was good or bad. Then dread sunk in his stomach and fear stuttered in his chest. "Fuck."

Raleigh, you love being a Jaegar pilot. Tendo says that they've already started repairs on Gypsy. Just because I'm in your head, doesn't mean you have to stop. Yancy had meant it kindly, a reassurance that just because his life had been turned upside down didn't mean it had completely fallen apart. But it was just a painful reminder that something he loved—being a ranger and piloting Gypsy—would never, could never be the same. Raleigh loved fighting in Gypsy Danger, but only half of her was him. The other half was Yancy.

His older brother and the better pilot, who would never step into Gypsy's conn pod with his own two feet again.

Raleigh shook his head roughly, ignoring the sharp stab of pain in his temples, "That's not it Yancy," He held his hand up in front of his eyes for a moment and watched it shake, "I won't have someone else inside my head. I can't. "

Kid—

"I can't stay here." Raleigh realized, pushing himself up, "I have to leave before the Marshall comes back."

...

At ten o'clock that night, Raleigh made his move. Around noon he'd convinced the on duty nurse to unplug him from the heart monitor through use of pity and a well-placed smile, which meant that he could safely detach himself from all the needles plugged into his aching arms without the half the hospital staff bursting into his room thinking that he'd somehow flatlined in the middle of the night. It was a slow and painful process that left his fingertips stained red, blood crusted underneath his fingernails, and a dozen small cuts on both of his arms.

And of course, it would be undue to not mention that Yancy had spent the entire day attempting to convince him that escaping from the Icebox was a horrible idea from almost every standpoint. It might've worked too, if Raleigh hadn't already known that.

Raleigh you can't just escape from the Icebox. There are nurses on shift, you're plugged into half the machines in the medical wing, and everyone here knows your face. Just calm down for a moment we can figure this out.

You don't have to jockey again, kid. It's not like they can force you into a jaeger. But running away when you're still injured is a terrible idea and I know you know that because I'm in your head. Please don't be an idiot.

When I said you were plugged into half the machines in the medical wing I meant that as a deterrent, you know. Not as an encouragement to convince the nurse to unhook you from the heart monitor.

Do you even know how to take those out? Oh my god there's blood everywhere Raleigh —Rals stop it, please, kid—action movies were WRONG Rals, you have to take the needle out slowly, by god if you're going to try to escape the medical wing at least do it right—

But by the end he came around. Or, rather, stopped trying to convince him otherwise, and started trying to convince him to be more sensible in his getaway. It was Yancy's idea, loath as he was to admit helping any part in their escape ( You're going to get caught, you know this right?) to leave exactly at ten, two hours after the lights were turned off, and thirty minutes after the first nurse check in of the night. ( I might not want you to ditch the PPDC, Yancy had said, exasperated, but I would be a piss poor excuse for an older brother if I just let you crash and burn. Leaving half an hour after the first check in gives you a little over an hour to get out of the Shatterdome. Don't dilly-dally, kiddo.)

Which meant that moments after dropping the last of the bloody tubes on his hospital bedding, and using the roll of bandages he found in the bedside drawer to cover the cuts, Raleigh had slipped through the medical wing, past the nurses station, and into the hall of the Shatterdome with ridiculous ease.

Kid, Raleigh pressed his back against the wall for a moment, catching his breath and listening to the roar of blood in his ears, You have no idea how lucky you are that the nurse on duty has a serious Clash of Clans addiction.

And also, Yancy told him, as Raleigh snorted, then pushed himself off the wall and started to lumber down the corridor, that our room is in the same hall as the medical wing.

"That's me," Raleigh mumbled, trailing his hand against the paneling, "Lucky, lucky, Raleigh Becket."

God, reckless, headstrong, and depressing, Yancy sighed, but Raleigh could feel the smile's edge in his voice, This is gonna be high school all over again, isn't it?

Raleigh dignified him with an eye roll and not much else. It took him less than thirty seconds to walk down the corridor, which was a relief, and he took a moment to be grateful that the rangers in the Anchorage Shatterdome were all assigned to the same hall as the medical wing. It meant that at half past ten on a night when the Gages were almost certainly out on patrol in Romeo Blue, there was nobody to accidentally bump into Raleigh as he'd stumbled down the hall in a hospital gown. It made sneaking out that much easier.

It also meant that no one was around to hear the obnoxious shriek of their room's door when Raleigh twisted it open.

Jesus Christ, Yancy complained, as Raleigh winced and stepped into their room, I can't believe I forgot how obnoxious that was. Raleigh closed the door as quietly as he could behind him, before he'd turned to survey the room he'd shared with his brother since the opening of the Icebox three years ago. Alright kid. Yancy told him, after a few seconds of staring, You have an hour to get packed and get out. Our duffle bags are still in the closet. Chop, chop.

It took less than fifteen minutes for Raleigh to pack his and Yancy's room—their life for three years —into two duffle bags. It was kind of depressing. The bags were mostly clothes, taken from both Becket's dressers, and shoved in haphazardly. He fished through jackets and desk drawers for wallets and loose cash to stuff in the pockets of his winter coat. He carefully peeled photographs off the wall and tied them together with loose straps of twine before tucking them on top of old t-shirts and ratty sweaters, Jazmine's face, framed by bright pink hair, beamed up at him from the top of the stack. He almost smiled back.

He left the bomber jackets for last. Someone, probably Tendo, had brought them back in the aftermath of Knifehead, and had left them hanging side-by-side in the closet. They were practically identical, two halves of a matching set, but Raleigh could tell which one was his and which one was his brother's. He took his out first, felt the cool leather underneath his fingers, and left it folded neatly on his bottom bunk without a second thought. He'd stared at his brother's for a while, running his fingers across the fifth white Kaiju head that had been added, before gently folding it over his arm and placing in the duffle bag.Yancy didn't say a word.

Raleigh zipped up his coat, tugged his boots on, and slung the duffle bags across his chest, ignoring the painful itch from the scabs snaking their way around his shoulder as the straps tugged on them. He gave one last cursory glance around the barracks that had been his and Yancy's home for the past three years, and flinched slightly as he caught sight of his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

It hadn't been the grey pallor of his face, or it was stretched gauntly across his face, but his right eye, which had spent the entire day flaring up in sharp pulses of hot agony. It was bloody, with veins popping out and the iris rimmed in bright red. He ducked his head instantly, cutting off Yancy could say something about the obvious hemorrhage. He flicked off the lights, stepped out into the hall, and tugged his hood up. He didn't bother to pulled the door closed behind him. Before the hour was up they'd realize he was gone.

Alright, kid, Yancy said, Last chance. You sure about this?

"Yeah," He said, voice flat but sure, "I am.

Within ten minutes he'd slipped out of the Anchorage Shatterdome through a side entrance. Within thirty he'd been off PPDC property entirely. By the time his bed had been discovered empty and his room cleared out an hour later, he was sitting in the back of a cab headed for Wasilla, cheek pressed against the cool glass as he watched the scenery fly by.

Raleigh hadn't once looked back.