Beasts Under Your Bed

Sleep with one eye open

Gripping your pillow tight

Exit light

Enter night

Take my hand

We're off to never-never land

Doctor Newton Geiszler had just helped save the world. It involved getting way too close to quite a few Kaiju for comfort - and Drifting with them was no walk in the park either - but he and Gottlieb had pulled it off.

Newt clinked his glass with those of some of his colleagues from the Hong Kong Shatterdome as people cheered for Raleigh and Mako. And then there was a silent toast to the fallen; the Wei triplets, the Kaidonovskys, Chuck Hansen, Stacker Pentecost. Herc Hansen and Mako looked most miserable; Striker Eureka's pilots had done their part but the price...

Too high. Much too high. If only he and Hermann had been able to get back to the LOCCENT center faster, warned them just a bit earlier...

A pain blossomed behind his left eye again. He grumbled to himself, clutching the left side of his head - and then through the crowd he saw Hermann gripping the right side of his head.

Probably the worst part of saving the world was the fact that Drifting with a Kaiju was in no way similar to what the Jaeger pilots experienced. It came with even worse backlashes.

The Kaiju operated on a hive mind basis, of course there would be worse side effects you dolt because not just two people and a machine connected but hundreds, possibly thousands, of Kaiju swarmed your brain that first time with no one to help lessen your load.

Newt blinked, confused. Did he really just think that? He wasn't so sure those were his thoughts...it hadn't sounded like his own voice...

The crowd shifted again and Newt caught a glimpse of Hermann again, looking around as though someone had called him and he couldn't find who. His colleague stood, gripping his cane tightly as Newt began to make his way through the crowd to him.

By the time Newt got there Gottlieb was gone - headed toward the lab or his room, no doubt, to escape the noise and try to relax.

Newt was one of the last people to leave. Hermann, unbeknownst to Newt, couldn't sleep until Newt finally collapsed onto his own bed.

Dreams of war

Dreams of lies

Dreams of dragon's fire

And of things that will bite

Cold

Alone

Directive-nodirective

Lost

Lostcoldalonesilencealonewatermetal

Death~

"No!" Newt screeched, startled awake by dreams he just could not explain.

No, he could. Kaiju memories. Haunting him. Still.

It had been a week, and he was still plagued by this. He had asked Raleigh if Drift effects were supposed to last this long. Raleigh had looked at him and said, "No, not unless you Drifted for more than a few hours or have been Drifting with the person for years. Why?" Newt hadn't replied right away, and Raleigh correctly guessed he was having dreams of memories from the Drift, memories not his own.

Raleigh had assumed they were Gottlieb's memories though. And sometimes they were, but more often then not they were Kaiju.

Kaiju...Hive mind...all their memories, all at once...

Silentlostsilentalonealonelost

Newt shook his head, standing up. He needed air, he needed space, he needed...

Hermann.

Newt left his room, wandering the halls. He passed right by Gottlieb's room. Somehow he knew Hermann wasn't still in there asleep.

He headed straight past the Jaeger deck, out to the deck that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. Hermann was there, staring out at the ocean. He didn't even turn when Newt stepped out and walked over to him.

"Knew you'd come," Hermann muttered, not taking his eyes off of the slowly rolling waves.

"And I knew just where to find you." Newt paused. "Hermann...do you know what's going on between us?"

Hermann sighed, finally turning to face Newt. And there was something like an electric shock that ran through Newt - his eye pulsed with pain again. "Lingering affects of our Drift."

"I figured," Newt muttered. "But, Hermann - have you been having-?"

"Dreams about the Kaiju? Yes, of course, just like you have."

Newt frowned. "What-? How did you-?"

"Newton." Newt was silenced instantly. When had Hermann started calling him by his first name? "What did you tell me about the Kaiju when you Drifted with that one specimen on your own?"

"Huh? Oh- that they have a...a..." Newt frowned, and then pales, suddenly seeing what Hermann was getting at. "Hive mind. All connected."

"Precisely."

They stared at each other for a long moment. "Hermann," Newt finally said, "we're not...not Kaiju. There are no Kaiju left; we cut them off from Earth permanently. Even if some Kaiju are still alive in the Anteverse, we shouldn't be able to hear them. We shouldn't be connected."

"But we are," Hermann said. "Our minds had to adapt to the Kaiju's - and maybe the Kaijus's minds adapted to ours, who knows? But you were probably affected most because of that first Drift."

Newt's eyes widened in sudden understanding. "We're still connected through the hive mind left behind from the Drift. That's why I can always feel what you're feeling, why we have the same dreams..."

"And why we can find each other and even occasionally hear each other's stray thoughts," Hermann finished quietly.

They stood in silence for a moment. Finally Newt said, "Damn, that's kind of cool."

Hermann rolled his eyes. "Only you would say that."

Newt frowned. But it is cool. You know it is.

I never said it was not 'cool', merely stated that only you would voice this thought out loud.

Both scientists blinked, staring at each other. Newt grinned.

"So cool!"

Hermann sighed. "Newt, please shut up so we can both go back to sleep."

"Hey - you called me Newt!"

Hermann gazed at him for a few seconds. "Yes, I did. Try not to get too used to it."

Newt laughed, and Hermann smiled, turning. "Now let's go already, please."

Newt was still smiling as he padded next to his friend. It was slow going, because of Hermann's limp, but he found he didn't really want to leave his colleague - friend - until neccessary.

(They both slept peacefully most of the time after this discovery and late-night chat, and whenever the Kaiju interrupted their now-occasionally shared dreams they knew just where to find each other to talk it out and banish the beasts from their minds for a while.)

Hush little baby, don't say a word

And never mind that noise you heard

It's just the beasts under your bed

In your closet

In your head

Originally this was just supposed to be Newt hearing the Kaiju in his head. After reading many fanfictions here and on AO3 (which I'm not a member of but it's a pretty cool site), this happened.

Original idea based on the song "Enter Sandman" by Metallica. The lyrics I have above this note, at the end of the story, were really what sparked this. And it's where the title comes from (obviously).

I don't own Metallica nor do I own Pacific Rim. I'm just playing in the sandboxes of others. But this movie was so awesome I needed to write something for it so there you go.