I have been wanting to write a Becketcest since for-fucking-ever, so here goes! (Written for Ka, because she has been needing more Yancy in her life anyway.)

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A Lifetime in Three

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[ …Initiating…]

Yancy is three years old when Raleigh is born. And for a long time, Yancy feels as though those three prior years are the longest stretch of time he will ever know.

He is not completely right.

"Yance! Wake up, I don't want to be late for school!"

He feels his entire bed shake, feels the bounce of the mattress beneath his back when Raleigh jumps. Yancy lets out a groan into the pillow before he turns over, mindful of all his limbs when his younger brother gives one last jump.

"Get up, Yance!"

Raleigh sounds like too bright sunshine when he collapses on top of his older brother in a heap, the kid's weight just enough to knock all the breath from Yancy's lungs. Rals repeats his name like a mantra, a consistent stream of YancyYancyYancyYancyYanc—his laugh contagious as it reverberates through them both.

And then suddenly, three years feel too short because Raleigh is eighteen and the two of them have enlisted into the Pan Pacific Defence Corps as Rangers.

[…Three…]

Brothers fight, dirty and with fists.

But they have never done that, not once. They like each other too much, and there are always other people to fight. They aren't heroes, and they don't have a tragic past (not when the world is a tragedy in the making with the monsters coming up from the Breach), but they are brothers and there has never been a fact truer than this.

The hanbō is smooth, a familiar length and weight in the palm of his hand. He curls his fingers around it and takes a stance, opposite to his brother who is still struggling out of his boots.

Yancy doesn't laugh but the curving smile over his lips is a tell Raleigh can read with his eyes closed.

"Remember, Beckets," the Marshal speaks from his place by the entrance of the Kwoon, "this is about compatibility."

"Roger that, Marshal." Yancy answers just as Raleigh steps up to the mat.

They look like mirror images, standing there in wait. There is no countdown, there is no need for one when they each tighten their grip on their respective staff. And when they move, they are shadows of the same man. Yancy wields the hanbō in his hand in defence just as Rals brings it down. It's a series of blunt strokes that ends in soft taps against the skin, one against the hip, another on the shoulder.

Some pilots call it a dance, but the Beckets together make a combination of four left feet.

But that's okay, they're good, perfect as they are.

"Come on, Yance," and Yancy can see that his brother loves this, loves the way they don't need to hold back when they surge forward, one meeting the other until they are both breathless. Nothing but a balance of thrill and anticipation thrumming in their blood when Rals grins with abandon, his eyes focused solely on Yancy.

"Come on." He insists, once more before drawing his bottom lip between his teeth.

Each sharp bang of their hanbō meet in swift succession.

Yancy doesn't look away, he doesn't know how to, he only knows how to even the score. He flips his brother on his back and taps the end of his hanbō against Raleigh's cheek.

"3-3, Rals."

His grin a perfect reflection of Raleigh's own.

And they are better than they've been all their lives.

[…Two…]

They never doubt they will be anything but drift compatible.

And like they all try to warn, it's not long after that they fuck. A stutter of start and stop as they kiss, something slow and deep that leaves them hating themselves for not starting this sooner.

He is pulling him down into the bed, stripping him out of his circuitry suit, peeling back the black fabric for miles of skin.

Even before he pulls him into his lap, the two of them are pressed so close. And then they are closer still when Yancy rests a hand over the back of Raleigh's neck, a warm heavy weight that is grounding when Rals leans in to claim his mouth, licking into the warm wet heat with his tongue.

"Yance," he breathes out, eyes wide with the same thrill and anticipation as when he has him lying flushed against the mat in the Kwoon. They both know he isn't about to say what is on both of their minds. He is breathless but his lips are still moving in that habit of his.

Raleigh only needs the sound of his brother's name over his tongue. That same insistent plead of YancyYancyYancyYancyYanc—And it is only when Yancy pushes himself up on an elbow to kiss the taste of his own name off of Rals' mouth does he stop the trembling mantra.

(Raleigh, listen to me, you—)

Yancy is three years older, twenty-five when he dies in a Jaeger. But it doesn't matter how long it takes this time, Yancy will wait for Raleigh, like he has done all his life. Because that's what older brothers do.

And this time, it is no different.

[…One.]

XXX Kuro