Drift

….So nothing else ever mattered to you?

You know that's not what I mean.

It's just...I was my job. That's who I am.

You shouldn’t worry about that now.

How can I not?

It's my life.

Oh god. They have you on enough painkillers, right?

Yeah. Plenty.

It just...they're retiring me. I can't pilot with it gone.

Alright.

She pulled the sheet away, but didn’t make a change in her expression.

How did it happen? I mean, it wasn’t the suit, otherwise Elijah would have this too.

Kaiju tore into the conn-pod. Some metal flew and lodged into my arm.

Cut clear through the bone.

She walked to stand beside him, reaching her hand towards the sheet.

Are you sure? I don’t want to force you to do anything.

I'm sure. Just do it.

Why would I think less of you over an injury?

I’ll have to see it eventually, its not like we’re strangers.

I know...I just....fine.

You can look.

I’m not squeamish, it’s fine.

I know you're not...it's just, you'll think less of me.

Why?

I-I just don't want you to see.

Becca notices him pulling the sheet up higher, but doesn’t think anything of it.

Do you mind if I see?

Collin holds onto the sheet and grips it a little tighter when she asks the question.

Y-yeah...

I feel awful about it, I really do.

Where did you get hurt? I never got details about what happened.

I got burns...Eli did, too.

He tries to casually pull the bed sheet higher up so the stump is hidden.

And my arm, a bit.

I’m sorry I didn’t show up earlier, I was busy with work - and I couldn’t just get out of it.

Are you doing okay?

It's okay...I figured that's where you were.

I'm...okay. I won't die.

…Collin?

Becca....hi...

Severance || Collin & Eli

Elijah couldn’t help himself from widening his eyes the moment he saw the bandaged arm (or lack of). He believed that there was some hope to saving it, and here was Collin without his dominant arm. Suddenly he felt like him complaining about his burn wounds was just whining. He had all his limbs, what gave him the right to complain about anything?

He lifted his bandaged arm up, trying to give a nonchalant shrug. “Oh, just those typical burns. I mean, yeah. It’s normal,” Elijah answered. God, he couldn’t help himself from staring at that stump. To think that not long before, he was trying to save that arm. He motioned to the stump, figuring that there was no use avoiding it. “…Does that hurt?”

Collin stared down at the stump, what used to be his limb. The limb he punched kaiju with. The arm he signed autographs with. The arm he used to caress Becca's cheek. It was gone. Yet...he felt it was still there. His mind was telling him it was still there. And, he could still feel it. Kind of. Really, how often did you feel your arm? "A little," he understated. It hurt a lot, but it wasn't really his arm anyway. It was a throbbing pain. Nothing compared to what he was feeling in the jaeger not long before. "It's just...weird...I guess."

Severance || Collin & Eli

The moment the grip was lessened on his shoulder, Elijah thought his brother was dead. He just seemed so lifeless - and the blood loss was just confirming his thoughts. “Collin?! Hey! Wake up!” he yelled, debating on whether he should shake his brother to have him possibly come to or keep the pressure applied. Neither option seemed well at that point. His hands kept the pressure on, though, as he just waited for help to come.

———

Despite his pain, Elijah was ready to clobber the doctors who told him that he couldn’t be with Collin right away. He wanted to smack his big brother for making him worried that he was actually dead.

When he was actually able to join his brother, he wasted no time. Having to limp through the pain of the burns on his leg - along with the burns on the rest of his body - Elijah plopped himself in the chair by Collin’s bed.

"Hey fuck-nut," he said, frowning. The pain was too much for him to cross his arms, forcing him to leave them limp at his lap.

Collin was in a haze. He didn't feel like himself at all, and he suspected that he wouldn't feel like himself for a long time. They told him what happened. That he was lucky to be alive. That he no longer had the lower half of his right arm. But, it felt like they were saying that to someone else. He acknowledged what they said. But it felt like it was coming out of someone else's mouth. He wasn't here. Not really. Maybe that's where the soul rested. In your dominant hand. Now he was just a shell.

Well, that was until he saw his brother approach and sit next to him. They wouldn't say how Elijah was aside from him being alive. But he was suspicous of just about everything. So, he felt a wave of relief when he was visited. "Hey..." he replied, sounding absolutely strained and exhausted. He tried to reach out to him. To take his hand, but only the bandaged stump moved slightly. He stared down at it, the smile fading slightly before he returned it to his side. It felt like someone else's missing limb. It didn't particularly upset him. It was just...strange. "How'd you fair?"

Severance || Collin & Eli

Elijah let his big brother hold onto him, as he tried to figure out what he could possibly do. They were really screwed. Of course it had to happen to Collin, right? Collin was probably the only one of the two that could figure out what to do in a situation like this.

He couldn’t keep the gags back when he actually saw the damage done to his brother’s arm. It was gone. It was barely there, hanging by god knows what at that point. The metal lodged in the flesh, and Elijah just couldn’t handle the sight of it. The wound was nothing like the kaiju blue that he saw so often, or the monsters they tore apart. This was completely different - and the stress of his big brother potentially dying made it that much worse.

"I-I don’t know what to do! Just - uh - " he stuttered, eyeing the injury again. Shit. He didn’t know what to do. Any first aid knowledge he had completely flew out the window there…except for applying pressure. All he had to do was keep pressure on his wound until the help arrived. Wincing in pain he wasn’t even going to feel, he pressed his palm onto the bleeding wound. This wasn’t going to end well.

Collin gasped when Elijah put his palm against his wound. It didn't help. If anything, it made the pain infinitely worse. Now he was aware of just how deep the metal was in his arm. He could feel how it was lodged against his skin, into his bone. How it severed muscle and nerves. He was surprised the bottom half of his arm was still there. He screamed louder than he'd ever screamed before, his hand squeezing Elijah's shoulder with what he imagined to be fifty thousand pounds of pressure. His head swam, the pain radiated, and he wheezed, panted. His helmet fogged, and he fell quiet. And for a moment, just a moment, the pain started to ebb away. It didn't hurt anymore, but he was tired. So so tired. His grip loosened and slacked, and he drooped, only held up by the crane connecting him to the jaeger's controls. The world went black.

Severance || Collin & Eli

This was all his fault. He messed up, he messed up. He couldn’t get those stupid, stupid thoughts out of his head, and now they were as good as dead. Thank god there was another jaeger to save them.

The moment his brother was hit by the metal, Elijah felt himself yelling in pain as well. God damn, why did they have to be connected in pain? The panic of potential death made everything worse as well. Elijah was lucky - he only had the burns of being hit by the kaiju along his arms - but he still felt the pain of a limb torn.

The attempt to even disconnect himself from his brother was painful enough - he could barely manage that stretch. Ripping off his helmet, Elijah took a deep breath as he tried to regain composure. He had to make sure his brother didn’t bleed out. He needed to be calm. Detaching himself, he moved to his brother the fastest he could in pain. Shit, this hurt. And he could imagine how much it hurt his brother.

"Sh-shut it, Collin!" Elijah yelled, not knowing how he was going to help his brother. He was never the one doing the saving, all of this was foreign to him.

Collin cringed when he was yelled at. It was difficult enough having a foreign object embedded in his limb. Now he was being berated for screaming when he didn't have much control over it. He bit his lip, trying to keep the sound under control, so his yelps came as muffled mumbles. But then they broke free and he was crying out in agony. He couldn't help it. It was just too much.

He grabbed onto his brother's shoulder, holding on for dear life. He wanted Elijah to help him. To save him. To at least give him some sort of relief. He could depend on him for help. That's what brothers did. They helped each other when they were desperate. "Make it stop!" He shouted, almost sobbing at this point.