I'd give it all if I thought you wanted it.

seen from Türkiye
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Morocco

seen from Germany
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Germany
seen from France
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from Germany

seen from Russia
seen from Yemen
seen from Germany
seen from China
seen from Türkiye
seen from Canada
I'd give it all if I thought you wanted it.
Should I defy gravity?
Or should I keep falling?
“There are many, many angles at which one can fall but only one angle at which one can stand straight.”
G.K Chesterton
give up; raleigh & stacker
“What are you doing, Ranger?”
At the edge of the islands lesser-known docks, with his pants rolled to his knees and his legs dangling in the surf below, it looks like Raleigh doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. “Enjoying the view,” the not-yet-a-pilot offers weakly and leans forward on his elbows, bracing them against the crumpled pants of his academy jump suit. In the afternoon sun he’s stripped down the top half of the suit and tied it around his waist. All he had on now was a singlet and his shoulders – shoulders that had yet to be weighted by the service and scarred by deployments – are bare and, Stacker notices, a little sunburnt.
(He really ought to rethink the weekend volleyball matches)
The Marshall steps up to the teenager’s side. He doesn’t make a move to lower himself to the boy’s height, or drop his feet into the surf with him. “You know what I mean, Mr. Becket.”
Raleigh sighs and it’s with a great heaving of his shoulders that he sits back. He braces his hands behind him on the wooden dock and looks up at Stacker. “I don’t know, sir,” he admits and flicks his gaze back to the ocean. He may be one of the more cocky cadets but he’d be damned if he could ever hold his Marshall’s gaze for more than a second.
He’d grow out of it, Stacker muses lightly as he follows the boy’s gaze across the water. “You know you can’t let this get between you and your brother,” he prompts.
“I know.”
Stacker can’t help it; he arches a brow, “Do you? Really? Because your display back there says otherwise.”
Raleigh scowls but doesn’t say anything.
He’s just a boy, Stacker wants to remind himself, He’s only eighteen; too young for this war.
But then another voice reminds him that this young man (the correction comes hard and sharp in Stacker’s mind) has one of the best compatibility scores with his brother that the PPDC has ever seen. They need him.
“Miss Sokolov is a distraction,” Stacker straightens out his suit lapels with a deft brush of his hands, “You and your brother have something special, something that you won’t find with anyone else—”
(Oh how fates would laugh at him in seven years. Stacker boy it turns out you were wrong…he does find someone else and you can’t deny that together they are everything you hoped for)
“—so don’t compromise it.”
“I’m not,” the words come out clipped and sharp and petulant. A teenager’s answer.
“You are,” Stacker corrects him, not looking down. “You’re thinking about giving up because your brother slept with the girl you like. You’re being childish, Ranger.”
A beat. “I’m not a Ranger yet.”
“But you still answer to it…”
Raleigh stills and Stacker thins his lips. He’s made his point.
“You have another simulation tomorrow at 0600,” he turns on his heel, “Do not be late, Raleigh.”
today you were far away
Yancy can hear Raleigh's screams of anguish and terror as he flies through the air. But he can't hear anything but the furious storm, the waves crashing against Gipsy and the Kaiju, and the electric crackling of his Drivesuit and the pieces of the Motion Rig still attached to him.
But he can hear him, and his voice tears through his mind and screams with him.
Season's Greetings
Christmas Day in the Shatterdome, and the festive mood feels strange to Raleigh. Usually the place is all about the hustle-bustle and hurrying to and fro for work, but now he can see people laughing and talking in groups, wearing cheap Santa hats or elf ears. Some halls have snakes of tinsel, others have fake wreaths, and small little Christmas trees could be seen at random corners.
i'm listening, old man || self para
Y’know, you go through the Academy, training to be a pilot and learning the Drift and you’re always with someone else. It’s a partnership. You’re told to not even dream about piloting on your own because the first guy that did it went and died. (Ruined it for everyone, frankly, Raleigh had joked once after a few beers and a pretty girl’s number on his hand.) It was serious business when you were co-pilots; you had to put your trust in someone to help you do something that you weren’t physically capable of completing on your own. You had to be willing to help and get help in return.
“Only listen to me—”
Raleigh’s scream is a piss poor substitute for the answer he should have given Yancy. “I’m listening, old man,” he should have said. Should. The pain that lances through him as Gipsy’s operating system compensates for the lack of a co-pilot is excruciating and all he knows is that Knifehead is still coming at him and he can still feel the flutter of Yancy at the back of his mind.
It stays there – Yancy’s fluttering – until Raleigh manages to transfer the control of Gipsy to his right hand. (Later, with a hand wrapped around a beer he would realize that Yancy had lived past the initial crushing grip of the Kaiju, hence the extended presence in his mind.) He grunts and through the burning numbness of his left arm yells at Gipsy. It’s nothing discernable of course, just a meaningless sound born from frustration and pain and loss but goddammit why was Yancy gone?
The Afternoons- Falling is Easy