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[ Not all the memories they share are happy ones. Pitfall was two years ago, and they’ve made so much progress since then, setting their foundations on something more solid than the rubble of their lives before the closing of the Breach, but it’s been a slow road to recovery for them both. Together, they’ve managed to successfully outrun some of their personal demons, but they can’t rid themselves of the nightmares that haunt them still; Raleigh’s old anger at the long-dead kaiju rekindles whenever Chuck gasps his way awake in their nights together in bed, burning up from both the heat under the blankets and the memory of blistering in the kiln of his own drivesuit.
It’s moments like these when the anger is particularly strong, because these moments are theirs, with no place for old ghosts to share.
They’re lying on the couch together after a night of drowsy conversation by the fireplace; Chuck’s drifting asleep on top of him, head laid against his shoulder, his dog tags digging into Raleigh’s chest. The hard line of the tags isn’t noticeable enough to trouble Raleigh to move, and he likes the way Chuck’s heavy, sleeping weight feels on top of him.
The peace doesn’t last long. Two years had been enough for Raleigh to catalogue Chuck’s body language, so Raleigh can pinpoint when Chuck’s soft, muffled sleep noises take a turn for something darker, sharper, hurt-sounding. Raleigh's stomach drops, and he sits up a little against the arm of the couch, careful not to let Chuck’s weight slide off him.
He shakes Chuck’s shoulder. ] Chuck? Hey, Chuck, wake up.
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[ It’s almost 1AM, silver light slanting across the floor, and Raleigh's picking his way carefully across the creaking floorboards of his and Yancy’s shared bedroom. He doesn’t want to wake Yancy up – Yancy needs the sleep for the early shift in the diner tomorrow morning, and when Raleigh gets close enough to look, Raleigh sees the dark bruises under his eyes, the unhappy slant of his mouth.
Yancy’s taken to fighting with Jazmine a lot lately, and it seems to suck all energy out of him every time. Takes the energy out of Raleigh, too. Tonight had been witness to a particularly bad one – mostly furious whisper-shouts in the kitchen, quiet so as to not disturb Mom in her bedroom – and Raleigh is exhausted, but all his attempts at sleep have been thus far unsuccessful.
Raleigh goes downstairs, as silent as he can manage, and leaves through the front door. Chuck’s house is just across the street, so it makes sense, in that moment, to go there next.
He hasn’t climbed trees since he was twelve, so it takes him a while to scale the thing up to Chuck’s second-story window. A light inside is on, thank fuck, so Raleigh balances himself better on the branch, rapping on the window pane until he’s sure he has Chuck’s attention. When Chuck’s looking, Raleigh mouths, hey, dicksmack, open up. ]
Edited (agh html :'|) 2013-11-18 01:36 (UTC)
[ It's one of those things where your day is fucked and you make that hairpin turn a touch too late -- or the road's not as cooperative as you like and one thing leads to another, and your car gets totalled, while you end up with a split lip, bruised ribs, and a possible concussion which necessitates a trip to the ER.
Damn it, she finds herself thinking, when the sirens wail and bloody hell, she's fine, really; she'd just taken a nasty bump to the head and had seen stars (quite literally, she didn't know that's a thing that actually happens) but otherwise can form complete sentences, like not that hospital, please, because Chuck's a surgeon in the place and at this point a good few of the nurses and patient service assistants already know who she is, and she'd like to be spared the humiliation -- and Chuck's bitching -- thank you very much.
But they route around to that hospital anyway, and it's a pain in the ass because there are clearly people who need to be seen to much more urgently than she does; just give her painkillers, a little bit of disinfectant for the bleeding lip and she'll be outta your hair, yeah? But then someone recognises her as Chuck's girl and she's sure someone had pretty much gone to fetch him (of all things).
...Yeah. She's getting out of here, and who's going to stop her? Certainly not this pounding headache. Or the copper taste of blood in her mouth. Ugh. ]
As you were, ladies. [ Raleigh mutters when she starts towards the exit, past the service assistants at the counter. ]
[ Chuck nearly passes out limp in the rigging after their first run together; it takes Herc a full two minutes to rip the jack from Chuck’s feedback cradle and disengage his son from the motion harness, his hands are shaking so badly. The Drift was like nothing he ever had with anyone he’d piloted with before – not with Stacker, or Scott – because it’d burned him down to the core, how Chuck had lashed out at the kaiju from the start. Herc’d ridden every one of Chuck’s emotions like he would ride a boat through a hurricane: fighting against the tide and watching massive black waves close over his head, knowing that if he stopped, he’d drown from them.
When they come back, Chuck is swept up in a sea of hands and congratulations.
Herc doesn’t see him again until upwards one hour later. Not because he doesn’t know where Chuck is -- the Drift-hangover is strong enough that he can estimate where his son might be, neural bridges still connected through ghosts-links -- but because every thought Chuck’s hurling at him is like white noise, overwhelming and sharp, hurting Herc’s already aching brain enough that he has to excuse himself from the celebration and find someplace dark to sit in, the hangar lights cracking open his skull and blinding him, throwing curses at his stubborn son from within his (their) head. The noise dials down after a while, still there but softer – so Herc takes that as a cue to make his way down.
He catches Chuck throwing up in the lavatory.
Which is... not an unexpected reaction. The adrenaline highs of the Drift’ve been wearing off steadily in the past hour, and the hangover lows are just starting to kick in for Chuck, who's never piloted before this. Even Herc can feel it under his skin – the wrongness of the proximity between them. He squeezes his hands into fists on the other side of Chuck's stall door. ] Chuck.
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