[ this was glorified camping and nobody could really call it otherwise. a rose by any other name, and all that; though on more than one occasion it was less sweet and more thorny— particularly the way Raleigh and Chuck would go at one another. his boy looked up to them in a fashion, Yancy in particular, but the kid would never admit it. one thing was for sure, it definitely brought out the best and worst in you, forced into tight quarters.
Chuck has a habit of sleeping in the cab of the truck instead of in the camper or in the tents they set up. he'd become a solitary kid after his mother died; Herc had grown accustomed to sleeping around other people before he'd left the Air Force to raise his kid (a few years late, but he'd pulled out, he hopes, before it was too late).
they don't talk much, but they're getting better. Herc's eyes flick passed the silhouettes of Mako and the Beckets catching fireflies, or whatever they are, before cutting to his son. he's whittling a piece of wood down with the survival knife Herc had given him into something like a spear.
[ he doesn't have a plan for it, whatever the stick in his hand was going to be. he just needs something to do with his hands. it's the kind of impulse that gets him into trouble more often than not. the kind he doesn't pay much attention to because it's just in his nature to want and want and want.
the bark comes away in his hands like the skin of an apple. calloused, but soft underneath. shavings like in a pile between his feet- stick to the worn out boots and equally worn out laces wound twice around the top. it gets cooler at night on the coast. not anything to write home about, but it's just enough for pentecost and his father to set to the occasional brew of hot chocolate- or, when they think no one's paying attention, some shit instant coffee with whatever's left in whatever bottle they have kicking around.
the firelight throws them into gold relief against the rock face at their backs. a world that just doesn't exist beyond where the campfire can reach. it lights up the hairline scars that criss-cross chuck's hands. dot his knuckles, trace his fingers. a fight here. a smashed glass there. learning a new knife or climbing a fence he has no business being on.
there's a marshmellow offered up on his right, and chuck doesn't take it right away (there are rules to this game they've started up. the one where they play at being a family and getting along). instead he just looks up, watches his old man's face as the knife works up the length of the wood- pressed against the pad of his thumb. ]
[ Chuck looks at him like he's grown a second head and, really, it isn't the first time his boy has leveled this particular expression at him. he gets it more, now, ever since Herc had started trying. attempting to slot himself into all the jagged places that Chuck keeps trying to force him out of. most of the time it's fine— sometimes Herc just wants to slap him up side the head.
after a few heartbeats wherein no gesture to take the treat is made, his mouth purses and he gestures with it. take it]
Christ, it's not a rattler. Just take the damn thing.
[ there's a tease in his voice, despite the roughness of the words. ]
[ the stick he's been working at, the one that's gotten nice and sharp but isn't much of anything in the grand scheme of it- poke through the flat end of the marshmellow with a look that's more blustering defiance than anything else. there's no alright that hits the air, nothing articulated anyway, but it passes through their space just the same. chuck hasn't moved beyond the hurt that's knotted up in his chest- he hasn't made his peace with it. but it's spread out- filled every pore and poisoned every interaction. there's a growl beneath the words of every conversation just because it's in him, part of him. he isn't always looking for a fight, despite the frequency with which he faces them down. it just turns out that way.
chuck's expression wrinkles up and turns away. moves to the fire where he pushes the stick into the brightest part of the flame and watches the thing burn up. ]
[ it seems like a lot of fuss over a marshmallow, but Herc doesn't comment on it when Chuck finally takes the bundle of sugar. the corner of his mouth twitches, satisfied, maybe a little pleased, when even with the scowl on his face he forces the treat into the fire. ]
You wanna hold it over the fire, where it's hottest. [ he advises, and he doesn't see the look Chuck will undoubtedly throw him for offering his two cents, but he knows it'll be there regardless. instead, Herc threads two marshmallows over his own stick and holds it out well over the spot Chuck has decided to incinerate his marshmallow at. ]
[ it happens in a matter of seconds, and chuck doesn't tear his gaze away enough to angle the glare in his father's direction, but it creases over his features as predictably as the sun rises in the east. the marshmellow moves from yellow to brown to black- scorched and bubbling around the edges- before the heat is too much, and the treat melts off the stick entirely. lands in a seeping heap on the logs before it goes up in flames.
chuck appears oddly satisfied by the result, despite the absence of a smile. he keeps the stick over the fire, burns off the remainder of the marshmellow. he might be sulking. it's difficult to say for sure. ]
[ there are some battles you just won't win, Herc has learned this over the course of his lifetime, but not so often as in his stretch in fatherhood. in a fight, you could track an enemy and make an educated guess. there were certain rules that were they would abide by, even without consciously making the effort to do so. Herc can navigate a battle and fly a jet with much more confidence and grace than he can figure out precisely what his son might want from him.
(but he knows what he wants, he wants his mother back, he wants the name Hercules not to be a lie, but Herc can't give him that)
he doesn't roll his eyes but it's a damn near thing; he grunts, and it's almost a sound of amusement but even then, it's hard to tell. his own marshmallows are golden when he pulls them from above the fire, and he slides the far one off the end in a string of sticky sugar before handing it to his son. ]
it was something like three weeks before their fathers decided they were packing it into a goddamn camper van to travel the states. they haven't really talked about it or anything, if talking about first kisses is supposed to be a thing that happens. chuck has no idea. it's called a first kiss for a reason, he's not a fucking expert.
he'd flown back with his old man the next day all the same, and that'd more or less been the end of it.
chuck is surprised to find that things are different when he's stuffed into the cramped space of a travel van with relative strangers. he's never shared well, let alone shared space. chuck spends most of his first week at the table, feet propped up on the booth-style seat opposite him, and stares out the window. it gets hotter than hell, so the windows are always open. today it smells like sun-baked asphalt with no rain in sight. the collar of his shirt catches the breeze and he can see mako's bare feet peeking out from the bunk ontop of the cab.
his head tips back against the paneling, and chuck's hand falls from it's job holding up his face to flop over the table. he's bored, and chuck's record for restlessness never works out all that great for everyone trapped in there with him. ]
That's the first thing that comes to mind whenever Mako thinks back on it. Chuck and his father were leaving for the other side of the world the next day, their things packed haphazardly into bags that eventually found themselves lined up out in the hall. Their dads had retreated to beers and war stories, leaving Mako and Chuck to the painstaking exercise of spending time with one another. Not that Chuck and Mako hadn't learned how to over the years, but the easier rapport of childhood had given way to the strained awkwardness of adolescence. An odd sort of tension that was part rivalry and part simply Chuck being Chuck.
In the end they'd bumped noses, bumped knees and bumped teeth, and when everything was said and done Mako wasn't sure if awkward also meant awesome. But it didn't really matter because Chuck was gone and she was on her own again. (That was that.)
—only that hadn't been that; that had turned into this over time. What Chuck likes to call officially the worst idea in the world: the lot of them packed like sardines into a camper, the others following caravan style in a beat-up pickup truck nicknamed Irene and a station wagon that looks older than both of their dads. Mako spends a lot of time in that truck and that station wagon, her bare feet propped up on the dash, toes wriggling against the distant line of the horizon. But for now, she's here, paying her dues by once again taking up Chuck duties.
Although her attention's elsewhere she hears the sound of his hand flopping to the table, the hard exhale of air from his lungs. Chuck's bored which means, if somebody doesn't run interference any time soon, it's going to be everyone's problem and not just his. The feet that dangle off the very edge of the bunk disappear, the sound of cheap sheets sticking to skin as she rearranges herself.
Bracing one hand along the edge of the bunk, Mako swings the top half of her torso out just far enough that, when she reaches out with her spare arm, she can flick the back of Chuck's ear with the cap of her pen.
[ he finished every sudoku puzzle on hand in the first two days. max is sleeping in a puddle of his own drool, energy run out of him at breakfast time- when chuck had begun his regularly scheduled sprint- dog hot on his heels. he can barely make out the sound of some late nineties band playing from the driver's seat. where their fathers don't really sing so much as make noise from time to time and then punctuate this with long lapses of comfortable silence.
there isn't anything comfortable about the flick that finds the shell of his ear, and chuck jolts away from the contact- one hand brought up to the side of his head with a sharp- ] Oi- [ followed by a dirty look. he's likely got a patent on them by now, and hasn't appeared to run out of variations to dispense. ]
The hell was'at for?
[ they roll over uneven road, and chuck rocks with the same force that jostles their camper, but doesn't lose his balance. ]
[ Mako doesn't bother answering aloud, instead leaving her expression to do most of the talking. She's like that with nearly everyone but with Chuck most of all, leaving the lion's share of what she means unsaid, relying on silence to convey her meaning. (The tic of an eyebrow, the purse of her mouth; a stare that could wither redwoods.)
It's a benefit (or a curse) of having grown up together, their formative years intertwined by both their fathers' careers and friendship. Some would say Chuck and Mako were practically destined to be at least as close, being their fathers' children, but temperaments waxed and then waned with the onset of adolescence, placing them at odds with one another the way siblings often were.
Tilting her head to one side, Mako doesn't draw back for fear of retaliation. If he brought it, she would match it. They both knew that. (Maybe she was counting on it.) ]
[ he doesn't take the bait, but it's for a number of reasons. chuck isn't afraid of the fight that could break out between them- there'd been enough over the years, and whatever it was that held them together (shared history if nothing else) kept the balance well enough. they don't sync up, not the way they had when they were small, but there's a kind of understanding chuck shares with her that he keeps with no one else. it isn't trust so much as a mutual awareness. swords forged in the same fires.
in many ways they are the sun and moon to eachother- opposites in every way, and held in place by gravity. they will always be constants to one another, but the same force that locks them together will forever keep them from touching.
he'll wait for her to turn back around, do whatever the hell it is she's doing, making friendship bracelets for her and becket or whatever (that's more raleigh's style and he knows it, but the grit to his teeth is there all the same. chuck's gaze returns to the window out of sheer spite. he'll throw the nearest object (a drab looking pillow no bigger than his forearm) as soon as she isn't looking. cheap shot. ]
[ Chuck doesn't rise to the challenge and maybe that's a disappointment but Mako knows better than to take his attempt to look back out the window as anything personal. (That's just Chuck.) She knows that as soon as she turns her back on him again, he'll retaliate with something a little less than dignified. His father had a reputation for sucker punches and dirty brawls, a habit that's apparently passed onto his son. Whether it's nature or whether it's nurture, they'll never know, but Mako can feel his own impulses almost as tangibly as she does her own.
That's why he's the only one who can get a real rise out of her, who can barrel roll his way past the quiet reservedness of so many of her defenses. Chuck had watched her build those walls inside of herself, and when they were children had even helped her lay the foundation of so many, passing her brick after brick, his hands lingering and then not and then pulling away until there was nothing left for Mako to do but finish what they'd started on her own.
It doesn't make her bitter or angry or sad. It just makes her close to him in a way no one else is. A way that will never be closer (they'd tried it and it was awkward but maybe it was special too; Mako doesn't know).
Rather than give him the satisfaction of turning back to the little notepad she's been doodling in, Mako swings herself round and out to dangle, the motion graceful and near-balletic as she deposits herself into the narrow aisle of the camper feet-first. There's a flash of pale leg (not long, but lithe) as she does so, then the undeniable push of her hand as she tries to shove Chuck's feet off the bench across from him in an attempt to make room for herself.
He might be stubborn but she is too and Mako's never (never) walked away from anything. Never in her entire life. ]
[ the sand isn't all that wet, despite the way it looks. they're on the north pacific, somewhere off the coast of oregon. it's mostly lighthouses all worn down from time and sea salt and shit weather, peppered with worn out homes for coupon-clipping retirees with dogs and the occasional gas-station-with-attached-grocery. chuck has a bag of cheese balls from one of them that's the size of his leg. he's been keeping it stashed in what he's claimed as his pantry in the back of the camper.
max sits on the edge of the faded out faux-tile and looks up at him. mouth open. breathing heavily.
in the distance he can make out what must be the back of raleigh becket's head, because he and the petite slip of ink that moves at his side match each other's paces. that and he can hear yancy and tendo talking about some girl he hasn't caught the name of yet. chuck looks at his bare feet, jeans rolled up to bunch around his calves. it's more like tiny rocks than real sand, but it's soft enough that he doesn't much bother.
the sky is gray. he's heard that the way it normally is up here. someone down the length of the beach has a kite in the air, and he can make out only traces of color- orange and red. max huffs again and chuck rolls his eyes at the same moment he takes a step back. clicks his tongue to his teeth by way of encouragement and doesn't watch as the dog half hops, half waddles his way out of the camper.
least somebody's excited about nowhere oregon, because chuck sure isn't. ]
it's not that this is any particular revelation to chuck. he'd heard enough stories, and he'd grown up with his old man's particular brand of reckless abandon. truth be told, it isn't even the cliff diving that has him arrive at this conclusion, because chuck has always (always) gone at it with a running leap.
no. it's that they're doing it all in the damn nuddy.
chuck's head lifts, one hand raised to press against his forehead, keep the sun off his face long enough for a good long look at the expanse of water. there's a whoop that goes running by him, followed by a splash.
[ There's a tree — just the one — poised at the very edge of the cliff. Half on, half off it clings to the sheer rock face, its roots seeming to pour from the cracks in the stone like molten lava flowing upwards. Its branches are mostly sparse save at the very top of its crown; the entire posture of the tree is stretched towards over the water, trained that way by the passage of the sun and decades worth of costal wind blowing at its back.
Nestled in the lowest crook its boughs offers is Mako Mori, her legs dangling freely in the open air. In her hands is a thick slice of watermelon, cut from the fat belly of the fruit by a knife that had no place on a kitchen cuttingboard but which Ranger Hansen had assured her was perfectly serviceable. (Knife's a knife, Miss Mori. And that — that's a knife.)
Juice runs down her chin; she wipes at it with her forearm as the boys whiz by — tan streaks against grey stone. They plummet like stones into the water below.
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no subject
( chuck )
Chuck has a habit of sleeping in the cab of the truck instead of in the camper or in the tents they set up. he'd become a solitary kid after his mother died; Herc had grown accustomed to sleeping around other people before he'd left the Air Force to raise his kid (a few years late, but he'd pulled out, he hopes, before it was too late).
they don't talk much, but they're getting better. Herc's eyes flick passed the silhouettes of Mako and the Beckets catching fireflies, or whatever they are, before cutting to his son. he's whittling a piece of wood down with the survival knife Herc had given him into something like a spear.
Herc hands him a marshmellow. ]
no subject
the bark comes away in his hands like the skin of an apple. calloused, but soft underneath. shavings like in a pile between his feet- stick to the worn out boots and equally worn out laces wound twice around the top. it gets cooler at night on the coast. not anything to write home about, but it's just enough for pentecost and his father to set to the occasional brew of hot chocolate- or, when they think no one's paying attention, some shit instant coffee with whatever's left in whatever bottle they have kicking around.
the firelight throws them into gold relief against the rock face at their backs. a world that just doesn't exist beyond where the campfire can reach. it lights up the hairline scars that criss-cross chuck's hands. dot his knuckles, trace his fingers. a fight here. a smashed glass there. learning a new knife or climbing a fence he has no business being on.
there's a marshmellow offered up on his right, and chuck doesn't take it right away (there are rules to this game they've started up. the one where they play at being a family and getting along). instead he just looks up, watches his old man's face as the knife works up the length of the wood- pressed against the pad of his thumb. ]
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after a few heartbeats wherein no gesture to take the treat is made, his mouth purses and he gestures with it. take it]
Christ, it's not a rattler. Just take the damn thing.
[ there's a tease in his voice, despite the roughness of the words. ]
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chuck's expression wrinkles up and turns away. moves to the fire where he pushes the stick into the brightest part of the flame and watches the thing burn up. ]
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You wanna hold it over the fire, where it's hottest. [ he advises, and he doesn't see the look Chuck will undoubtedly throw him for offering his two cents, but he knows it'll be there regardless. instead, Herc threads two marshmallows over his own stick and holds it out well over the spot Chuck has decided to incinerate his marshmallow at. ]
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chuck appears oddly satisfied by the result, despite the absence of a smile. he keeps the stick over the fire, burns off the remainder of the marshmellow. he might be sulking. it's difficult to say for sure. ]
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(but he knows what he wants, he wants his mother back, he wants the name Hercules not to be a lie, but Herc can't give him that)
he doesn't roll his eyes but it's a damn near thing; he grunts, and it's almost a sound of amusement but even then, it's hard to tell. his own marshmallows are golden when he pulls them from above the fire, and he slides the far one off the end in a string of sticky sugar before handing it to his son. ]
Here.
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( c h u c k )
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it was something like three weeks before their fathers decided they were packing it into a goddamn camper van to travel the states. they haven't really talked about it or anything, if talking about first kisses is supposed to be a thing that happens. chuck has no idea. it's called a first kiss for a reason, he's not a fucking expert.
he'd flown back with his old man the next day all the same, and that'd more or less been the end of it.
chuck is surprised to find that things are different when he's stuffed into the cramped space of a travel van with relative strangers. he's never shared well, let alone shared space. chuck spends most of his first week at the table, feet propped up on the booth-style seat opposite him, and stares out the window. it gets hotter than hell, so the windows are always open. today it smells like sun-baked asphalt with no rain in sight. the collar of his shirt catches the breeze and he can see mako's bare feet peeking out from the bunk ontop of the cab.
his head tips back against the paneling, and chuck's hand falls from it's job holding up his face to flop over the table. he's bored, and chuck's record for restlessness never works out all that great for everyone trapped in there with him. ]
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That's the first thing that comes to mind whenever Mako thinks back on it. Chuck and his father were leaving for the other side of the world the next day, their things packed haphazardly into bags that eventually found themselves lined up out in the hall. Their dads had retreated to beers and war stories, leaving Mako and Chuck to the painstaking exercise of spending time with one another. Not that Chuck and Mako hadn't learned how to over the years, but the easier rapport of childhood had given way to the strained awkwardness of adolescence. An odd sort of tension that was part rivalry and part simply Chuck being Chuck.
In the end they'd bumped noses, bumped knees and bumped teeth, and when everything was said and done Mako wasn't sure if awkward also meant awesome. But it didn't really matter because Chuck was gone and she was on her own again. (That was that.)
—only that hadn't been that; that had turned into this over time. What Chuck likes to call officially the worst idea in the world: the lot of them packed like sardines into a camper, the others following caravan style in a beat-up pickup truck nicknamed Irene and a station wagon that looks older than both of their dads. Mako spends a lot of time in that truck and that station wagon, her bare feet propped up on the dash, toes wriggling against the distant line of the horizon. But for now, she's here, paying her dues by once again taking up Chuck duties.
Although her attention's elsewhere she hears the sound of his hand flopping to the table, the hard exhale of air from his lungs. Chuck's bored which means, if somebody doesn't run interference any time soon, it's going to be everyone's problem and not just his. The feet that dangle off the very edge of the bunk disappear, the sound of cheap sheets sticking to skin as she rearranges herself.
Bracing one hand along the edge of the bunk, Mako swings the top half of her torso out just far enough that, when she reaches out with her spare arm, she can flick the back of Chuck's ear with the cap of her pen.
Suck it up, Hansen. ]
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there isn't anything comfortable about the flick that finds the shell of his ear, and chuck jolts away from the contact- one hand brought up to the side of his head with a sharp- ] Oi- [ followed by a dirty look. he's likely got a patent on them by now, and hasn't appeared to run out of variations to dispense. ]
The hell was'at for?
[ they roll over uneven road, and chuck rocks with the same force that jostles their camper, but doesn't lose his balance. ]
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It's a benefit (or a curse) of having grown up together, their formative years intertwined by both their fathers' careers and friendship. Some would say Chuck and Mako were practically destined to be at least as close, being their fathers' children, but temperaments waxed and then waned with the onset of adolescence, placing them at odds with one another the way siblings often were.
Tilting her head to one side, Mako doesn't draw back for fear of retaliation. If he brought it, she would match it. They both knew that. (Maybe she was counting on it.) ]
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in many ways they are the sun and moon to eachother- opposites in every way, and held in place by gravity. they will always be constants to one another, but the same force that locks them together will forever keep them from touching.
he'll wait for her to turn back around, do whatever the hell it is she's doing, making friendship bracelets for her and becket or whatever (that's more raleigh's style and he knows it, but the grit to his teeth is there all the same. chuck's gaze returns to the window out of sheer spite. he'll throw the nearest object (a drab looking pillow no bigger than his forearm) as soon as she isn't looking. cheap shot. ]
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That's why he's the only one who can get a real rise out of her, who can barrel roll his way past the quiet reservedness of so many of her defenses. Chuck had watched her build those walls inside of herself, and when they were children had even helped her lay the foundation of so many, passing her brick after brick, his hands lingering and then not and then pulling away until there was nothing left for Mako to do but finish what they'd started on her own.
It doesn't make her bitter or angry or sad. It just makes her close to him in a way no one else is. A way that will never be closer (they'd tried it and it was awkward but maybe it was special too; Mako doesn't know).
Rather than give him the satisfaction of turning back to the little notepad she's been doodling in, Mako swings herself round and out to dangle, the motion graceful and near-balletic as she deposits herself into the narrow aisle of the camper feet-first. There's a flash of pale leg (not long, but lithe) as she does so, then the undeniable push of her hand as she tries to shove Chuck's feet off the bench across from him in an attempt to make room for herself.
He might be stubborn but she is too and Mako's never (never) walked away from anything. Never in her entire life. ]
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idefk???
max sits on the edge of the faded out faux-tile and looks up at him. mouth open. breathing heavily.
in the distance he can make out what must be the back of raleigh becket's head, because he and the petite slip of ink that moves at his side match each other's paces. that and he can hear yancy and tendo talking about some girl he hasn't caught the name of yet. chuck looks at his bare feet, jeans rolled up to bunch around his calves. it's more like tiny rocks than real sand, but it's soft enough that he doesn't much bother.
the sky is gray. he's heard that the way it normally is up here. someone down the length of the beach has a kite in the air, and he can make out only traces of color- orange and red. max huffs again and chuck rolls his eyes at the same moment he takes a step back. clicks his tongue to his teeth by way of encouragement and doesn't watch as the dog half hops, half waddles his way out of the camper.
least somebody's excited about nowhere oregon, because chuck sure isn't. ]
( jump jump jump )
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it's not that this is any particular revelation to chuck. he'd heard enough stories, and he'd grown up with his old man's particular brand of reckless abandon. truth be told, it isn't even the cliff diving that has him arrive at this conclusion, because chuck has always (always) gone at it with a running leap.
no.
it's that they're doing it all in the damn nuddy.
chuck's head lifts, one hand raised to press against his forehead, keep the sun off his face long enough for a good long look at the expanse of water. there's a whoop that goes running by him, followed by a splash.
lunatics. hand to god lunatics. ]
no subject
Nestled in the lowest crook its boughs offers is Mako Mori, her legs dangling freely in the open air. In her hands is a thick slice of watermelon, cut from the fat belly of the fruit by a knife that had no place on a kitchen cuttingboard but which Ranger Hansen had assured her was perfectly serviceable. (Knife's a knife, Miss Mori. And that — that's a knife.)
Juice runs down her chin; she wipes at it with her forearm as the boys whiz by — tan streaks against grey stone. They plummet like stones into the water below.
Splish. Splash. Splosh. ]
( h e r c )
( r a l e i g h )
( y a n c y )