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It takes Raleigh’s body a while to adjust to Tokyo’s climate, where they’ve settled while Mako works on the PPDC’s restoration initiative and he, well, loafs.
He starts to think about finding a job or something – his Japanese, decent to begin with, has gotten stronger with practice – and prowls the city for two days to see who’s hiring before he’s struck down by the flu.
It’s the first time he’s gotten really sick since he was a kid – he and Yancy and Jazmine always got vaccinated against the flu, but after Yancy died, he had a hard time finding the strength to drag himself into a pharmacy for anything other than his PPDC-prescribed anti-anxieties.
The first day Mako comes home to find him huddled under a pile of blankets, sweaty and feverish, she tuts and fusses and pushes lozenges and Popsicles and medicine on him. It’s been so long since anyone took care of him that he basks in it, sniffling and moaning so Mako will tend to him, stroke his hair, shush him. He doesn’t realize that he might be milking it too much until she knocks him out with a dose of Robitussin.
The next night, she comes home with chicken rice soup from the shop on the corner. “The best there is,” she promises. “Sensei used to swear by it.”
She sits beside him on the couch, plastic tub of soup and spoon in hand. “How are you feeling?”
Raleigh shrugs. “Still pretty gross. Throat hurts. Achy. Cold.”
”This will make you feel a little better,” she says, offering him a spoonful of soup. He slurps it off and scoots closer to her. The soup is warm in his belly, but something else warms inside him, too, when she raises the spoon again. There’s something comforting about her feeding him, something that makes him feel safe and secure.
”That was really good,” he tells her when the soup is gone. “Thank you.”
His stomach grumbles, full, and she blushes a little. “I worry about leaving you alone,” she says. “You were so thin when you came to Hong Kong. It’s good to see you eating.”
He rubs his belly gently and turns to kiss her shoulder. “Taking care of that nicely,” he murmurs, snuggling closer as a wave of chills passes over him. “Can you...”
”Yes?” she asks, stroking his hair off his forehead.
He gestures to his throat and winces. “Lozenges? Maybe? Please?”
”Even better,” she says, going into the kitchen. “I got some of your favorite.”
She brings a carton of red bean ice cream back to the couch, and Raleigh closes his eyes. “I love you,” he rasps, and she kisses him before loading the spoon and bringing it to his lips.
--
A few weeks later, when Raleigh’s rid himself of the flu – apart from a bit of a lingering cough when he lies on his back for too long – he comes up behind Mako in the kitchen and wraps his arms around her waist. It’s her turn to make dinner – gyoza, tonight – and her bangs are pulled back from her face, because she hates the way they stick to her forehead when she’s cooking.
“Hi,” he says into her hair, kissing down the back of her neck.
“Hi,” she says. “These are almost ready, if you want to get some plates.”
He takes two out of the cabinet above the sink, then leans against the counter, arms crossed over his chest. During every meal they’ve had together in the past few weeks, all he’s been able to think about is her feeding him, making sure that he’s warm and safe and well-fed, but there’s something nagging at the back of his brain, telling him that it’s a weird thing to be into, a weird thing to bring up out of nowhere.
He chews his lower lip for a minute, watching her cook, and then takes a deep breath. “You know what I really liked?” he says, and she glances at him over her shoulder.
“What?”
A warm flush begins creeping up his neck. “You know when I had the flu, and you brought me that soup?”
She nods, turning back to the dumplings. “The shop isn’t far, if you want to get some more. We can go tomorrow if you’d like.”
“No, it’s – the soup was great, Mako. But I really, um, I really liked the part where you, uh … fed it to me.”
She turns back to him, eyes interested. “You did?”
“Yeah,” he says, toying with the cuff of his sweater sleeve. “Maybe we could, uh, do that again sometime. Without the flu.”
“I would like that,” she says, and his heart jumps. “With the soup, or would you like to try something different?”
“Like what?” he asks, trying to tamp the excitement out of his voice.
“Well,” she says, “we have dumplings. But … Raleigh?”
“Yeah?”
“There’s something I want to try, too,” she says. “If you’re okay with it.”
He feels himself get hot, feels his breathing quicken. He loves when Mako wants to experiment, loves when she takes the lead and trusts him to follow it. He’s spent long enough floundering and directionless that being told what to do is comforting, calming.
“Yeah,” he says. “Anything you want.”
“I want to feed you until you’re full,” she says, crossing the small space between them to take his hands. “Until you’re very full.” She holds his gaze for a long moment, then looks down at their hands, rubbing her thumbs across his palms. “I want to see what you look like when you’re totally satiated.”
Raleigh’s finding it a little hard to breathe, imagining Mako filling him up, her fingers brushing against his lips, encouraging him to eat. “Yeah,” he says, nodding emphatically. “I want to do that.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure,” he says, and she smiles.
“Okay then,” she says, and squeezes his hands before turning back to take the gyoza out of the steamer. She always makes extra to freeze for a night they don’t feel like cooking, but now she loads them all onto one plate and then turns to face Raleigh again, eyes bright, cheeks pink.
“Ready?” she says, and he leans down to kiss her because when she’s this excited he can almost feel it in his own chest, a steady golden hum like the smooth whirr of Gipsy’s heart.
“Ready,” he says, and they settle on the couch with the plate of dumplings. Mako studies the setup for a moment, then straddles Raleigh’s thighs. “I think this will be easiest,” she says.
“What?” Raleigh teases gently. “You never done this before?”
She blushes and looks away, and when she glances back at him, he sees the insecurity in her eyes, like she’s waiting for him to change his mind, push her away. He wonders who’s judged her for it, who’s told her that it’s strange and gross and unladylike. He wonders how deeply she has it buried that it didn’t show up in the Drift.
“No,” Mako says, biting her lower lip. “Not everyone is as willing as you are.”
“Oh,” he says, and he’s suddenly, overwhelmingly glad that he is able to give this to her, that he’s able to enjoy this with her. He’s going to make this rock her world, because she has rocked his so many times already just by being Mako, and she deserves something in return.
And, he’ll admit, this sounds pretty hot.
“Well, I’m very willing,” he says, meeting her eyes. “I want to do this with you, Mako. I can’t wait to do this with you.”
Mako picks up a dumpling and brings it to his lips. She smiles at him, wide and open and earnest. “Maybe we should get started, then.”
He eats the first dumpling in two bites, kissing at her fingertips, and the second one in just one. They’re just the right balance of crispy and chewy, the way he likes, and he lets out a little ummmm of pleasure after he swallows. Mako’s eyes widen a little, and he files that away: noises = good.
“How are they?” she asks, and Raleigh recognizes the tone she uses when she’s holding back her emotions, trying to present her words objectively.
“They’re really good,” he says, nodding. “They’re perfect.”
“Show me,” says Mako, lifting her chin, and Raleigh eats the next one enthusiastically, making little noises as he chews and licking his lips afterward. Mako nods, watching him like she’s in a trance. A soft burp rolls up from his belly, and she blinks, breaking the spell.
“That was good,” she says, nodding. “That was all … very good.”
Raleigh grins. “Hit me again,” he says.
The next several dumplings go down easy – Raleigh loses count after six. When the plate is half empty, he slips a hand down to his abdomen and begins to idly rub it where it’s beginning to feel full. He’s surprised to find that there’s a subtle curve there, stomach taut under his skin, and he palms it absently as Mako brings another dumpling to his lips.
After a few more, he’s pretty sure he’s full. His stomach is beginning to make soft noises of contentment, and the waistband of his jeans is digging into his skin.
He lets out a low groan and settles further back on the couch, and Mako looks at him. “Are you full already?” she asks, and he’s positive that he detects the smallest shred of disappointment in her voice.
“What? No,” he says, shaking his head for emphasis. “No, just – pleased, you know? But I need to, um …” He takes her hand, places it on the button of his jeans. “Do you want to do it?”
“Too tight?” she asks, cheeks flushed. He nods, and she closes her eyes.
“You do it,” she says. “I want to see.”
He unbuttons the jeans, unzips them a little just in case, and sighs as the pressure disappears. “Keep going,” he says, and she beams.
He lets her feed him another one. He can put away the rest, he thinks.
He feels a little differently by the time the plate is empty. His stomach feels like it’s about to burst; it’s starting to ache in a way it hasn’t since he and Yancy would binge on Halloween candy as kids. He feels sleepy, too heavy to move, and he burps a couple of times, trying to lessen his discomfort.
“Are you okay?” Mako asks, running a hand over his swollen belly. It bows out under his sweater, smooth and bloated. He marvels drowsily at how big it is.
He tries to take a deep breath and winces. “Too much,” he manages. “Too full.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Mako asks, pushing up his sweater to rub his belly properly. “We could have stopped.”
“Didn’t want to” – he pauses, squeezing out another belch – “disappoint you.”
“I won’t be disappointed if you tell me that you’ve hit your limit,” she says, kissing his forehead. Her hands feel wonderful on his stomach, and he tries to lean up to kiss her, but he’s too full to move properly. He tips back his head, exhales carefully.
“But you need to tell me, okay?” Mako continues. “So this can be good for both of us.”
“Okay,” he agrees. “Next time, I promise.”
“Next time,” she repeats, grinning, and kisses his stomach before sliding off his lap to settle next to him.
“Hope the rest of your evening’s free,” he says. “I don’t think I’m gonna be moving for a while.”
She smiles. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ll take care of you.”
--
A couple of weeks later, they’re tangled on the couch in their boxers, making their way through Mako’s box set of The A Team (passed on to her from Stacker after many father-daughter days spent watching it), drinking sake out of coffee mugs and eating out of a five-pound box of chocolates they received as part of a thank-you basket from the government of British Columbia.
They’ve experimented a couple more times with feeding and stuffing – once with sushi, which Raleigh liked until he couldn’t get the taste of fish out of his mouth for days afterwards; and once with pizza, which went down a lot easier. He’s getting better at finding his limits, but he’s been trying to push himself, too, for Mako. She’s beginning to recognize the signs that he’s getting full, and although she appreciates seeing him try to power through for her, she doesn’t want him to feel like he needs to give himself a stomachache just to please her.
She selects a chocolate from the box and offers it to him, brushing it against his lips. He takes it and chases it with a gulp of sake. He’s on his second mug; she’s just finishing her first – they’ve interspersed their drinking and TV-watching with several slow, languid makeout sessions – but she guesses that they’re both around the same level: a little more than tipsy, a little bit drowsy, very cuddly.
“Raspberry,” he tells her around a hiccup. He puts one in her mouth, and she makes a face as she chews.
“Maple?” he asks. She nods. She doesn’t remember telling him that she doesn’t like maple, and wonders if it’s just something he’s noticed or if he picked it out of the Drift. Maybe he can’t remember, either. She’s lost track of how she came to acquire all of Raleigh’s small details: that he’s comforted by small spaces; that before he joined the PPDC he wanted to join the Air Force; that he can speak handfuls of at least six languages; that he wants to learn to cook but never remembers to try when he’s bored; that he doesn’t like cabbage or kiwi or sriracha.
He’s told her the big details himself, and she’s seen the parts he’s trying to forget in the Drift. She knows that while her grief manifests as angry and explosive, something that pushes her forward, his is quiet and destructive and self-contained. She knows that one night four years ago, while she was building his Jaeger a new heart at the Anchorage Shatterdome, he hung up on a suicide hotline three times before he trekked through the snow to the walk-in clinic not ten miles away from her. She knows that he has not trusted anyone the way he trusts her since Yancy died, and she knows it’s been as long since anyone looked after him or made him feel at ease.
She looks at him sprawled out on the couch, eyes heavy-lidded and smile lazy, head tipped to the side against the cushions. He’s engrossed in the episode on the TV screen, one hand bringing chocolates to his mouth as he watches. He looks healthy now, his cheeks pink and fuller than they were when he arrived in Hong Kong. There are still days when he wakes up feeling too low to get out of bed, and there are still days when he returns shamefaced and empty-handed from grocery shopping because it was too cold in the store and his brain began tossing up memories of freezing surf and the burn of Gipsy’s neural feeds on his skin.
(She has those days too, when the color red brings tears to her eyes and loud noises force her onto the defensive, and like she knows that the best way to get him back from a nightmare is to curl around him from behind and hold him still like a straightjacket, he knows that the best way to level her is to keep talking to her, hold a steady stream of chatter until she gives the nod that means it’s okay to touch her now.)
“You’re staring,” Raleigh says, slurring a little. “Everything okay?”
She nods and presses a kiss to his bare shoulder. His torso has lost some of its definition, now, his abs a little harder to make out. She runs a hand over the warm skin of his stomach and pinches, gently, where a tiny bit of softness has accumulated.
“Everything’s okay,” she assures him, taking another chocolate out of the box and placing it in his mouth. He closes his eyes as he chews, and Mako guesses, “Caramel?”
He nods, swallows. “You know what I wanna do?” he asks, toying with the hem of her gray tank top.
“What?”
His hand lands back in the box of chocolates. “I wanna eat these off you,” he says, and Mako’s stomach swoops.
“I want you to do that,” she agrees.
“Lie down,” he says, shifting so that he’s more upright. She slithers down until she’s lying flat, and rucks her tank top up above her breasts. Raleigh straddles her hips and lays out chocolates from her collarbone to just above the waistband of her boxer shorts. Then, smiling, he balances one on her lips and eats that one first, touching the tip of his nose to hers as he chews. She smiles too, and once he swallows she pulls him down and kisses him hard. He tastes like mint and chocolate.
She closes her eyes when his lips brush against her chest, and decides to keep them closed to enhance the sensation of his mouth on her body. She feels him eat the next chocolate, and then she lets out a gasp of pleasure when he closes his teeth gently around the tip of her left breast. She opens her eyes enough to make an educated grab for his hair, and knots her fingers in it as he mouths at her nipple. He moves to her other breast next, and she squirms beneath him, arching and pushing out hard breaths through her nose.
He kisses the spot between her breasts and moves to the next chocolate, licking her skin before eating the candy off her. She shivers a little, tugging at his hair, and lets go as he moves farther down her body. She feels his teeth against her skin as he picks up one of the chocolates on her belly, and she lets out a little moan of satisfaction.
“More,” she says once she feels him eat the last one, and when she opens her eyes, he’s grinning.
“In a second,” he says, and gently slides her boxers and underwear down her hips, down to her ankles. She kicks them off and spreads her legs for him, body hot with anticipation, and he kisses down over her hipbones, the insides of her thighs, and finally brings his mouth between her legs. She tangles one hand in his hair again, arching up to him as he kisses and laps at her.
She knows he loves that she’s loud, expressive, in bed, though she doesn’t do it for him. Raleigh has a certain way of touching her as if he’s handling something sacred – gentle, but not because he doesn’t think she can handle anything more. He’s rough when she asks him to be, too rough sometimes, so eager to please her. She’s made no secret of the fact that she likes to be thrown around a little when they fuck, likes hands knotted in her hair and teeth on her shoulders and hard thrusts against the wall, and she knows he’d know that even without her telling him. But regardless of what he saw in the Drift, he continues to ask her anyway – do you like this, what did you think of that, how do you feel doing this – and sometimes, even when they’re being rough, he’ll slow it down just as she’s beginning to wear out, like he can sense it before she can. He doesn’t pretend to be any stronger or less vulnerable than she is, and it shows, she thinks, in the way he makes love to her. She’s addicted to the way he melts into her when they finish, the way those same hands can hold her steady as they pound their bodies against each other and then caress light, gentle patterns onto her skin until she falls asleep.
And he’s as good at the dirty parts as he is at the sweet ones, she thinks, releasing a breathy ahhh as he works his tongue. He draws her up to the edge of orgasm, until her breathing starts to come hard and fast, and then he pulls back before she can fall, kissing down her thighs and then back up her belly until he reaches her lips.
“You taste like me,” she pants, rocking her hips against him.
“Yeah?” he says, still grinning. “You better give me something else to taste like, then.”
She gropes toward the coffee table until she finds the box of chocolates, and selects one at random to push between his lips.
“Eat up,” she says. “You have a lot of eating to do, I think.”
“Which should I do first?”
She considers it. “More off me,” she decides. “Then this” – she rubs a finger between her legs, and Raleigh makes a little noise – “and then I’ll feed you the rest of the chocolate. Yes?”
He nods. “Yes,” he says, placing chocolates down the length of her torso like vertebrae. Then, his voice huskier, “Tell me what you’re gonna do. You gonna get me full?”
She closes her eyes and nods. Hearing him say it like he wants it turns her on more than she expected.
“Yes,” she says, breath hitching as his lips touch the base of her neck. “Fill you up until you can’t move. Make sure you’ve had all you can eat.” The part of her brain that’s still firing around the sensation of Raleigh’s mouth on her skin panics for a moment – will she scare him off if she says anything more specific? will the word stuffing make him think twice about getting into this? what about I want to make you bigger, I want to make you softer? – but then one of his hands finds her breast and all she can muster is a sharp, gasping whimper.
But as he eats the rest of the chocolates off her body, she thinks about how he would look with his abs obscured beneath a soft layer of fat, just enough to round out beneath his T-shirts and sweaters, to push a little over the waistband of his pants, and by the time he moves back between her legs, it doesn’t take long for her to come.
As she’s catching her breath, muscles pulsing between her thighs, Raleigh settles beside her and brushes her sweaty bangs out of her face and kisses her forehead.
“Good?” he asks, and she nods.
“Want me to take care of this?” she asks, placing her hand on the bulge beneath his boxers.
He hesitates, grabbing his mug off the coffee table and taking a swig of sake before saying, “Not yet. Let’s, um, do this first.” He jerks his head toward the box of chocolates on the coffee table, and Mako glances at him sharply.
“Does that turn you on?” she asks, and he blushes, ducking his head.
“A little,” he says, and she grins.
“You don’t have to be shy,” she says, kissing his cheek. “Look who you’re talking to. This was my idea.”
“Yeah, you deviant,” he says, rolling on top of her. She giggles, and he smacks a wet kiss on her lips before saying, “Come on, feed me the rest of these. I want you to – what’d you say? Fill me up until I can’t move?”
She nods, her turn to blush. “That was it.”
Half an hour later, Raleigh is stuffed and spent, propped against the arm of the sofa with one hand on his belly.
“Good?” asks Mako, who’s perched on his thighs, and when he nods, she leans forward to kiss him.
“You taste like me,” he teases when she pulls away, and she makes a face at him.
“You taste like chocolate,” she says, poking her tongue between his lips. She scoots closer to him and plants a hand on his stomach for support, and he groans.
“Careful,” he says. “There’s a lot in there.”
She kisses the roundest part of his belly, running her hands over it. “I’m glad you like this.”
He burps gently and adjusts his position a little. “We’ll see how much I like it when I try to get up.”
--
It becomes a thing for them, sort of. They experiment most on weekends – ice cream, pasta, doughnuts, onigiri – but sometimes it’s too tempting not to on weeknights. Sometimes Mako will come home to find Raleigh on the couch, sheepish and surrounded by bags of chips or cookies – or, once, all the way through a couple of double cheeseburgers from the Lotteria down the street – groaning and rubbing his belly. She’s noticed that he snacks more often now, and eats more at dinner even if they’re not doing anything kinky, though she’s not sure if he’s doing it consciously.
She’s fairly positive that he definitely hasn’t noticed the little extra softness under his chin, or the tiny muffin top that’s started to spill over the waist of his jeans, but she can’t help herself from smiling every time his shirts ride up or he ducks his head the right way and she catches a glimpse. He’s softer under her hands these days, and although she’s not sure how he’ll react when he finally notices, she resolves to enjoy it while it lasts.
--
Although they keep in touch with their friends from the Hong Kong Shatterdome – Raleigh and Tendo text constantly, and Mako exchanges emails with Newt and Hermann at least twice a month – they don’t see any of them until Herc winds up in Tokyo about four months into the restoration initiative.
They end up at one of the city’s nicer bars – Herc’s not one for glamour or gourmet; give him a burger and a draft beer and he’s good to go – and peruse the menu while they wait for him to arrive. He texted Mako about ten minutes ago saying that his cab was stuck in traffic, and Raleigh kind of hopes it takes a while for that traffic to loosen up, because Mako has spent those ten minutes whispering into his ear about stuffing him with burgers and fries. She’s wearing a silky navy-blue top he can’t stop touching, it’s so soft, and tight dark jeans and the spike-heeled ankle boots he always forgets she owns until she breaks them out for a special occasional and he almost trips himself staring. Her lips are painted scarlet, and for a second he kinda hopes that Herc gets lost in traffic, because he might need to get Mako in a dark corner and kiss the shit out of her.
“I think this one, maybe,” he says, pointing to a double cheeseburger with at least three unidentifiable fixings layered inside it. “What do you think?”
She leans in so close he thinks he might have lipstick prints on his ear. “I think that will get you pretty full,” she says. “But maybe not full enough. We might have to get something for dessert on the way home.”
Raleigh nods, lost in the jasmine-grapefruit scent of her hair. “That sounds good to me,” he says, taking a long gulp of his beer. Yancy always insisted on the light kind – can’t have a beer gut in those drive suits – and Raleigh always went along with it, because Yancy knew best, and Yancy was usually buying, but he takes guilty pleasure in enjoying the regular stuff now.
Mako watches him, sipping her gin rickey. She crosses her legs on her barstool, nudging one of Raleigh’s boots with the toe of her own.
“You would look cute with a beer belly,” she teases, and he rolls his eyes.
“No one looks cute with a beer belly,” he says, thinking of Yancy's words.
She looks like she’s readying a response, but then Herc is looming between them, and she slides off her stool to give him a hug. Raleigh gives him a firm handshake instead.
Herc looks thin, drawn. He carries himself differently now, Raleigh notices; he recognizes it from the first few months – years, maybe, he admits – after Yancy died. His shoulders are pulled in, his stance less sure. But he smiles as he slides onto the barstool Mako gives up for him between her and Raleigh, and although his eyes look weary, it’s the same smile Raleigh remembers from Hong Kong.
He listens to Herc and Mako discuss the restoration initiative, listens to him tell her about how it’s going in Sydney, how they’re slowly rebuilding, how Max was so excited to go for a proper walk in the park when they first got back. Raleigh admires how pulled-together he is, so soon. He knows that four months after Yancy’s death, he could not have sat in a bar with other Rangers and talked about it so freely. Four months after Yancy’s death, he could barely haul himself out of bed to brush his teeth.
He brings it up, when Mako takes a celebratory call from one of her colleagues about a grant that went through and leaves the two of them alone.
“Looks like you’re doing well,” he says, finishing his beer. “It’s been hard for us, I’m sure it’s been hard for you too – but you look like you’re doing all right.”
Herc takes a long pull from his own beer. “It’s hard,” he agrees. “Every day it’s something else you miss, you know? And when you think you’ve noticed them all, you think there can’t possibly be anything else –”
“There always is,” Raleigh finishes. “It’s been almost five and a half years and I’m still noticing things.”
Herc nods. “Looks like whatever you’ve been doing suits you, though,” he says gruffly, gesturing to Raleigh’s midsection. “Good thing you don’t have to squeeze all that into a drive suit, huh?”
Raleigh freezes, the beer turning cold in his stomach. “I, uh. Yeah.”
“Might as well indulge,” says Herc. “Saved the world, all that.”
Raleigh thinks there’s a trace of bitterness in his voice, but his mind is elsewhere for the moment. He surreptitiously brings a hand to his lap, sliding a palm over his belly, which – to his horror – rounds out over his belt. The beer is the first thing he’s had in hours, so he can’t be bloated …
He flags the bartender, orders his next beer light, and excuses himself to the bathroom.
It’s just a single room, no stalls, for which Raleigh is immensely grateful, because he can have the mirror to himself. Mako talked him into wearing something nice – which shook out to nothing more than the addition of a button-down to his usual sweater and jeans – and sure, the button-down was a little snug, but he chalked it up to having not quite figured out the new washer and dryer yet, and being so used to oversized knitwear that maybe he’d forgotten what fitted shirts felt like. But now, with his sweater hiked up to his chest, looking at the way his stomach swells against the buttons of his shirt, he feels a dull heat creep up the back of his neck.
He thinks of all the food he’s stuffed himself with for Mako, thinks of everything she’s encouraged him to eat, thinks of the exercise routines he’s neglected since the war ended. Has she noticed? He cringes in the mirror, grabbing a handful of his belly through the shirt. There’s a lot more than a handful staring back at him. He frowns – even his face looks chubby, his cheeks fuller than he remembers. His chin and jawline are soft, too, in a way they haven’t been since he lost all his baby fat as a preteen.
Mako has to have noticed. She hasn’t said anything, hasn’t even dropped any hints – and she’s usually so direct. She’s never told Raleigh exactly what her type is when it comes to men, but she’s been raised in military base after military base – he assumes that that has probably informed her preferences at least a little bit. He imagines that her taste probably runs toward guys built like Herc or the Wei triplets, all lean sinew, the way he used to look when he was a Ranger. Or maybe she’s into big broad-shouldered hunks of muscle, like Aleksis Kaidanovsky. But he’s pretty sure that whichever way her physical preferences go, flabby ex-pilots with a taste for double cheeseburgers aren’t at the top of her list, or anyone else’s.
He lifts up his button-down a little, frowns at how pale and soft he is. He’s gotten into the habit of looking at his body as little as possible – too many scars, too much trauma – so he understands, kind of, how this got past him, but it doesn’t make him any more okay with it.
His stomach growls traitorously, and he smoothes his shirt back down, adjusts his sweater around his waist. The bulge of his gut is so obvious, now that he knows it’s there, and he glares at it before returning to his seat at the bar.
Mako is back from her phone call, and she looks up from her conversation with Herc and smiles brightly at him. “I ordered for you,” she says when he sits down. “The burger you were looking at.”
He tries not to cringe. The light beer sits on his coaster, mocking.
He doesn’t say much for the rest of dinner, too preoccupied with the thought of Mako slowly losing interest in touching him, in snuggling with him. Her touch is the most grounding force he’s ever found, and just the idea of losing that, of losing her, is enough to make him lose his appetite.
But he eats the burger anyway, because she’s looking at him with concern in her eyes and the last thing he wants is to worry her, to ruin her night with his discovery, so he keeps eating. He swigs down two more light beers, adds his two cents to the conversation when there’s a gap, and thinks – his chest tight with dread – about how Mako will want to undress him when they get home.
She snuggles up to him in the cab, and he laces his fingers through hers in an attempt to keep her hands off his stomach. “Dessert?” she suggests, and he shrugs.
“If you want.”
“Do you want it? We don’t have to –”
“I’m kind of full,” he says, and he avoids her eyes as they search his face.
“You didn’t eat a lot at dinner,” she says, and he huffs out a laugh.
“When did a double cheeseburger become not a lot?” he says, and through the flash of the streetlights passing across her face, he sees her frown.
“Is everything okay?” she asks.
“Can we talk about it at home?” he says. “It’s not life-or-death, I promise. It’s just … embarrassing.”
“Okay,” she says, but he feels her eyes linger on him for the rest of the cab ride, like she can discern the problem if she observes him long enough.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” she says once they’re home and settled on the couch, and he crosses his arms over his belly, trying to squish it down.
“Herc said something,” he says quietly. “When you were on the phone, about the grant. And I realized – I mean, I haven’t really been working out or anything, but I thought I’d be okay – and I didn’t even notice it happening, Jesus, and I get it if you don’t – if you don’t like it.”
“Raleigh,” she says, eyebrows pulled together, “what are you talking about?”
He twists the hem of his sweater between his fingers, then pulls it up with the button-down so she can see. “I’m getting fat,” he says, and it sounds pitiful even to him.
She doesn’t say No, you’re not, or It’s not that bad, or It’s just a few pounds. She scoots into his lap and puts her cool hands on his belly. “Does it bother you?” she asks.
He blinks. “Does it bother you?”
“It’s your body,” she says. “I think it’s beautiful. I think you’re beautiful.” She leans down and kisses his stomach, rubbing her thumbs over his skin, and he shudders a little.
“You think it’s beautiful?”
She looks up at him. “You look so much healthier than you used to,” she tells him. “You look happier. You seem happier, and that’s what matters to me. This is nice, I love this” – she pinches his belly gently, and he makes a little noise of surprise – “but it’s more important to me that you’re happy than that you have your abs.” She smoothes his hair, then continues, “But if you’re not happy with it, we can work on it. We can stop doing the food things, or we can do them with healthier food, or –”
“It’s not that I don’t like it,” he interrupts. “I just – I don’t know, I thought maybe you wouldn’t like it. When you met me I was, you know, ripped and fit and I just thought maybe that’s what you liked on guys.”
She shakes her head. “Nope,” she says. “I like this much more.” She plants one more kiss on his stomach, leaving behind a little red print, and then moves to his lips. “Maybe I should show you.”
“Maybe you should,” he agrees, and she pushes him back on the couch. She kisses at the softness below his jaw, and he feels the gentle tug of her teeth on his skin.
“You like my double chin?” he can’t help asking, and she nods against him.
“It’s cute,” she says, slipping a hand under his sweater. “Let’s get this off.” She pulls it over his head, and slowly unbuttons his shirt, kissing down his chest and stomach before slipping it off him and tossing it aside. “You’re so soft,” she murmurs. “It feels so nice when we’re in bed and you’re holding me.” She pauses to suck at the skin of his belly, leaving a bright bruise in her wake. “You feel substantial. Safe.”
She moves back up to kiss him hard, pushing her hips against his, and he pulls her closer, wincing as she grabs at his stomach.
“You’re squeezing too tight,” he says around her lips. “Little gentler, okay? It’s not going anywhere.”
“That’s good to hear,” she says, smirking, but her grip loosens. “Now shhhh.”
She kisses him until he’s struggling to breathe, and then she moves down his body, leaving lipstick prints and little hickeys all over his stomach. She unzips his jeans, works them down over his thighs – he can’t help noticing that those look pudgier, too, but if it doesn’t bother Mako he’s not going to let it bother him. She kisses the bright red lines his now-snug jeans have pressed into his skin. Then, keeping one hand on his belly, she takes him into her mouth, and he inhales sharply, mind going blank. He fists his hands in her hair and whimpers underneath her, every nerve in his body standing on end.
When she’s got him panting and begging her to finish, she sits up and begins to undress, slithering out of the silky top and tight jeans. She fishes a condom out of the pocket of her jeans before tossing them aside, and Raleigh sits up on his elbows, breathing hard.
“Did you bring that to dinner?” he asks.
She shrugs. “I like the way you look in button-downs. I figured better safe than sorry.”
“Shit,” he breathes, imagining Mako pinning him against a wall in a dark bar. “Shit –come on – come here.”
He pulls her on top of him, and they make out for a minute before Mako slips back down to kiss all over his belly, then the insides of his thighs. He yelps when he feels her teeth scrape gently across his skin, and inhales sharply when she tears open the condom and rolls it onto him.
He arches into her, and she moves against him, slow at first, then faster. Times like these they move so well against each other that Raleigh could swear the Drift is still working, synchronizing the rolls of their hips and the heaves of their breathing, letting their bodies harmonize with each other as best they can.
When they’re both edging closer to climax, Mako tugs at his hips, and he rolls so that he’s on top of her, suddenly aware of the way his stomach laps against hers. But then she pulls him flush to her, bracing herself on his shoulders, and the change of position hits just right. He gives a breathy little gasp and thrusts forward, and she grips his shoulder so hard he’s sure he’ll bruise.
He feels her begin to come a second before she cries out, bucking and shuddering against him. He holds her close as she’s coming down from it, gently rocking himself against her until he comes, too, and collapses against her, panting and languid.
Once he’s cleaned himself up, she settles her head on his chest. “Good?” she asks, and he nods emphatically. “Still worried that I won’t like you with a little squish?”
“Not after that,” he says, propping himself up on one elbow to survey their bodies. “I’m gonna have bruises on my stomach for the next week.”
She grins wickedly. “There’s a lot more where that came from.”
“Yeah, I bet,” he says, nuzzling into her neck and leaving a wet kiss there. “I bet this has been your objective from the beginning.”
She shrugs, smirking. “The only thing I will say for sure,” she says, “is that there’s more ice cream in the freezer, and I will not object if you want to finish it.”
“Are you gonna give it to me?” he asks. “Maybe I only want it if it’s coming from you.”
She rolls over so that she’s lying on his stomach, tweaking the little swell above his hips. “I think that can be arranged,” she says.
--
When it gets warmer out, they have Tendo and Alison over for dinner and drinks on the tiny balcony of their apartment. Alison’s here for a United Nations munitions conference; Tendo’s here for kicks. Their son is sitting on his lap, two kaiju figurines clutched in his tiny hands. Mako catches herself trying to identify them, and feels a strange sense of relief when she can’t. She hopes the only kaiju this kid ever sees are four inches high and made of brightly colored plastic.
She tunes back in; Tendo and Alison are talking over each other, telling Raleigh a story from the early days of their courtship. She forgets, sometimes, that while she’s heard the entire saga told over and over again over the past five years, some of it is still new to Raleigh, having dropped off the grid for most of that time.
They’re both still fighting nightmares and black days and crying jags, as she expects they’ll always be, but it’s been better lately. Maybe it’s the onset of summer; maybe they’ll continue to mellow each other the longer they’re together. But she sees the anxious crease between Raleigh’s eyebrows less frequently these days, and more often than usual she’s caught him sleeping peacefully, his expression smoothed out and tranquil. He’s been working with a metalworker downtown, doing some odd soldering jobs, keeping his hands busy, and Mako thinks that’s helping, too.
They order in, and when the food arrives, Mako fills a plate for Raleigh, who’s got Tendo’s son on his lap, looking a little amused and a lot mystified. He looks like he’s afraid that one wrong move will ruin the kid’s life, and it fills Mako with a rush of affection for him. She holds the plate so he can see it, and he nods and passes the kid back to Alison.
“Looks like you’re improving him,” Tendo says to Mako, nodding to Raleigh and shooting her a lopsided grin. “He’s never looked this good. Not a scrape on him, all filled out and settled down …”
She smiles, too, but she glances at Raleigh to see how he reacts. He hasn’t made any negative remarks about his weight since the night Herc was in town – he’s even started buying clothes in a size up so they fit him properly – but there hasn’t been anyone to really make him aware of it except Mako, whose attention is always overwhelmingly positive. But he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even blink, just laughs and rubs a hand across his stomach, soft under his gray T-shirt.
“All she’s ever done is improve me,” he says, taking the plate she hands him. “There’s never been any question about that.”
He grins at Mako, and she settles into the seat next to his, fingers brushing his shoulder as she sits down. The Drift has better attuned her to all of his emotions, but right now, she can’t tell if the warm amber glow is emanating from Raleigh, or from herself.