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She hates him.
Raleigh feels that the second Mako meets Chuck. She hates him with the pure unadulterated hate that only a child is capable of. The feeling is mutual, that much is clear and its written all over Chucks’s face. It doesn’t matter that Mako’s a wisp of a girl whose lost her parents, it doesn’t matter that the entire world is falling apart around them. The only thing they matters is that they hate each other very, very much.
They cannot be left alone with each other.
That becomes clear within the first five minutes of them being left alone with one another when Chuck kicks Mako under the table. Mako doesn’t kick him back, subtly is not her style. She lunges forward and knocks him off his chair. It takes both of their fathers to rip them apart and hold them back as they howl in a mix of Japanese and Australian slurs, screaming out the anger they’re both being taught to hold back.
Three days later they are effectively best friends.
Raleigh feels the white hot anger vanish. Not vanish, release. It explodes and they feel better. Both of them. Mako’s been raised to be in control, you don’t forge steel without control. Chuck’s the opposite, everyone’s encouraging him to express himself better and the truth is he doesn’t know how. Hatred gives them something to focus on. That makes them useful to each other, and they both recognize the importance of that.
The memory gives way and flashes through Raleigh as he forces himself to stay in the silence of the drift, watching first days of school and hours of homework and passing slips of paper back and forth.
Then Chuck’s mouth is on his.
No, not his, it’s on Mako’s. And he knows Mako’s heart is going to beat out of her chest. It’s a kiss given with clinical precision, done by two people who have agreed to do this and read extensively on the subject because that’s what you do when you’re surrounded by adults who’s world is focused on revenge. What makes Mako’s heart skip is the fact that Chuck’s used his chocolate ration so he won’t taste bad.
she knows because she’s done the same thing.
That’s what holds her there and makes her shift her head a bit as he gently slides his tongue in to her parted lips. They pull away and look at each other, both flushed and oddly dissatisfied. Anger is still easiest and they grab their marked books, both accusing the other of doing something wrong. Until Chuck lunges forward and doesn’t so much kiss her as crush their mouths together and instead of being tentative he’s rough and—
oh.
He feels the heat as the book drops and Mako fists her hands in Chuck’s shirt because she needs him closer. Which is funny because he’s already yanked her against him and neither is sure how that’s going to be possible with all their clothes still on. They twist together and grip each other, crushing the book Mako was holding between them until Chuck grabs it and throws it over his shoulder which earns him a punch from Mako whose very good at close quarter combat. He retaliates by biting her bottom lip which she returns by working a hand underneath his shirt and raking her nails down his shoulderblade. They break apart when he tries to do the same and encounters her bra.
That’s a little too far for both of them.
They don’t get together, not in any traditional sense of the word. They come together. When their dads meet up, when they rotate through the Shatterdomes, when they have to provide support to the relief efforts or the galas they are occasionally forced to help out at. After all, they are the future. It’s at one of those parties that they have their first dance. They’re helping with answering questions and making sure the drinkers have liquor. Its after everyone’s left and the party is being taken down around them that Chuck puts his hand on the small of Mako’s back and she wraps one on his shoulder. Someone in the band sees them and is reminded of a better time and convinces his friends to play. Its just them and a few songs but Mako doesn’t think it’s possible to feel more loved than she does in that moment.
The happiest RABITS are the hardest ones not to chase. The bad ones seem to yank at you, but the good ones are tempting. Both present their dangers. This one is the hardest, or one if them anyway. It takes everything Raleigh has to stay in the drift when Chuck lets out a moan he stifles in the soft curve of Mako’s neck.
His hands are on her body, going lower and lower. Her hands are on his shoulders and in her mind Raleigh knows she isn’t supposed to move them unless she wants him to stop. She does and she doesn’t until he traces the jut of her hipbone before going lower. She makes a sound and presses her face closer to his as he slides fingers along her center where only her own have been.
When she’s done it shes muffled her sounds in her hand or her pillow, trying to be quiet. From where their faces are pressed, her lips are near his ear and he hears every one of them. He explores until he finds the best spots, the ones that make her whimper and buck her hips against his fingers.
She’s still gasping when she reaches down and follows the downy trail that starts below his naval and goes all the way down. His fingers crush the pillow under her head as her fingers wrap around him. She does her own exploring as he tenses against her, fighting to control himself as she moves her hand on his shaft. She kisses just before his ear and feels him spill over her hand as he bites out a low sound against her neck.
The memory fades as he lifts his head and they brush their noses together.
They’re both in Anchorage for several months.
At the time neither knows why. It happens so quickly he doesn’t have time to warn her. She’s got her arms full when he appears at the end of the hallway with a big duffle bag and a glare that gives way when their eyes meet. Everything falls to the ground as they rush at each other and collide. It’s not two weeks or three days or a few hours, all in all it’s almost four months.
Chuck has training and so does she but there’s more than that. There’s long nights and the occasional morning where there’s nothing to do except stay in bed, which is something neither has done in a very long time. They have their own rooms but they don’t use two. In her head, Raleigh can feel how truly happy she is, but theres another feeling that’s tainted it. And when he finds himself as her in a room with a bunch of other candidates watching Chuck slide a Strike Eureka jacket on to his shoulders amidst thunderous applause he understands.
Then she’s running down a hallway and Chuck is shouting that he didn’t know, like that’s supposed to make it better, he gets why the memory’s tainted.
She doesn’t want to hear him explain, she can’t hear him explain. He’s going off to be a pilot. Sensei’s test results from his latest treatment are back and she knows that she’s going to watch him die. Slow, fast, what does it matter? There are other feelings too, jealousy and anger and a sharp ache in her chest. He leaves and Raleigh feels what Mako does when he leaves. When he doesn’t contact her, when he makes no effort to find out why she was upset.
rationally Raleigh knows Mako isn’t blameless. But its her pain sand feels in a rush. And it’s that pain that reminds him of his own and then suddenly he’s in Anchorage and then Tokyo and that pain is joined and overwhelmed by the raw panic of a child running through her nightmares.
He has to shove all of that aside when the drift releases them and Gipsy goes dead in the hanger. He has to because he has to get out of his rig and get Mako out of hers. It’s funny when you have a thought about someone and you’re proven right. He knew she was amazing the second she let him have it. He doesn’t need to be in her head to know the churn of emotions in her gut. Especially not when he hears Chuck on the comm link, snarling like a wild animal as Herc and Tendo debate where to start with hooking things up.
Raleigh knows what it’s like to feel alone.
He hates that even a small part of him feels like Yancy is at fault for dying. Pilots and brothers are supposed to die together. He has no doubt that if he sees Yancy in this life or the next the first thing he’s going to do is punch him, but he knows that’s a long time away. Chuck is right there. He’s right there and when Mako tells him to stop and he sneers like she’s something unpleasant that’s been scraped off his shoe, its hard as hell to demand he apologize and a part of him hopes he doesn’t. Not because Mako doesn’t deserve it, she does. She deserves a lot more than one apology from the Australian. So when he won’t even give her that its the easiest thing in the world to lunge forward and punch him.
he beats him for both of them, pouring both of their emotions in to it. It isn’t until later, much much later, that he realizes something was off. Chucks swings were wild and sloppy, not like a jaeger pilot should fight. There was emotion there on both of their ends and Raleigh knows what he felt. He also knows what Chuck did. It’s written all over his face in the end when his father rips him off and their eyes lock. Then he sees the pilot in Chuck because his eyes may be focused on Raleigh a lot there isn’t a person in the hallway who thinks Chuck is looking at him.
Which is why Mako turning and walking in to Stacker Pentecost’s office without looking at Chuck says more than Raleigh’s fists ever could.