Written as a combination of two kinkmeme prompts:
Herc/Chuck or Herc & Chuck, touching. the Hansens might not be so obviously tactile with each other but sometimes they crave for that warm, reassuring contact they get in the drift. so Herc touches the small of Chuck's back when no one's looking or Chuck brushes his shoulder against Herc's. i would prefer feelings of the incestuous kind but feelings of the familial kind are also most definitely welcome.
Herc/Chuck, long drift. Apparently the Kaidonovskys hold the record with 18 hours for the longest drift ever, but I'd like to see the Hansens after a drift that was almost as long. 15 hours stuck in each other's head. What does that do to them? How do they react when they step out of the conn-pod? Exhausted cuddling, desperate sex, pointless arguments, all three?
Only the +1 contains explicit Hansencest , the 5 to 1 can be read as purely platonic handfuls of Hansens family feels.
XXX
Things Unseen
XXX
5. The drift changes you. Not better, or worse, just different in the way you have submersed yourself in your co-pilot, and your co-pilot you for too many hours, fighting a Kaiju that doesn't understand death in ways you do.
It's a soft, reluctant break.
But it's a break nonetheless.
One where you let him down slow, gentle and all the things the two of you aren't when you come back to your respective selves. One that feels awfully like you are drowning all of a sudden when the two of you finally disconnects from each other's mind after logging a solid fifteen hours in the drift.
Everything is slower, and nothing feels real.
Chuck isn't taller but he is broader than you, and with all the gear the two of you still have on, you may as well be the same height. He leans down, rests his head on your shoulder and breathes short shallow breaths that shudder throughout his entire body.
You swallow down the surprise and brush a hand over the back of Chuck's neck. "You okay, kid?"
"Don't call me that." He murmurs and pushes closer. Not that he ever needs to do anything to get under your skin, but the drift has a funny way of fucking with his head.
"Hurts?"
"No, just tired." He admits, and for Chuck to admit as much, you can tell that your son is exhausted to the brim of falling over.
"Stay with me, Chuck."
"I'm not going to faint, dad."
"Then you can help me with the drive suits."
The Conn-Pod door opens with a hiss, Chuck slowly pulls back to a more respectable distance just as you nod at the techs stepping forward to help. You don't thank them, you don't need to. You say it with the way you stand pliant and still as Striker's crew take off every piece of your drive suit armour.
You are never hands on.
But neither have you been inside his head for so long.
You walk out with your hand settling right over the small of Chuck's back. Fingertips grazing against the threadbare t-shirts he seems to have a million of (the grey ones that look just like your Henleys). You don't look at him and he doesn't look at you.
You can still feel his head in yours, settling in, like the hand you don't know how to take back.
4. The drift is a solid thing. One that keeps you grounded. You are sitting in medical in a shirt that doesn't smell like sweat or blood, you've got your dad's hand still pressed into the dip of your spine.
He is sitting next to you even when he should be on the other bed, being examined by another team of doctors that wants brain scans, blood samples and a full body check up. This isn't the first time, and this isn't about to be the last time, you know just as well as them how this works.
But for one selfish moment, you want your dad still.
You are slumping and you're shifting in your seat, you hate that these medical beds are high enough to have you swinging your legs like a kid again. You don't ask Herc to stay, you don't need to. You stretch out an arm for the doctors with their needles just as you press your leg against your dad's, knee to hip.
He presses back, pressure over pressure, like a slow build of solid warmth.
You think the doctor might be sending your dad a smile over your shoulder, but you are content with staying in your head, where you can still feel your father's mind bleeding into your own.
You don't lash out.
You let the doctors work, and when they are done with you, you sit with your father until he's cleared to leave with you. It's a compromise, one you gladly make.
3. The drift doesn't make you into anything you aren't before. And that is something not a lot of people can say they understand. It's not a force, it's a catalyst. And it drains energy like you wouldn't believe.
You steer your son from the medical bay towards the mess hall.
"Food first."
It's not empty when you enter but the Shatterdome operates on a schedule without breaks, there is always someone awake. Striker Eureka's table is clear, the entire crew at the launch bay where the two of you have just docked the Jaeger. Fifteen hours is a lot of damage, a lot of dollars but you don't think about that.
He sits down just as you don't look down.
You know you don't want to leave his side just the same way you know you don't want his head out of your mind. But you go nonetheless because beyond that bone deep exhaustion, there is hunger. You've done this too many times to know the regret that comes when you are half asleep and starving because you aren't smart enough to push through another twenty minutes of shoving food into your mouth.
The trays you bring back are filled with things you know Chuck likes.
You sit opposite to him, like you always do.
Neither of you are tactile but when you stretch your legs out beneath the tables, Chuck tangles his ankles with yours on muscle memory alone. There is a special kind of pull in the way he pushes against you with an equal and opposite force.
2. The drift doesn't give you everything, but it gives you enough. You don't know your co-pilot's every thought but you feel like you belong when the RABITs are running right by you.
"Max needs his walk."
Your dad tells you when the two of you finally get back to your shared quarters. You've got your hands on the hem of your shirt, and all you want to do is collapse onto the bed and sleep well into next week.
"Max really doesn't," you say, just as your dog disagrees.
The bulldog turns away from where your dad is petting him and makes his way to the door where he proceeds to butt at the metal with his head, low whine rumbling through the room in a way you know by heart. Herc huffs out a soft laugh that gets you scowling at the betrayal from your own dog.
"We can go together." Herc offers, and you watch as your father bends down to pick up the leash Max has been trailing behind.
He doesn't ask you to come along, doesn't need to. He only holds out Max's leash, and it isn't a moment later or a second after. It is reflexive when you reach out and take it from his hands.
Your fingers tangling with his own.
1. The drift is strong, and it never really goes away. You crave for it, that warm, reassuring contact that fits you beneath your skin and bones, slotting into place like it's home. One you haven't had since Sydney's gone up in a mushroom cloud.
The Shatterdome halls are wide, a stretch of cold, grey concrete no matter which way you look. Max trails just in front as you take steps that are the same length, strides made in tandem.
The hallway is wide but the two of you walk side by side, shoulders touching briefly where you don't need but want to instead. The grey of your shirt brushes the grey of his. You don't talk, you don't need to. And it is in silence that the three of you make a complete round across the Shatterdome.
You don't settle into your own skin like you're a separate entity than the man next to you. You settle into yourself with little bits of another man's conscious mind bleeding into your own.
It's a comfort even when it should feel like a takeover.
It's everything you want, and need, and have.
You love it, and you press closer still.
And him, he doesn't move away.
+1 Chuck's never been in anyone else's head but his dad's.
On the bad days, it's like being in the minds of half a dozen broken men, all at the same time. There are no good days, per se, there is only Herc's solid reassurance beneath his surface thoughts that Chuck is an anchor in ways he's been everyone else's.
They are not tactile men, and they are never hands on out of the bed.
But this is different, no one drifts for this long without knowing that it isn't enough the rest of the time.
Chuck unclips the leash from Max's collar and tosses the long cord on to the tiny table tucked into the corner of the room. He turns around just in time to catch Herc throwing his shirt into the hamper by the bathroom door.
There are times when the drift leaves them wanting, desperate to fuck the other through the mattress and out of their skin. And there are times when all they need is the soft press of scarred skin against heated flesh, pliant and alive in their arms as they fold themselves around each other, fitting themselves into a bed that is too small, and just perfect.
Chuck turns around and there is a wicked smile that curls over his lips when he backs his old man to the edge of the bed, one hand wrapping around the jutting bone of his hips on instincts.
"I thought you were tired."
"Not enough to not want this." He tells him when he pulls him in by his belt loops, fingers digging into the rough fabric of his daddy's slacks.
They fall into bed, and while they really are too tired to do much else, he fucks his mouth open with his tongue, arm braced on each side of his head as he leans in, slick slide of his lips against his. He kisses him at a languid pace, with a bite that is soften by the noises he makes in the back of his throat.
Herc swallows a groan as he kisses him deeper. It's a wordless pleasure that makes him melt, makes him reach out and grip Chuck's shirt tight in his grasp before pulling him down, opens his mouth a little wider and touches the tip of his tongue to his.
He brushes his knuckles down the side of his arms, over freckles and freckles and freckles until they are touching everywhere else.
XXX Kuro