Written for the kinkmeme prompt: Herc/Chuck, Max. 5 times they used Max as a go-between to express how much they care about each other and 1 time they actually talked/hugged like adults. Gen or shippy.
And because I am the worst filler, there is no plus one and neither do they actually talk/hug like adults because they are the most stubborn assholes in the world. Though, I can promise you that it is all fluffier than it seems. (There is so little Hansens fics these days, I am in despair, and writing is not agreeing with me so I dug up some old kinkmeme prompts from my bookmarks to fill.)
XXX
there's a fork in the road, here's where we change
XXX
5.
"Max looks hungry."
Chuck makes a distracted noise of acknowledgment. But it really isn't until a shadow falls over his workspace that has him turning to face his dad standing there with his arms crossed and his mouth in a scowl.
"Max looks hungry." Herc repeats himself.
Chuck looks down at his feet where his best friend has been sitting, sprawled across the Shatterdome floor with his head resting just against the toe of Chuck's boots.
"Max always looks like that." Chuck mutters with a roll of his eyes, but he does wipe his grease-streaked hands with a rag and heads for the direction of the mess hall.
A short whistle has Max hurrying after on his four short legs.
Chuck doesn't turn back, but the next time he drifts with his father, he feels a tug at the corner of his mouth when he watches himself walk away towards the mess hall from where dad stands now.
.
4.
Chuck sleeps on the top bunk and his old man sleeps on the bottom of their shared quarters of the Sydney Shatterdome, it's been this arrangement since he's been fifteen and they've never needed a change.
It doesn't happen every night but it happens enough.
So when Chuck wakes up to the soft pained noises from the bottom bunk, he gets out of bed, almost mechanically. He doesn't turn on the light and neither does he stumble in their barren room. He just crosses the short distance to where Max is lying on his doggy bed and picks the bulldog up. He grunts at the heavy weight and Max lets out a softer whine at being jostled in his sleep.
But this, Chuck believes, is something Max has gotten used to too.
The only one that is still surprised is Herc, when Chuck dumps Max right over dad's chest, waking him right up from the middle of a nightmare Chuck is never going to ask him about.
"Max is cold." He tells his old man, and without another noise, Chuck is already climbing up the ladder to his own bed. Herc scoffs and runs a hand down his face in the dark, "Of course, he is."
But he doesn't push Max off of the bed, neither does he stop petting the dog that keeps the nightmares at bay.
.
3.
"Take care of your own damn dog."
Chuck feels sweaty and he aches, but most of all, he wants to tear apart the Kaiju that has taken down another Jaeger team. It is anger and grief, and he's lost enough to the bastards that tore a path into this world from another.
Chuck's done with being too late.
"Max needs a walk."
He doesn't slam a fist into dad's face and Herc doesn't hold him back.
They both trust each other enough that when Herc finally holds out Max's leash, Chuck takes it. It's not a peace offering, and it's not a compromise. It's not much of anything really, but having Max lead the way, Chuck cools his head until there is just the ache remaining in his fists and the anger diluted in his veins.
The grief doesn't fade but having Max's leash tangled in one hand helps, like there is another hand holding on to his own.
.
2.
"You look after him for me."
He tells dad, and if these are his last words, well, Chuck is alright with that too.
For a long time, Chuck's decided that he wants to come back from this. And for just as long, Chuck knows that there would only be a moment of hesitation when it comes to making that last bomb run in exchange for the world. What he never imagines is that there is a possibility in the world where it isn't his old man still at his side.
"Stacker—"
Chuck hears what isn't being said.
"—That's my son you've got there, my son."
Chuck also hears what's being said.
.
1.
Everything is soft when he comes to.
His throat is dry and he hurts, and he knows he isn't as dead as he'd like to think. There are questions that he can't get off of his tongue, can barely open his mouth without jarring all the equipment he can feel with a kind of detachment that might be coming from the good drugs they've pumped him full of.
"You did good, son."
He quickly fades after that, lead weight finally falling free from where he's tied it to himself when he is fifteen and angry.
"Becket and Miss Mori are both great. Stacker's stable, and you're doing just fine."
Chuck fades again, another weight being cut away from when he's twenty and another Kaiju has decided that Sydney will look good wiped out from the map. He's been helpless once, but this time, it's the politicians and the men and women miles in land that says he can't help. He's late but Mutavore goes down.
The Kaiju goes down, and it's Striker that stands.
.
"Where's Max?"
He lets the ice chip dad presses to his mouth melt before he asks, but it's been a question that's been nagging at him since he's came to and there isn't a weight that is both warm and heavy lying across his legs.
"You aren't cleared by the doc to have him visiting yet."
He doesn't know what kind of face he makes at that but dad just extends another ice chip at him. It's cold but Herc's fingertips are warm, Chuck doesn't know which he likes better but he likes it. If almost dying in exchange for helping to seal the Breach isn't justification enough, well, the drugs should do it.
"What? Max needs a hug?"
Chuck glares, but in his state, he only manages to look mildly irritated. "You going to give him one, old man?"
And it's meant to be a challenge, he thinks. He really doesn't think so far as to have Herc finally beating him at his own bluff.
"I'd rather give you one."
If he doesn't have one arm in a cast and the other carefully connected to an IV drip, Chuck would cross his arms like a petulant child. "Don't you dare, good drugs or not, everything hurts."
"Whatever you say, kid."
Herc just rolls his eyes before he is leaning over the side of the hospital bed to press a kiss to the top of Chuck's head.
XXX Kuro