you don't like the truth served straight (or otherwise)
...
Contrary to popular belief, Chuck Hansen is not completely un-self-aware. There was a line, and he crossed it, and whatever his feelings on Becket he does owe Mako an apology. The last thing she deserves is to be grounded for Becket's fuck-up, and while Shatterdome rumor has it the plan is to dig up a few more candidates for Becket's 02, there's no word for when exactly that's supposed to happen.
It shouldn't be Becket's mopey arse dropping in that conn-pod any time soon, but Chuck can't come up with any better reasons than 'fuck-all, Mako's earned it' on his way up to Danger's berth. The engineers tell him Mako's spent the last six months all but bunking on the scaffolds a story below LOCCENT, that he should try for her there, but there's nothing to find save for a pair of abandoned lunch trays.
Chuck turns in a slow annoyed circle, surveys the ledge and Danger's glowing nuclear core, and spots the boot. And the belt. And the sweater. He follows the trail of discarded clothing, carefully not thinking about what he might find, intentionally not thinking about how he's going to react to what he finds, and steps over the second discarded boot, propping open the door into a just-this-side-of-forgotten utility room.
Against the back wall, under one of the few lights in the room not burnt out, a bloke in the altogether from the ankles up is absolutely drilling a person of the (probably) female persuasion into the wall. Judging from the drivesuit scars on the man's stupidly pale skin and the bloom of bruises stretching back from his ribs and spanning up to his shoulder, it's Raleigh Becket.
Chuck thinks three things: does Becket need to be that naked; Christ, he knows how to go-to, doesn't he; and finally, lord GOD that's an arse to look at, idn't it?
Becket's arse is a work of art, a goddamn Renaissance-marble-grade arse, Becket's arse should be commemorated in a museum (Chuck is allowed to like art, okay?), Becket's arse makes Bernini's subjects look like slouches.
Becket's arse is framed by a pair of bare legs Chuck would know any-fucking-where, Christ. Mako's ankles cross in the small of Becket's back, her calves tighten, and that's when Chuck hears her. His dick goes hard in reflex, muscle-memory, because that's the sound she always made when she was so close to coming and he was giving her exactly what she wanted, to keep her riding that edge, but not what she needed to push her over.
Mako's voice goes throaty and raw and needy when Becket backs it off, slows his rhythm, and Chuck watches the desperate progress of Mako's hand from Becket's arm, up and across his shoulder to clutch at his nape. It's too easy for Chuck to imagine the prick of her nails at his hairline again, because for all that he never watched from this perspective he knows this.
Becket bends his head to say something low and quiet Chuck can't hear but makes Mako's breath hitch, loud enough to suck the air from Chuck's lungs as well. With Becket's giant skull out of the way, Chuck can see her flushed face and the tilt of her head, how her hair falls across her kiss-bitten lips, and then she says, sighs, pleads, "Raleigh."
The breath goes out of him again, for a wholly different reason. When they were kids, fucking their way across every halfway-cleared surface at Kodiak, she used to spit insults in Chuck's ear, criticizing his technique, telling him how to fuck her better, she had challenged him constantly. And yet, not once in the eight months they were... not together, but something, not even after they started doing paired sims, had she ever said his name like that.
Never.
Which makes this all the more galling really, fills Chuck's mouth with bitterness enough to choke him, because yes they were sixteen, yes Mako was his first, there was a learning curve for sorting out one's bits and how they felt up against someone else's bits, yes, it took Chuck a while, near the whole of their eight months it had taken them to sort out their bodies like that... and here Becket is, two days since he met Mako and a single failed drift between them, and he's already working his hips like that and making her come like that.
The cracked breathy cry that comes out of her now hits Chuck harder than Becket's fists did twelve hours ago. This is a Mako Chuck doesn't know, that he neither saw nor heard before. This isn't the Mako he nearly threatened to quit the program for to buy her Striker's 01. This isn't the Mako he knew, had known was his perfect complement, no matter what the maths said, isn't the Mako he...
They'd told him the reason Mako wouldn't be right there with him in Striker was that they weren't compatible enough, and it had been one of the certain points of Chuck's life that they'd been wrong, that it had to have been politics involved, something. He'd believed, he'd thought, that they'd been good together; Chuck'd had that to hold onto, at least, that he'd really gotten her like nobody else could've. And now, watching the way Mako's fingertips play at Becket's hairline, the sated smile on her lips as she trades low rumbly syllables with the man, Chuck has to consider the direct evidence to the contrary, and he thinks he wants to be sick.
Becket starts in again with slow, rolling thrusts, and when Mako tilts her head back Becket takes the invitation to kiss his way down her neck, because fuck him, of course he would. Mako's eyelids flutter, and after her breath catches again a lazy smile spreads across her mouth. Chuck thinks, I should go, but he's not even partway turned to slip back out the door when Mako's eyes open and fix into a stare to match his. Becket's movement picks up, and Mako gasps at a particularly deep thrust (fuck, near the end she loved having him deep), but she holds Chuck's gaze even as the hand she keeps wrapped around Becket's neck starts trailing down.
Mako puts her nails to Becket's skin and rakes her hand down his back, eyes on Chuck's face the whole time. Chuck loved it when she clawed him up, and if he makes a sound thankfully neither Mako nor Becket hear it, because Becket's hips falter and stutter and then he too groans his noisy pleasure into Mako's shoulder. Mako closes her eyes again and keens through another orgasm.
This is a small mercy; she doesn't see it when Chuck flees.
...
Mako and Becket are all smiles after the harbor engagement, fresh and flush with victory when they walk back into the Shatterdome. Herc's the one who steps up to greet them, and through the trailing whisps of the drift still hanging between them, Chuck feels more than hears it when Herc says, "My kid'd never admit it, but he's grateful. We both are."
Chuck doesn't know if the near-pants-shitting relief he feels could be categorized as gratitude, and he'd still rather not piss on the man if he were on fire, but he can be an adult, and gracious. Chuck nods and forces his mouth into a slight smile.
Becket's smile is for Herc alone. He's slow to move his gaze to Chuck, and when he does, the look Becket gives him is appraising and a little superior. Smug, almost.
Becket looks at Chuck like he knows.