Written for the kinkmeme prompt: Stacker/Herc, Stacker lives, lots of touching. Before Pitfall, Herc and Stacker managed to be pretty professional and reserved with their relationship(romantic or platonic). After Pitfall, Herc can't keep his hands off of Stacker, always has to brush their fingers together or lean in close enough for their shoulders to touch. And of course, he's much more tactile when they're alone.

Because I am flip-flopping between two different ideas for my minibang, I've written this instead.D: I apologize for the fact that they couldn't be more tactile.

XXX

Way Back

XXX

Stacker is a man about the bigger picture, the waging war and not the battle.

Stacker is also a man back from the dead.

He remembers the first time he meets Sergeant H. Hansen. To this day, they still can't agree on who threw the first punch but by the time they walked away from the bar, they were both nursing bloodied knuckles and a loose tooth or two from the way his jaw hurts and the way Hansen's cheekbones were already turning a mottled shade of ugly purple green.

He doesn't remember it then, he only remembers it now, that when he swings, it is Herc who bodily shoves him out of the way of the beer bottle aimed for his head. That it is Herc who has a palm splayed across his chest, keeping him pinned, for just a moment against the bar top as the bottle breaks into shards of glass all over the floor.

He also remembers the comfortable distance Herc draws between them when they learn that they are both test pilots for the Jaeger Program.

It's professional, and Stacker can respect that.

But this, this he can appreciate when he wakes up to Herc sitting by his side, one hand holding on to his own while the other is signing away at the PPDC paperwork spread out over his lap. The soft grunt he lets out has Herc sitting up straight, feet back on the ground from where he has had his legs kicked up on the edge of the bed in the medical bay.

"…Tell me it worked."

The relief in Herc's low laughter tells him everything he needs to know.

Herc's answering nod is miniscule but just enough. Stacker sinks back against the pillows. He doesn't know how but he's learned not to question it when he's got it so good. That in this moment he can just watch something as mundane as his second in command taking off those reading glasses he's been wearing to rub at the bridge of his nose.

The exhaustion around those eyes doesn't escape Stacker. But the fact that Herc still hasn't let go of his hand does go unnoticed by the two of them until Herc is standing up from his seat to make for the door.

"Let me get Mak—"

Herc looks down at their hands and the way their fingers tangle. He looks down at their hands and remembers the way he would stand in his shadows, the second in command to the Marshal, the fathers to children forced to grow up far too soon in a world at war.

He looks and makes to pull away because this is not his place.

"Let me—"

Cutting him short, Stacker gives Herc's hand a tug, something light, something Herc can break away from at a moment's notice. (The first time, way back, Stacker had let him because there had been professionalism and reservation and the world needed more of that. And if there had been those few messy, fumbling post-kill kisses he can count on one hand, well, he tries not to sound wistful.) This is the second time. Stacker is a man of many things but his battles are fought, his war won. There is little else that mattered.

"It's not the end of the world anymore, Herc."

And if one or both of them are waiting for something that's been a decade in the making, that small tilt at the corner of Hercules' mouth is indication enough.

Stacker gives Herc another tug, has him stumbling that short pace until his thighs are pressing against the edge of the bed, until he is close enough to touch with both hands. It is Stacker who reaches out, careful of his own IV drip, careful of Herc himself. He touches a hand to the other's wrist, has that pulse beating beneath his fingertips.

"…You're not exactly being subtle, Stacks."

This time, it is Stacker who laughs, something low, and replies with something just as soft. Meeting him halfway, hand in his hand, hand on his wrist, mouth brushing against his like he's been meaning to do for the last decade or so, Stacker replies.

"Exactly."

XXX Kuro