Title: making memories
Character/Pairing: Hercules Hansen/Stacker Pentecost, Mako Mori & Stacker Pentecost, Chuck Hansen
Genre: Gen, family, fluff
Rating: G
Wordcount: 704
Dedication: For minionier
When the Justice asks if they want a picture, Mako answers yes for them and hands her camera over. They shuffle together awkwardly, rings just visible on their crossed arms. Stacker Pentecost and Hercules Hansen's official wedding photo ends up looking like one of two friends who used to play rugby.
Mako unhappily scrolls through the photos after they leave the courthouse while Chuck peers over her shoulder. He doesn't see anything wrong with their fathers' pose but he's a boy, and while on review Stacker and Herc are leaning into each other, it isn't romantic enough for Mako.
Not even the one with all four of them together, her and Chuck standing proudly by their fathers' sides. In that one, Stacker's hand is on her shoulder while his other arm is wrapped around Herc's back, Herc's arm slung over Stacker's shoulder and his spare hand keeping Chuck firmly in frame. That one also looks like a photo of a team, and Mako idly wonders what it would look like if they were all wearing drivesuits or if a four-way Drift is even possible.
Asking her father and, well, her other father now, for a more romantic wedding photo seems rude though, so Mako keeps quiet, camera slung around her neck just in case. She knows they like to keep things private and that only her, Chuck and a select few others know of their relationship beyond the two drops they've performed together.
Stacker and Herc hadn't been wearing anything special when they walked into the Justice's office, just shorts and shirts with a fair number of oil stains. Chuck and Mako are also wearing shorts in concession to the Alaskan summer and they end up on the beach like that, a rare treat of fish and chips shared between the four of them.
Herc sends her to fetch ice creams for them after they finish and she returns to find that Chuck has wandered off a little bit, drawing in the sand with a stick. Herc and her father are still sitting on the sea wall, talking and paying attention solely to each other. Stacker is laughing, probably at something Herc said about Chuck if the way he's looking off at his son in any indicator, and they're holding hands.
The sun is still high in the sky, sunset hours away, but they look perfect in the light and Mako scrambles with one hand for the camera resting her chest. She takes four photos in quick succession just to be safe, not bothering to look at how they turned out, before Herc spots her and waves. Her left hand is cold and cramped from holding the ice creams as Mako closes the dozen or so metres between them, but he doesn't say a word as he takes two of them from her. Chuck comes over to claim his own and to complain about being bored.
"Maybe we should get you a dog then," his father suggests and Chuck enthusiastically latches onto the idea, suggesting all sorts of breeds and abilities a dog should have. Mako suggests a few of her own, since it would technically be her dog too, and they make their way down the semi-abandoned beach like that – eating ice cream and talking about dogs.
They're almost back to the car to return to the Shatterdome when Stacker quietly asks to look at her pictures. Herc and Chuck are a few metres ahead of them, Herc telling his son about the Bull Terrier that lived in his neighbourhood as a kid, and are caught up in their conversation. Mako hesitates for a moment; not quite wanting to part with that perfect picture if he decided to delete them, but decides to hand the camera over. They are his wedding photos after all and it would be selfish and disrespectful to keep them to herself.
She isn't expecting the smile that steals over her father's face or that he asks for a copy once he scrolls past the photos of the bay and Chuck with chocolate smeared over his nose.
It's that photo, the one taken on a beach in Alaska, that Herc and Mako find when clearing out Stacker's personal effects.