loch | txt me maybe

SENT: 7:03 AM
We need to talk.

SENT: 7:05 AM
Promising.

SENT: 7:07 AM
This a conversation we should be having digital?

SENT: 7:09 AM
No.

SENT: 7:15 AM
Just you.

[ No Chuck. ]

SENT: 7:20 AM
Where

SENT: 7:26 AM
Train arrives in 45.
South station.

[ Herc shows up, though there's no small amount of irritation about the rush he needs to take to get there. he managed to throw on a coat, but the early morning air is crisp and makes the dark tattoos stand out against what little pale skin can be seen under the fabric.

he shoves his hands into his pockets and hunkers into the warmth of his coat, cap pulled low over his eyes. hats had never really been his thing— they were Chuck's field; but nowadays he had to take certain precautions.

from a distance, they almost look the same, father and son ]

[ From a distance they almost look the same, father and son, and it's enough to get Mako to double-take in Herc's direction, the closest she's come to nervousness in a long time jumping briefly in her stomach and catching in her throat. She hasn't seen any of them in quite a while, though Mako has sporadically been in touch. Raleigh, however, she's been avoiding.

The reason why that is hidden by the heaviness of Mako's coat but there's something slightly different about the way she carries herself, something almost careful in the way she walks when she approaches and tics her chin from a distance.

(Raleigh, Chuck, they wouldn't be able to place that particular change in gait, but Herc's been a father before. Maybe Angela had been much the same in the months before she had Chuck. ]

[ he spots her from the same distance, but she's too skilled for Herc to notice the freeze, the leap in her throat. it's a talent, one carefully developed, considering how sharp Herc's eye has become over the years (because of all of them, he and Mako have had to deal with the dirtiest of the underbelly).

what he does notice is the lope in her gait, the way her coat fits a bit tighter, and he knows how long it's been since anyone has seen this woman in person. it draws his brow down, makes his hackles lift, because if it isn't one of his boys that this baby belongs to then he knows he'll have to go out and rip someone's throat out.

he starts toward her before she's halfway to him, purpose in his gait that might look like aggression but is chiefly concern. ]

[ The sharp line of Mako's bangs cut across her forehead — one of the few visual reminders of the girl that Herc had met trailing in Pentecost's wake all those long years ago. So much of Mako is different now, having been worn down, worn thin or honed down to a point; the closest thing a human being can get to a shiv. But the bangs are the same, framing her face, casing a shadow across her eyes and obscuring the uncertainty the already plays so close to her chest.

Herc would know, out of all of them he would know, and how exactly he feels about knowing is something Mako's not sure she wants to uncover.

But she moves towards him at an even clip — gravity and loyalty and family drawing them together like magnets finally brought together from opposite poles. Even before he's within arm's length she's reaching for him. Not to embrace, just to grasp by the elbow, the gesture distant but wanting more. (It's been too long; she's stayed away too long; and whether or not she'll be allowed back this time, all bloated and full with child, is something she doesn't know yet.) ]

[ they've done this song and dance before, oceans spanning between them; he found her in Belize, that time, before they'd all circled back to a cabin in the woods. but Mako had always been the flightiest of them, as cunning as a fox and lightfooted as one, too. Herc grips her arm in return with the sort of pressure reserved for wanting— not unlike when he'd grabbed her arms until they bruised and held her against the wall.

but he's never been good at proper shows of affection; not with her, not with his own son, and where a regular father might pull her into an embrace and ask how she is, where she's been. his chin dips and casts his eyes into shadow under the brim of the hat. ]

Been a while.

[ his eyes fall from her face to her hidden belly ]

[ His gaze drops and Mako feels it even though she can't quite see it, Herc's cap obscuring the blue shock of his eyes and the flicker of pale lashes. Her impulse is to turtle slightly, shoulders lifting in an almost defensive posture caught halfway between fight and flight. Of the four of them Mako has always been the flightiest and it's something that colors her in an odd way. For the longest time she had been nothing but constant, having tried so hard to fashion herself in her adopted father's image. A rock, a stone, an island; due north, like the tail of the Big Dipper. Mako had learned the power of stillness but circumstance had pulled the foundation out from under her, screaming at her with the wail of sirens to run, Mako, run.

Even now it seems a struggle, the conflict writ clear across her expression. She wants to be here and she doesn't. (She's afraid of the moment when it stops, when it's taken away from her or when it's broken.)

The hand on Herc's elbow tightens, fingers digging into the cords of muscle that tense underneath the sleeve of his jacket. Drawing him in close, like an old lover, Mako's brow pinches as her face leans up into the shadow of the brim of his hat. It's with a strange mix of aggression and tenderness that she guides his hand to the front of her coat, palm pressed to the softness there. A definite bulge, her body swollen.

For the longest time Mako doesn't say anything, her tongue moving slowly behind her teeth like it's trying to find the shape to the words she means to say.

Eventually: ] A grandson.

[ it's when she folds him in that he makes any gesture to complete the disconnect. she pulls his hand from where it digs into her coat to the small space between them, over the swell of her belly. he'd already known, but feeling the bulge of her stomach this close makes it clear. where his initial reaction had been violence, he feels it take a swerve to the left.

grandson she says, and he wonders when it happened, how far along she was, if Chuck had met with her and not told either of them.

he wouldn't be surprised. they talk as much and as little as they used to; of all of them, Raleigh probably says the most, and even that isn't much. it's chilled out here, and the cool is the only thing that stops Herc from peeling open her coat and pressing his hand under her clothes, as though skin-to-skin he could be closer to the life budding inside of her.

instead, his gaze stays low, where his hand lays flat on her coat, before his gaze comes up through the shadow of his hat to meet her dark eyes.

grandkids— it was never something he'd considered. they were meant to die in that Jaeger. ]

They know?

txt me maybe

( h e r c )

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wrong journal cause i'm lazy

nbd nbd

EVERY TIME WE DO BABIES I AM PLEASED

it's like roulette WHO THE BABY DADDY THIS TIME

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