"It's been a pleasure sir." Mako's voice, distant over the comms, and everything goes bright.
Chuck's warm. That's the next thing he feels, when he trickles into awareness. He's surrounded by softness, and he can't feel his left arm. That's the part that has him jerking his head up, snapping to full consciousness to make sure he's still got all of his limbs.
And sure enough, he's still got his hand. Well, what he can see over Raleigh's head.
wait what
Although Raleigh's head using his left bicep as a pillow explains why that hand is now numb, there is nothing explaining why they are tangled up together. In a bed. In--Chuck actually looks around the room--a bedroom, an actual bedroom in what's probably an actual house, what the fuck.
There's a photo on the dresser that--doesn't make any fucking sense, because it's of him and Becket and they're in suits and holding hands and are kissing--
Chuck looks at his left hand again. There's a wide silver band on his ring finger. He's married to Raleigh Fucking Becket.
That's about the time when he shoves Raleigh off of him in an attempt to flail off of the bed.
Raleigh's sleeping pretty soundly. He has no idea that his husband is having some kind of identity crisis, or that he's having any trouble at all, actually. He's sound asleep on Chuck's arm, using him as a pillow, and he's curled around him and leeching Chuck's heat and just generally enjoying sleep.
Until Chuck starts flailing and shoves Raleigh off of him which, of course, wakes him up.
He jerks up, rubbing at his eyes, heart slamming in his chest.
Unless this is only Chuck. Only Chuck has the problem here.
He's sort of hopped out of bed and pulled part of the sheet with him as if to cover himself, but there's really no need. He's wearing soft, comfortable sleep pants. Well worn, like he's used to this--and from the looks of it, he should be.
But what can he say, the last thing he remembers is dying in an explosion?
....is that possible? Could he have survived, suffered some sort of delayed neural damage, got married, and spontaneously forgotten all of it?
"I'm--fine. Coffee." He can escape the room, at least, caffeinated himself up, gather his bearings. He drops the sheet and nearly stumbles into the bathroom before successfully leaving the room and finding the kitchen.
Raleigh doesn't look convinced that Chuck's fine, but he doesn't press,
even when Chuck nearly rips the sheet of the bed and stumbles into the
bathroom before bolting from the bedroom into the kitchen.
Riiiight.
He pulls himself together, goes and brushes his teeth to give his strange
husband a chance to get his coffee before he ventures out into the kitchen,
a little cautious.
He's made a cup of coffee and wandered around the frat floor a little, looking for a computer or phone. He's found what he's pretty sure is his, since the password he'd tried worked. Unless Raleigh uses Chuck's birthday as a password.
...oh god are they that kind of couple?
Regardless. He has a phone and a coffee and he's leaning against the kitchen counter googling the K Wars. It's the same year, so that rather tosses his 'neurological damage' theory out the window. Also, there's nothing about the kaiju or the PPDC or even the wall of life or--
--or anything. And he's trying not to panic, but, he can't understand what any of this means.
Chuck remembers getting into bed, fooling around a little with his husband, and falling asleep curled around each other. He remembers Raleigh's garage and his own work with Gottleib and Geiszler (and he's not super sure about their professionalism but they all do good work together).
He remembers Raleigh's arms warm and secure around him, and Max's reassuring weight on his feet.
He wakes up, and slowly, to the soft sound of beeping, and the soft throb of pain. He blinks fully awake and--this is not his bedroom, this is not their house. The beeping speeds up as he starts to panic, enough for little alarms to start going off.
Chuck wakes up and he's not alone in the hospital room. There have been people taking shifts, making sure that Herc eats, and the person that happens to be on Chuck duty right now is Raleigh Becket.
He'd been reading a book (Harry Potter) when Chuck starts moving and his alarms start going off and Raleigh jumps up, shutting the book and losing his place (fuck), setting it aside in favor of coming to where Chuck can see him.
"Hey, hey -- man. Calm down, Chuck. You're safe. Want me to go get your dad?"
"No but where are we?" He grips Raleigh's hands, eyes wide and a little terrified. There are enough alarms going off that someone'll alert the Marshal, so he probably won't kill Raleigh for not coming to get him.
"Why am I in a hospital?" He went to bed last night and he was fine, and he woke up and he's hooked up to tubes and he hurts and Raleigh's calling him 'kid' which is kind of weird but that's put on the backburner for now.
Chuck and Stacker detonate and Raleigh sends Mako on up and sets Gipsy to self destruct. He hates every second of it, blowing his girl up, but he has to and he thinks maybe somewhere deep down in that monstrous body of hers she knows he's gotta do it too. He nearly doesn't make it into the pod and he's breathing hard when he goes in, unable to pull in full breaths because of lack of oxygen.
At some point, he blacks out completely.
When he wakes up he's back in the Shatterdome, passed out in a chair next to a hospital bed where a very much alive Chuck Hansen sleeps, his hand laced with Raleigh's.
It's not just a little bit confusing.
He frowns, still groggy, and carefully tugs his hand away then stops dead when he gets a good look at it.
A gold band is wrapped around his index finger - very obviously a wedding ring and he has no fucking clue where it came from.
The last thing Chuck remembers is a bright flash, a feeling of fear mingled with the sense of duty, and burning. All over, burning.
Darkness.
When he comes to consciousness, it's to the hum of fluorescent lights and the gentle beep of machines monitoring his vital signs. He hurts, but it's a dull throb over only part of his body, so he figures when he takes a breath around the instruments helping him, it's a good pain. It means he's alive.
There's a loss of pressure against his hand and he turns his head to see his husband of the past five years tugging his wedding band off. He's so fucking relieved to just see him that he doesn't even care about that--he'd known why Stacker brought Raleigh on board, known that either way the likelihood of both of them making it out was slim, and to see him alive and well makes any other pain he's got (likely muted by the morphine pumping into him) totally worth it.
"Hey handsome," he croaks, trying to push his hand closer to grab at his hand again. "Shouldn't you be accepting a medal somewhere?"
Raleigh is...confused and that's putting it lightly. Chuck should be dead and the kid is right -- Raleigh probably should be accepting a medal somewhere but he should also be helping to bear two empty coffins to their graves and instead he's...
Sitting in a hospital room with Chuck Hansen -- Chuck, who isn't snarling at him to get out and is instead calling him handsome and grabbing for his hand.
Raleigh's so fucking confounded by it that he can't even find it in him to pull away.
Chuck just grins, tugs his hand to try and bring Raleigh closer. He wants to bask in what he assumes is victory because they're here, wants to hold on to Raleigh and maybe keep a hold of him for a week. A month. A while.
"C'mere. We win?"
How bad shape he's in is secondary; Raleigh's okay and the world is probably saved.
A very married Raleigh Becket wakes up in a conn-pod, coughing and sputtering and Mako's dragging him into her arms. At first, there is nothing amiss. Everything seems the same, except he's choking because he just lost his husband.
Striker had detonated and there was no escape pod that Raleigh had seen, and the tears he cries against Mako's shoulder are not tears of elation or joy. They are tears of grief, and she is powerless to stop them.
So she joins him.
Hours later when Raleigh is in Mako's room, curled against her slighter frame with his face buried in her stomach, shirt damp from tears while she strokes at his hair uncomprehending, they get the news.
Chuck's pod has surfaced. He's alive, but unconscious.
Raleigh makes a beeline for medical, Mako in hot pursuit, though of course Herc is the one there before everyone else.
Days go by.
Chuck sleeps and sleeps and they wonder if he will wake up, and when he does, Raleigh plans on being there. He stays holding his hand and praying, thumb rubbing over Chuck's knuckles and only vaguely wondering at the lack of a wedding band.
Best he can figure, he passed out and Stacker got him into the pod before dropping the payload. He can't decide whether he's pleased with that or not; he'd expected to die, he was ready to die, and here he is.
Waking up in a hospital bed with Raleigh Becket holding his hand.
..which is weird.
"We did it?" he rasps, eyes half open. That's the most important thing to know right now.
He isn't letting go either. When Chuck wakes up, Raleigh's eyes water and he just smiles at him, laces their fingers together and squeezes Chuck's hand.
Chuck snorts, tries to sit up and winces. "Yeah, babe," he says sarcastically. "Didn't think I'd wake up to you by my bed." He'd thought for sure Raleigh'd be off with Mako posing for pictures or hiding with Mako from the photographers.
Chuck's gone to sleep in Raleigh's--in his husband's arms. It's stopped mattering that he remembers a different past, that what he remembers is tragedy and death and destruction and animosity.
This world--be it afterlife or a coma, he doesn't care any more--it has love. Which is stupid and cheesy but every time Raleigh looks at him with those eyes, every time he reaches for Chuck and every time he speaks to Chuck he can see it, feel it, hear it.
Except when he's annoyed at Chuck.
Or mad.
Or sad at him.
But it comes from a place of love so it still counts and Chuck is blown away by it. He's given in, stopped trying to figure out what happened to him, stopped fighting Raleigh's affections, stopped questioning everything. He's even--he loves Raleigh back, even. He can have this, he's decided as he falls asleep wrapped up in Raleigh.
Which really just figures that he wakes up back in his room in the Shatterdome.
He practically jumps out of bed and winces out loud as pain he hadn't felt for the past several months shoots up his leg and his side. So. Probably not a dream, then. Still, he limp-stalks out of his room, not bothering to put on a shirt or shoes, in hopes of finding--someone. Anyone, at this point.
Raleigh's sort of shuffling down the hall, shoulders hunched in the sort of traditional 'Becket walk' that most people have come to know and love. It's been a rough several months of dealing with Chuck, dealing with the affections geared towards him that at first, he didn't know how to handle but eventually -as time passed and Raleigh grew more and more attached - turned into something else.
Or at least he thinks it did.
He started thinking Chuck wanted him to back off, that Chuck thinks Raleigh's just pitying him, that he's reacting to Chuck and his feelings instead of developing feelings of his own.
Raleigh didn't know what to do anymore, didn't know how he was supposed to be reacting to Chuck anymore. It was exhausting to be around him but he also couldn't make himself stay away.
Catch-22 or something.
He's not even paying attention when Chuck comes out of his room and Raleigh blinks at him in surprise, wariness written all over his face.
It's Raleigh and there's--there's a slew of confusing feelings pummeling Chuck right now, from being glad to see him to being terrified of what he's lost.
"...I don't know," he says, leaning against the wall and feeling a little lost. "Have--what's happened, the last few months?"
And that's going to worry him, he knows, even if he doesn't feel anything for Chuck beyond Ranger-to-Ranger concern, because it's fucking Raleigh.
Raleigh blinks at Chuck and works his jaw, trying to figure out how the fuck to answer that question.
The past few months have been a goddamn clusterfuck of emotions, of frustrations and tears and of Chuck being hopelessly in love with him but at the same time wanting to keep Raleigh at bay because he was confused because Raleigh was confused but slowly falling in love with Chuck and then they made some progress and fireworks and sneaking him out and --
now Chuck wants to know what's happened in the last few months like he doesn't remember and all Raleigh can do is look at Chuck right now and say (slightly hysterically and borderline tearfully);
"No I'm not fucking shitting you," he snaps, because it's not like he's had a great and easy time either and--
--you know what he's not going to lie about it this time, not going to try and act like nothing's wrong.
"I woke up and I was married to you and there were no kaiju and," he starts, stabbing Raleigh in the chest with his index finger. "I woke up today and I'm back. So fucking tell me Becket, was I in a coma? Did I fall through a fucking portal?"
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Chuck's warm. That's the next thing he feels, when he trickles into awareness. He's surrounded by softness, and he can't feel his left arm. That's the part that has him jerking his head up, snapping to full consciousness to make sure he's still got all of his limbs.
And sure enough, he's still got his hand. Well, what he can see over Raleigh's head.
wait what
Although Raleigh's head using his left bicep as a pillow explains why that hand is now numb, there is nothing explaining why they are tangled up together. In a bed. In--Chuck actually looks around the room--a bedroom, an actual bedroom in what's probably an actual house, what the fuck.
There's a photo on the dresser that--doesn't make any fucking sense, because it's of him and Becket and they're in suits and holding hands and are kissing--
Chuck looks at his left hand again. There's a wide silver band on his ring finger. He's married to Raleigh Fucking Becket.
That's about the time when he shoves Raleigh off of him in an attempt to flail off of the bed.
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Until Chuck starts flailing and shoves Raleigh off of him which, of course, wakes him up.
He jerks up, rubbing at his eyes, heart slamming in his chest.
"Chuck? Chuck, you okay?"
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Unless this is only Chuck. Only Chuck has the problem here.
He's sort of hopped out of bed and pulled part of the sheet with him as if to cover himself, but there's really no need. He's wearing soft, comfortable sleep pants. Well worn, like he's used to this--and from the looks of it, he should be.
But what can he say, the last thing he remembers is dying in an explosion?
....is that possible? Could he have survived, suffered some sort of delayed neural damage, got married, and spontaneously forgotten all of it?
"I'm--fine. Coffee." He can escape the room, at least, caffeinated himself up, gather his bearings. He drops the sheet and nearly stumbles into the bathroom before successfully leaving the room and finding the kitchen.
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"........okay."
Raleigh doesn't look convinced that Chuck's fine, but he doesn't press, even when Chuck nearly rips the sheet of the bed and stumbles into the bathroom before bolting from the bedroom into the kitchen.
Riiiight.
He pulls himself together, goes and brushes his teeth to give his strange husband a chance to get his coffee before he ventures out into the kitchen, a little cautious.
"Chuck?"
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...oh god are they that kind of couple?
Regardless. He has a phone and a coffee and he's leaning against the kitchen counter googling the K Wars. It's the same year, so that rather tosses his 'neurological damage' theory out the window. Also, there's nothing about the kaiju or the PPDC or even the wall of life or--
--or anything. And he's trying not to panic, but, he can't understand what any of this means.
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He comes over to him and settles his hands on Chuck's hips, ducking his head to try to look at Chuck's face.
"Hey. Everything okay?"
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MEANWHILE IN A DIFFERENT UNIVERSE.......
He remembers Raleigh's arms warm and secure around him, and Max's reassuring weight on his feet.
He wakes up, and slowly, to the soft sound of beeping, and the soft throb of pain. He blinks fully awake and--this is not his bedroom, this is not their house. The beeping speeds up as he starts to panic, enough for little alarms to start going off.
no subject
He'd been reading a book (Harry Potter) when Chuck starts moving and his alarms start going off and Raleigh jumps up, shutting the book and losing his place (fuck), setting it aside in favor of coming to where Chuck can see him.
"Hey, hey -- man. Calm down, Chuck. You're safe. Want me to go get your dad?"
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"Where am I? What--What happened?"
Did he have a heart attack while he slept, or something?
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Raleigh's a little surprised Chuck's grabbing for him, but he lets it happen, confused but relieved he's alive.
Course, Chuck having a hold of him means he can't go get Herc. The Marshal is gonna kill him.
"You made it, kid." He smiles down at Chuck, maybe a little proud, definitely a lot relieved.
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"Why am I in a hospital?" He went to bed last night and he was fine, and he woke up and he's hooked up to tubes and he hurts and Raleigh's calling him 'kid' which is kind of weird but that's put on the backburner for now.
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At some point, he blacks out completely.
When he wakes up he's back in the Shatterdome, passed out in a chair next to a hospital bed where a very much alive Chuck Hansen sleeps, his hand laced with Raleigh's.
It's not just a little bit confusing.
He frowns, still groggy, and carefully tugs his hand away then stops dead when he gets a good look at it.
A gold band is wrapped around his index finger - very obviously a wedding ring and he has no fucking clue where it came from.
So he does what any logical person would do.
He takes it off.
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Darkness.
When he comes to consciousness, it's to the hum of fluorescent lights and the gentle beep of machines monitoring his vital signs. He hurts, but it's a dull throb over only part of his body, so he figures when he takes a breath around the instruments helping him, it's a good pain. It means he's alive.
There's a loss of pressure against his hand and he turns his head to see his husband of the past five years tugging his wedding band off. He's so fucking relieved to just see him that he doesn't even care about that--he'd known why Stacker brought Raleigh on board, known that either way the likelihood of both of them making it out was slim, and to see him alive and well makes any other pain he's got (likely muted by the morphine pumping into him) totally worth it.
"Hey handsome," he croaks, trying to push his hand closer to grab at his hand again. "Shouldn't you be accepting a medal somewhere?"
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Sitting in a hospital room with Chuck Hansen -- Chuck, who isn't snarling at him to get out and is instead calling him handsome and grabbing for his hand.
Raleigh's so fucking confounded by it that he can't even find it in him to pull away.
What?
No really -- what?
"Uh. I don't know."
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"C'mere. We win?"
How bad shape he's in is secondary; Raleigh's okay and the world is probably saved.
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Or -- something.
Jesus, what's happening? Hansen is being nice?
Raleigh's brain is starting to hurt.
"Yeah, Chuck. We won."
...He thinks. Fuck, hell if he knows anymore.
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IN ANOTHER UNIVERSE....
Striker had detonated and there was no escape pod that Raleigh had seen, and the tears he cries against Mako's shoulder are not tears of elation or joy. They are tears of grief, and she is powerless to stop them.
So she joins him.
Hours later when Raleigh is in Mako's room, curled against her slighter frame with his face buried in her stomach, shirt damp from tears while she strokes at his hair uncomprehending, they get the news.
Chuck's pod has surfaced. He's alive, but unconscious.
Raleigh makes a beeline for medical, Mako in hot pursuit, though of course Herc is the one there before everyone else.
Days go by.
Chuck sleeps and sleeps and they wonder if he will wake up, and when he does, Raleigh plans on being there. He stays holding his hand and praying, thumb rubbing over Chuck's knuckles and only vaguely wondering at the lack of a wedding band.
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Best he can figure, he passed out and Stacker got him into the pod before dropping the payload. He can't decide whether he's pleased with that or not; he'd expected to die, he was ready to die, and here he is.
Waking up in a hospital bed with Raleigh Becket holding his hand.
..which is weird.
"We did it?" he rasps, eyes half open. That's the most important thing to know right now.
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"Yeah, babe. We did it."
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...that's weirder.
Chuck snorts, tries to sit up and winces. "Yeah, babe," he says sarcastically. "Didn't think I'd wake up to you by my bed." He'd thought for sure Raleigh'd be off with Mako posing for pictures or hiding with Mako from the photographers.
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no subject
This world--be it afterlife or a coma, he doesn't care any more--it has love. Which is stupid and cheesy but every time Raleigh looks at him with those eyes, every time he reaches for Chuck and every time he speaks to Chuck he can see it, feel it, hear it.
Except when he's annoyed at Chuck.
Or mad.
Or sad at him.
But it comes from a place of love so it still counts and Chuck is blown away by it. He's given in, stopped trying to figure out what happened to him, stopped fighting Raleigh's affections, stopped questioning everything. He's even--he loves Raleigh back, even. He can have this, he's decided as he falls asleep wrapped up in Raleigh.
Which really just figures that he wakes up back in his room in the Shatterdome.
He practically jumps out of bed and winces out loud as pain he hadn't felt for the past several months shoots up his leg and his side. So. Probably not a dream, then.
Still, he limp-stalks out of his room, not bothering to put on a shirt or shoes, in hopes of finding--someone. Anyone, at this point.
no subject
Or at least he thinks it did.
He started thinking Chuck wanted him to back off, that Chuck thinks Raleigh's just pitying him, that he's reacting to Chuck and his feelings instead of developing feelings of his own.
Raleigh didn't know what to do anymore, didn't know how he was supposed to be reacting to Chuck anymore. It was exhausting to be around him but he also couldn't make himself stay away.
Catch-22 or something.
He's not even paying attention when Chuck comes out of his room and Raleigh blinks at him in surprise, wariness written all over his face.
"...You okay?"
no subject
"...I don't know," he says, leaning against the wall and feeling a little lost. "Have--what's happened, the last few months?"
And that's going to worry him, he knows, even if he doesn't feel anything for Chuck beyond Ranger-to-Ranger concern, because it's fucking Raleigh.
no subject
The past few months have been a goddamn clusterfuck of emotions, of frustrations and tears and of Chuck being hopelessly in love with him but at the same time wanting to keep Raleigh at bay because he was confused because Raleigh was confused but slowly falling in love with Chuck and then they made some progress and fireworks and sneaking him out and --
now Chuck wants to know what's happened in the last few months like he doesn't remember and all Raleigh can do is look at Chuck right now and say (slightly hysterically and borderline tearfully);
"Are you fucking shitting me?"
no subject
--you know what he's not going to lie about it this time, not going to try and act like nothing's wrong.
"I woke up and I was married to you and there were no kaiju and," he starts, stabbing Raleigh in the chest with his index finger. "I woke up today and I'm back. So fucking tell me Becket, was I in a coma? Did I fall through a fucking portal?"
Tell him something.
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