for driftcompatible

[striker_eureka]

Hercules is the type of man to wear clothing that doesn't quite fall within regulation guidelines — nowhere in the PPDC rulebook does it say that leather boots like his or henleys and heavy canvas vests are within uniform regulations — so seeing him in civvies is no real surprise for most people around the 'dome.

Usually his civvies aren't quite as...suggestive, though. It's nothing overt, but someone as powerfully built as Hercules can wear a burlap sack and make it seem sexy if he tries, so the well-worn jeans that hug his thighs and make his ass look like that of a man twenty years his junior are a little indecent. As is the tight olive-drab tee shirt he's wearing, his dog tags disrupting the way it stretches across his chest. He's taken to wearing Chuck's bomber jacket most days when he needs to leave the 'dome, but since he's making an effort for them to have some semblance of privacy on this outing, he's left it behind and is wearing the old, worn leather jacket he got when he was still in the RAAF.

It could be purely psychological, but dressing in clothes he hasn't really worn since peacetime makes him feel...much more at peace.

Max is off with Tendo, which means he's got nothing to do while he waits for Mako to show up; nothing to do, that is, but run his hand absently over his vintage Waratah motorbike.

Comments

[driftcompatible]

Mako's wearing a little getup that she doesn't pull out often; tight, black skinny jeans and a slightly oversized nondescript top that's snug around the bottom -- she made sure to toss something on that wont blow away in the wind.

She's got boots on, too; combat boots that lace up the front enhanced by silver, practical buckles that sit somewhere around mid calf. A black blazer hugs everything together, sleeves rolled to mid forearm so there's just the slightest bit of skin revealed.

Hands jammed into her pockets, she ventures out of the Shatterdome, over to where she'd told the Marshal she'd meet him.

What the actual hell is she doing.

[striker_eureka]

Herc asks himself the same thing, and quite often, too.

Mako gets her fair share of interested looks as she walks through the crew over to where Herc is leaning against his bike, and he's not proud to admit that his own gaze travels slowly up the length of her body. He manages to put it all away by the time she gets close, though, standing up and smiling at her in as non-lecherous a way as possible.

It's no so strange they'd be hanging out, is it? They've known each other for a long time.

"Good, I'm glad you got a jacket, it might get a bit chilly on the road," he says, handing her a helmet he nicked from the supply room.

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Mako mostly ignores the looks, because there's nothing they can really say or to do her; she outranks most of the people down here though she knows that's not gonna stop the rumor mill from starting to kick up.

"I think ahead," she tells him, taking the helmet into her hands. "Consider it...a locked door, Marshal."

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He outranks everyone in the 'dome, but that's not going to stop people from gossiping about it.

He snorts out a laugh, and smacks her arm with his helmet.

"Feel free to zip your smart lip, Miss Mako." He winks at her as he puts his helmet on and swings a leg over his bike. "Seat's a bit small, but I think we'll fit just fine." He starts up the motor, giving in to the urge to rev it a little, and waits for her to clamber on behind him. "Hold on tight, now."

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She's smiling innocently at him, then tugging the helmet down onto her head and swinging a leg over the bike behind him, arms sliding easily around his waist.

She resists the urge to make another crack, but only barely.

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She can make all the cracks she likes once they're out of earshot of the rest of the 'dome.

Once he can feel her settled comfortably behind him, Herc pushes off and away they go, zooming out into the gloaming. It takes a lot of effort not to whoop with exhilaration as they go, the wind whipping past them an almost foreign experience to him now.

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Between the two of them, they've done so much playing recently that Mako wonders just how much they're both trying to make up for.

She enjoys the wind on her face but he's right, it's a little chilly, so Mako rests her cheek to his back and watches the countryside zip by, her arms firm around his middle.

[striker_eureka]

Their lives have been pretty bleak for a long time. Some playtime is a welcome reprieve.

He can feel her settle comfortably against his back, her arms tight around his waist, and he lets go of one handle to cover her hands with his and give them a little squeeze.

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It's nice, you know -- being able to take a jaeger out to play like it's some kind of dog instead of a giant killing war machine.

Mako squeaks in Japanese, use both hands!, then tightens her grip around him a little and buries her face in his back.

[striker_eureka]

He has no idea what she just said but it makes him laugh, loudly enough to be heard over the wind rushing by them. He squeezes her hands again and then acquiesces, though, shifting to put both hands back on the handles so he can weave through the streets properly.

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Mako just watches for now, because trying to talk like this is impossible (though she's grateful that he seems to be using both hands to steer now) and and she'd rather take in the sights at the moment, anyway. She hasn't been out like this since she's been in Hong Kong, and she's drinking in the sights and savoring the smells, creating memories that both Raleigh and Hercules will probably have to experience through the Drift at some point.

Eventually she's curious though, and she speaks up, trying to be louder than the whipping wind and roaring engine.

"Where are we going?"

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"I told you," he shouted back, turning his head a little so she might have a chance of hearing him. "We're getting dinner!"

He has no real plan of where to go to get dinner, though, figuring they could just get street food from a cart downtown and wander a little, experience what it was like to live in a busy city instead of a busy military base. Just for a change of scenery.

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Dinner. Okay -- that's and answer, but not what she meant. It seems like it's the best answer that she's going to get though, so instead of trying to keep shouting she just holds on and looks around, laughing quietly to herself as they zoom through the streets.

Men.

[striker_eureka]

He used to be a regular pilot, okay, zooming around and performing twists and turns that would leave others with their stomachs in their mouths is par for the course for Hercules.

Eventually, though, he stops showing off and finds a place to park the bike, even bribes a shopkeeper next door to hold on to their helmets for them — as soon as the woman recognized who they were, she agreed and tried to turn down payment; Hercules wouldn't let her get away with it, though, he insisted — and then they were free to wander the city for as long as they wanted.

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It's kind of cute, the way he's showing off for her, and Mako's hands stop fisting in his shirt and instead lets her palms flatten out against his chest because face it -- it's a nice chest.

When they're able to get off and walk - and her legs wobble, just a little - she's like a kid in a candy store, looking at the sights, smelling the food and sampling wares that are pushed into her hands.

She takes one of his hands eventually - so they aren't separated, of course - and walks down the streets with him, smile wide.

[striker_eureka]

Herc's Japanese is abysmal, but his Mandarin is passable, at least for things like this, haggling with shop keepers and making stilted smalltalk when they want to chat with him, a famous Jaeger pilot who's protected Hong Kong many times before.

He buys her sweets and tiny little dumplings, watches with a fond smile as she looks around in wonderment at all the things there are to see.

Her hand in his has his heart stuttering for a moment, surprise warring with pleasure in his chest.

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Her hand is small and warm in his and it's a nice feeling, fingers laced and squeezing off and on like that. She hasn't held hands like that in a long time, maybe not since she was young and in school and she'd held hands with a boy for five minutes before he'd declared she had cooties and ran off.

She insists on some of the most touristy things to have; little chopsticks and fat, plastic cats with their paws up in the air for luck. She wants noodles and rice and all of the things that make Hong Kong what it is and she tells him that in some ways, it reminds her just a little bit of Japan.

[striker_eureka]

"I thought you'd like it," he says, needing to lean in close to murmur in her ear so she'll be able to hear him over the noise around them.

He indulges her need to try every food she sees, finishing what she doesn't want to or can't, lets her fill his pockets with baubles and souvenirs, obligingly takes her photo when she demands it of him or when a fan gets particularly bold and asks for it themselves.

It's fun. Probably the most fun he's had in weeks outside of a Jaeger. It stands to reason it would be with Mako by his side.

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She tries some good things and some bad things -- some of it she happily consumes and some she turns a little green and passes it off on Herc because sometimes no matter what you think Chinese and Japanese food are not the same.

She drags him to take a picture together, pushing her little camera phone now complete with some kind of silly dangling charm into the hands of a laughing young woman, who is more than happy to snap several pictures of Mako holding his hand, leaning on his shoulder, waving at the camera.

There's a photo booth too, and she makes him do that with her also and she forces him to make funny faces and smile and tip their heads together for the last one.

It's more fun than she thought it would be, but maybe it's because she's with him and they're getting used to helping make one another happy again.

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Lucky for Mako, Herc has a stomach of steel, apparently, because for all the times she makes a face and shoves whatever food that's offended her into his hands, he just calmly polishes it off for her, finding nothing particularly offensive about it. He's used to eating all kinds of things, really, and he's learned not to ask what's on his plate. Better off not knowing, most of the time.

He balks a little at the idea of the photobooth, protesting weakly as she drags him into it, his sense of pride warring with the desire to make her smile like that again. Clearly his desire to make her happy wins, though, since he ends up letting her shove him into the little booth. He dutifully makes faces and laughs as the flash goes off, knowing when he's fighting a losing battle.

They hunch together over the little strip after it's been printed, wanting to see their end result.

Mako looks radiant, of course, and it's clear that Herc is mostly humoring her and not doing this of his own volition, but it's a good set of photos, and the in very last one, where their heads are tipped together, Herc's smile as he looks at her out of the corner of his eye is painfully fond and perhaps more than a little telling.

Oh well.

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An arm snakes around his waist as they stare at the little strip; an absent gesture that keeps them close together as the watch in fascination as the picture develops and gets spit out of the booth.

She gives him the top two pictures, deciding that she likes the last one and wants to keep it for herself to put in her room back in the 'dome. They can print more, she tells him, because she's got plenty on her phone that she likes and she's going to have more because she just keeps snapping away at the sights like a tourist. She takes pictures of everything and everyone and she makes Herc take some of her with the locals, their arms around each others waists and laughter as she kneels down to sign a little boy's cast with her name and a quick, frenzied little anime drawing of herself with black hair with blue tips.

[striker_eureka]

He watches her flit from one sight to the next, a wide smile on her face, and feels a deep sense of satisfaction warming his bones. He did something right with this, and he feels pretty damn proud of himself for suggesting something that clearly makes her so happy.

When the little boy turns to Herc, sticking his cast out for the older pilot to sign, he ends up kneeling down and scribbling his own cartoon on it, a tiny little Max looking adoringly up at Mako, his rendition of his dog falling very short of Mako's rendition of herself. Still, the boy seems thrilled by it anyway, and Herc ruffles his hair before he hobbles away, a huge grin on his face.

"We've just made his whole year," he points out idly, watching the little boy disappear into the crowd, his arm settling comfortably around her shoulders.

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Mako's head tips to rest on his shoulder as her eyes follow the boy, smile from the encounter still lingering on her lips. She wishes that she could've gotten a picture of their art but the boy is gone and Mako's phone is crammed into Herc's pocket because hers are too full of candied sweets to hold her own cell phone.

"You think?" She's still watching after him, arm around his waist.

[striker_eureka]

"You kidding?" He chuckles, squeezing her shoulders and turning his head to press a kiss to her hair without thinking. It just feels really natural to let himself be that familiar with her. "If I were his age, I'd be losing my shit over something like this. It'd be all I'd talk about for months."

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A little flush is crawling from her belly to her cheeks and she leans into it, grip tightening a little.

"I would, too."

Because she had. Oh, she had idolized Stacker, especially after she'd first seen him. HE'd been like an angel sent down from heaven, backlit by the sun itself.