sheathedsteel | Open Post.

[ Mako doesn't want to go to Japan. He wants to stay in Hong Kong, in the Shatterdome where the other half of him resides. Japan isn't home for him any longer, anyway; it hasn't been since he was eleven years old.

But the pressure has been put upon Marshall Hansen to send Tokyo's Son back to his homeland for PR purposes during reconstruction, and while Herc saw how world leaders turned their backs on Stacker Pentecost pre-Pitfall, he's out for vengeance now and hell-bent on bleeding every one of the bureaucrats dry of their offered funding after the successful Breach closure. So he tells Mako it'll only be a three-month tour, not that bad, and would he please take one for the team, this time.

It's a bitter pill to swallow. Raleigh tells him to hurry up and go, that the sooner he leaves the sooner the three months will be up, but he can see how upset she is as the date looms. Mako spares her a tearful goodbye and doesn't tell her the moment he's to get picked up on the helipad, even though he's sure she resents it when she finds him gone.

And when his three months are finally up and he's made every prefecture circuit talk show in the entire country, he finally steps back into the Shatterdome and the first thing he's greeted with is Raleigh seated on his desk, clad only in one of his long work shirts.

There aren't very many words for this kind of greeting. ]

[Only three months. She's only got two kidneys but they're both pretty important. She's very attached to both of them. This metaphor is pretty ridiculous but that's how Raleigh would liken to being separated from Mako for that long. Like losing her kidneys. Especially after he kind of stole a proper goodbye from her and she has no idea what she would've done or said or if there would've been tears (there would've been and she might've kissed him too and he would have liked it) and then he's just gone.

And the closest she gets to her co-pilot for weeks is watching him on the talk shows and calling him whenever she gets a chance and stealing his shirts to sleep in, wear, smell, she's kind of a stalker and she kind of doesn't care.

She misses him and it's not like she's a teenaged girl pining for a crush, it's that he is a part of her very being now and co-pilots aren't meant to be separated. That's it. The end. And she tries to be mad at him for going but it never sticks longer than five minutes because she's a sucker and he's her sunshine or some other clearly stupid metaphor.

Dumb metaphors are Raleigh Becket's forte.]

... hey. [She knows how this looks, and it's kinda sorta that too but the practical application is that she just took a shower (with his soap in his bathroom, see stalker, she's a stalker) and the shirt's the only thing she grabbed to put on. It covers everything. Mostly.

Raleigh jumps down off the desk and bounces over to wrap her arms around his neck. Yes, good. He's finally home. He's back and please, please don't leave again, Mako, please.]

I missed you.

[ Three months is a long time. A very long time.

Phone calls had sustained him, somewhat, but hearing her voice over a phone line isn't nearly as comforting as hearing it in person or in his head, even though they might not get to drift again for quite some time. He still feels a pang of regret for not letting her have her teary goodbye — and yes, there would definitely have been tears on her part, and probably a stoic stiff upper lip on his part, and then kissing (which yes, he would have liked) and then crushing despair on the helicopter ride, afterwards — and when he sees her sitting on his desk like that, he wonders at first for a split-second if she's angry with him, if she's going to hold his evasiveness against him.

But it's soon apparent she's not when she leaps down and rushes over to embrace him, and he drops his duffle bag and eases his arms around her and smiles a bit as he nuzzles into her shoulder — into his shirt — when she says she missed him. ]

...I missed you, too. [ So much. Don't worry, he's not going anywhere again...not unless she comes with him. ]

[He better not be or he'll be introduced to Raleigh's fist and she's got a mean right hook. Right now, she's pretty loathe to let go of him, he presses his face into her shoulder and she moves up onto her toes to tighten her arms around his neck and this is comfortable. This, right here is all that she needs.]

Don't leave again. Please.

Open Post.

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/finally touching these!!!

ahhh i love it :3

ffff good i love yours more (stalker raleigh stealing his soaps and shirts)

NO YOU also excuse how late i am omg