Work Text:
2025
Everybody in the Shatterdome is celebrating, it seems.
Everybody, except for Herc.
Nobody expects him to celebrate, of course.
His son, his only son, his last Drift partner, is dead.
If you’ve got a shot, you take it.
Herc is in his room, sitting on his bed. His shoulders slump forward. Everything feels heavy.
But then there’s a pleasant weight on his lap, and Herc looks down to find Max’s dark eyes looking up at him balefully.
Herc remembers giving Max to Chuck, back when Max was a little, wriggling ball of fur, and he closes his eyes and he can see the overjoyed look on Chuck’s face.
Herc thinks that that was the happiest he’s ever going to see his son.
That’s when he finally breaks. That’s when he finally starts to cry, his hands buried in Max’s soft fur.
He feels Max shift under his hands and he thinks that the dog might be leaving him and Herc, for a second, thinks he can’t take that, but then there’s a wet tongue on his face, and Herc realizes that Max isn’t leaving him.
Max is settling his warm weight on Herc's lap, and he's trying to lick Herc's tears away.
2024
Tendo spins around in his chair because he’s really bored and at this point, he just really wants to sleep, something which he knows would be impossible because of his goddamn coffee obsession. He’s not firing on all cylinders, here, but he’s firing on too many to actually rest.
Besides, he has work to do.
LOCCENT never sleeps, or whatever.
He hears a little snuffling sound from under his desk as Max rolls over, warming Tendo’s feet.
Tendo smiles without thinking about it.
He works a lot of late nights, but at least he’s never lonely.
2020
Newt is lying on the floor of the lab, and he should probably get up.
He can’t quite get the energy to stand up, is the problem, and Hermann isn’t around so there’s nobody here to yell at him for lying on the floor, probably among a shitload of Kaiju residue, but Newt doesn’t actually care.
The door to the lab is open, and, again, Newt doesn’t actually care.
He’s starting to think that that’s a problem.
But then again, he doesn’t actually care.
It isn’t the nice not caring either, when he feels like he can do anything, not that that ever ends well for him either, it’s just a flat, gray not caring.
Newt has this heavy feeling in his chest and a weird slithering feeling in his stomach that tells him he hasn’t eaten all day and he is so done with this.
The door creaks open and Newt would sigh if he weren’t too tired, because he doesn’t like it when Hermann sees him like this, but it turns out that the door opener isn’t Hermann.
It’s not even human.
Max waddles up to Newt and parks himself right next to Newt’s head so that when Newt lets his head roll so that his cheek is pressed uncomfortably against the floor, his eyes are looking right into Max’s eyes.
Max’s warmth practically radiates off of him, and Newt almost smiles.
2018
Chuck is fifteen years old and he shouldn’t be fucking crying because he’s not a fucking kid anymore, but he is.
Crying, that is.
Today while he was sparring he lost and that’s never happened before and he bets his dad already knows, and Herc’s going to be so fucking disappointed and Chuck doesn’t want to disappoint him, but it seems like he always will.
He and Herc barely talk anymore. It’s all just grunting about how Chuck’s training is going and how Max is doing.
Chuck is lonely and he’s not ever going to be good enough for his dad and that’s why he’s crying like a fucking baby.
Max clambers onto the bed, and Chuck has never been gladder for anything in his life than he is for that dog.
He buries his face in Max’s soft fur and feels the rise and fall of his chest as he tries to ignore how hard he’s shaking and how the tears won’t stop.
2016
Mako is fourteen years old and she’s laughing as she plays with the Hansen’s new puppy—Max, Chuck informed Stacker.
Stacker thinks it might be the first time he’s seen Mako laugh since he met her.
“I like dogs,” she tells him, beaming, and she shrieks with joy as Max slobbers all over her face, and then she's disheveled and running about the floor of the Shatterdome.
Stacker smiles.
Mako is a strong girl, a brave girl, and seeing her be the child she is instead of the grim, small adult she wants to be makes him feel that she will be alright.