suicidemission | like a match to gasoline

Raleigh doesn't know if Chuck's uncertainty comes from not believing him, or something else entirely, but he wants to banish it. He wants Chuck to be comfortable with this so that they can have it everyday for as long as they can take it. He brushes his thumb along Chuck's jawbone again, and squeezes their hands, still woven together.

"Don't say things I don't mean." He repeats from a conversation that seems like half a lifetime ago when he'd had Chuck shirtless in his room. He smiles then, and punctuates his words with a another chaste press of his lips to Chuck's.

Chuck gives him a wobbly little smile; one of those rare things that seem to be reserved for Raleigh only.

"I know."

This time, when Raleigh leans in he doesn't shy away. Instead, he meets him in the middle, brushing their lips together carefully, gently. Raleigh keeps it sweetly chaste and Chuck slides the hand on his neck up and into his hair, fingers curling into blond strands to tug, wanting him closer, closer, closer.

Raleigh hadn't meant for his little kiss to turn into this again, but Chuck's got other plans it seems, and he's being so fucking gently. It makes Raleigh feel precious or cherished or something else like that that he's never been before. It sends another shiver down his spine and he wants so much to have this forever.

He makes an encouraging noise when Chuck tugs on his hair, because it feels so good, and he's reminded of just how solid Chuck is across from him. He moved closer like Chuck seems to want, half into his lap, as he runs his free hand down Chuck's neck to rest on his chest.

Chuck usually doesn't have a gentle bone in his body; he's full of fire, he smolders and he kisses like he fights - wild, passionate, full of energy. He's holding back now only because this is so new and he's so goddamn nervous and he doesn't wanna fuck anything up.

But then Raleigh makes that noise and Chuck just has to do it again, it's like Raleigh's asking him to. Their one set of hands is still joined and he pulls; Raleigh's already half in his lap and a push and tug and it's obvious that Chuck wants him fully there, straddling him against that couch. He deepens the kiss, aggressively and deliberately licking his way into Raleigh's mouth, lips sliding over lips, tongue insistently pressing in, wanting to taste him.

"C'mere," he growls against Raleigh's mouth, hold tightening.

Raleigh doesn't need to be told twice. He doesn't know what he did to reassure Chuck or flip this switch-whatever, but it's fantastic. He climbs all the way on top of him, planting a kneed on either side of his thighs and finally he has to reluctantly shrug out of the jacket. He's too hot so close to Chuck, but it's okay because he's got the man instead of his things. He has to unthread their fingers for just a second to get the sleeve off, but then he's grasping Chuck's hand again.

His mouth is open and welcome for Chuck's invasion. Raleigh's free hand slides around his ribs, fingers pressing into Chuck's back, between the dress shirt and the undershirt. He's half hard in his pants like he hasn't been in ages, and he knows Chuck can probably feel it. This isn't really the place, it's not the place at all especially when they still had to be able to walk out, but Raleigh couldn't bring himself to stop. Not with the way it feels like Chuck's trying to consume him.

"Chuck." It's the only thing he can say when they come up for air.

For the first time in a very long time, Chuck feels alive. He feels like he sees things in vivid color, that every scent in the room is overwhelming him and the taste of Raleigh Becket on his tongue has his head spinning dizzily, leaving him panting and reeling and clutching at Raleigh's shirt desperately.

Now that he's pinned down with Raleigh's weight on top of him, it's safer to let go of their hand hold, but he's eager for it again when Raleigh reaches back for it, and he threads their fingers, squeezing to remind himself it's real.

Chuck knows that Raleigh's getting caught up in his fire, flames threatening to engulf them both right here, in this dressing room and he should stop, they should stop. Mako's waiting, they're lingering and this is hardly the place to go any further but Chuck--

He's afraid. If they stop, if they let this moment go, Chuck doesn't know how long it'll take Raleigh to break down all of his walls again, or if they're permanently torn down or what.

He pants against Raleigh's lips when they break apart to breath, his hand slid up Raleigh's back that's now a little more accessable without Chuck's leather jacket in the way (nice, but Chuck was a little sorry to see it go).

"You sure?" He demands roughly, fingers clutching at the material of that sweater. "I'm a train wreck, Becket." He knows it. Everyone does. "Not -- it's not gonna be easy. I'm not gonna make it easy."

Chuck's volatile. His temperament is terrible. He's a wadded up ball of passion and anger.

"Tell me you're sure."

Chuck's hand is a warm weight on the middle of his back and one of the new things Raleigh's letting himself want now, is a nap stretched out on top of Chuck with the warm weights of his arms around him. He forces himself to focus on what Chuck's saying rather than what his body is feeling.

"If you're a train wreck, I'm a jaeger wreck." Raleigh half laughs, but it's the sorry truth. Neither one of them is exactly in the best of mental health. "But I'm sure. Neither of us would be worth it, if it was easy. Not with everything we've seen and done."

He kisses Chuck quickly and squeezes their hands. "I'm sure. We're going to fuck it up a lot. Almost every day probably, because I'm not going to talk and you're going to yell, but we'll work on it and in between that...we'll be like this."

His palm smoothes up and down Raleigh's back, enjoying the contact and the heat he feels radiating off the older Ranger's body.

"Will it be worth it, though?" He wants to know. "I mean, fuck, Becket -- 's not pretty, when we fight."

He's gonna hurt Raleigh. He knows he is and he hates himself for it already -- he's wary again, pulling back a little and looking up at Raleigh with tired eyes.

There's no hesitation when Raleigh replies.

"I think it will be. If I could get back in Gipsy after five years and four months under just my own power I think together we can make a relationship work."

He runs his hands down Chuck's chest and sighs. "I don't think there's anything we can do to hurt each other worse than stuff we've already been through. And I think we'll get better as we go. You're a quick learner. We'll understand each other better eventually."

Maybe Raleigh's right, maybe it won't crash and burn. Chuck's not convinced but he's had a taste of something great and he doesn't want to let it go. He's selfish that way.

"Gonna hurt you," he says out loud, slowly sliding his hand up to cup the back of Raleigh's head, carding his fingers through Raleigh's hair.

"Sorry."

Raleigh tilts his head back, resting it in the curve of Chuck's palm.

"Yeah, I know. It's alright. Just keep rescuing me from shitty reporters and warming me up."

He grins. "Let me nap on you some more and we'll call it all even."

"Could deal with that, probably."

He gives Raleigh a slow, lazy kind of smile, then jerks him down to kiss him again, greedy because he's thinking maybe he finally has something of his own.

It'll be work, but -- Chuck's always worked for things, anyway. That isn't anything new. Raleigh's too good for him but maybe if he tries to fix himself at least a little, he can maybe feel like he's almost good enough for Raleigh.

Mako's still outside the door, patient and waiting and holding off anyone trying to eject the two pilots that are still too wrapped up in each other to remember they've got a bus to catch.

Raleigh wants to see Chuck smile like that every day. Stretching and lingering nice and slow, just for him. He kisses back until a soft knock sounds on the door.

"Mako's probably waited long enough. We've gotta go."

Reluctantly, he climbs off Chuck's lap and calls to Mako.

"Come on in. We're decent." He throws a rogue grin at Chuck to go with that statement.

He makes a noise of complaint when Raleigh climbs off of his lap, hand scrambling for his wrist to tug him back, but missing.

Raleigh's right, though. Mako's waited a while and the things he'd like to do, like to continue aren't suited for this environment.

Later, maybe. When he can get Raleigh alone.

"Yeah, yeah," he growls, getting to his feet as Mako opens the door, looking between them with quiet smusement, lips twitching with a hidden smile.

"The bus is here," she tells them lightly, hands folded calmly in front of her. "We can go, now."

Raleigh tosses Chuck his bag and his jacket as he shoulders his own and wraps an arm around Mako to squeeze her shoulders.

"Thanks for guarding the door. We had to work a couple of things out while we had our courage."

He pauses a moment, smiling at Chuck.

"So, how bad of a feeding frenzy did we make with the media?"

Mako hums a little as they follow her out.

"You are lucky. Your face was enough to make them hate her instead of Chuck. It helped that you followed Chuck out, even after the remark he shouldn't have made." She eyes Chuck for a moment, promising a painful spar, and then she smiles. "It was cute. Like you were saying you're the only one allowed to pull Raleigh's pigtails."

Chuck's used to people not liking him, so the idea that people would've hated him for anything he said or did bounces off his shoulders and rolls out the door. He slings his jacket back over his shoulders, not really knowing what the weather was like out there, and crams his hands in the pockets as he sort of listens to them talk.

"She was out of line," he finally snarls, glowering at the ground as they walk, not looking at them or anyone else that's around. Not until they're back on the bus and out of sight and out of mind. He needs a nap, wants to rest. Raleigh got one and Chuck...Chuck's still in overdrive from the kisses, body heated up substantially, and he can't tell if he wants to be alone or if he craves Raleigh's presence even more.

Mako simply looks back at him, lifts her brow and keeps walking, though the little smile on her face doesn't dissipate entirely. He scowls at her, but she's seen so much worse from Chuck Hansen that the look is met with a flat gaze before she gestures.

"The bus will take us back to the hotel."

When he's sure they're out of watching eyes, Raleigh brushes his hand down Chuck's arm in silent reassurance. Beyond that though, he just stands nearby, and takes a seat close to Chuck's on the bus. They've got a lot of stuff just between themselves to work out before trying anything where anyone else can see it. Mako doesn't really count, she's been in Raleigh's head, but the rest of the world, well they don't need to know.

The bus drops them off at a service entrance at Mako's arrangement and they go up in the elevator. Mako gives them a smile and a small wave before breaking off towards her room, and Raleigh is left standing there in the hallway with Chuck, not sure whether he should head for his room or something else.

Mako totally ditches them and leaves them to their own awkwardness and Chuck scowls after her, standing in the middle of the hall with his arms crossed, face to face with Raleigh. He's not sure what to say, what to do and he's not...sure what all he's ready for. He thinks maybe he knows what Raleigh's ready for, he'd felt it when he had Becket in his lap and Chuck can't deny that he wasn't in the same damn position, but--

That's a lot, really soon.

"So," he finally says, "I'm kinda tired. You got a nap, I didn't. I could use--" He hesitates and looks around, then scuffs the floor with his boot.

"Could use some company."

For a brief second, Raleigh thinks Chuck's hinting at something else, the higher rated kind of company that they'd almost made it to in the hotel. Then he sees the way Chuck won't meet his eyes and his boot tapping at the floor. Raleigh melts on the inside because Chuck's actually asking for something from him. Something gentle and comfortably intimate.

"I'd like that." He steps closer to Chuck, not quite in his personal space because the hotel had cameras in the hallways, but more friendly. "Your room or mine?"

He would think something like that.

"Mine." He says immediately. It's -- more familiar territory, even if it's just a hotel. It's got his stuff strewn everywhere and it has Chuck's touch to it. Raleigh's -- is still too foreign. He wouldn't be comfortable.

Raleigh just nods following Chuck into his room. He drops his bag in a chair and toes off his shoes. He looks around the room a little, taking in Max's dog bed and the way Chuck seems to have made a bit of a purposeful mess around the place, making it his own without making it cluttered or actually messy looking.

He smiles a little and pulls the dress belt out of his slack and his sweater off over his head before crawling into the bed.

"You got a side you'd rather be on?"

Raleigh didn't think it would matter too much since he planned on using Chuck as his pillow, but he wanted to check, just in case.

He definitely did it on purpose. Chuck's a spartan man, he doesn't have a lot of things and in his room back at the 'Dome, it's squeaky clean.

He sort of wanted to know what it felt like to just not give a fuck. It was kind of nice.

"Left," he says automatically, though he's a little distracted because Raleigh is peeling out of his clothes and he's staring before shucking the jacket and stumbling towards the left side of the bed to sit down.

Raleigh stretches out on the right side of the bed for a moment before changing his mind and pilling the covers down beneath himself so he can slide in them. He'd pulled his sweater off in anticipation of sharing the bed with Chuck, but in the meantime the air condition on his bare chest wasn't his favorite thing.

He turns on his side to watch Chuck's back when he sits down on the left side of the bed.

"Need help with your boots?"

If Raleigh's trying to test Chuck's resolve to see if he'll waver, it's working.

"Uh. Sure?"

He's trying not to stare at that chest, and instead focuses on trying to unknot the laces of his boots.

With a smile, Raleigh slides back out of the covers and crawls across the bed. He steps off and to one knee, gently batting Chuck's hands away and nimbly pulling at the laces of both boots until he can pull them off Chuck's feet himself. He rolls his socks down and pulls them off too.

"You got any routines you do before you sleep?"

like a match to gasoline

I have no food though..../sighs/

hmm that is a dilemma.....

Think I'll go at two maybe...when the lunch crowd is gone

This is a good plan

=3

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Noooot sure where you want to go with this one next

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