[ there's no reply forthcoming as far as formalities go. chuck has never had the time, inclination, interest, or encouragement to adopt them. to learn. the only thing that ever made him matter was what he could do in a cock-pit. he knows that. ]
[ he means raleigh, yancy reminds himself. reminds himself that there's a five-year lag. that five years means things he's missed out on and how that's not sometjing that he should feel too much guilt over. ]
Saw him on the first night off the train.
[ the voice on the other end of the line may be a ranger -- yancy's got no reason to think that the rattled off ID is a lie. but the subject of his brother is a touchy one, so he keeps his answers both vague and brief. ]
Haven't spoken to him recently. He'll come find me if he needs me.
[ he asks because he's supposed to- in the limited bits and pieces chuck has learned about to his fellow rangers. that it comes out wrong is owed to his inherit tendency to push too hard. chuck gets himself out of depth, into situations he can only get out of with his fists. the idea that this isn't always the case and his methods won't always work- well. it hasn't exactly occurred to him yet. ]
[ back is a word that settles in his gut like a stone sinking to the bottom of the ocean. back is a door already closed. but yancy won't deal with that right now, not when there's raleigh to think about, not when five stolen years is something he can still try to make right, for whatever time he can pocket here in zelien.
he takes a moment before he replies, and perhaps its because the voice is both familiar in the way only ranger can mean and still be a stranger in the fact that this is someone he's never met, he responds with a rueful laugh: ]
How'd you go down?
[ it's a personal question, he realizes as much the moment it popped into his head and out his mouth, because his brain is doing calculations that have nothing to do with math.
you never go down alone out there. not when you're two halves of a whole -- and if this chuck hansen is herc's co-pilot, the math doesn't come out right. because herc hansen is still, as far as their conversation went, alive. ]
[ there's a world of difference between knowing he's dead and allowing it to be true. it's the looming finality that hovers overhead when he and his old man cross paths. it's the understanding that he and mori try to avoid, the one they don't even whisper about, and it's a list of wrongs that he and the younger becket toy with trying to make right.
in the moment, hearing striker's alarms going off around his ears, chuck remembers feeling absolute. he remembers what resolve was like, an anchor passed on from his copilot. one they'd both tied themselves to.
yancy becket asks for details and chuck answers for reasons he doesn't care to analyze, much less explain. ]
Self-detonation in the breach. Two category fours, one five.
( wk 6, d4, audio )
Feels like goddamn months.
[ there's no reply forthcoming as far as formalities go. chuck has never had the time, inclination, interest, or encouragement to adopt them. to learn. the only thing that ever made him matter was what he could do in a cock-pit. he knows that. ]
Tracked down Becket?
( wk 6, d4, audio )
Saw him on the first night off the train.
[ the voice on the other end of the line may be a ranger -- yancy's got no reason to think that the rattled off ID is a lie. but the subject of his brother is a touchy one, so he keeps his answers both vague and brief. ]
Haven't spoken to him recently. He'll come find me if he needs me.
( wk 6, d4, audio )
People here say some of 'em can go back.
[ some of them not we, not us. ]
( wk 6, d4, audio )
he takes a moment before he replies, and perhaps its because the voice is both familiar in the way only ranger can mean and still be a stranger in the fact that this is someone he's never met, he responds with a rueful laugh: ]
How'd you go down?
[ it's a personal question, he realizes as much the moment it popped into his head and out his mouth, because his brain is doing calculations that have nothing to do with math.
you never go down alone out there. not when you're two halves of a whole -- and if this chuck hansen is herc's co-pilot, the math doesn't come out right. because herc hansen is still, as far as their conversation went, alive. ]
( wk 6, d4, audio )
in the moment, hearing striker's alarms going off around his ears, chuck remembers feeling absolute. he remembers what resolve was like, an anchor passed on from his copilot. one they'd both tied themselves to.
yancy becket asks for details and chuck answers for reasons he doesn't care to analyze, much less explain. ]
Self-detonation in the breach. Two category fours, one five.