pour me a heavy dose of atmosphere - Anonymous (2024)

Chapter 1: Charles

Chapter Text

The drink in front of him is the same shade as the dust outside, famous three systems out; Charles has heard the term McLaren orange before, but he’s never seen this particular shade outside of an artificial pigment.

Or, now, his fingers. Charles scrubs at his hand with a bar napkin. It comes away orange, but so do his nail beds as he lifts his hand in dismay.

“You’ll need an M-grade solvent to get that off,” a voice says on his right, and Charles looks up as a man slides onto the bar stool next to him. If he wasn’t mistaken, the man glows in the low light, swinging over the shoulders of a boxy jumpsuit that doesn’t suit the lines of his face at all. The same age as Charles, if looks are anything to go by, although he knows they often aren’t.

“Sorry?” He means it as a polite dismissal but the man just leans over and peers at Charles’ fingers.

“It sinks into the dermis,” he says, looking up into his face. “M-grade solvent,” he repeats. In the dim light, his blue irises almost seem to glow; it’s probably just the lighting, or maybe he has some fancy implants, although those are less and less common the further out Charles gets from the Core.

“And I suppose you can sell me some?” Charles asks, shaking out his fingers futilely, because he may be on his third drink but he’s not stupid.It wouldn’t be the strangest sales pitch he’s ever heard, or the most unsolicited.

The tall man tilts his head as if this hadn’t occurred to him. “I could. But you know what the most common M-grade solvent is?” He turns and flags down the bartender, ordering ‘one of whatever he’s having’ and something Charles doesn’t recognize.

“...are you going to tell me, or?” Charles shouldn’t be encouraging this, but drinks one and two are humming pleasantly in his veins, and perhaps that’s what lets his eyes linger on the curve of a chiseled jaw, angled away from him but now turning back and oh, he’s been caught staring. The man’s lips curve into a smile and Charles jerks his gaze away, feeling his ears heat.

“Grain alcohol,” the man says over the sound of the bartender setting down two glasses, and when Charles looks back, he’s already dipping a bar napkin in a glass of what is probably not water. Sure enough, the fumes hit his nose seconds later, almost enough to distract him as the man took Charles’ hand in his.

He tries to jerk back but the man holds firmly; he’s strong, fingers almost fever-warm against Charles’. He swipes the wet napkin over Charles’ fingers in a brusque, business-like fashion, then holds it up for him to see.

“M-grade,” the man says with a grin, waving the orange-stained napkin. He releases his grip and Charles flexes his fingers, glancing down. His fingers are clean, even the long-standing streaks of engine oil he’d thought permanently embedded in his cuticles wiped away.

“Thank you,” he says cautiously, looking back up. “Um—”

“Max,” the man says with a little wave. “Max Verstappen.”

“Charles Leclerc,” he offers in return, relaxing a little when a pitch, sales or otherwise, doesn’t seem forthcoming.

“Charles Leclerc,” Max repeats, rolling it around in his mouth as if he likes the taste of it. He turns back toward the bar, folding his arms and playing with his drink; the edge of his jumpsuit brushes Charles’ thigh and he tells himself it’s unlikely he can actually feel that radiant heat through two layers of cloth.

Max puts his drink down, propping his head on his fist and turning back to Charles. “So, Charlie, what brings you to this dusty corner of the galaxy?”

Charles blinks at Charlie, but Max is grinning wide, like he knows Charles is not going to care instead of rolling his eyes. Charles does roll his eyes, just to be contrary, but his lips are quirking up when he replies, “I do not know yet.”

“You don’t—you don’t know?” Max’s tone sharpens a bit, out of the teasing range, and he straightens slightly. It might be a trick of the rotating overheads, but his eyes seem to brighten even as his face goes more intent. “Why don’t you know?”

Charles shrugs uncomfortably. “It is a dumb story.”

Max mirrors his shrug. “I’m a good listener.”

Charles shrugs again and takes a healthy slug of—of whatever he’s drinking, he’s forgotten the name already. It fizzes slightly on his tongue, buzzes through his veins as he sets his glass down.

“You ever—you ever get to a place where things are the same as they have always been, and it has always been fine, but suddenly it isn’t fine?” He frowns; that’s not what he meant to say, he doesn’t think, and he doesn’t know why he’s telling a stranger this but Max just makes an encouraging gesture. “It’s just. Things were fine. There isn’t anything wrong with a shipyard job. It was stable employment.”

He sighs.

“But suddenly it wasn’t fine,” Max prompts, and it sounds like he’s actually interested in Charles’ answer so he takes another drink and tries again.

“Everyday ships were lifting off, heading for Alfa Romeo, for Alpine, for McLaren. And I was never on any of them. It never seemed to matter, until the day it did.” Charles falls silent, sliding his glass between his palms.

“What changed?” Max asks quietly.

“Nothing.” Charles chuckles. “That was the whole problem.”

Max makes a considering noise, and Charles sighs, taking another drink. “So I cashed in what I could and sold the rest, and booked the next flight out. And here I am.”

“And here you are,” Max agrees. “What’s next?”

He shrugs. “Another flight, further out. A ship if I can sign on to one.” He grins at the thought, then peeks at Max. “I don’t suppose you know a crew who’s looking for a mechanic? I am good with my hands,” he says, wiggling his fingers.

Max raises his eyebrows and Charles feels his ears turn hot.

“Why not a ship of your own?” Max asks.

Charles snorts. “I did not cash in that much.”

“You might be surprised,” Max says, and Charles deflates a little.

“And you were doing so good at not being a salesman,” he says resignedly, and Max grins.

“You might be surprised about that, as well. I’m serious, though,” he says, leaning forward, and there’s something about his face that’s hard to look away from. It is a very attractive face; Charles can admit as much to himself.

“Oracle’s, tomorrow,” Max says. “I think you’ll like what you see.”

I already do, Charles thinks as Max’s eyes bore into his, strangely bright in the dim light of the bar.

Then Max leans back and Charles mentally slaps himself.

“Tomorrow?” he repeats, and Charles shrugs.

“Sure.” What the hell. He can always say no, right?

Max beams wide, and Charles stuffs down the feeling that says he might have a hard time saying no to that smile.

Max turns out to be as easy to talk to as he is to look at, with a breezy grin that invites Charles to laugh along with him. He doesn’t think he’s laughed this much in months. Max is a good listener, encouraging, and Charles finds himself talking through the bottom of his drink, until Max tilts his head, gaze going distant. The spinning of the overheads reflect deep in his eyes—he must have implants, and such seamless work must have been expensive—and then he refocuses on Charles.

“I have to go,” he says, tossing what must be the local currency across the bar and sliding off the stool. “Oracle’s, tomorrow. Don’t forget.”

“I will not,” Charles promises, although he wonders if he should.

Max flashes him one more grin, bright in the dim light of the bar, and then he’s off, heading toward the door. Charles tracks his figure down until it disappears into the night, then turns back toward his empty drink. He picks up the glass mournfully, and then pauses.

Max’s drink sits untouched next to him. Had he not been thirsty?

Charles shrugs, and slides the glass over in front of him. It’s paid for, and he doesn’t have anywhere to be tomorrow—except Oracle’s, he reminds himself.

He doesn’t have to keep his promise. But, Charles thinks as he lifts the full glass, the memory of that smile bright in the dim light of the bar, he has the feeling that he’s going to.

The morning sun is an affront to both his eyes and all right-thinking people, but after one stop for painkillers and another to ask for directions, Charles arrives at the edge of a dusty field filled with rows of starships underneath Oracle’s Used Vehicles: We Beat Any Price! in navy blue skyscript.

So Max had been a salesman after all. Well. He had been nice enough; it’ll be nice to see him again, even if Charles probably can’t afford anything he’s offering. He adjusts the lay of the pack on his shoulders and heads inside.

No one accosts him immediately, and Charles wanders the rows of ships, adrift in a sea of micro-pitted plating and dusty landing gear. How is he supposed to find Max in all of this? Yell? He rubs the thigh of his pants absently and then looks at his orange-coated fingers in dismay.

“You’ll need an—” a voice starts to his right and Charles grins, schools his face into disinterest, turning before the sentence finishes.

“M-grade solvent. I know. Are you going to buy me another drink, or are you going to show me a ship?” He asks Max, who has somehow snuck up behind him.

Max’s face spreads into the easy grin from last night. “Ship first, although I think it’s your turn to buy me a drink.” He turns and heads off between the rows, the easy confidence drawing Charles along almost despite himself. It’s funny—everyone Charles had passed coming in had sported a smudge of orange somewhere: under the nail beds, along a high hairline, a smudge over an eye. Aside from the faint accumulation around the tread of his boots, however, Max is as pristine as if he’d stepped out of an advertisem*nt, and not the kind of adverts they’re running on McLaren.

He must not have been here long. Probably eager for a sale; either that or he’s bathing in M-grade solvent.

Charles can indulge him, for a little while; he’ll look at whatever junker Max is trying to pass off as flightworthy, and then he’ll firmly but gently insist on looking at something else.

When he sees the vehicle Max comes to a stop underneath, however, Charles’ eyes widen.

This ship is long and sleek, large enough to carry a decent sized cargo but not nearly as heavy as a freighter. It looks like it could leap away from the ground at any moment, like gravity is merely a suggestion—like Max’s easy grin, he thinks. It is in far better condition than the surrounding vehicles, and Max turns, smug.

“Want to look inside?” he says, and Charles sighs and nods, curiosity winning out against his better judgment.

The interior is as sleek as the outside, the corridors and the hatchways pleasingly rounded, the synthsteel clean and polished. The floor of the small cargo bay is so unmarked as to be almost unused, and the engine compartment just off of it smells of fresh oil and faint ozone. Charles drops first into a crouch, inspecting the welding, and then slides on his back underneath the drive to check the couplings. This ship is far better than Charles ever expected to see this far out from the Core worlds, and the couplings are always the first to go on an engine like this.

The couplings look almost factory-new. Charles traces one with his dust-stained hand before he remembers and winces at the trace of orange it leaves behind. He tries to rub it off with his sleeve but just succeeds in smearing it around.

A boot nudges his leg. “Are you planning on rewiring the whole thing, or what?” Max’s voice sounds faintly strained; maybe he’s not used to people looking too closely at what he’s trying to sell.

With a face like that, it’s not hard to imagine. “Sorry.” Charles shakes his head, pulling himself out from under the engine. “co*ckpit next?”

Max nods, and turns to lead the way. Charles skims his fingers over the nearly-reflective surface of the central turbine; every engine he’s ever worked on had been dull and worn with light-years of use, even the refurbished ones. He’s never touched anything so skillfully engineered before so close to new.

Max glances back at him, smiling knowingly, and Charles drops his fingers from the turbine and follows.

The air has the faint tang on his tongue of the same central recycler as a million other ships, but even that smells fresher than usual, and Charles would bet that it’s not because the filters have just been replaced. Even the aniline leather of the pilot’s seat is so new that it squeaks when Charles drops down into it.

“New upholstery?” he asks as he studies the pilot’s board. It’s a bit off from central-standard, but Charles thinks he could pick it up pretty quickly.

“Original,” comes the reply, and Charles looks up. Max has settled into the co-pilot’s seat, lounging back with his knees spread, head propped on one hand as he watches Charles. It’s decidedly casual for a salesman, but then McLaren isn’t known for its formality.

“So. You like what you see?” Max asks, swiveling in the seat. “You do,” he decides before Charles can answer.

Charles blinks. “It is a beautiful ship,” he says, turning to face Max. “What’s wrong with her?”

The grin slips into a scowl—almost a pout. “Him. And nothing. ”

“Him.” Unusual for a salesman to have a preference, but Charles can play along. “How fast am I going to get flagged for flying an unserialized ship? I assumed it’s been scrubbed,” he says as Max’s pout deepens.

“The credentials are up to date,” he says, drawing a handreader out of an inner pocket. He calls up a file and shoves it toward Charles.

Charles takes the reader and skims through the file, pausing when he gets to the registration. “This ship doesn’t have a name?”

For the first time, Max looks uneasy, and he slouches a little in the copilot’s seat. “The name was scrubbed,” he admits. “But this’ll get you through any perimeter flashcheck, and it’s not like you’re going back to the Core.”

Charles shakes his head, passing the handreader back. “Out of my price range, then,” he says, because there’s no way a ship in this condition is going for anything like what he has available to him.

“Two thousand credits,” Max says, ignoring the handreader, and Charles nearly laughs.

“I am not financing anything—”

“Not for a down payment,” Max interrupts. “For the ship.”

Charles takes the handreader automatically, even as his brain scrambles to catch up. Two thousand for a ship like this—that’s criminally underpriced, even accounting for the ship’s probably-not-legal provenance. It’s over half of what Charles has saved, but. He could do it.

If he believes this man he’s just met. If he believes there’s nothing wrong with this ship, nothing that’s going to bite him in the ass later.

A series of lights on the comm board blink, and a soft tone is all the alert Charles gets before a speaker crackles to life. “Verstappen, get your ass back here. Ocon’s on his way, ready to sign on the line, and I want you waiting for him.”

Max reaches over and hits a button on the comm board. “No need, Helmut,” he says smoothly. “Found another buyer.”

“Another buyer?” This must be the owner of the lot; he sounds deeply skeptical, and Charles briefly empathizes. “Ready to sign?”

“Yes.” Max locks eyes with Charles. “Ready to sign.”

The person on the other line makes a considering noise over the line. “Well I need the space so you’ve got twenty minutes to get me the paperwork or I will sell to Ocon.” The line cuts off with a crackle, and Charles shifts in the pilot’s chair.

“If someone else is interested…” he starts, and Max shakes his head.

“I hate him,” he says flatly, which is—probably the most impolitic thing Charles has ever heard a salesman say, at least in the midst of a deal. “Listen—we have a chance to help each other out. You need a ship. I need to sell. Everybody wins, except Ocon, because f*ck him.”

Charles hesitates.

“One thousand credits,” Max says. “Five hundred. Please just sign.” He sounds a little desperate, and Charles wonders what this Ocon must have done for Max to be willing to undercut himself so dramatically.

“400 credits,” Charles says cautiously. He did come here to buy a ship, after all—it’s really no business of his what petty squabbles the locals are involved in.

Max flashes him a relieved grin. He grabs the handreader, makes the change, and holds it back out. “Deal. Sign,” he says almost impatiently, waggling the handreader.

“You must not be making commission,” Charles jokes to cover the nerves as he slowly accepts the handreader. It’s just asking for a signature, no further identification needed, which is almost charmingly outdated. He hesitates—and then signs. The displayed file updates immediately with his name under Owner; the ship’s name is still blank. Charles will have to think of something, he realizes with a rush of giddiness as the handreader starts transmitting the file.

He’s never owned a ship before; skimmers, sure, enough for intraplanetary flight but nothing that could break the atmosphere. He skims a hand over the board, fingers ghosting over the controls. They’re all his to learn. He can’t wait to get started.

The comm board buzzes alight again without any warning. “400 credits? Verstappen, is this a joke?”

“You asked for the paperwork, Helmut,” Max says calmly as he puts the handreader away. “I got it to you in under twenty minutes.”

“This paperwork…” Charles can hear Helmut’s disappointed voice. “It’s dismissed. Ocon’s on his way.”

“I hope you offer him a refund,” Max says, and the pilot’s board lights up underneath Charles’ fingers. He can feel the hum under his feet of the engine starting up, the rumble of the ship’s main hatch as it retracts, and—are those lights in Max’s eyes?

Charles’ stomach flips as the ship starts to lift off from the ground. “What— what is happening,” he asks. He pushes himself halfway out of the chair and then has to catch himself against the arm as the ship pivots in midair.

“Sorry,” Max glances at him. “The inertial compensators need a tune-up. Should’ve told you.”

“I do not think that’s all you should have told me,” Charles snaps as the ground starts falling away from them. “Are you kidnapping me?”

Max swivels in the copilot’s chair and tilts his head as the control board blinks. “How can I kidnap you ? You signed.”

“I signed for the ship,” Charles retorts, but the smug look on Max’s face gives him pause. “Not—you.”

Max grins, leaning back in the copilot’s chair. “Package deal,” he says, but his lips don’t move, his voice echoing from the comm board’s speakers instead, and those are definitely lights spinning in his irises. “Should’ve read the fine print.”

Charles sits heavily.

“So,” Max says, with his mouth this time, as the stars open up beyond the viewport. “Where are we going?”

Charles has heard of ships like this.

Heard being the operative term; in all his years working the repair docks of Prema-16, he’s never seen one come through. Artificial intelligence is one thing—even the most rudimentary flyers have at least a basic AI to run complex calculations and keep multivariant systems in check, and most standard models will respond to voice commands. Pre-programmed personalities aren’t uncommon, but this kind of seamless connection between a ship and a secondary body—

Charles leans forward, fascinated.

Max tilts his head, and Charles has never heard of, let alone seen, an android with such human responses. Most androids are conspicuously non -human, metal frames wrapped in protective plastoid. Synthskin had been such an uncanny failure it had been dropped from the market almost immediately, but some older models still wore it, stiff movements and too-plastic flesh an eerie reminder of everything they were not.

“Not implants, then. In your eyes,” Charles clarifies when Max raises his eyebrows.

“Nope,” Max replies. His irises light up briefly and Charles wonders what that signifies. It seems impolite to ask, but he’s suddenly dying to know how Max works, how human his body is, the full extent of his connection with the ship.

“I have never seen anything like you,” Charles breathes, curling his fingers into the armrest of the pilot’s chair to keep from reaching out. Surely that’s too much to ask, but he wants to know if Max’s skin is as soft as it looks, if his fingers are as warm as Charles remembers.

Max preens, his smile self-satisfied and so very human. “I knew you were a good choice,” he says, spinning the co-pilot’s chair back toward the viewport, now filled with an endless starfield. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t sign on as some crappy transport’s mechanic?”

Charles leans back in the pilot’s chair as the ship pivots, feeling the faint press of artificial gravity as they pick up speed. The inertial compensators are definitely off. Charles eyes Max’s starlit profile. “So you duped me into being your mechanic.”

“Duped is a strong word,” Max insists, glancing at him sidelong. “And that’s pilot, not mechanic. Although that will no doubt be useful.”

“Pilot.” Charles touches the control board, and Max’s eyes flick immediately to his hand. He jerks it back. “You do not seem to have any trouble flying.”

“Flying, no,” Max says, lifting his gaze. “It’s the destination I’m having... difficulty with.”

“Hmm?” When Max just presses his lips together, Charles sits up straighter. “Max? If you want my help you are going to have to talk to me.”

Max flattens his hands against the co-pilot’s board and glances back at Charles. He looks like he’s weighing something, which is fascinating if true. Androids don’t generally hesitate, or display much in the way of mannerisms, unless it’s for the benefit of their owners. This kind of technology is bleeding edge, on a scale beyond Charles’ familiarity, but someone clearly built Max to look and act human.

Someone built him, and for the first time it occurs to Charles to wonder how Max came to be by himself, all the way out on a dusty desert fly-by like McLaren.

Before he can voice the question, Max pushes back from the co-pilot’s seat. “Come on,” he says, standing and heading back toward the corridor. “It’s easier to show you.”

Charles trails Max down the rounded corridor to an unassuming stretch of hallway, where he stops and crouches, fingers tracing over a patch of hull close to the floor. Light seams underneath his fingers as a tile, ostensibly no different than any other, rises from the wall and lifts open, exposing wires and circuitry underneath. Max shifts to one side and waves Charles down, and he slowly goes to one knee, glancing between Max and the humming innards of the ship.

“You see it, right?” Max says, voice barely louder than the vibration of the engine through the floor, and Charles nods slowly.

The wiring is elegantly done, like everything else about the ship—about Max, Charles reminds himself—that he’s seen. The circuit boards are stacked neatly and efficiently, spaced evenly apart—except for the space where one used to be. Charles can see broken and cracked casing, blackened from electrical discharge, and he instinctively reaches out to touch.

A hand grabs his wrist. “Don’t,” Max says tightly. “It—hurts.”

Charles looks up at him. “Still?” he asks, and when Max nods Charles blows out a breath. “What happened here?”

“Exploratory models are built with Purpose,” Max says, and Charles can hear the capitalization before he realizes Max is talking about himself. Max gestures at the damaged, empty casing. “Without it, things are—difficult.”

Charles looks at the hole in Max’s circuitry, and then back up into his face, lit by the soft blue light of the hatch. “Where did you come from?” he asks wonderingly.

Max’s mouth flattens, but he goes back to smiling just as quickly. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He closes the hatch and stands, gazing down at Charles. “I’d rather talk about where you want to go.”

He extends a hand out, and Charles hesitates, glancing back at the smooth plating where the hatch had been. That kind of damage could only have been deliberate, and Max hadn’t said who had done it. He’s too expensive of an investment to have accidentally ended up somewhere like McLaren; whoever had built him might be looking for him. Charles had wanted to see the stars, not get caught up in whatever Max is running from.

Charles had wanted to see the stars, but none of them shine as brightly as the cautious hope in Max’s eyes as Charles takes his hand.

“Somewhere I have never been before,” he says, letting Max pull him to his feet. “Somewhere new.”

Max’s grin is blinding, and Charles pretends he doesn’t see the relief in it. “We can do that,” he says, fingers squeezing Charles’ hand. His skin is just as warm as Charles remembers. Fascinating. “Anywhere you want.”

“When I said ‘anywhere you want,” Max chortles, shaking out a boot. “I was kind of picturing somewhere less like the place we just left.”

Charles waves a hand absently, surveying the dunes before them. “It is beautiful.”

Max doesn’t say anything, just raises a hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the Mercedes’ sun, but the quality of his silence speaks volumes about what he thinks about that statement.

Which is an impressive feat for an android, and Charles marvels all over again at Max’s construction. He glances back at—at Max’s other body, at the ship, set down a good dozen meters behind them in a valley between two dunes.

“How far away can you go?” he asks, and Max drops his hand.

“As far as you want,” he says, glancing at Charles and away again. “Assuming there’s anything of value here.”

That’s an interesting way to phrase it. “Come on. It should be just over the next ridge.”

Max falls in after Charles as he starts up the dune, sliding a little as the fine-grained sand shifts under his feet. The top of the dune, when he reaches it, reveals—another dune.

“Okay.” Charles squints into the sun as the hot breeze tousles his hair. “Maybe it’s the next ridge.”

It’s actually three ridges later, and Charles would be embarrassed about that but Max doesn’t seem to mind, trudging up the sandy inclines after Charles and sliding down the other sides after him. He’s a bit more graceful about it than Charles is, coasting down the duneside as if there’s an invisible board under his feet; Charles, on the other hand, falls on his ass more than once and slides down that way.

Which just means that by the time they crest the final ridge Charles has no qualms about dropping to his knees to catch his breath as the Mercedes sandsea stretches out before them. It’s a breathtaking sight, the light-colored sand ebbing and flowing like water as far as Charles can see. In the distance, where the sandsurf gets choppy, he can just barely make out a small figure riding the cresting waves with a kiteskimmer, but the sandscape is empty of other life from horizon to horizon.

Charles shivers. “I have never been in a place with so few people,” he admits quietly, as if to speak louder will break the gentle susurration of the sandy waves.

“You’re the only person here,” Max says with a light laugh, and Charles looks up, squinting into the bright light.

“You’re people,” he objects.

Max’s face is shadowed, his face backlit by the sun, but Charles can picture his eyebrows climbing. “Am I?”

“Yes,” Charles says, pushing himself to his feet and brushing the knees of his trousers off. “You are.” The journey to Mercedes had been enough to decide him on that much, at least.

It had been immediately clear that Max hadn’t needed his help with piloting or navigation. While he had shown Charles the flight board the controls had felt stiff, as if they hadn’t been used very often. Max himself hadn’t seemed to have much use for them, leaning back in the copilot’s chair with lights in his eyes as the stars had elongated around them on the jump away from McLaren.

Max does need him, though—or Max needs something, although Charles hasn’t quite figured out what, yet. He doesn’t look to Charles for every decision but he did need him to set their destination. He’d watched intently as Charles had skimmed through the potential jump routes Max had calculated, eyes heavy and dark over pressed-together fingers. When Charles had settled on Mercedes, Max’s face had creased for a second before smoothing out again, and it’s that split second of frustration that Charles thinks about now as he straightens.

Max makes a little humming sound, rocking up a little on the balls of his feet, and that doesn’t sound like agreement but he doesn’t argue the point.

Charles slides down the dune—more carefully, this time—listening to the soft sounds of Max following. When he reaches the bottom he walks carefully to the edge of the sandsea, crouching and passing his wristband over the shifting sands, dipping his fingers in when the soft beep indicates that it’s safe to touch.

He jerks his hand back almost immediately. “It’s cold!”

Max’s shadow falls over him as he leans forward. “Silica-based compound,” he says, with a brief flash in his eyes that Charles has come to learn means he’s accessing a subsystem. “Difficult to extract in that granular state, but an excellent thermal conductor.”

“Why would you extract it?” Charles asks, looking out over the horizon. The sandsurfer has disappeared from view. Charles hopes they haven’t fallen in, but he supposes that kind of hazard comes with the territory.

“Conductors. Thermal plating. Could be used in any number of applications.” When Charles looks up Max is gazing out over the horizon too, but somehow Charles doesn’t think concern for the sandsurfer is high on his mind. “Several billion credits worth here if the quality is good.”

“Is that what you see when you look at it?” Charles asks, running his hand through the silica sand again. It parts like water under his touch, filling in immediately after itself, but when he lifts his fingers they’re bone dry, not even any dusty residue. “Credits?”

There’s a confused quality to Max’s silence, and when Charles looks up a faint frown creases Max’s forehead. “Is that… not what you see?” he says eventually, and Charles looks back out over the sandy waves.

“I have seen thermal plating,” he says, nodding as the sandsurfer crests a wave in the distance. “Loads of it. Too much, probably. I have never seen anything like this.”

He shifts, going on one knee while he shuffles through a thigh pouch. The recorder he’d bought back before booking passage off of Prema-16 isn’t top of the line by any means, but it’s decent enough for his purposes. He pairs it with his wristband and then scans the scene, holding the recorder steady so it can stitch the stills together. He’ll sort through them later, during the next jump.

On a whim he turns and snaps a still of Max, washed gold by the Mercedes sun. Max glances down at him, smiling, and Charles smiles back. Lights spin in Max’s eyes and he turns back toward the horizon, brow furrowing again.

“Too bad we do not have the equipment for that,” Charles says wistfully, pushing himself to his feet and nodding at the sandsurfer when Max glances at him. “Looks fun.”

At that Max’s face clears, sharpening with interest. He crouches down, swirling his own hand through the silica sand, rubbing it through his fingers just as Charles had done moments before.

“Sufficient density to maintain surface tension, up to 90 kg probably,” he muses. He glances up at Charles, eyes bright. “There’s some spare plating in the cargo bay. It would hold, most likely.”

Charles stares. “You are joking.”

Max’s eyes sparkle, and Charles can’t tell if that’s the sun or something internal. “I wouldn’t.”

Charles feels his resolve slipping. “It is dangerous without safety equipment.”

Max shrugs, standing. “You didn’t come all this way to be safe.”

The thing is that he isn’t wrong.

“Okay,” Charles says, feeling a flush of recklessness pull his mouth up. “But you have to pull me out when I fall in.”

Chapter 2: Max

Chapter Text

“Remember what you promised,” Charles says, his voice falling into a nervous register, and Max glances over.

“This was your idea,” Max reminds him, and Charles makes a face at him.

“You could at least pretend to be comforting.”

Max nods, pulling up a sympathetic subroutine.

“You’re going to do great,” he enthuses. “Just like we practiced.”

Charles stares at him, eyes wide and disconcerted underneath the shifting membrane of his faceguard.

“Too much?” Max asks, shutting it down.

“Way too much,” Charles confirms, glancing aside. The tips of his ears are turning pink. It’s probably sunburn. Max knows that that’s irritating, for humans; their next stop was going to have to be a supply run anyway, and Max adds suncream to the list. Charles hadn’t come to this journey entirely unprepared, but Max is familiar with the border planets and how far the distance between the settlements can be. It can come as a shock, initially, to those who’ve lived their lives more Coreward than not.

Prema-16 isn’t part of the Core but it’s close enough, and Charles had freely admitted that was furthest out he’d ever been before McLaren. He seems adaptable, though, in a way the Corebound often aren’t, and Max congratulates himself again on making a good choice.

Charles shifts his feet on the makeshift skimboard, the tether wrapped securely around one ankle. Determination creases the corner of his eyes as he adjusts the fit of the guard over his face, and then he shifts, letting his own weight tip him forward and slide him down the dune.

Max watches him go. He has good form, for someone who doesn’t have internal compensators, and when Charles actually hits the actual sandsurf and speeds up, a small crest of his exhilarated laughter makes it all the way back to where Max is standing.

Max grins, and tips his board over the edge.

This body can’t get up to the speeds of his other one, obviously, but sliding down the side of the dune and skimming onto the choppy sands is almost like accelerating to break the atmosphere, and there’s a weightless moment at the top of his board’s arc that’s like the jump between stars. Max hears himself laughing as he comes back down, skimming the backside of a wave as he angles towards Charles.

Charles isn’t doing too bad for himself, holding his body low to center his weight even as he wobbles a bit on the next crest. He arcs his board up and across, skimming around Max in a wide circle, his grin wide and bright beneath the faceguard. Max had forgone one for himself, this body isn’t as intolerant as Charles’ would be in the event of a dip below the sandwaves, and furthermore Max doesn’t intend to fall in.

He turns his attention back to the wave in front of him, crouching low to consolidate his momentum as he speeds up the wave. He grabs the edge of the board with one hand and leans as it crests, sending himself spinning up off into the air, and maybe he’s showing off but Charles’ delighted laughter widens his own smile even as gravity reasserts itself and he touches back down on the subsiding wave.

The wave cresting just behind that one takes him by surprise.

The blow hits him in the middle of his spine, and while the fine-grained sand splits around him, the momentum sweeps him off his feet. Max’s board shoots off into the air, snapping the tether wrapped around his ankle as Charles’ laughter turns to an alarmed shout. Max’s vision goes black as his eyes and mouth seal themselves, the sand overtaking him as he sinks beneath the surface.

Inconvenient, and embarrassing.Max tries to orient himself, to propel himself back toward the surface, but the current is deceptively strong and just spins him around in the blackness underneath the waves. He manages to turn himself upright, but he can feel himself sinking despite his best efforts. The cold radiates up from the depths and Max can feel his systems start to edge into alarm when something warm wraps around his wrist and pulls.

Light seams in under his eyelids as Max’s head breaks the surface, and he blinks them open to see a hand wrapped firmly around his wrist, Charles’ other clinging white-knuckled to his makeshift skimboard, his own eyes wide and terrified.

“Max? Max!” he’s saying, loud and panicky and Max kicks himself over so he can grab onto the board.

“It’s fine. I’m fine,” he says reassuringly, but that just makes Charles scowl.

“Stop that,” he snaps. “Do not run a subroutine on me. Are you okay?”

Max blinks, and cycles through a quick diagnostic. “Nothing’s damaged. That was quick thinking.” he offers, and this time the lines in Charles’ face ease a bit.

“Let’s get back,” he says, looking away, and Max follows his lead, holding onto the board and kicking to propel themselves back to shore.

Charles seems to have recovered himself somewhat by the time they reach the demarcation between the sandsea and the more solid dunes, although his hands have gone paler than normal when he reaches for the ledge, and his whole body is shaking as he hauls himself out. He turns, falling on his back as Max pulls himself up out of the silica sands, and Max can see the bluish tinge of his lips.

“You’re cold,” he says. A quick scan confirms that Charles’ core temperature reads lower than it should.

Charles chuckles a little even as he hugs himself with trembling arms. “Aren’t you?” he asks, lifting his head, and then huffs as he lets it drop back to the ground. “Of course you are n-not.” Charles clenches his jaw on suddenly chattering teeth. “S-sorry you have to put up with this fragile h-human body. Why am I so cold, it was baking out here before we went in.”

“Adrenaline crash,” Max says. “And I told you silica was a good thermal conductor.” Charles just shivers again; he’s not warming up as fast as Max would like, even under the heat of the sun. They need to get back. “Come on,” he urges, sliding an arm under Charles’ shoulders, and shifting to stand.

Charles makes a faint protesting noise but he leans heavily on Max as they make it upright. Max can feel the fine tremor running through him and while Charles tries to follow Max’s lead, his feet aren’t coordinating terribly well. It’s going to take them time Max is unwilling to spend and will just exhaust Charles further, to make it back to the landing site at this rate.

Well. In that case, the landing site can come to them.

Max adjusts the fit of his arm underneath Charles’ shoulders and turns them around to face the sandsea. The sun is high overhead, and he low-cycles his cooling systems before they can whir in response. His thermal tolerance is far greater than Charles’, and from the way he’s pressed against Max’s side, Charles could use the extra heat.

Charles makes a confused sound as a shadow falls over them, blotting out the heat of the sun, and he lifts his head just in time for Max’s boarding ramp to unroll at his feet. The wash of displaced air blows his hair back from his forehead as Max carefully calibrates his thrusters to hold steady over the now-rolling sandsea.

“Come on,” he repeats, pulling Charles aboard, and he follows.

The silica sand leaves no residue, but the absence of warmth from its depth clings, and Max turns up the environmental controls as he half-leads, half-drags Charles toward the small passenger cabin. Max spares a glance for the pack sitting alone in the corner as he sits Charles on the edge of the bunk; the faded canvas and careworn straps are far from a match for the stainless plating and smooth edges of the rest of the cabin, but Max likes how it looks nonetheless.

“I can—what are you doing,” Charles says, accent sounding sharper with every word. That’s good; what’s less good is the way his hands are going to Max’s, starting to push him away as Max goes for the zip on Charles' overalls.

“You’re near-hypothermic,” Max explains. Maybe he can’t tell; Max knows that humans aren’t always reliable when it comes to their own senses.

“That does not explain why you are undressing me,” Charles retorts, fingers tightening around Max’s. The pulse Max can read off of them is healthy and steady, and he lets himself relax.

“If you’d like I could shove you into the refresher unit with your clothes on,” Max offers with a grin, but he drops his hand.

“I am fine,” Charles insists, and he must be getting there, because a flush is trying to rise in his cheeks.

“If you don’t want the hot shower there’s always skin to skin contact. Very effective at thermal transfer.” The flush that’s trying to manifest on Charles’s face darkens, and Max smirks, congratulating himself on improving Charles’ circulation along the way.

“Get out, get out,” Charles growls, attempting to shoo him away, but there’s no malice in it that Max can detect. He steps back, not quite understanding the reluctance in his feet. Charles’ lips have lost their bluish tinge, his oxygen levels returning to normal; a hot shower will still be good for him, but surely Charles can manage that much on his own. It must be that Max hasn’t had a pilot before. Passengers, certainly, but they had been Company owned as much as Max. He hadn’t needed or cared to look after them; but then again, none of them had ever pulled Max out of a sandsea undercurrent.

“Why did you come in after me?” he asks.”You knew it was cold, and you’re not built for the cold.”

Charles blinks, hands pausing with the zip in the hollow of his throat. “I was not sure if you can swim,” he says slowly, like he fully doesn’t understand the question. “And you were not coming back up.”

Max shrugs. “I can. And if that didn’t work, I would have sunk to the bottom and walked back up.”

“You do not know how deep it was,” Charles challenges.

“1 633 meters,” Max shoots back, but Charles’ brows draw down in a scowl.

“Over a thousand meters? What if something weird is down there? What if it ate you?” He’s starting to sound upset the more information Max gives him, which is not Max’s usual relationship with information.

“It would have to be very strong, and very hungry.” This does not appear to please Charles either, his mouth flattening into a thin line.

“And very stubborn, I guess,” Charles mutters, leaning forward to undo his boots. The first comes off with a small shower of silica sand, and Charles’ face shifts into guilty lines. “Oh uh–I will clean that up.”

“No need,” Max says, calling the cleaner bot from its recessed dock. The little machine zips over and suctions up the loose sand, then circles Charles’ other boot as if its limited sentience can detect that more sand awaits it. Charles looks down at it, then backs up at Max with a wry smile.

“You really got an answer for everything, huh?” he says, but he doesn’t sound like he’s going to argue anymore, which is—good, Max supposes, even if he’s not sure what they were arguing about.

“Not everything,” he replies, thinking about the cracked and empty casing where his Purpose used to sit. He hadn’t intended to ever show anyone that, and it’s different for humans, Max knows, but Charles had seemed like he might understand. He’d understood enough to stop pushing when Max had deflected, at the very least, and that’s what prompts Max to say the next part.

“Thank you,” he says. He’s never thanked someone and meant it before; that makes it all the more important that he looks Charles in the eye at this moment, with this feeling he can’t quite name. “Thank you,” he says again when Charles' eyes meet his. “For pulling me out. Even if it wasn’t necessary,” he adds, and Charles scoffs even if his mouth turns up.

“You're welcome,” he says, guilelessly sincere and easy as breathing. It probably is for him, that simple connection between action and emotion. Max hadn’t been built for envy but he suspects that this might be what it feels like, this frustrated yearning; like a circuit that’s not quite finished, as if all that’s waiting is for Max to reach out and close it.

“Shower,” Max reminds Charles as he steps back, firmly out of range. “I’ll calculate the next jump, You get warm.”

“Like it would take you that long,” Charles scoffs again, reaching for his other boot. Max shrugs and steps out into the hallway as Charles shakes it out, letting the door slide shut behind him.

He has in fact already completed the calculations, the operation running in the background as he directed his attention elsewhere. He pauses in the corridor for a moment, rerouting his focus; the little cleaner bot has only rudimentary sensory equipment but its vision is enough to pick up Charles' feet, now stripped of boots and socks and pressed bare on the metal cabin floor.

“You are cute,” Charles says, his voice filtered and tinny through the cleaner bot’s audio equipment, and it takes Max a moment to realize he’s talking to the bot.

“What kind of system are you running, I wonder,” he murmurs. The cleaner bot’s field of vision tilts and then blurs, and then Charles' face comes into view as he holds the bot up in front of him. The bot’s wheels spin fruitlessly against the air as Charles holds it; it chimes a soft alarm and Charles' face creases with worry. “Ah—sorry,” he says, putting the bot gently back on the ground, and Max makes the split nano-second decision to route himself more fully through the bot just as Charles' fingers run comfortingly over the bot’s casing.

“There. See?” Charles croons, and out in the corridor Max shivers, phantom sensation tingling down his spine. “All safe on the ground now,” he says, standing up. Max circles the bot around him just once to make Charles laugh, then backs it away in its charging dock. Charles watches it go, eyes bright with curiosity, but he makes no move to pick it up again.

Considerate, even with things he has a professional interest in and technically owns. Charles hasn’t once brought up the fact that his name is listed on the Owner line of Max’s registration. Max wonders when he will.

Charles' hands go to the zip of his overalls and Max abruptly withdraws from the cleaner bot’s sensory system. He has no personal concerns with modesty but Charles clearly does, and that seems important, suddenly, in a way that it hadn’t a short time ago. Max monitors the cabin’s system enough to confirm that the refresher unit turns on and then withdraws, heading for the co*ckpit and leaving Charles to his shower.

At least, he tries to leave it behind; as he settles into the copilot’s seat and leans back, he finds that the starlight glancing off the viewport reminds him of the flash of paler skin beneath Charles' collar, that the delicate spin of constellations puts him in mind of the glint in Charles' eyes when he’s delighted by something. Something new, Max reminds himself. That’s what Charles is here for in the first place.

Well. New places are Max’s specialty, in a manner of speaking. That should work out fine.

“What is that,” Charles says, in a tone that indicates he knows exactly what Max is strapping to his thigh.

“Did you get sunblinded on Mercedes?” Max asks solicitously, tightening the strap until the rig lays snug against his pants. “I didn’t realize your eyesight was bad, Charlie.”

“Shut up. Tell me why you are carrying a pulser.” Charles says, contradicting himself. “You aren't carrying one before or—are you?” he finishes doubtfully.

Max makes sure the pulser is snug tightly in its holster before looking up. “Alpha Tauri’s a bit rougher than McLaren,” he says instead of answering. “And more populated than Mercedes. Just a precaution, that’s all.”

“Sure,” Charles says.

“The real question,” Max says, standing. He’s traded in the all-purpose jumpsuit for a pair of skinny trousers, a soft white shirt, and a leatherskin jacket; now isn’t the time and Alpha Tauri isn’t the place to be looking like he rolled off the last freighter in. “Is why you aren’t carrying one,”

“I do not need one?” Charles says cautiously. He seems to be having trouble keeping his eyes on Max’s face. “Do I?”

Max adds pulser to his list of supplies they need to pick up. “Come on,” he says, heading toward the rear hatch. Charles follows slowly. “You’ll like the market, I think.”

Alpha Tauri is on a well-enough known route that the market should have everything they need; indeed, Charles seems to want to stop at every food stall, eyes shining as he inspects different types of rice, machined engine parts and children’s toys with equal interest. Max lets him take the lead, lingering nearby as Charles makes easy conversation with merchants and sellers of all stripes. He doesn’t buy anything for himself, though, and he blinks in surprise when Max hands him the bill for their first procurement purchase.

Charles peers at the handreader with its itemized total. “Wait—why am I paying?”

Max shrugs, an easy smile in place. “I would pay, but I’m not carrying any money.”

Charles opens his mouth, and then his gaze goes to Max’s wrist, bare of the ubiquitous wristreader. They’re less common this far Rimward, enough so that not wearing one is a mild eccentricity rather than a red flag. Max does in fact have a chip embedded in his wrist linked to several accounts but he has no doubt they’re flagged to the Core and back, and his self-preservation routines are still intact. As Charles lifts his gaze, Max wonders how much he’s managed to piece together already, and how much Max can get away with not explaining, especially under the nakedly interested gaze of the shop’s proprietor.

Charles looks like he might argue some more, but then his mouth pulls up in a half smile, and he shakes his head, waving his wristband over the reader. It gives a soft beep, and the proprietor takes the cleared handreader back with a disappointed look, as if he’d been cheated out of a show.

They don’t actually need that much; the medical supplies and food stuffs can use restocking, now that Max has a passenger—now that he has a pilot, Max reminds himself smugly—and he ensures that they pick up an extra pulser over Charles' feeble protests. Charles' pack and Max’s slingbag slowly fill with purchases and when they reach the end of his list Max is content to hang a few steps behind Charles as he explores the rest of the market.

A brief gust of air and the deep-pitched hum of a low-flying craft snap Max’s gaze up to the sky, but it’s just a skimmer, nothing that could even reach the nearest planet. Max tells himself to relax and lowers his gaze to find Charles watching him.

“Everything okay?” Charles asks, and Max forces himself to nod.

“Where do you want to go next?” he says, changing the subject, and Charles raises his eyebrows but allows it.

“I have no idea,” he says, falling in step with Max. “You want to suggest anything?”

Possibly. The advantage to having mapped all of the well-traveled Rim routes, Max thinks as they stroll through the market, is that it makes the less-traveled ones easier to find. They’re there, if you know where to look—if you know how to look. Departure manifestos that don’t match arrivals at the next nearest settlement, produce in the markets out of the local season, non-native textiles on the more well-off merchants: Max knows the signs, and as they’ve circled their way through the open-air market, he has grown more and more convinced that Alpha Tauri has established trade with a new settlement.

Charles would probably like to see a new settlement; Max thinks that he would find it an adventurous, optimistic place. It would be someplace new, certainly.

Such secrets are guarded fiercely, however, especially from outsiders. Max knows this, just as he knows that asking directly rarely yields results. The conversation has to be approached more delicately.

“Perhaps,” Max says, gesturing for Charles to follow him as he heads toward a small liquor shop three stalls down. “Let me do the talking.”

“It’s beautiful,” Max says ten minutes later, holding up the glass and letting the afternoon sunlight shine through the ruby liquid. He lowers the glass and swirls it under his nose, letting the fumes from the contents waft up into his olfactory sensors. “Do I detect—lulu berries? And a note of elaion,” he decides.

The spirits proprietor beams at him, the lines around her eyes crinkling. “What a discerning palate,” she says approvingly. “And you, young sir?” she asks, turning to Charles.

“Uh.” Charles blinks, but he looks gamely down into his glass as he swirls the sample she’s poured him, and then lifts it to his nose. “Smells like—alcohol?” he says, and the proprietor's smile goes a little more fixed.

“Distilled from lulu berries, heidrun, and finished with a secret ingredient,” she says with a wink at Max. “The smoothest drink you’ll find this side of the Core, and that’s a promise.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Max says with a half-smile, and holds his sampling glass out halfway between her and Charles. “Sure you won’t join us?”

“Oh, a seller should never sample the product,” she says, but she doesn’t sound incredibly convinced and Max deepens his smile. He leans on one elbow, drink held loosely between two fingers, and calls up a persuasion subroutine.

“Then how do you know it’s any good?” he asks. “Call it—market research. We won’t tell, will we?” He glances at Charles, who’s watching Max with an uncertain tilt to his smile.

“Hm? Oh no, Of course not, ” Charles says, shaking himself. He lifts his own glass up and holds it out next to Max’s, his grin sliding into something genuine and blinding. “Cheers?”

The shopkeeper wavers for a moment more, and Max is considering pulling out another persuasion move when she shrugs. “Oh, what the hell. You two have been my only customers all day,” she says, and pulls a third glass from under the counter. She fills it with a generous splash of liquor and raises the glass, clinking it against Max’s and Charles'.

“Cheers,” she says sunnily. “May the stars never lead you astray.”

“They haven’t so far,” Max agrees, lifting his glass to his lips as Charles and the shopkeeper follow suit. Max lets a few drops roll off the edge of his glass onto his tongue as he analyzes the composition: lulu berries, yes, and heidrun, but there’s nothing here that matches the chemical composition of either dried or fresh elaion. More alkaline than the soil around here would suggest, as well.

The proprietor knocks her drink back in one gesture, and Charles follows suit, head tipping back and exposing the long line of his throat as he swallows. The shopkeeper’s gaze lingers appreciatively; Max downs the rest of his sample and sets his glass on the bar with a thump , mouth tingling as his body neutralizes the liquor.

“See?” The proprietor folds her forearms on the bar, leaning forward. “Best drink you’ve had since—where did you say you were from?”

“Aston Martin,” Max lies easily. “Most recently, anyway.”

The shopkeeper snorts. “They’re still drinking that moss swill? Good thing you came here,” she says, turning her gaze back to Charles. “Better than moss, am I right?”

“It is good,” Charles says, sounding surprised. He eyes his glass as if it will suddenly refill itself, and then puts it down gently. “Very good.” He licks his lips and Max makes a decision.

“We’ll take two, and the name of your supplier,” Max says. Might as well try the easy way.

The shopkeeper laughs. “The bottles I’ll sell you. The supplier stays with me.”

Max shrugs good-naturedly. “Worth a shot.”

She reaches over and pats his hand. “Better luck next time, kiddo,” she says, turning and pulling two bottles off the shelf. “That’ll be thirty credits.”

Max nudges Charles’ foot with his own. “You heard the lady.”

Charles huffs and rolls his eyes, but he extends his wrist over the reader and his band beeps with the deduction. The proprietor hands over the bottles, mouth pulling into a barely-concealed smirk as Max reaches for them.

“Enjoy,” she says as Max tucks them into his slingbag. “And come back when you run out, you hear?”

“Heard.” Max gives her an easy grin and a salute, and when he turns there’s a thoughtful, considering cast to Charles' brow.

“Ready?” Max asks, and Charles nods, face easing back into amiable lines. He falls in step with Max as they leave the shop, and it takes him a whole four paces back into the bustle of the market to start asking questions.

“Was that a subroutine too?” Charles asks, and Max blinks, because that’s not what he expected Charles to lead with.

“Yes.” Charles doesn’t say anything, just nods encouragingly, so Max elaborates. “Persuasion, with a flirtation modifier.”

“Is she your type?” There’s a teasing edge to Charles' smile, and Max raises his nose, refusing to dignify that with an answer.

“Alright, alright.” Charles grins and elbows him gently. “Why, then? All that work and you cannot even swing a discount.”

Max elbows him back. “The alcohol isn’t for me. Alpha Tauri’s established a new trade route; even if she wouldn’t tell me where, I’d bet my aft thruster that the ‘secret ingredient’ will.”

“Do not bet your thrusters, we need those,” Charles quips, but his face is impressed and Max allows himself a small, smug grin. “You got all that from one flirty conversation?”

“Partly.” Max shrugs. “It’s best to leave people with a favorable impression.

“Yeah, you left a real favorable impression for us on McLaren,” Charles says dryly, and Max waves a dismissive hand, stooping as they pass beneath a low-hanging advertisem*nt.

“McLaren can get f*cked,” Max says, grinning the way that makes Charles laugh. “I got what I needed out of that dustball.”

“Did you,” Charles murmurs thoughtfully, and Max wonders what he’s heard that Max didn’t intend to say. He glances over, but Charles is watching the stalls as they make their way through the crowds. “Who’s it for, then?” he says after a moment, and Max has to replay their conversation to pick up the loose thread.

“You,” he says, and since Charles is apparently such a mindreader, maybe he can pick up the obviously Max is broadcasting. “You liked it.”

“I did,” Charles says amusedly, turning to meet Max’s gaze as they round a corner. “Was that a subroutine as well?”

“No,” Max says immediately, and he’s surprised by both the truthfulness and the vehemence of his response. “No, you don’t—no.”

“I don’t what?” Charles asks mildly, tone open and curious, like there’s no wrong answer Max could give him.

The problem is that Max doesn’t know what the right answer is. Charles seems to be able to tell when he’s running a preprogrammed personality, which is intriguing and a bit alarming. Those scripts had been meant to meld into Max’s core temperament seamlessly, to be used and discarded as necessary to accomplish Company goals. They’re as much a part of him as his synthskin or his thrusters, and until he’d met Charles, Max had never considered that he himself might be something apart from all of that.

“Max?” Charles nudges his arm gently with an elbow. “Max, you stopped breathing,” he says quietly, and Max deliberately pulls in a breath, looking around. They’ve circled halfway around the market, and if Max looks over he can see the liquor shop through the rows of market stalls. There’s a plain-dressed customer inside, talking to the shopkeeper; business must be picking up.

Then the man turns to the side, the afternoon sunlight striking his profile, and Max grabs Charles' wrist and yanks him down the nearest alley.

“Wha—Max, what are you—" Max spares half a glance over his shoulder, and there’s no pursuit, not yet, but that just means they’ve got minutes to spare instead of seconds.

“We have to go. Right now,” he adds, as if there is any other way to interpret being dragged away from the noise and bustle of the market.

“What did you see?” Charles asks, breathless, and Max can feel the pulse underneath his fingers start to pick up. Max dodges around a corner, pulling Charles with him and slapping a hand over Charles' mouth when he opens it again. Charles jerks in surprise and Max steps in close, pressing him back against the corrugated metal of the warehouse they’ve taken refuge behind. He peers around the corner, but there’s no break in the flow of traffic through the market, no shadow slipping after them, not even footsteps following them down the alley; just Charles' heartbeat pounding against Max’s chest, his lips warm against Max’s palm, his pulse racing where Max’s fingers are still tight around his wrist.

Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. But Max knows what he saw.

Charles makes a muffled noise and Max’s gaze slides back over. Charles’ eyes are wide, his breath coming short in his chest, but his arms are motionless at his sides, his wrist unmoving in Max’s grip. His eyes strain to look around the corner, back the way they’ve come, but he doesn’t try to pull away from Max’s grip or push him off.

Max doesn’t know if he’s earned this—if he could ever earn this—but he has to ask.

“I need you to trust me,” he says quietly. “There’s danger here but if we stop moving—I need you to trust me,” he finishes a little desperately, and that isn’t a subroutine, that’s all him . Whoever that is.

Charles' brows draw down and Max feels a sinking sensation somewhere deep in his gut that has nothing to do with his inertial compensators. Charles' free hand comes up to pull Max's hand away from his face, and Max lets him; every second they spend here is a second too long, but if he’s misjudged Charles this badly—

“Max,” Charles says quietly. “I trust you. I would not be here if I did not.”

That’s—Max feels his cooling systems kick in as he tries to reorient himself. He feels like he’s lost in the sandsea again, unsure of which way is up except for the strong hand wrapped around his wrist, pulling him back toward the sun. It’s his fingers clinging to Charles' wrist this time, but the sensation is the same, anchored in place against a tide he doesn’t understand.

“I thought you said we have to move,” Charles whispers, and Max blinks, pulling himself back.

“We do,” he says, peering around the corner again to confirm that there’s no pursuit yet. It’s only a matter of time; Agents are very good at what they do, as Max has cause to know. Their descriptions are probably circulating already, or at the very least, Max's is. He gives Charles a quick once-over, then reaches up and runs his hand through Charles' hair, mussing it.

“Hey.” Charles jerks back, but there’s nowhere for him to go, really, and the movement just disarrays his hair even further. Max combs a bit of fringe down over Charles' eyes and nods to himself, satisfied.

“It’s just until we’re back out of atmo,” Max says, stepping back. He spins through several options and settles on a soft indigo. He closes his eyes for a moment’s concentration, and then Charles gapes lightly.

Max opens his eyes, grinning. “Neat trick, huh?” Charles nods, eyes wide. A small breeze kicks down the alley, blowing strands of now longer hair with blue streaks into Max’s face and he reaches into a pocket for a tie, pulling his hair back toward the nape of his neck. He’ll miss the length later, but hopefully Charles will cut it for him when they’re back in the safety between stars.

“I did not know you can do something like that,” Charles says as he leans forward, eyes wide and fascinated. Max can’t help but preen a little at the amazement, and at the way Charles falls in step as Max starts further down the alley, away from the market. He sets a purposeful but unremarkable pace; at this point running will only attract attention, and the less of that they draw the better.

“There’s… a lot you don’t know,” Max admits, feeling the weight of it somewhere high in his chest. The prohibition against speaking about the Company is gone, ripped out along with his Purpose, but he still feels the ghost commandment running through his circuits, making it difficult to voice.

“I am a good listener,” is all Charles says, bumping Max’s shoulder as they emerge onto one of the busier thoroughfares.

Max draws in a breath just so he can let it out. “Let’s get out of here first, yeah? I want to put some space between us and this planet.”

Before Charles can answer a low humming fills the sky, and Suna glances up; low-flying skimmers hadn’t been that frequent the last time he’d been here, but maybe air traffic patterns have changed—

The breath he doesn’t need stills in his chest as a carbon-plated drone turns a corner, sweeping the market stalls and shoppers below with a low-grade scan. A few customers look up in annoyance as the faint red beam sweeps over them, but no one shouts an alarm or even looks too long at it, ignoring the drone’s omnipresent buzz in a way that tells Max this is not the first or even fifth time they’ve seen one.

There hadn’t been any the last time he had been here, which is part of the reason Alpha Tauri had been on his list of potential destinations at all. Things have definitely changed.

Another low humming sounds behind them, and Max turns to see another drone making its way up the alley. What they lack in intelligence they make up in tenacity; they’re too dumb to trick and too close to avoid, and there are precious few seconds before they’ll reach where Max and Charles are standing.

Max's hand goes to the pulser strapped to his leg. Charles makes some sort of noise but Max can’t spare him too much attention as he draws and fires in one motion. The drone in the alley sputters in midair and clatters to the ground; even that sound doesn’t cover Charles' sudden inhalation but Max is already moving, striding out into the center of the street to meet the first drone. An alarmed murmur ripples out around him when Max raises his pulser; when he fires the crowd hushes, the crash of the drone hitting the ground echoing off the buildings in an eerie silence.

“Um.” Charles' voice is loud in the sudden hush. He’s somehow standing right next to Max, eyes wide and hand halfway raised as if he’d been reaching out but had changed his mind.

Suddenly no one is looking their way at all. Max holsters his pulser and reaches for Charles, half-expecting to be pushed away—but Charles' fingers close tightly around his, gripping with strength, and when Max pulls him into a run, Charles follows.

Chapter 3: Charles

Chapter Text

The hatch is still hissing shut when the vibration of Max’s atmospheric thrusters rumbles up through Charles' boots, and he staggers as Max practically throws them into the sky. Charles puts a hand out for balance and sees Max do the same; Max recovers sooner, of course, but he doesn’t take his hand away from the wall, skimming his fingers along the smooth walls of the corridor as he runs toward the co*ckpit.

Max doesn’t do much without purpose, even if that purpose is sometimes opaque to Charles. He wonders if that’s Max’s way of hugging himself, if it’s comforting to feel his own skin against his own plating.

They’re speeding through the pale reaches of the upper atmosphere by the time Charles makes it to the co*ckpit, every step dragging against the velocity of their exit. He still needs to fix those inertial compensators, Charles thinks as he braces himself against the back of the pilot’s chair.

This seems like a poor time to bring that up, though, with Max’s face set in smooth, unforgiving lines and his hands pressed flat against the console. Charles knows enough by now to know that Max doesn’t really need to do that to fly, but he knows all about the comfort of familiarity, even if he wouldn’t have thought Max would be susceptible in the same way.

They break through the last vestiges of the atmosphere and Charles winces as the sunglare glances across the viewports; Max narrows his eyes, and the ports darken, the light returning immediately to comfortable levels. Lights dance between Max’s fingers and the stars outside spin and resettle, Charles catching the back of the chair to steady himself as Max sets a new course. The hum underneath Charles' boots changes subtly as they leave Alpha Tauri's gravity well and the rad-drive kicks in, but it isn’t until the pinpricks of light become streaks in the viewports that Max truly relaxes, leaning back in the copilot’s chair and letting his hands fall from the console.

He looks exhausted, in a way that Charles suspects goes deeper than a sprint from the market to their landing site. He looks tired, and he looks scared, and when he glances sidelong at Charles his shoulders hunch minutely and he looks away again almost immediately.

Charles gives him a minute, and when Max doesn’t say anything Charles shrugs out of his pack, spying Max’s slingbag tossed carelessly in the corner. The bag clinks faintly as Charles sets his pack down next to it, and after only a second’s consideration Charles opens it, digging carefully in Max’s slingbag until he finds one of the bottles of lulu berry liquor.

Max is staring fixedly out the viewport when Charles drops into the pilot’s seat next to him, wrestling with the cap on the bottle. It comes off with a pop and Charles holds the bottle out to Max, waggling it a little in invitation.

Max’s gaze slides over, and he eyes the bottle longingly for a moment before he sighs and turns in his seat to face Charles. “It won’t help,” he says regretfully. “Alcohol metabolizes in seconds.”

“We have two bottles,” Charles offers, and Max lets out a startled little laugh, but shakes his head. Charles shrugs, and takes a healthy slug straight from the bottle, settling back in the pilot’s chair and letting the warmth of the alcohol pool in his stomach. “I think you have a story to tell me,” he says, and Max nods quietly.

Max opens his mouth, and then closes it again, frowning. He glances out the viewport, scrunching up his nose, and smooths a hand over his now-indigo hair. It’s a fascinating capability, and Charles wants to know all about it, but he should let Max get out what he needs to say first.

Only Max seems to be having trouble with words all of a sudden. “I—" he starts, and frowns again when the rest seems to die in his throat. “It’s—" His fingers tighten on the armrest of the copilot’s chair, and his jaw clenches.

“Do you need some time?” Charles says, keeping his voice friendly and amiable. Max looks up and nods gratefully.

“I want to tell you,” he says roughly. “But it’s—difficult.”

Charles leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and letting the bottle dangle loosely from his hands. “Then let me help,” he says, and Max’s eyebrows raise. “I’ll tell you a story, and you can tell me where I get it wrong.”

Max swallows, but he nods again, and Charles takes another fortifying drink before he starts.

“Working in a shipyard, you hear things,” he says. “Crews from all over known space come through, heading out from the Core, heading back into it. Those last ones have the best stories; life in the Core is what it is, but out on the Rim? You can see anything, and most people have seen something. ”

Max takes in a breath and lets it out softly. Charles is pretty sure he doesn’t need to do that, but he must like doing it, and Charles has to admit that the times when he stops are pretty unnerving.

Charles rolls the bottle between his hands. “There was this trader, one time. Small vessel, barely qualified for anything above sublight. She took care of her, though, and wanted to make sure I did the same, so she hung out and we got to talking while I was elbow-deep in wiring, making sure the ship didn’t fall apart around her the next time she lifted off.”

Max’s face is doing something complicated and Charles suddenly realizes that might not have been the best way to frame this particular story for this particular audience. He coughs. “Anyway. She told me a story that she’d heard at the last bar she’d been at: about a settlement way out on Dams-33, on the very edges of known space. About how a corporation had optioned them for the ironite in the hills.”

Max has gone very still; he’s not breathing at all, in fact, and it’s very eerie when he does that but it tells Charles that he’s on the right track. “Turns out the deposits ran very deep,” Charles says. “Deeper than any surface scan—like a settlement pod would have required—could have revealed. Millions, if not billions of credits worth, and the settlement had optioned it away for a few hundred.”

Max doesn’t say anything and Charles takes another drink, rolling it around on his tongue before swallowing. “Tough luck, right?” he says. Max doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t have to. “But it happens all the time, especially out on the Rim. That’s what she thought; the only reason she was telling me this story was that she had been there a month or so earlier, just before the terraforming and the mining ships landed. Said she saw the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen there; a visitor, just like her. Very friendly, very interested in the locals.”

Max’s gaze has gone distant, and Charles wants to reach out and touch his knee, or his hand, but he’s not sure that will be welcomed so he continues instead. “I think she had a bit of a crush, to be honest with you,” Charles says. “Said it seemed a shame, that the woman probably isn't coming back now that Dams-33 was just another corporate mining town.”

“A shame,” Max echoes faintly, looking somewhere over Charles' head, but his gaze is somewhere further than the confines of the cabin walls.

“By that time the reconciler was fixed, so I closed the hatch and told her there was always a chance that they’d meet again. She laughed and called me an optimist.” Charles smiles faintly at the memory. “And she paid her bill and off she went, and I would have forgotten all about it, except—” Charles pauses.

Now Max is looking at him. “Except?”

Charles swallows. “Except it wasn't the first time I’d heard that story. Not all strung together like that, but. Pieces, here and there. Parts of other stories: a beautiful stranger, a corporate takeover. All on the edges of known space, all convinced of their own f*cking bad luck. Who really cares what happens to a few settlements that far out from the Core?”

“No one,” Max says with an air of certainty that has Charles straightening in his chair. “No one with any influence to stop it.”

“So.” Charles considers another drink, but reaches for the cap instead, fitting it tightly back on the bottle. “How much did I get wrong?”

Max slumps in the copilot’s chair, looking suddenly much older than—Charles has no idea how old Max is, he realizes, or what age really means to an intelligence like Max’s. His pale skin practically glows in the reflected starlight, but just because he doesn’t show age in his face doesn’t mean Charles can’t read weariness in the set of his shoulders.

“Not much,” Max admits. “Not the broad strokes. If you have specific questions, I can try to answer, but you have the parts that matter.”

“Not quite,” Charles says as softly as he can, and Max’s eyes flicker to his. “I do not have a clue why you stopped.”

Max swivels slightly in the chair, back and forth, like he’s thinking. It’s a very human habit, and Charles can see how easy it would be to fall for this, to fall for Max, especially when he’s turning on the charm. Charles prefers the real thing, though, the acerbic commentary and the self-satisfied grin and even the grim determination. They have their own kind of charm, more real than anything any Core programmer could have come up with.

Charles wonders when it had happened, how Max’s algorithms had folded in on each other to produce something new. He must have been built with a great degree of independence, but even the most independent AIs have restriction modules, boundaries they cannot cross.

“Max,” Charles says slowly. “What happened to your Purpose?”

Max flinches, barely visible before it’s gone and his face smooths out again. He looks out the viewport.

“It’s like you said,” he says. “Everything was fine. Until it wasn’t.”

Charles leans back. He’d thought the damage Max had shown him had been someone else’s handiwork, a cruel or lazy mechanic or a thoughtless passenger. But Max hadn’t been built for passengers, he realizes with a slow-moving horror that settles with certainty in his gut. And no corporate mechanic would have damaged Company property in that way, not if they wanted to keep their job.

“It hurt,” Max says, so quietly Charles almost misses it. “I didn’t know anything could hurt that much. And even after the control board was gone I could still feel the place where it used to be.”

Charles hums encouragingly and Max looks back at him. “That’s why I—" he seems to change his mind and leans forward, forearms on his knees and hands clasped loosely together. “I couldn’t—it was very difficult to work around that gap. I know it’s different for humans, but you said that you didn’t know what brought you out here, and you clearly weren’t having the same difficulty. So I thought. We could help each other out.”

Charles thinks about that for a minute. “That is quite the logical loophole.”

“I know.” Max grins, a shadow of his usual smile but closer than anything that’s crossed his face in the last hour. “I was proud of it.”

Charles laughs, the alcohol loosening his muscles and his tongue. “You could not have told me any of this up front?”

Max’s face shutters. “I thought you might say no, and—” He looks aside. “I didn’t want you to say no.”

“Hey. Max,” Charles says, and that gets Max to look back at him. “I would not. I did not,” he corrects himself. “And I am not going to.” He frowns, glancing at the bottle in his hand.

“What did she say was in this?” he asks, suddenly aware that he’s asked a lot of his body in the last few hours, and then poured alcohol on an empty stomach.

“Lulu berries. Heidrun. And a secret ingredient,” Max recites. “Which she implied was elaion, and is definitely not. Probably something from the settlement she wouldn't tell me about.”

Charles stares as the entire liquor store encounter shifts into a new light. “Is that what you were doing.”

Max shrugs uncomfortably. “It’s what I’m built to do. And I thought you might like to see one.”

Something warm lights in Charles' stomach and he feels vaguely light-headed; he knows he needs to work on the inertial compensators but he’s not sure that entirely accounts for the weightless feeling in his chest.

He needs to eat. Or take a nap. Or both; the high from the market and Max's gunslinger act and the sprint back to the landing site is wearing off. Charles covers a sudden yawn with the back of his hand.

Max is watching him with concern and Charles waves him off. “Sorry. It has been an eventful few hours. Where are we headed?” he asks, glancing at the stars streaking by.

Max watches him for a few moments longer, and Charles wonders if he’s going to accept the sudden change of subject. “Ferrari,” he says eventually. “It’s—very far away.”

Ferrari. Charles doesn’t know if he’s ever even heard of Ferrari, so it must be far away indeed. “Far away sounds good right about now,” he offers, and Max’s shoulders relax minutely.

“You should rest,” he says, turning back toward the viewport. “It’ll be hours yet before we’re there.”

“I will stay,” Charles decides, fielding Max’s surprised glance with a tentative grin. “Unless you want to be alone?”

“No,” Max says quickly, and then grins like the way Charles knows means he’s covering for some other emotion. “I mean. Stay if you want,” he says, shrugging.

“I do,” Charles says, settling back in the pilot’s seat and turning to face the stars. He doesn’t miss Max’s grateful glance, or the way the tension Max has been carrying in his shoulders since the market starts to unwind as he leans back into the copilot’s chair, but he keeps both to himself.

He shuts his eyes—just for a moment—and lets the hum of Max’s engines and the soft sound of his breathing drive everything else out of his head. He surfaces slightly when a warm arm slides around his shoulders, guiding him up, but the arm just guides him to his bed and Charles sinks into it gratefully. He shivers slightly as the warmth withdraws, and he thinks that maybe Max stands beside his bed for a long moment, but Charles is fast slipping back under so maybe that part is just a dream.

Charles starts, spitting out a mouthful of pillow as he jerks awake. He blinks fuzzily at the pillow—this isn’t his—before he remembers that it is his now. Or maybe it’s Max’s. Or maybe the pillow is Max, and Charles' been drooling all over him. Charles blinks again, and then rolls on his back, staring up at the ceiling as more of his brain comes back online. This isn’t the first night he’s spent on board this ship but it is the first time he’s woken confused about where he was, or confused about Max.

He’s not confused about Max. Intrigued, fascinated, maybe even a little captivated by—Charles knows himself well enough to know that he’s not immune to a pretty face, and Max’s is. Very pretty.

Charles drags a hand down over his own face. Maybe he is confused. When Max had just been some stranger in a bar—a beautiful stranger—sure, he had entertained… thoughts. But while Max may tease it’s not—like that, Charles tells himself. Max isn’t like that, probably, not without a subroutine. Charles' stomach knots itself at the thought, and he shakes his head to clear it.

“Are you awake?” Max's voice says, and Charles jerks his gaze to the small comm unit embedded in the wall.

“Yes?” he says cautiously, watching the lights dance in the panel set just above the speaker. He pauses. “Is that a real question, or were you watching me sleep?”

The silence that comes through somehow manages to be guilty. “We’re here,” Max says instead of answering. “Thought you might want to see it before we land.”

That does sound promising. Charles pushes himself up and out of bed, heading for the small ‘fresher unit. His hands go to the hem of his shirt—and then he pauses, turning to look at the speaker panel.

The lights are dark. Charles snorts, feeling a little foolish, and pulls his shirt over his head.

One short shower later he’s dressed again and heading for the co*ckpit. He pauses in the doorway, eyes widening. Ferrari fills the viewport, all blues and greens and the white swirls of upper atmosphere, vibrant jewel tones against the velvet black backdrop of space. It’s a far cry from the grey, clogged-up atmosphere and endless urbanization of Prema-16, or the hazy oranges and silvers of McLaren and Mercedes and even Alpha Tauri. Charles can practically smell the freshwater, even from here.

“You like it?” Charles tears his eyes away to see Max grinning at him from the co-pilot’s seat, which he never seems to leave. Charles supposes he doesn’t need to.

“I love it,” Charles says honestly, gaze drifting back up to the slow moving curls of white. Out of the corner of his eye he thinks he sees Max’s smile go almost wistful, but when he glances back Max is pulling the tie from his hair and shaking it out.

“I need to ask you a favor,” he says, blue strands falling through his fingers as he runs his hand through it, and Charles agrees without thinking.

He starts to second guess himself when he actually has a pair of utility shears in his hand, and Max sitting calmly in a chair in front of him. The cabin that Charles has started to think of as his own had seemed like the best place for this, although Charles is not at all sure that he’s the best person.

“Are you sure about this?” he asks, weighing the shears doubtfully in one hand.

Max tips his head back so he can see Charles. “Yes,” he says simply. “I’d do it myself, but it’s hard to reach the back.”

It sounds like he’s speaking from experience. Charles frowns. “I have never cut anyone’s hair seriously before,” he admits. What if he makes Max look ridiculous?

“Just make it shorter,” Max says, with a confidence Charles feels is entirely unwarranted. “You’ll do fine.”

“Hmm.” Charles reaches out slowly, gently carding his fingers through Max’s hair. It’s warm, almost as warm as Max’s skin. He sighs gently, and Charles' grip tightens on the shears.

“Alright,” he says. “But don’t you dare blame me if you want to wear a hat afterward.”

The first snip of the shears seems to echo off the walls, the first chunk of blue that falls to the floor unreasonably momentous. After that it gets easier, and Charles tries to concentrate on making his cuts even and precise, and not the smooth, warm hair underneath his fingers. Max appears calm and relaxed, tilting his head obediently first to one side and then the other underneath the direction of Charles' hands. Charles tries not to think too hard about that, either; he’s helping Max out, making him less immediately recognizable as himself.

Charles is not sure how much he succeeds on that front, circling around Max to look over his handiwork with a critical eye. He puts the shears down and uses his fingers, combing Max's hair one way, and then the other, frowning. The cleaner bot, sensing it has work to do, undocks itself and rolls over. It beeps softly as it circles them, vacuuming up blue strands, and Charles steps out of its way without looking.

Max rolls his eyes up, hands flat on his thighs. “Finished?”

“Oh,” Charles says, looking down into Max's eyes, soft and warm and with only a hint of blue metallic backshine. He jerks his hands away and steps back, hoping his ears aren’t burning. “Uh. Yeah?”

Max hums, standing and moving toward the mirror over the small sink. The cut is choppy and rough, and doesn’t suit the sharp lines of Max’s face at all, Charles thinks despairingly—but Max just tilts his head and shakes his hair out, and as he runs his fingers through it Charles could swear Max’s hair falls into a different shape altogether than the one Charles had left it in. Lights spin in Max’s irises and the color darkens into a deep blue, almost like the deep sea.

Charles squints, moving closer. “Did you just–”

Max grins at him in the mirror, the lights in his eyes fading into an easy warmth. “Growing is the easy part. Cutting it is more difficult.”

“Huh,” Charles says, impressed despite himself. The growth and the color change: that’s advanced biologics, the kind that Charles has only read about. But no amount of reading, Charles thinks faintly, could have prepared him for the reality of the preening grin reflected back at him.

“Thanks,” Max says, turning, and somehow his smile is even more smug than his reflection. “In return, I’ll teach you how to use that pulser we picked up.”

Charlesblinks, then narrows his eyes. “I know how to use a pulser.”

Max crosses his arms and leans against the sink. “Do you?”

Charleshesitates. “Theoretically.”

“Oh, theoretically, I see,” Max says, reaching out and knocking Charles' boots with one of his own. “Is that the same theory that sent you Rimward without one?”

Charles frowns, kicking back at Max's foot. “I do not know about you, but I do not plan on getting shot at.”

Max twists out of the way. “No one plans on it. But you should be ready to protect yourself.”

“Is that what that was back on Alpha Tauri?” Charles hasn’t quite been able to forget it, the way Max had spun from one target to the next, graceful as an athlete. Charles doesn’t think he’d be quite as successful. “With you around, I hardly think I need to worry about it.”

Max's face does something complicated, and he glances aside before looking back at Charles. “I might not always—I’d feel better if I knew you were carrying one,” he says, and Charles wonders how that sentence had originally ended. “Do it for me, Charlie,” Max says as he tucks his chin, lower lip sliding out in a small pout. The little cleaner bot circles Charles once, beeping, before docking itself, and Charles throws his hands up, clearly outvoted.

“This is blatant emotional manipulation, I tell you. But fine,” he relents, and he doesn’t miss the relief that flits through Max’s eyes before he pulls his face into a smirk.

“I knew you’d see it my way,” he says confidently, and the only reason Charles doesn’t roll his eyes is that he doesn’t want to give Max the satisfaction.

The warm, humid air hits Charles like a damp towel to the face as he steps foot on Ferrari, those first few breaths wetter than anything he’s tried to breathe outside of a ‘fresher unit. He adjusts the straps of his pack and just breathes for a moment, getting used to the humidity. Max follows him down the ramp a few moments later, slingbag over one shoulder and the rig with the pulser that nominally belongs to Charles slung on top of it. His shorter hair ruffles in the breeze that brings momentary relief from the heat, falling into his eyes until he shakes it back. Max scans the landscape; they’ve set down on a good-sized outcropping, but the jungle spreads out below them, thick and lush and probably not much good for target practice. Max tips his head back, his pupils shrinking in the bright sunlight as he turns to gaze up the sloping incline behind where he’d landed.

“There,” he says, pointing. “It levels off again a little further up, see?”

Charlespeers up, shading his eyes with his hand. “Sure,” he says doubtfully. “What’s wrong with here?”

“I don’t want to get hit with a ricochet,” Max says, starting up the incline. “Ruins my finish,” he says, and Charles glances at the ship behind them before following.

“Have you been shot before? Either of—of you, I guess,” Charles says as he climbs, unsure how to finish that sentence.

“Once or twice,” Max says, not sounding at all out of breath as he makes his way up the incline. “I’m built for endurance, not combat, but sometimes it can’t be avoided.”

Charles sneaks a glance back down at the ship, sitting spotless and shiny in the afternoon sun. He’s never seen any dirt or dust mar the hull, not even on McLaren, nor any of the pitting or striation atmospheric entry can leave behind.

“That must be some plating you got there,” he murmurs, turning his attention back to the climb. “How hard would something have to hit you to leave a dent?”

Max laughs. “Pretty damn hard,” he says, pulling himself up onto a ledge above. He turns and offers Charles a hand. “Let’s not test it, though, yeah?”

“Deal,” Charles says with a grin, accepting his hand and letting himself be pulled up.

The outcropping up here is smaller than the one they’d landed on, but it does offer some good-sized rocks at the far end—out of ricochet range—that are of a suitable height for makeshift targets. Charles shrugs his pack off as Max pulls an empty quickmeal canister from his bag and sets it on a mid-sized boulder. The flimsy little can, remnant of one of Charles' dinners, looks absurdly small against the rock it’s sitting on, and even smaller from the distance that Max drags Charles back to before handing him the pulser.

Charles looks doubtfully at the boulder at the other end of the outcropping. “You want me to hit that?”

“Ideally,” Max says, stepping back. “Time to put all that theory into practice.”

Charles squares his feet and shrugs his shoulders uncomfortably, gripping the pulser with both hands. He’s never carried one regularly; the life of a mechanic in the Prema-16 shipyards had never been so exciting or dramatic that he’d felt it necessary. He’s worked with people who have, though, and he’s been taught the basics. That should be enough, right?

Time to find out. Charles lifts the pulser and sights down the barrel. He tries closing one eye, but that doesn’t seem to gain him anything, so he opens it again.

“You might find the trigger helpful,” Max suggests.

“Shut up,” Charles says, and fires.

The shot spangs off the top of the boulder as the recoil sends Charles staggering back a step. The bolt ricochets off into the jungle—good thing they were up here after all—setting off a flock of small flying creatures that rise with indignant squawks. It misses the canister completely; but not, Charles is surprised to see, by as much as he expected.

Not as much as Max expected either, from the faintly surprised look on his face. “Not bad,” he says. He folds his arms, fixing Charles with a steady gaze. “Try again.”

Charles rolls his shoulders again and lifts the pulser. He’s expecting the recoil this time, so the second and third shots don’t set him back on his feet as much, but while the blast marks on the boulder get closer to the canister they don’t quite reach the target. Charles frowns, acutely aware of Max’s gaze intent on him rather than the empty canister; he fires again, but the bolt comes no closer, scoring the top of the boulder and flying off into the greenery. Charles' shoulders sag.

“Okay. Let’s try this,” Max says, unfolding his arms and moving closer. Charles expects him to draw the pulser strapped to his own thigh, to demonstrate proper technique, but instead Max steps right up behind Charles, his hands coming to rest on Charles' shoulders.

“You’re too stiff through here,” he says, hands heavy and large as they adjust the set of Charles' shoulders. “And your feet—here,” he says, nudging Charles' right foot slightly forward with his own until he’s pressed warm and solid against Charles' back. Charles lets out a careful breath and Max hums with approval, his new haircut brushing Charles' ear as he leans forward.

“That’s good,” Max says. “You were holding your breath a lot before. Easier to fire on the exhale, steadier that way. Like this.” His hands slide from Charles' shoulders down his arms until his hands are wrapped carefully around Charles' own.

“Breathe with me,” Max instructs. His breath ghosts against Charles' ear and Charles fights down a shiver. “Line up the sight on the inhale, fire on the exhale. Inhale, exhale, inhale, fire.”

Easy for him to say. But it is easier, somehow, to lift the pulser even with Max’s arms wrapped around him when he’s concentrating on matching his breath to Max’s. The chest pressed up against his back moves with the breath Max doesn’t technically need, and Charles draws air into his own lungs and lets it out again obediently. There’s something strange about the movement against his back and it takes Charles a minute to realize that Max doesn’t have a heartbeat.

“Inhale, fire,” Max murmurs, voice low and warm and the only thing that matters, really. Charles lets everything else go, lining up the sight on the pulser, and when Max breathes out against his hair Charles pulls the trigger.

He’s braced for the recoil but it still pushes him back into Max’s arms; Max, for his part, doesn’t move at all as the bolt punches clean through the canister, sending it flying off somewhere into the jungle and disturbing the small avians that had just settled down again. They rise into the air with a raucous complaint, but Charles is grinning from ear to ear as he turns his head slightly to look at Max.

“Better?” he asks, and Max gives him an answering smirk.

“Getting there,” he says, stepping away from Charles and moving to dig in his slingbag. The sun is warm, almost baked into the air but Charles still shivers at the loss of Max’s heat against his back.

Max fishes out another canister and sets it on the boulder, and Charles sets his feet again and raises his arms the way Max had shown him. He’s getting used to the recoil, and getting better at aiming, but the sun is still low in the sky by the time Max tells him he can stop.

“Alright,” Max says, gathering up the discarded canisters with neat holes punched in them. “I’m reasonably sure you won’t hit me by accident with that thing.”

“You are the one who wants me to carry it at all,” Charles reminds him, lowering his arms. They’re mildly sore, but as he shakes them out he thinks it’s not unlike a long afternoon spent shoulder-deep in an engine.

The sun breaks through the low-gathered clouds on the horizon for a moment, casting everything in shades of red and gold, and Charles feels his breath catch. Max looks up, golden shadows painted high on his cheeks. He’s beautiful; he’s meant to be beautiful, Charles reminds himself, but that doesn’t mean much to the thing twisting high in his chest.

“Hey,” he says, swallowing it back down. “We do not have to leave, yet, no?”

Max tilts his head. “We shouldn’t stay anywhere longer than a few days. Is that what you meant?”

“Close enough.” Charles grabs the spare rig and shoves the pulser into it; after a second’s hesitation, he shrugs it on.

“Going to need some different clothes if I’m going to wear this,” he mutters, pulling at the straps and his coveralls in an attempt to make it lay straight. A second pair of hands enters his field of vision, tugging at the straps, and Charles starts; he hadn’t heard Max move closer, but he’s clearly done some magic with the straps of the harness because it’s already laying flatter against Charles' shoulders. The setting sun sets gold highlights into his hair and Charles swallows and steps back.

“Thanks,” he says, stooping to scoop up his pack. He peers up the incline as he settles it on his shoulders. “You think we can get any higher? The view above the tree line must be amazing.”

Max turns and scans the hillside. “There,” he says, pointing. “It levels out again near the top.”

“Then let’s climb,” Charles says, and this time it’s Max that snorts and follows.

The exertion is good, even after an afternoon spent at target practice. Charles' mind is pleasantly blank by the time he reaches the promised outcropping, and when he pulls himself up he slings his pack off and flops on his back. He just breathes for a moment, letting his tired muscles relax. While he’s used to long days in the shop, he’s not quite built for endurance the same way Max is, and he needs a moment to catch his breath.

Max’s head crests over the ledge a moment later, and he surveys Charles' prone body with some amusem*nt. “You’re the one that wanted to come up here,” he says, and Charles makes a face at him.

“Quiet,” he says, pushing himself up and heading for the ledge that overlooks the jungle, snagging his pack on the way. “It was worth it.”

“Was it?” Max asks, pulling himself up and pushing himself to his feet. He ambles slowly over as Charles settles on the ledge, feet kicking out into empty space.

“Yes,” Charles says, already enraptured by the view before him. “Just look at all of this.”

The tree canopy gleams green and gold in the fading light, spread out before Charles in an endless ocean of slowly rustling leaves. Clouds lined in amber and rose from the sunset waltz slowly across the horizon, spinning lazily around each other in a pattern Charles feels like he could make sense of, if he sat here long enough. Either the elevation or the fading sun has cooled the air, and Charles shivers as a quick breeze catches the drying sweat on his skin.

Max settles next to him, hands on his knees as he leans forward. “I see… keeka trees,” he says doubtfully, as if he’s unsure this is the correct answer.

Charles nods, shrugging off his pack and digging through it. “Yes?” he says encouragingly as he pulls out his small recorder. He scans the horizon from left to right, letting the lens linger a moment on Max’s face, capturing his brow scrunched in concentration.

“And…” Max says hesitantly. “Clouds?”

Charlessighs happily. “We never got these shades of gold on Prema-16.” Sunsets there had most often been obscured by the bulk of the cruisers in the freight yard. Charles had scaled one with his brother once, just to see what a real sunset might look like, but they’d been disappointed; the pollution in the air had diffused the light so that what they got was a gradual fading of beige light to grey, rather than the glorious palette he’d been wanting to see.

“It’s the xenium in the upper atmosphere,” Max says immediately, sounding more at ease talking about chemical compounds. “It refracts the light back up, leaving only the… yellow wavelengths… that’s not what you meant,” he finishes, watching Charles' face carefully.

“It's not,” Charles says with a snort. “But it is still interesting.”

Max makes a dissatisfied noise, frowning out over the sea of green and gold, the leaves rustling in the evening breeze far below their feet. Charles returns his gaze to the horizon and leans back on his hands. He breathes in and out, trying to engrave this moment in his memory; he’ll print out some pictures later, add them to the growing collection on the wall of his little cabin, but he wants to remember this moment, this feeling, as clearly as he can.

It’s better, Charles thinks, gaze sliding over to Max’s sunlit outline, to not be making this journey alone. He hadn’t planned on having a companion but now he can’t imagine doing it without Max.

Charles pushes himself up and leans over to dig in his pack. He’d hesitated to bring them along, but as his fingers close around the little drawing pad—real paper, the kind that’s increasingly hard to come by out here—and stylus he’s grateful that he hadn’t left them behind. Max leans over, watching as Charles crosses his legs and settles the pad on his knee. Max’s quiet as Charles sketches out curves and broad strokes, the scene filling in under his hand. He’s glad he hasn’t lost the knack of this, even though he hasn’t drawn anything besides schematics in a long time.

“You already recorded the scene,” Max says as Charles fills in some shadows under the leaves, and it’s not phrased quite like a question but Charles can hear the undercurrent of uncertainty.

He smiles to himself. “It is just a hobby. You do not have any of those?”

“No,” is the immediate answer, and Charles laughs.

“I think whatever passes for adrenaline in your body might say differently,” he says, adding curls to his drifts of clouds.

Max huffs. “They don’t look like that,” he says, finger vaguely tracing over Charles' sketched-out cloudbanks.

Charles looks up, and then out over the scene again. “It is not always about what things look like,” he says, more as an excuse for his admittedly not so great drawing, but when he glances back Max's face is creased with incomprehension and tinged with frustration.

Charles shrugs. “It was just a thought.” He tears off his sketch and hands the pad and stylus to Max. “Here, you go and try it.”

Max uncertainly accepts them, glancing up from under his lashes, and when Charles nods encouragingly he sets the pad on his knee and holds the stylus gingerly in one hand. Charles sets his elbow on his knee, propping his head on his fist as he watches Max cautiously put the tip of the stylus to the paper. He draws carefully, his eyes flicking over the scene before him and back down to the paper at hand. The lines slowly come together into recognizable shapes, although Max clearly isn’t happy with his efforts, scowling down at the pad.

“I don’t think it’s working for me,” he says, and Charles takes pity on him and rescues the pad and stylus.

“I like it,” he declares, holding the pad up for inspection. Max’s put a lot of effort into capturing the exact shape of clouds that have already drifted into another formation, and there’s an unpracticed charm to it that has Charles smiling. “You are good.”

Max looks at the drawing, then at Charles’ face, and then back out over to where the sun is finally sinking below the horizon. His face creases in frustration again.

“Hey.” Charles reaches out and nudges Max with an elbow. “Do not think too hard about it, you're gonna burn a circuit.”

Max scowls and playfully pushes Charles back, and so Charles has to shove him and then scramble up out of range of any retaliation. Max shoves himself to his feet and Charles dances out of the way, scooping his pack up off the ground and dropping the pad and stylus into it. The sun is fast slipping below the horizon; it’ll be dark soon, and while Max probably has some sort of fancy night vision Charles definitely doesn’t.

“Race you to the bottom,” he says, backing toward the way they came. Max’s face lights up, and Charles almost laughs, because he was definitely right about that adrenaline thing.

There’s no time for that, though, not if he wants to maintain his head start, so he turns and vaults himself over the edge, catching his balance and half-walking, half-sliding down the incline. There’s a shower of pebbles behind him that says Max is doing the same, and while Charles is probably going to lose this race he can already picture the smile it’s going to put on Max’s face, and that feels like coming about ahead.

Ferrariis pleasant enough for a few days, long enough for Max to bully Charles into a couple more target practice sessions, but pretty soon Max starts getting restless, and Charles can feel it reflected in his own limbs. His suggestion that they move on is met with a look of relief, and when Charles picks a name at random off of Max’s list of probably-safe destinations, Max grins and sets the coordinates. The jumps are getting longer out here, long enough that Charles is dreaming something pleasant about a low voice and disembodied lights when he’s abruptly jolted out of sleep by the bed falling away from underneath him.

There’s a weightless moment where he hangs above the bunk, blinking his way out of sleep, and then the artificial gravity reasserts itself and he comes crashing back down in a tangle of limbs and blanket. He bounces and rolls off the bed, banging his elbow on the way down. The cleaner bot beeps worriedly at him, rolling out halfway from its docking station, then hurriedly backs in as the ship tilts again. Charles scrambles up on his feet, bracing himself as the floor pitches beneath him.

“Max?” he tries, not knowing if Max can hear him, but the speaker in the wall lights up, console dancing in a way Charles has come to recognize.

“Yeah, we’ve—we’ve got a problem,” Max says, terse and strained but ultimately unhelpful, before the speaker cuts out.

The floor pitches again and Charles catches at the wall to brace himself. When the ship rights itself again he breaks for the door, sprinting on bare feet down the hallways toward the co*ckpit. The gravity cuts out again briefly on his way there, and he spends an unnerving two seconds hurtling toward the co*ckpit door without touching the floor. It hums back to life just as the door whooshes open and he slides into the cabin, grabbing at the pilot’s chair to steady himself.

Max is in his customary spot in the co-pilot’s seat—he doesn’t need to sleep, he’s told Charles, and he likes watching the stars—but instead of his feet kicked up on the console and his gaze distant out the viewport, he’s on the edge of his seat with his hands flat against the board, the rapidly cycling lights reflected against the tense planes of his face. The ship pitches again and Charles' fingers tighten on the pilot’s chair; lights spin in Max’s irises and their flight stabilizes again.

“A compression valve blew in a portside duct,” Charles says tensely. “Not a big deal, I rerouted and shut that section down, but the increased load has destabilized the—”

“Inertial compensators,” Charles says with a sinking feeling in his gut that has nothing to do with the yawing of the deck beneath his feet. He had known they needed work, but he hadn’t insisted on it, hadn’t wanted to push Max—

“I keep,” Max grits his teeth, lights flashing beneath his fingers as the ship tilts and straightens. “Overcorrecting.”

“You need a valve fix, I can do that,” Charles offers, and Max takes his eyes off the board for the first time to glance at Charles.

“I can do it, it is no trouble,” he says quickly, pushing himself to his feet—

But no sooner have his fingers left the console than the board flashes wildly, and the ship pitches while the gravity goes soft and squishy. Charles finds his feet lifting off the floor, then dropping abruptly as Max slams his hands back down against the board.

“Looks like it is trouble,” Charles says breathlessly, adjusting his grip on the pilot’s chair.

Max curses; Charles doesn’t recognize the language but the tone is universal. “Yeah. Yeah, okay,” he mutters. “Portside hatch, near the galley. I’ll light the way.”

Charlesnods and pushes off, catching himself in the doorway as the deck shudders underneath his feet. The ambient lighting in the hall dims for a moment before a series of circles light up on the wall, heading off to his right and pointing the way.

The portside hatch isn’t far, but the minutes seem to slip through his fingers when he has to double back to his room first for his tools, and can only go a few steps between catching his balance. When he reaches the hatch he drops to his knees, running his fingers around the nearly—invisible seam the way he had seen Max do. It raises and splits, exposing Max’s wiring and Charles can spot the blown valve right away, the casing burnt and split away from itself.

Charlesmentally sorts through what he has with him even as he drags his bag over. He’d only brought a few tools, as a starter set; he had vaguely planned to hire on as a mechanic somewhere and rebuild his collection as needed. He’s got some magnetic tape and a fuser, at least, which should hold for now, but this is going to need a more thorough repair than a patch-job in a yawing ship.

“Do you see it?” Max’s voice sounds behind him, echoing worriedly in the empty hallway.

“I see it,” Charles confirms, already unwrapping the magnetic tape. “Looks like the downstream connection came unseated when the valve blew. Give me—seven minutes.”

Max falls silent but he’s kept the connection open, Charles can tell, because the silence behind him is distinctly anxious. Charles pries the blown-out casing off and wraps the naked valve in the magnetic tape; it won’t hold forever, but it’ll stop any leakage until they can get the valve replaced. He runs the fuser over it carefully and methodically, soldering the tape together until it seals itself around the valve.

The ship shudders around him, and he grabs at the side of the hatch. “Charlie?” Max’s voice sounds strained. Charles has to move fast.

“I got you,” he says, reaching further into the hatch for the unseated coupling. “Just—a minute—there,” he says triumphantly as he grabs the connection and snaps it back into place.

Max sighs around him, heavy with relief as his systems come to life beneath Charles’ hands, rerouting power back to its normal channels. Relief, and—and something else, Charles thinks as he disentangles himself, something that if Max were human…

Anyway. The ship has stopped pitching, which means that they’re in the clear for now, so Charles should just. Get out of here. He withdraws his hand carefully from the access hatch and closes it gently, patting it once before he stands and scoops up his toolbag.

Max’s face is set in a composed grin when Charles makes it back to the co*ckpit, but there’s a fading brush of pink high on his cheeks that has Charles considering his words very carefully as he sets his bag down and sinks into the pilot’s seat.

“Who did you go to for repairs, you know,” he gestures vaguely. “Before?”

Max appears to find something very interesting in the display of lights across the console. “I did them, if it was an emergency. The corporate bay always took me offline for repairs and maintenance.”

Oh. Oh. “So you never, uh.” There’s no good way to say this. “You never had someone’s hands in... on you… while you were….” This sentence is a shipwreck and Charles wishes he could stop saying it.

Max won’t look at him. “No.”

“Um.” Charles sits with that for a moment, and then decides to stick with the mechanical facts. “The mag-tape will hold for a while,” he says. “But you are going to need a proper valve replacement, and those inertial compensators need more than a tune-up.”

“I know.” Max sighs. “I’d hoped to put it off until—” he lapses into silence.

“Until what?” Charles prompts.

Max laughs, short and not entirely pleasant. “Until I couldn’t ignore it, I guess. Not a great maintenance plan.”

It’s not, but it is a very human one. Charles doesn’t know if Max will appreciate the sentiment so he keeps it to himself. Instead he swivels in the pilot’s chair and calls up a starchart, zooming in on their location. They’ve been crisscrossing the regular trade routes since Alpha Tauri, keeping a low profile, but surely there’s somewhere nearby—

“There.” Charles points. “Toro Rosso isless than six hours from here. They’ll have a proper parts depot.”

“Toro Rosso's not on the list,” Max says flatly.

“Yes, I noticed,” Charles says, turning in his chair to face Max. “But the nearest stop on your list is days away, and I do not want you to have to limp along any longer than you have to. That tape can't feel great.”

Max shifts uncomfortably but doesn’t answer, and Charles crosses his arms and leans back.

“What’s wrong with Toro Rosso?” he asks, and Max’s shoulders slump minutely.

“Company town,” he says quietly, and Charles sucks in a breath in understanding. “Not one of mine,” Max adds quickly, and Charles nods.

“But close enough?” he guesses, and Max nods in relief. Charles sighs, uncrossing his arms and leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

“I do not want you to go anywhere you do not want to,” he says quietly. “But Max, that repair job will not last. I am good but I am not that good,” he jokes, but his attempt to lighten the mood falls flat as Max’s mouth presses into a thin line. Charles sits back, not sure what else he can say; he doesn’t want to push Max, but maybe Max needs to be—

“Fine,” Max says, the lights on the board in front of him cycling as the stars pivot outside the viewport. Charles blows out a breath in relief. Max is clearly not happy about this but at this moment, Charles needs him to be safe and whole more than he needs him to be happy.

Max’s gaze flicks down his body and Charles is suddenly aware that he’s wearing what he’d rolled out of bed in: which is to say, a soft-worn shirt and a pair of boxers. Charles refuses to close his arms over himself, but it’s a close thing.

“I will. Uh. I will get dressed, and take a look at what else we need,” he says, pushing himself up out of the pilot’s seat and grabbing his toolbag from the floor.

“Mm.” Max’s voice is studiously neutral as Charles turns to leave. “Charlie.”

Charles pauses in the doorway, turning back to look at Max. “Yes?”

Max doesn’t answer right away, his gaze thoughtful and considering on Charles. Max’s eyes flick down his body again, and Charles makes sure the little clench in his stomach doesn’t make it to his face.

“Wear your pulser,” is all Max says before he turns back to the console, settling in as the stars draw them closer to Toro Rosso, and Charles lets out a careful breath before he turns away.

Max refuses to set down any closer than five kilometers from Toro Rosso's main port, claiming this will keep them off of Company radar.

“Only the airspace around the town is monitored,” he explains, gaze distant even as he navigates atmospheric entry. “They figure they have what matters.”

That makes—a kind of sense, Charles supposes. “So a quick exit is out of the question.”

Max spares him a glance as he skims over treetops. “This is why I didn’t want to come,” he says, and there’s a trace of a sulk in it that Charles refuses to acknowledge.

They need this part. Max needs proper repairs, or the next time something blows—and there will be a next time, Charles knows that—he won’t be able to fix it. He won’t leave Max like that.

Max is quiet on the hike in, and eventually Charles stops trying to engage him in conversation and just walks. His pulser lies snug against his side, as requested, although if they have to shoot their way out of this, things will really have gone to hell. He tugs on the jacket that covers it, trying to find a more comfortable arrangement.

“Stop that,” Max murmurs as the first outlying buildings come into view. “You’ll only draw attention to it, and pulse weapons are forbidden in a Company town.”

“What,” Charles hisses, dropping his hand. “Then why did you have me bring it?”

Max flashes him a sidelong glance with a grin. “Do you really want to face CorpSec without one?”

Charlesdoesn’t want to face Corporate Security at all. “You think it will come to that?”

“Hopefully not,” Max answers. He’s traded in the slim pants for the boxy jumpsuit he’d been wearing when Charles had first met him, and Charles doesn’t know where he’s keeping his pulser unless it’s strapped to his thigh and Charles is going to stop thinking about that right now.

The town itself is—not what Charles was expecting. He’s not sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this: the wide, paved streets and the tidy buildings in neat concentric rings fanning out from a central plaza, the sensible streetlights and well-kept storefronts. The transition is almost jarring after a five-kilometer hike through scrub brush and grasslands, but a few blocks in Charles could almost be back in the Core, passing familiar signs for brands he never expected to see this far Rimward.

Company town, Charles thinks, glancing over at Max. Max himself is navigating the streets with practiced ease, taking a left and then a right without hesitation or a glance at the lasercut street signs. The crosswalk lights—Charles is amused to see crosswalks in a place with very little in the way of ground vehicle traffic, at least at this hour—change as Max approaches, and Charles quickens his footsteps to catch up as Max steps off the curb without hesitation.

“Are you doing that?” Charles says, waving at the lights and he’s half-joking but his smile falters at the glance Max gives him.

“Yes,” Max says, and then wrinkles his nose. “Not on purpose. The lights recognize company equipment, that’s all. Standard biometrics.”

Charles' foot catches against the smooth pavement. “I thought you haven’t been here before.”

“I haven’t.” Max raises his face to the sky for a moment, squinting against the light, and then shrugs, dropping his gaze. “The blueprint is always the same, and the exploratory models are in all the databases by default.”

Max’s tone sets a twinge of unease in Charles' gut. He’d thought they could just walk in, make their purchases, and get out with no one the wiser, but as Charles eyes the security cameras set on each corner he starts to wonder if that plan hadn’t been hopelessly naive.

“We just need a few parts,” he says, to reassure himself as much as Max. “We will be in and out and then we can go to the obscurest location on your list.”

Max snorts, but waves Charles along as he crosses the street to a large garage with its bay doors open, the sounds of good-natured bickering drifting out. “The central garage will have the best stock. Let me do the talking.”

Charles frowns, but as Max steps over the threshold into the garage his spine straightens and his chin lifts, expression going bored and blank in a way that sets disquiet wrapping around Charles' spine. The mechanic closest to the door glances up when Max’s shadow falls over him, then does a double-take when he gets a look at Max’s face. He scrambles up from the half-disassembled skimmer he’d been involved in and clears his throat loudly. Conversation drops off in the rest of the shop as the rest of the crew looks up, and Charles has seen his share of poker faces over the years but never, he thinks as he moves up behind Max’s shoulder, so many with such an undercurrent of fear.

“I need an A-116 valve, a set of inertial compensators, size C3, and supply kit 705,” Max announces to the room at large, and the silence becomes absolute.

The mechanic swallows. “The valve and the comps, sure, no problem,” he says cautiously. “But we’re out of 700-level supply kits, another exy—I mean, another customer picked up our last one last week,” he says hastily.

Max blinks slowly. “Then I’ll take whatever you’ve got in the 600-line,” he says, sounding bored, and the mechanic nods in relief.

“600, sure, no problem. We’ll get those together if you and your—” he glances at Charles.

“Passenger,” Max supplies flatly.

“Sure, sure. If you and your passenger can wait a few minutes, we’ll have those right up.” The mechanic hurries off, the rest of the shop turning back to their work. Max turns and heads back toward the entrance, taking up a post by the doors; Charles lingers a moment before following, watching how none of the crew will meet his eyes.

Charles mirrors Max’s pose, folding his arms and leaning against the wall. “Babysitting part of your job too?” he murmurs lowly.

“Yes,” Max says shortly, eyes closed and head tipped back against the garage wall. It exposes the long line of his throat, Adam’s apple prominent against the soft skin. Charles makes himself look away. “Executives. Their favorites, or their favored children. VIPs of all kinds.”

Charles glances back at the crew, studiously not looking at them. “Which one am I supposed to be?”

Max opens his eyes at that, giving Charles a brief skim. His mouth turns up in the barest ghost of a smile. “Favorite, for sure.”

Before Charles can figure out if he should take offense to that or not—he’s leaning toward not, something warm lighting up in his stomach at Max’s assessing glance—Max’s face drops back into blank, haughty lines and Charles looks over his shoulder to see the mechanic Max had spoken to approaching, floating a medium-sized case with lifts built in the bottom behind him.

“Parts and supply kit 695, as requested,” he says, flipping the case open for Max to inspect. Max gives it half a glance, gaze skimming over the factory-fresh, vacuum-sealed parts. The supply kit, from what Charles can see, appears to be an assortment of parts and tools for minor field repairs, which will definitely come in handy.

“Acceptable,” Max says, reaching out and closing the case with a snap. He presses his thumb to the directional pad until it beeps in confirmation. “Credit line 1633.”

The mechanic sketches out a hasty salute which Max roundly ignores, already turning and exiting the garage, the case floating behind him. Charles hesitates.

“Thanks,” he offers, and the mechanic’s eyes widen.

“It’s uh, my pleasure,” he stammers, sounding like it’s anything but. He turns on his heel before Charles can say anything else, heading back into the shop, and when he turns back toward the street Max is frowning at him. Charles takes two quick strides to catch up, falling in step, and waits until they’re safely out of earshot before he nudges Max with his elbow.

“Let it out,” he says, eyeing Max’s frown. “What did I do wrong?”

“You made us memorable,” Max sighs, and Charles' eyebrows raise.

“What—thanking the guy was memorable?”

“Yes. The Company doesn’t—” Max pauses, frowning up at the sky as if it will help him put the words in the right order. Charles waits; Max’s getting better about speaking about the Company, as he calls it, but it still seems to be difficult for him sometimes.

Max lowers his eyes, glancing around, then fixes his gaze on Charles. “When the Company asks, the only acceptable answer is yes, ” he says quietly. “Because everyone knows what happens when the answer is no. ”

Charles puts a hand out, stopping Max in the middle of the sidewalk. “Max,” he says carefully. “What happens when the answer is no?”

Max won’t quite look at him. His mouth flattens. “Me.”

“You are an exploratory model,” Charles says. “Built for—”

“XC,” Max interrupts, lifting his gaze to Charles'. “Built for exploration—and cleanup.”

Out of the corner of his eye Charles sees the nearest light change but his head is filled with the echo of the mechanic’s voice: “another exy.” Charles had assumed he’d meant exploration, but now he can hear the distinction.

XC. Exploration and cleanup. No wonder the crew had looked afraid.

Max himself looks—not afraid, not exactly, but Charles can practically see him drawing in on himself even as he remains motionless underneath Charles' hand. Max glances away, lips pressing together, and Charles' fingers tighten involuntarily.

“It was easy,” Max says quietly, so quietly Charles has to lean forward to hear him. “It was so easy; everything made sense. Until the day it didn’t, and I still don’t know what changed, except that suddenly everything had. Including me.”

“Max,” Charles murmurs, and he wants nothing more than to erase that desperate note from Max’s voice. He wants to wrap Max up in his arms, to let Max know that even if it’s not alright, he’s not alone. But that’s more than he’s allowed, maybe more than Max would allow—although maybe not, given the way he’s leaning into Charles' hand.

A pedestrian steps off the sidewalk to give them a wide berth and Charles is suddenly reminded of where they’re standing; regardless of what he wants, this isn’t somewhere they should linger.

But Max looks so lost, and Charles can’t just let that go, and so he slides his hand down Max’s arm until he can take his hand.

“I do not know what changed either,” he says honestly. “For you, or for me. But I am glad it did,” he says, squeezing Max’s hand once.

Max looks down at their joined hands, and then back up at Charles' face.

“You don’t—mind?” he says slowly.

“I think that when you had a choice, you made it,” Charles says. “And that is more than many people can say.”

Max’s lips quirk up slightly at people, but he doesn’t argue the term either, just curls his fingers and puts the barest pressure on Charles' before disentangling himself.

“We have a long walk back,” he says, but even with the change of subject the faint smile doesn’t leave his lips, and it lights something warm in Charles’ chest to have put it there. “We should get going.”

“I am not racing you this time,” Charles says, falling in step, feeling a smile he can’t quite explain pulling at his own mouth.

Max scoffs. “Because you know I’ll win.”

“Because I know now that you cheat,” Charles corrects, and Max smirks.

“You didn’t say how we had to get to the bottom,” Max says loftily, and Charles rolls his eyes, remembering the way Max had slid straight down the incline on Ferrari as easily as if he was still surfing the sandsea. Charles can still recall with unfortunate clarity the abrupt drop his stomach had taken when Max's foot had hit an unexpected root, sending him tumbling head over heels, and the way relief had bloomed in his chest when Max had rolled gracefully back to his feet, beaming at Charles from the bottom of the incline.

“I still maintain that not climbing was cheating,” Charles says as they turn the corner that takes them toward the edge of town and back toward safety. “Any reasonable authority would have agreed with me.”

Max sucks in his lower lip for a second, and then grins while Charles is still catching his breath. “Good thing I’m not reasonable. Bad luck for you, hm?”

Yeah, Charles thinks as the breeze lifts Max’s hair away from warm eyes dancing with amusem*nt. Bad luck.

“Anyway, I’m still thinking about what my prize should be,” Max continues obliviously as Charles tries to swallow back down the thing trying to crawl up his throat. “For winning.”

“I did not offer you a prize,” Charles responds automatically. They’ve had this conversation at least three times since Ferrari, and Max seems to enjoy the repetition as much as any prize he might eventually weasel out of Charles.

“Wait ‘til I decide what I want, Charlie, then see if you can say no,” Max says, all cheek and easy grin and Charles could almost think he was running a subroutine with the way he has so quickly cycled from despondency to cheer—almost, except for the shadow in Max’s eyes that lightens a little each time Charles responds.

“Try me,” Charles says dryly. Max laughs, tipping his head back into the afternoon sun, and Charles has the sinking feeling that Max doesn’t even need to decide on a prize; Charles is still going to tell him yes.

Chapter 4: Max

Chapter Text

It’s Charles' hands, Max decides, that are the problem.

They’re stronger than they look, for one thing; even days later Max thinks he can still feel the echo of them, moving deft and sure over his wiring until Charles had set him back to rights. Max suppresses a shiver at the memory, keeping himself still where he sits next to Charles on the floor in his engine compartment, watching those strong fingers skim over a selection of tools until Charles finds the one he wants. These tools are well worn but in good condition; clearly cared for, and that settles something in Max as Charles palms open the access hatch set into the floor.

Max shifts back against the wall, stretching his legs out as the floor next to him seams and splits open, exposing the compartment that houses some of his more delicate components. It’s deep enough that Charles will have to lower himself in, and indeed he pauses with his legs dangling in, hands braced on the edge as he looks at Max.

“You sure you want me to do this?” he asks, and Max nods, acknowledging the implicit offer. He’s capable of basic repairs but he’d always been encouraged to turn to the experts for anything more complex than routine maintenance. While this is not particularly complex, Max does have an expert available to him. It would be foolish not to take advantage.

Besides, Max can’t stop thinking about Charles' hands.

Charles blows out a sigh. “Okay. Tell me if I—if it hurts, okay?” he says, and Max nods again. He doesn’t think that’s going to be a problem, exactly.

Charles lowers himself carefully down, and Max settles back against the wall, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. He can hear Charles humming to himself as he counts off the sections, and the disapproving note that enters when Charles finds the inertial compensators. Max smiles slightly to himself.

It’s—nice, having someone fuss over him. The Company mechanics had always been coolly businesslike, directing him to a low-power station and preferring to run their own diagnostics. Occasionally he’d come out of the corporate bay with a connection that had been wound too tight or left too loose; he could make his own adjustments once he was back between stars, but his own hands have never felt quite like Charles'.

Charles' hands on him are gentle, but with a firmness that speaks to experience and self-assurance, even in the face of an unfamiliar mechanical layout. Max bites his lip as Charles unscrews the bolts around the first inertial compensator, holding it firmly in place until the last bolt drops free. He eases the compensator out of its bracket, and Max can hear him make another disapproving noise.

“What?” Max asks, and he’s surprised at how lazy his own voice sounds.

“This thing is totally blown,” Charles says, professional disapproval laced throughout his voice. “The plating is almost burned through, there’s discharge all over the place—honestly, you are really lucky it hasn’t given out before now.”

“Mm.” Max lets his eyes drift close. He can feel Charles wiping out the socket, and he breathes deeply, in and out. Charles sets the burned out compensator aside, and there’s a crinkling sound as he unwraps one of the new ones.

“This is going to feel a lot better, I bet,” Charles says, and Max’s eyes fly open on a short strangled noise as Charles slots the new compensator into place.

“Uh.” Charles' voice sounds suddenly hesitant, and when Max blinks Charles is peering up over the edge of the compartment. “You okay?”

“I’m good,” Max breathes. He’s pretty sure it’s true. There’s a lot happening in his sensory input and he doesn’t entirely know if what he’s feeling is good or bad but he thinks that it’s good. Especially since it’s Charles doing it. “Don’t—I’m fine.”

Charles looks uncertain, but he ducks back down and fastens the new inertial compensator into place with the same care and precision with which he’d removed the old one. His hands are kind and gentle; he holds Max with the same care he’s always shown, and Max briefly wonders what it would be like to have Charles' hands on him in other contexts, pressed into his skin instead of his wiring. He thinks it would be good. He’s not built for that exactly, he doesn’t think, but what he was built for feels far less important, far less real against what he’s starting to want.

Charles finishes the first inertial compensator and moves on to the second, and Max closes his eyes again and lets himself drift. It’s something like settling into orbit, although Max can’t tell who is circling whom; he just knows that being held in Charles' hands feels safer than he’s felt in a long time. Since before he’d ripped out his Purpose.

He wonders if he should ask Charles to take a look at it, to see if there’s anything that can be done with the cracked and blackened casing. The ache is subtle and ever-present, even now; but it’s easier to forget with Charles around, and Max wonders about that, wonders if maybe he’s starting to learn from Charles after all. Humans can generate their own Purposes, after all, even if Charles professes not to know his. Max had hoped he could learn to do the same.

“Max?” Charles' voice filters in, and Max blinks his eyes open slowly to find Charles kneeling next to him, the floor sealed up behind him and his hand on Max's shoulder. It may not be the first time he’s called Max's name, from the sound of things.

“There you are.” Charles grins. “We’re all done here. You have to run a quick power cycle, make sure everything’s hooked up okay?”

Max has no doubt that it is, but he obediently spins into a low-power state for just a moment. His own processes are reflected briefly back to him in Charles' eyes as the cabin lights dim around them, and then Max cycles back up to full capacity.

“Fully functional,” he says as the lights come back up, although his voice still has a lazy drawl to it.

Charles nods, ducking his head. “Then do you want to maybe… get up?”

Max doesn’t. His limbs are warm and heavy, and he wants to stay right here, maybe to pull Charles down next to him and just float for a bit, matching his breathing to Charles' as he comes down from—whatever this is.

“I have a better idea,” he announces, and Charles raises his eyebrows. “Why don’t you get one of the bottles from Alpha Tauri, and we can celebrate?”

“What are we celebrating exactly?” Charles asks, but he pushes himself slowly to his feet, moving to gather his tools. Max’s shoulder feels cold where Charles' hand had been, which is interesting because Charles runs a few degrees colder than Max does.

“Anything you want,” Max says unconcernedly. “A successful repair. The rotation of the Core. Your birthday?”

Charles laughs. “That’s not for a while. You will be okay here for a minute?”

“Of course.” Why wouldn’t he be?

Charles shakes his head, but he’s smiling as he heads for the door, his mechanic’s bag slung over his shoulder. Max watches until he’s out of sight, and then rolls his face back up toward the ceiling as Charles makes his way first back to his room, then to the small galley. He’s not the first passenger Max's ever had but he is the first pilot, and that distinction is important to Max even if he hasn’t let Charles do much of the flying.

He should probably change that, he figures as Charles returns and settles next to him, popping the top off the bottle. Charles has steady hands.

“Here.” Charles hands him a glass and Max takes it obligingly, before lifting it and frowning at the ruby-red contents.

“You know it won’t do anything,” he says, and Charles snorts.

“I do not think it needs to, at this point,” he says, pouring his own glass. “But we are celebrating, you said, and it is rude to drink alone.”

“You were drinking alone the night I met you,” Max feels compelled to point out.

Charles laughs, and lifts his glass toward Max’s. “Then here’s to not being alone anymore,” he says lightly, and Max nods solemnly and clinks his glass with Charles'.

The liquor burns slightly on his tongue before his body neutralizes it, but it has a pleasant aftertaste; Charles certainly seems to enjoy it, sighing contentedly after his first sip. He settles further back against the wall, his legs stretched out next to Max’s.

“We could be doing this in the co*ckpit,” Charles points out. “There’s a view there.”

“Hm.” But then they’d be in their separate seats, and Max wouldn’t be able to feel the warmth of Charles' shoulder pressed against his own.

“But the view is not bad here, either,” Charles continues, and when Max looks over Charles is looking right at him, a small smile playing about his lips.

“No,” Max says solemnly. “It isn’t.”

Charles' smile widens, and then his face is scrunching up and he lets out a peal of laughter, leaning forward and holding his glass carefully to the side. Max lets his own grin widen across his face and pull a laugh out of his lungs; it feels good to laugh like this, not because he thinks someone else wants to hear it but because he wants to and because he can.

Eventually Charles quiets. “Now, see,” he says, gesturing with his drink. “I know that is not a subroutine. No one would have given you a line that bad.”

“How would you know.” Max knocks one of his boots against Charles'. “Met many androids?”

“Just the one, and he is a handful,” Charles says thoughtfully. “Won’t admit he is up in the exosphere from repairs.”

Max had thought he’d been hiding it well enough, and he feels his cooling systems start to kick in even as he draws his nose up, haughty. “Well—”

Charles waits attentively, sipping from his glass when Max pauses. “Yes?”

“Well—” He doesn’t have anything to follow this up with, Max realizes, and so he falls back on what he knows works. He tilts his head down so he can look up at Charles through his lashes, easing his lower lip out in a pout that is as exaggerated as it is effective. Sure enough Charles' breath hitches before he bats at Max.

“Stop that,” he says, but he sounds a little breathless and Max grins, victorious. “Drink your drink.”

“Okay, Charlie,” Max says smugly, lifting his glass to his lips, and Charles huffs but settles back down next to him. Max swallows, enjoying the brief burn on his tongue; he can’t get drunk but he might be dangerously close to drunk on this, on Charles' weight warm against his side and his breathing in rhythm with Max’s own.

“Where to next?” Charles says, drawing a leg up and propping his arm on it. “I did promise you the most obscure location on your list, so which is it?”

Max takes another sip of the alcohol he can’t feel to cover another glance at Charles' bent leg. He knows exactly how tall Charles is—even though he’s taller by a few—both when he slouches and when he stands up straight, but somehow that’s different than seeing his legs pulling up on themselves. Charles shifts next to him and Max belatedly realizes he’s let the silence stretch on too long; he looks into his glass as if it will give him the answer, and to his surprise, it does.

“Let’s go here,” he says, holding his glass out, and Charles obligingly reaches for the bottle before pausing with a frown.

“We’re going—back to Alpha Tauri?” he says doubtfully.

“Not Alpha Tauri,” Max says impatiently, swirling his glass so the red liquid coats the sides. “Here. The settlement they wouldn’t tell me about, where this came from.”

“If they wouldn’t tell you about it how are we going to find it?” Charles says cautiously, but his eyes are lighting up with interest, and Max grins.

“Has to be a planet close enough to Alpha Tauri for transport but remote enough that the major trade routes don’t cover it yet,” he says, counting off the points on his fingers. “Has to be somewhere that can grow lulu berries and heidrun, or near enough somewhere that can trade for them. And the soil composition has to match whatever the ‘secret ingredient’ is.”

Charles' mouth parts, and then stretches into an astonished grin. “That easy, huh?” he says, taking a drink, but his tone is impressed and Max grins.

“It may take us a couple tries, but we’ll get there,” he promises, and something in Charles' gaze softens.

“Maybe you are right,” he murmurs, reaching for the bottle to refill his glass.

“I’m always right,” Max says. Charles laughs, offering the bottle to Max, and he hesitates, and then extends his glass out. He can feel himself coming down from—from whatever Charles' hands had done to him, but it won’t hurt to stay here for a little while longer, sharing Charles' warmth for as long as it’s on offer. He has no inbuilt function for greed but Max thinks that this must be what it’s like, like his capacitors have no limit and Charles is an endless current, like Max could stay here forever.

He’ll stay here until Charles gets tired, at any rate, and then he’ll set the coordinates for the most likely candidate and soon after that he’ll be able to show Charles something he’s never seen. That’s what Charles came out here for, and in the absence of his own Purpose, Max finds that fulfilling Charles' suits him just fine.

The first likely candidate turns out to be a dud, for which Max had given about even odds. A surface scan reveals no likely settlement structures, and as soon as he enters the atmosphere Max can tell that the environment is too harsh for permanent habitation, let alone agriculture. He skims over the surface, red rock formations stretching to the horizon and fine-grained dust swirling over his viewports.

He glances over at Charles, who is eyeing the dust with some trepidation. Max coughs. “I don’t want to go out in that,” he says. “Not without an enviro-suit.”

“And if we need those then a settlement is not possible,” Charles agrees, settling back in the pilot’s chair. He swivels a little bit, eyeing the dust outside.

“We can still go out and look around,” Max offers.

Charles glances at him. “How many enviro-suits do you have?”

One. “You can have it.”

Charles snorts. “And listen to your silent suffering as you scrub red out of every pore? Pass.”

“If you’d prefer that I suffer out loud, I can accommodate that,” Max says, fending off a friendly punch aimed at his shoulder.

“No one is going out in that, and no one is going to suffer,” Charles says firmly. “Unless it’s me, dealing with your attitude.”

“Fine,” Max says, overly deferential as he pulls back up into the skies, aiming for the stars. Charles sighs next to him, but when Max looks over he’s shaking his head, smiling, and Max smiles with him.

The second candidate is closer to the mark than the first, in that they can walk around without any extra protection, Charles skimming his hands over the waist-high plant-life in the field they’d set down in. The exothermic readings Max had picked up from orbit turn out to be a series of deep vents slashing through the grassy meadow, radiating heat all the way from the planet’s core. Charles crouches at the edge and peers down inside, the warm air blowing the hair back from his forehead.

“I think I see movement down there,” he says, and Max bends to look over his shoulder.

“Small winged vertebrates,” he confirms. “Probably nocturnal, or crepuscular. A flock in the twilight would be something to see,” he says, looking up toward the sky. The atmosphere is rich in gases, and probably produces blazing sunsets.

When he looks down again Charles is looking at him with a small but proud smile on his face. “What?” Max asks; he can hear a defensive note in his tone but he doesn’t quite know where it came from.

“Nothing,” Charles says, looking off toward the horizon himself. “Let’s stay and find out.”

“There’s no settlement here,” Max reminds him, and Charles shrugs.

“We are not hurrying,” he says, and Max supposes that’s true.

Charles fetches a blanket from his bed and spreads it on a flat spot near the vent, settling in with his sketchpad and stylus. The scene he starts to lay out is once again not an exact replica of the vista before him, but it bothers Max less this time. He wonders if this isn’t like encoding a piece of data; slower, and more prone to fragmentation, but perhaps the significance lies in the pieces Charles chooses to capture.

Max leans back, folding his arms behind his head and closing his eyes as he calls up the vista they’d visited on Ferrari, and the representation that Charles had sketched. Charles' sketch is incomplete by any measure; his cloud formations aren’t accurate against the shapes Max had recorded, and Charles had added the swarming avians even though they’d only erupted from the trees twice.

Nevertheless Maxlikes Charles' drawing. His own recording he can zoom in and out of, rotate 360 degrees, his processors filling in the data for the angles he hadn’t seen. Max compares a rendered model of the brightly-colored avian to the small shape that had come alive under Charles' stylus, and wonders what Charles will find significant enough to record in the landscape before them.

“Hey. Max.” Charles' voice is hushed, the hand on Max's knee gentle, like he’s hesitant to wake Max. Considerate, but not necessary; he’s told Charles before that he doesn’t sleep, although he is somewhat bemused to find that he’s entered a low-power state which he’s been told simulates it well enough.

The rushing of uncountable pairs of wings fills his ears and Max opens his eyes to see the flock Charles had spied earlier bursting out of the vent, small sleek bodies and translucent wings catching the evening light. Max pushes himself up on his elbows, satisfied to see that he’d been right: the sunset is spectacular, all shades of purple and orange, setting a warm glow to Charles' skin when Max looks over. Charles' face is open with happiness, watching the flock spiral up into the sky until the individual bodies are lost against the gloaming, just the suggestion of a whole surging this way and that.

His processors tell him that the whole thing takes only a few minutes, but Max could swear that he sits there for several ages, watching Charles watch the flock ride the evening thermals. Charles' naked delight stirs something in Max’s chest that he doesn’t have a name for; it feels almost like Purpose, in that Max wants to keep doing it, to keep putting that look on Charles' face. Max doesn’t easily get cold but if he did, he thinks that the memory of this moment would keep him warm for a long time.

Which doesn’t make sense at all, thermodynamically. Max pushes himself up into a sitting position, and Charles squeezes his knee before letting go, folding his hands in his own lap. His sketchbook sits closed beside him; Max would like to see what Charles has sketched in the apparent hours since Max had closed his eyes, but he doesn’t know if he’d understand it yet. Perhaps he should wait.

Charles shivers, and Max notes that the setting sun has cooled the air dramatically. It’s time for them to be moving on to their next destination, but for the first time Max finds himself hoping that the next candidate planet doesn’t contain the settlement after all. It’s illogical, and counterintuitive; Max is built to derive satisfaction from completed tasks and well-pleased executives. But there’s satisfaction in this too, he’s finding, in stopping somewhere just because it’s new, in watching something just because it’s beautiful.

Charles runs a hand through his hair then leans back, planting it next to Max as he watches the sun go down. Max glances down at the fingers spread close to his leg; he knows what those hands feel like on him already, but Charles had had other purpose, then. Max could reach out and brush those fingers with his own, but that would have no purpose, or at least not one that stretches further than the act itself.

Perhaps, Max thinks as the light starts to fade and the night comes on in earnest, perhaps the act is the purpose.

It’s a heady thought, and he can feel his cooling systems start to kick up even as the temperature drops around them. Charles glances over, and then frowns.

“Are you—” he leans closer. “Are you okay? Your face is a little pink.”

“I’m fine,” Max responds automatically. He ramps the cooling system up, feeling his cheeks heat even more and then start to cool as his thermals redistribute themselves.

Charles looks doubtful. “If you say so. But—” he pauses. “You would tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”

Max has to think about that. Charles lets him, seemingly unconcerned that Max didn’t immediately answer with a yes, and it’s that easy acceptance that pushes Max into answering honestly.

“I would try,” he says. “But I don’t always know. I’m still figuring that out.”

For some reason that makes Charles laugh, quiet and warm into the oncoming night. “You mean to tell me that you are not perfect?” he says, teasing.

Max raises his nose. “Of course I’m perfect,” he says haughtily. “Have you seen this hair?” He shakes his head in demonstration.

“Mm. The blue is cool but I liked the original better,” comes the amused reply, and Max sniffs—and also notes down Charles' preference.

“You do not have to have all the answers, you know,” Charles says, leaning over to gather up his sketchbook and stylus. “I do not know anyone who does,” he says, standing.

Max peers up at Charles, now lit by only the early starlight and Max’s own running lights, flicking on with the onset of darkness half a kilometer behind them. “You don’t know anyone like me.”

“Maybe not,” Charles says easily, extending a hand down. “Does not mean I am wrong, though.”

Max hesitates, but when he takes the offered hand Charles pulls him easily to his feet, like it’s no trouble—like Max is no trouble—and when those strong fingers let go of his own Max wishes they wouldn’t.

Well. There’s an easy solution to that.

“Are you sure about this?” Charles says. His fingers are hesitant and respectful, and Max almost shivers.

“I’m sure,” he says, drawing in a steadying breath and letting it out again.

“Okay.” Charles' touch firms, his brow furrowing in concentration. “I feel like we should have a safeword,” he mutters.

“Subroutine,” Max suggests, grinning, and Charles snorts.

“That will definitely kill the mood,” he says, confirming the last of the pre-flight checks and placing his hand on the board that will control Max's thrusters. Max settles back further into the copilot’s chair and willfully disengages his automatic overrides, ceding control to the pilot’s console.

“Ready?” Charles says, glancing at him.

Max nods, blowing out another breath. “When you are,” he confirms, and Charles returns his gaze to the viewports. Night has well and truly fallen outside, the grassy field turned silver in the starlight, but even the reflected glow of Max’s running lights is not nearly so bright as Charles' grin when Max had asked if he would like to pilot the next jump.

Charles' hand presses down, engaging the board. His eyes widen when the holographic control rises up and wraps around his hand but he curls his fingers and tilts his wrist just like Max had taught him. Max’s thrusters fire up and he curls his own fingers into the armrests of the copilot’s chair as they lift off the ground; it’s deeply strange, to be moving but not controlling the movement, but not—bad. Not when it’s Charles in the pilot’s seat, eyes intent on the approaching sky and hands firm around Max’s controls. Charles pulls them up through the burning of the atmosphere, into the cool weightlessness of space, adjusting the thrusters deftly as the pull of gravity falls away. Once they’re out of the nameless planet’s gravity well, Charles lets the thrusters die and Max’s own momentum do the rest, setting them into a looping orbital pattern that will do as they plan the jump.

Charles releases the pilot’s controls, eyes shining as they melt back into the board. “That was—” he sighs happily, then turns to Max. “How did I do?” he asks, and his tone is teasing but there’s a trace of concern in his eyes.

“Not bad,” Max says, testing his systems experimentally. Nothing edging near burnout, not even into the yellow. “Not what I expected out of it, but not bad.”

“Not what you—” Charles' smile goes a little strained. “Max— have you had other— was this your—”

“First time being piloted, yeah,” Max answers, frowning. “Did I not tell you that?”

“You did not.” Charles drags a hand down over his face. “Well. I hope it is not too weird.”

“It wasn’t,” Max assures him, spinning up his list of potential settlement locations and sliding it over to Charles. “But I don’t know why you think you’re finished; you still have a destination to pick and a jump to calculate.”

“Unless you want to be here for several days while I try to puzzle through an advanced quantum algorithm, I think you have a jump to calculate,” Charles says dryly, catching the list and looking it over. He glances back at Max. “And actually—” he tilts the list back toward Max. “If I am flying, I think you should pick the destination.”

Max looks at the list, then back at Charles. “I can’t,” he says flatly, a tinge of irritation sliding down his spine. “I know I’ve told you that.”

“You did tell me that,” Charles says agreeably. “But you did not seem to have a problem programming the last two jumps, or the jump to Ferrari, without any help from me.”

“That’s different,” Max insists, the irritation slipping into his gut and blooming uneasily.

“How?” Charles asks simply, and Max frowns, glancing aside.

“Those all had parameters,” he says slowly, but the reasoning that had seemed so self-evident before suddenly seems less so. “Ferrari was the farthest location I knew from Alpha Tauri, the least likely jump to engage pursuit.”

“And the others?” Charles prompts when Max falls silent.

“Most likely locations for the settlement you want to see,” Max says, and Charles smiles like Max has handed him some sort of victory.

“I do want to see it. But whose idea was it?”

Max frowns. “Mine,” he says hesitantly, but follows it up quickly with, “but it was for you.”

Now it’s Charles' turn to pause, which makes Max feel a little better; at least he’s not the only one feeling out of his depth in this conversation.

“Choice can be difficult,” Charles says carefully. “But I would like to remind you that you have already made the hardest one.”

That is entirely unfair, and if Max needed to breathe he’s not entirely sure he would be able to right now. He digs his fingers into the armrest of the copilot’s chair instead, setting his jaw.

“Just think about it,” Charles says quickly, and then picks three destinations off the list, in no pattern Max can discern. “Here, I will choose first, then you pick.” He presents his three selections to Max, who cautiously takes the list back.

“Use probabilities if you like, or a randomizer. But I think it would be good for you to do this,” Charles says.

“Since when did you become a therapist,” Max mutters, gazing at the list and running the numbers. He rearranges them in order of probability, and then pauses, because that doesn’t feel like enough, and he hates that he doesn’t know what he’s missing.

“You’d be surprised what people tell their mechanics, especially if they have nowhere else to be,” Charles says. “You pick up a thing or two.”

Max doesn’t think that’s true; or rather, he thinks that Charles thinks it’s true. Max has met his fair share of mechanics, and while the circ*mstances were rather different, he suspects that this is all Charles.

The first selection is the most likely to hold the settlement. Max runs a randomizer and comes up with the number three.

Hesitantly, feeling like he’s getting it wrong with every movement, Max reaches out and touches the second selection.

“See if I ever let you pilot again,” he sniffs, and Charles smiles lopsidedly.

“You know you do not have to—” he starts diffidently, and Max waves a hand.

“I know I don’t,” he says as the calculations finish and the coordinates rise to the top of his mind. “But I am anyway. That’s your whole point, isn’t it?”

Charles beams at him, like a sunglare over his viewport and just as blinding. Max surfaces the coordinates on the pilot’s board and nods toward the console.

“It probably isn’t there,” he feels compelled to say, as Charles turns and puts his hands back on the controls.

Charles smiles as the list disappears, and Max slumps back in his seat as he starts running the jump calculations. He shifts it to a subprocessor, and then looks at Charles.

“Maybe,” he replies, sounding unconcerned either way, and Max feels a familiar tingle in the back of his throat as Charles primes the rad-drive. Max has felt this sensation countless times before but the frisson down his spine is suddenly new when Charles does it, the prickle against his plating as the rad-drive wraps him in protection against faster-than-light speeds as fresh as the first time he’d jumped between the stars. Max swallows and falls back against the copilot’s chair, and Charles turns to him and grins.

“We will see when we get there,” he says, and it takes Max a moment to remember the track of the conversation.

“I’m always right,” he reminds Charles, and Charles just raises an eyebrow.

“Then you win either way, don’t you?” he says, and Max can just about follow that logic even though it makes him frown to do so.

“You make things very confusing sometimes,” he grouses, and Charles laughs, leaning back in his own chair.

“That makes two of us,” he concludes, and Max does not dignify that with a response. Charles seems content to leave it at that, watching the starlight stretch and elongate outside the viewport.

There had only been a thirty-three percent likelihood of the settlement being on the planet Max had selected. He will scan the surface once they get there, they’ll see whatever local flora and fauna catch Charles' fancy, and Max can stop thinking about the point Charles is trying to prove. They’ll get back on track, just as soon as this jump is over.

There is a settlement on this planet. Max doesn’t know how he feels about that.

A surface scan had given back exothermic readings that aligned exactly with a medium-sized outpost, and dipping below the lowest cloud layer had revealed a central community of buildings edged on two sides by agricultural fields. Charles had gone to rest during the jump, but when Max had woken him he hadn’t said anything, just glanced at Max smugly before sliding into the pilot’s seat and concentrating on the landing. Max feels vaguely like Charles has won something, although he can’t think of what.

Charles sets Max down gently outside the nearest field, smoothing his hands over the console as the engine powers down. “Thanks,” he says. “I liked—that was fun.”

“You’re good at it,” Max says honestly. Charles' touch is as deft and gentle when he’s directing Max as when he’s putting him back together, and while Max feels vaguely like he should be more unsettled by the lack of control it’s—different, when it’s Charles. When it’s someone Max chooses.

You have already made the hardest one. Max had spent most of the jump replaying that line to himself, turning it over to see if he could make new meaning out of it. He can’t—not yet—so he sets it to run in the background while Charles smiles self-deprecatingly.

“I had a good teacher,” he says modestly, and while Max is well aware that Charles' behavior toward him strays into flirting, he’s still unsure what Charles means by it. If he means anything at all; Max knows that it’s different for humans, that they sometimes flirt without ulterior motives or serious intent, just because it’s fun.

He can be fun for Charles. “I bet he’s handsome, this teacher,” he says, putting his onboard systems into low-power. He grins at Charles' sputter. “I bet he has great hair.”

“I did notice that you changed it again, yes,” Charles says primly.

Max swivels in his seat to face Charles, letting his grin deepen as he smooths a lock of blond hair upwards. “And?”

Charles throws his hands up. “And it looks great, you know it looks great, why are you like this.”

Max beams. He does know that his styling protocols were written to conform to human standards of beauty, but it sparks a deep note of satisfaction to hear Charles say it nonetheless.

“Charlie's opinion means a lot to me,” he says. It comes out teasing, as he intends, but he’s startled by how much he means it as well.

Charles scoffs, smiling as he levers himself up out of the pilot’s seat. “Come on,” he says, hand resting on Max’s shoulder briefly in passing. “Let’s see what your mystery settlement looks like.”

Unsurprisingly, it looks much like any other settlement: inner buildings constructed out of a disassembled colony pod, fading into native material further toward the edges. Max skims an eye over the fields as his boots hit the ground, spotting the heidrun right away on the wild edges of the settlement. In the cultivated fields he identifies sturdy grain crops, fast-growing squashes, and yes, lulu berries.

Which only leaves one item to be confirmed, and he crouches, reaching out and dragging his fingers through the dirt. The topsoil clings to his fingers, rich and loamy with a high clay content. He brings his hand back up toward his mouth.

“You are not going to—oh okay, you are, that is fine, you can just—lick the dirt, I guess,” Charles says, looking torn between put off and fascinated.

“I don’t carry a chemical lab on board,” Max says pointedly.

“So the chemical lab is… in your mouth, no, that is fine,” Charles says, and he’s kind of babbling but his eyes are fixed on Max’s lips. He stands, brushing his fingers off on his jumpsuit, and Charles averts his eyes as if he’s been caught out at something.

“So, uh.” Charles shifts the pack on his shoulders and looks back at Max. “Does it match the secret ingredient?”

“Perfectly,” Max says, waving at the small group of figures gathering near the edge of the settlement. “We’ve been spotted.”

Charles looks back at Max, silver and gleaming in the field behind them. “Yeah, well. You were not exactly subtle.”

“I’m plenty subtle,” Max shoots back, starting off toward the settlement. “I’m the most subtle.”

Charles snorts, falling in step. “You just licked the dirt, I do not think you get to make any claims there.”

“I licked my finger, not the dirt.” Max doesn’t know why this is an important distinction but it is; however they’re coming within earshot of the group waiting for them and this is not the first impression he wants to make. He puts on an easy smile, but lets it dim a bit when he sees the flat, wary lines on the settler’s faces.

“Hi,” he says with a little wave. The settlers glance among themselves and then a middle-aged woman with short black hair steps forward, the hard lines of her face set in a disapproving frown.

“What brings you here, travelers?” she says in short, clipped tones, and in terms of first contacts this is not shaping up to be Max’s most successful. He opens his mouth, already cycling through the hundreds of cover stories he has on file, all written for one but easily enough adapted for two.

Suddenly, though, none of them seem good enough and in the fraction of a second that he hesitates Max can see the woman’s frown deepen.

There’s a clink next to him and Max looks over to see Charles with his pack slung down around one arm, the other hand extending out with the half-empty bottle of liquor they’d purchased on Alpha Tauri.

“Did you make this?” he asks earnestly, face open and guileless, and Max supposes that they could go with the truth.

The woman peers at the bottle, and then back at Charles, her face easing up. “That came from our distillery. Where did you find it?”

“Alpha Tauri,” Charles answers easily, stowing the bottle back in the bag. “The seller promised us the best drink this side of the Core, and she was right. We just wanted to see where it came from.”

“And pick up a few crates at wholesale prices?” the woman asks dryly.

Charles blinks. “No, no, we really just wanted to see. I have never been to a place so—” he looks around, drawing in a breath. “New,” he concludes happily.

The woman’s shoulders relax minutely. “Fresh out of the Core?” she asks, and when Charles affirms, she nods her head sympathetically. “I know that look. We’ve all been there, which is why we’re here , now.” she says, gesturing vaguely around her.

Charles hums, nodding. “We do not want to disrupt your day, but we really are just here to visit.” His grin turns sly. “Although, if you do offer wholesale pricing—”

The woman laughs, unfolding her arms. “I knew we’d get there. Fine, fine; Sara—” she gestures a young woman over who looks very much like her. “Show these gentlemen around, and make sure to cover the distillery. The rest of you—show’s over,” she says, shooing to break up the small crowd that had gathered.

The young woman—Sara—waves them toward a well-packed dirt path that leads deeper into the settlement, and Charles easily falls in step, shrugging his pack back on his shoulders. Max follows at a slower pace as they strike up a conversation; it’s odd, to not be doing this part himself, but Charles seems to have things well in hand.

They’ve passed the outer ring of native buildings, Charles asking questions and Sara answering with increasing amusem*nt, when Max realizes they’re being followed.

He turns on his heel, and Charles stops mid-sentence. “Max?” he says, looking back, but Max is busy staring down their pursuer.

“Domesticated or feral?” he asks, and the small black cat sits down several paces away, watching them primly.

“Little bit of both, I’m afraid,” Sara says, turning around. “Descendants of the colony pod cats, you know.”

Max does know. They’re not his favorite part of settlements; the cats always seem to know what he is, staying out of reach no matter how their owners (or caretakers, in the more feral cases) try to coax them over.

“Aww.” Max looks over, and almost does a double-take at the entirely, utterly smitten look on Charles' face.

“You didn’t have cats on Prema-16?” he asks before he can stop himself.

“Shop cats, yard cats, sure,” Charles says, eyes fixed on the small black cat, now delicately washing her face. He crouches and extends a hand, and the cat looks up, then continues washing.

“Don’t mind him,” Sara says, amused. “She might follow you around but she doesn’t actually like people very much, not up close.”

“Pity,” Charles says, standing. “I like her. ”

Max looks back at the cat and tilts his head. The cat ignores him.

“The distillery is this way,” Sara says, turning back up the street. “We had to jury-rig a condenser but Liu said that if we didn’t build one, people would just be making alcohol in their bathtubs, and she’d rather people bathe.”

“Liu?” Charles says, long legs stretching to keep up.

Sara flashes him a grin, dimples creasing in her cheeks and somehow stabbing irritation into Max’s gut. “My mother. Who did you think you were talking to out front?”

“We haven’t been here before,” Max reminds her, a little too sharply as it turns out because she slants him an awkward glance before turning back to Charles.

“Well, now that you’re here, you can always come back,” she says, grin forming again. Charles ducks his head and smiles a little, and Max presses his lips together. Maybe coming here had been a mistake after all.

To add insult to injury, the cat is still following them. Max catches a glimpse of it when they turn a corner, keeping them in sight but staying well out of reach.

He has bigger concerns than one strong-minded cat, however. Word has spread quickly—it always does, through small settlements with few visitors—and he fields quite a few curious glances and more than one of outright suspicion. This is not entirely unusual; far-flung settlements are fiercely independent by nature, and Max has spent weeks and sometimes months among them, earning trust and planting the seeds for the Company Agents who’d followed to reap. He and Charles will only be here for the day, maybe overnight if Charles is really taken with the place. Max can weather a few hostile stares.

Nevertheless, it would be stupid not to keep his ears open, and he catches fragments of conversation as they move through the small town.

“—landed right on the edge of the field—”

“—sleek-looking thing, never seen the like—”

“—heard they come in ones, not twos—”

Max doesn’t let his stride break as he directs his attention toward that last thread, but the conversation has moved out of range and he doesn’t dare turn around to try and track it down. Heard they come in ones, not twos.

That could mean anything, Max tries to reason, but the most likely explanation—and the most dangerous—is that it means him .

Still. No one’s directly tried to throw them out, and as Max follows Sara and Charles into a medium-sized outbuilding he flexes his leg enough to feel the pulser strapped to his thigh. He’d cut the seam in the pocket for access himself, and practiced until the draw no longer snagged on the leg of his jumpsuit. It’s not quite as fast as an external carry, but it does have the element of surprise.

Max doesn’t need a pulser to do damage, of course, but he’s found that it paints a very convincing visual and usually precludes the need for more damage.

Which is something he’s trying to avoid these days, and if all goes as it should, the pulser strapped to his thigh will be a needless precaution. Nevertheless, Max is glad he has it, and vaguely wishes he could bully Charles into wearing his more often.

Charles hands him a glass and Max takes it automatically, only looking down into the ruby-red contents after the glass starts to sweat in his hand.

“Apparently it is best served chilled,” Charles says, gesturing with his own glass. The interior of the homegrown distillery is lined with refrigerated cases ready to be shipped, and as Max looks around Sara pours her own glass and sets a bottle very similar to the ones they’d bought on Alpha Tauri aside.

“Cheers,” she says, lifting her glass, and Charles lifts his as well. Max follows suit a moment later, draining his glass in one go. When he lowers it, he sees a flash of relief in Sara’s eyes over the rim of her own glass.

So she had suspected something: about Max, or Charles, or both. Max won’t disabuse her of the notion, but he’d have been very poor at fitting in if his body hadn’t been able to absorb and break down at least some nutrients. Besides, it also lets him grow his hair, which he’s come to appreciate on an aesthetic level as well as a functional one.

Charles is murmuring something about the drink indeed being better when cold, and Max reaches out and pours himself another glass, ignoring Sara’s raised eyebrows.

“Are you sure you want that?” she says. “The homebrew is stronger than the stuff we ship out.”

It won’t make any difference to Max, but if eating or drinking is what it takes to convince the settlement that he’s something other than what he is, he’ll drink the whole bottle and follow it up with half the settlement’s stored grain.

“Why do you think I’m rolling into a second glass?” he says with a half-smile. He forgoes the wink he might usually add; he’s not sure she would believe it out of him at this point, and that’s not why they’re here.

Charles is watching him, eyebrows raised, and Max lifts his glass in a half-salute before wandering away to inspect the rest of the distillery. The still is well put together; someone here is a half-decent mechanic, or at least a competent welder. He shakes his head, stepping back from the still and trying to see it as Charles would. It’s… charming? Possibly? Max knows the dictionary definition for that word, and he can stretch his way to seeing its application here, he thinks.

“...really incredible, what you do out here,” Charles is saying as Max ambles back over. He sounds genuinely enthused, and Max is torn between a deep satisfaction that he’s successfully found something Charles likes, and the vague prickle of irritation Sara’s smile puts in his stomach. He can’t really blame her; Charles' smile outshines the sun in a cloudless sky—even if they’re small and barely seen most of the time, and right now it’s overcast outside. Anyone would be drawn to it. It’s not her fault that she doesn’t know Charles is—

Max stops, skidding up against a blank space in his protocols. Charles is—he rifles through his encoded relationship files, but nothing in them matches what he feels, what he knows about Charles.

Charlesis—

Charles is Max’s pilot, and that’s all that anyone, Max included, needs to know. Max feels a wave of relief rush through him as he gets that sorted out.

“Max?” Charles takes the few steps that close the distance between them, leaning close. “You are pinking up again, is it too warm in here?”

It isn’t. “Maybe,” Max says, draining the rest of his drink. He sets the glass aside and puts on his third most amiable grin for Sara. “I do think I could use the fresh air, though; any chance we could see the rest of your setup here?”

Sara nods, swallowing what’s left in her glass and looking to Charles. He raises his still half-full glass doubtfully.

“You weren’t kidding when you said this stuff was stronger,” he says. “Give me a minute?”

Sara dimples again. “Take your time.” Max fights not to roll his eyes.

The cat is waiting for them. Although she trots away to a safe distance when the door opens, she watches their small group exit the building with every evidence of interest. Sara ignores the cat and so Max chooses to as well; Charles once more attempts to woo her, but he is not any more successful than the first time. Eventually he stands and rejoins Max and Sara, dejection apparent in every line of his body.

The rest of the tour doesn’t take long; the settlement isn’t that big. Charles follows along with every appearance of fascination, asking both insightful questions and ones that seem very obvious to Max. But, Max reminds himself, Charles is Core-born and Prema-16 is far from pastoral.

“The shopkeep on Alpha Tauri mentioned a secret ingredient,” Charles says after a walking tour of the grain field and the berry patch. “I see lulu berries, and I see heidrun—what else is in that liquor? I promise I won’t tell,” he says earnestly.

Sara laughs. “You wouldn’t believe me if I did tell you.”

“I will not believe you if you tell me it’s dirt,” Charles says with a sidelong glance and a half-smile for Max.

Sara’s smile goes faintly puzzled. “It’s not dirt. It’s—” She looks around, even though they’re surrounded by nothing but meters of berry bushes, and leans forward. “Purified water.”

Max’s eyebrows climb. “Purified water?”

She beams. “I told you you wouldn’t believe me. And it’s funny you should mention dirt, because the way it’s purified—come on, I’ll just show you.”

Sara leads them to an outbuilding set a little ways away from the nearest ring of structures. It’s more of a barn than the nearby houses, and with the door slightly ajar Max can hear the faint whine of mechanics. This must be where the resident engineer has set up shop, and indeed when Sara pushes the door open a large workbench dominates one entire end of the building, scattered with tools and partially-assembled pieces of machinery. Even the workbench, however, is overshadowed by the assembly at the other end of the building, a complex assemblage of tubing and reservoirs and drainage that Max can just about make sense of.

“Lance?” Sara calls, and a head pops up from behind the assemblage.

“Sara! And… ” The man pauses, smile going a little puzzled. “Strangers.”

“Visitors,” Sara corrects gently. “This is Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen—” Max distinctly does not remember giving her his name, Charles must have done it, “—and we’re here to see your filtration system.”

“Oh, bad timing then,” Lance says, shaking his head. “I can walk you through it but the reduction coil is acting up so the back half is completely dead.” Max casts an eye over the assemblage; half of it is lit up and bubbling, but a significant portion lies dark and still.

“What kind of coil? Radium?” Charles asks, sliding his pack off his shoulders and circling around to peer at where Lance is working. “They can be touchy, you want to make sure it is grounded properly.”

“Finally, someone who knows what he’s talking about,” Lance says, beckoning Charles closer. “What did you say your name was? It’s in behind the heat sink,” he says, not waiting for an answer as Charles bends his head close.

Max moves up next to Sara. “A clay filtration system, taking advantage of the native soil. Clever.” He pauses, eying Lance. “Is he always like that?”

Sara folds her arms and smiles. “Lance has his priorities, and people are rarely one of them. Is he always so—” she trails off, and when Max glances over her eyes are on Charles, who has his brow furrowed in concentration as he follows Lance’s gesturing.

“Charlie has his priorities,” Max says, allowing a trace of fondness. “And people are always one of them.”

Sara sighs wistfully. “You’re lucky, then,” she says, and Max looks at her in surprise.

“You’re not subtle,” she says dryly, and Max blinks. “And I’m not blind, but I’m thinking you might be if you think he has eyes for me over you.”

Max looks at Charles, now reaching into the purification system’s casing, and back at Sara. “I don’t—” know what you’re talking about , is what the rest of that sentence is supposed to be, but there’s a heavy pulse of sound, on the lower range of Max’s hearing, and static scrapes up his spine and every nerve. The lights flicker and the room spins, and Max can just about hear Lance’s crow of triumph over the hissing, screaming emptiness in his head.

He sways on his feet, vision blurring, and he’s never thrown up but he feels like he might have to learn how. His senses scrabble against the inside of his skull but he can’t access any of his systems, can’t run a diagnostic to find out what’s wrong, can’t even feel the breeze across his plating the way he could a few seconds ago.

He can’t—all he can feel is this semi-organic body, he realizes with mounting horror. He’s chained to the ground, a prisoner of gravity in a way he’s never been before, and he can feel the scream building in his throat when a warm hand lands abruptly on his shoulder.

“Max,” Charles says, alarm threaded through his voice. Max blinks, fighting through the confusion in his senses until he can see the lines of tension drawn tight across Charles' face.

“Is this what you feel like… all the time?” Max gets out faintly, and Charles' face clears in horrified realization.

“Boy’s got some implants? They’ll be back online in a few; a pulse that weak shouldn’t scramble anything permanently,” Lance says, coming out from behind the now fully-lit assemblage and wiping his hands on a rag. “Should’ve asked before it turned back on, but we don’t get many Core-folk out here.”

Max wavers again on his feet and Charles' arm slides around his waist, pulling him close. Max presses in against him; he’s shaking now, he can feel the tremor running through him from the roots of his hair to the soles of his feet but he can’t seem to stop it, even when Charles' hand presses firmly against his back.

“...some fancy work done, and the two glasses probably didn’t help...” Charles is saying, but all Max can think about is how alone he feels in this body. He turns his face into Charles' neck and breathes in. That helps. Charles starts, but his hand firms on Max's back, pulling him more solidly against Charles' body.

“I should get him back, let him sleep it off,” Max hears Charles say, and the ground tilts underneath Max’s feet. This isn’t permanent, he reminds himself, this shouldn’t be permanent, and proximity should help him reconnect but what if, what if, what if—

“Max, are you hearing me?” Charles murmurs gently into Max’s hair, breath warm against his ear. “We are going to go back now, okay?”

Max shivers. He can just about manage the thought of walking back to where he’d landed, but if the connection hasn’t restored itself by then—

“Don’t let go,” he says into Charles' neck, and Charles' hand tightens on Max’s back.

“I will not,” he promises, something fierce in his voice. He leans over enough to snag his pack, and then straightens, sliding his hand down around Max’s waist.

“Thank you for the tour, for everything,” Charles says politely, his feet already moving, and Max forces his own to follow. He manages to lift his head enough to catch Sara’s wary gaze, her lips pressed flat and her arms folded, but Charles doesn’t stop, pulling Max out into the cloud-spotted afternoon. He shudders—had it always been this bright out here?—and Charles' hand tightens around his waist.

“I got you,” he murmurs, and the promise in his voice feels like the only real thing Max has left.

The trip back to where he’d landed must take only minutes, but Max’s internal timekeeping units aren’t responding and it seems like several lightyears before they’re leaving the cultivated rows of grain behind and entering the muddy outfield. The clouds shift for a moment, sunlight glinting off of silver plating; Max hears a wounded noise, and it takes Charles' soothing murmur against his hair before he realizes it came from himself.

“Almost there, you got it,” Charles is saying, nonsense words that don’t mean anything except for how they’re the only thing keeping Max grounded. “It just takes a few minutes for things to come back up from a boot, that’s all—"

“It’s been a few minutes,” Max jokes, although he isn’t at all sure how long it’s been.

“Then give it a few more,” Charles responds immediately, warm and soothing and as long as he keeps talking maybe Max can take another step, and then another, until—

Electricity prickles underneath Max’s skin and between lifting one boot of the ground and setting it back down Max’s vision doubles, muscles going taut and then limp as his systems come back online in a rush. He sags, Charles' arm around his waist the only thing holding him up until Max can get his feet back underneath him.

“Thank f*ck, ” he gasps as his vision clears. Relief swells in his chest, larger than his skin can contain until his eyes start leaking, and he blinks away wetness as the ground resteadies underneath him. Charles' arm tightens around Max’s waist, and then loosens again, starting to withdraw. Max grabs frantically for his hand, and Charles stills instantly as Max’s fingers close around his.

“Don’t—don’t let go yet,” Max says desperately as his systems cascade back into run-state. The world dips around him again and resettles, and Charles' fingers tighten fiercely.

“Not until you are ready,” he promises, and he really shouldn’t promise things like that, because Max might never be ready.

He can’t think about that right now, though. All he has room for is getting back to where he belongs, and he breaks into a half-jog, then as much of a run as his legs will give him, dragging Charles along with him. Charles follows close on his heels, and Max snaps up the boarding ramp behind them as soon as Charles' last boot leaves the ground. True to his word Charles doesn’t let go until Max is sinking into his co-pilot ’s seat, legs shaking as he spreads his hands on the console to accelerate the resync.

Even running system check after system check can’t distract from the crowd gathering at the edge of the settlement, and Max focuses enough to see Sara with her head bent close to Liu’s. Sara gestures toward Max and Max draws in a sharp breath.

“Get us out of here,” he says to Charles, who is hesitantly settling into the pilot’s seat.

“You want—me? Don’t you want to—" Charles starts, and there’s no time for this.

“Please,” Max says, and Charles' eyes widen. “I can’t—I’ve never come up from a hard reset like this, we need to get out of here now. ”

“Alright,” Charles says, his voice soft with something that Max doesn’t have the processing power to decipher. He settles his hands gently on Max’s controls, grip firming as Max’s engine powers up. Charles pulls him up and away with an assurance that sends shivers down Max’s spine, and the last view Max has of the settlers is Liu shading her eyes to look after them as Charles takes them up into the upper atmosphere.

Something drips onto the console and Max blinks furiously, but he doesn’t dare lift his hands and interrupt the resync so he lets the tears drip silently down his face as his processes tick fully back up into being. Charles sets a course aiming out into the vastness of space, enough to take them safely out of gravity’s range, and lifts his hands from the board with a noise of dismay.

Max looks over but Charles is looking back at him with alarm, and before Max can ask what’s wrong Charles is leaning over, one hand coming up to Max’s face.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly, thumb brushing across his cheekbone, and Max blinks. He doesn’t know what Charles has to be sorry about, but Charles' face is creasing in self-recrimination. “I should have known when I saw that reduction coil in upside down, what it would do when it released the charge, but I didn’t think it through and f*ck, Max, I am so sorry,” he says wretchedly. “Is there—I can not make it up to you, but tell me what I can do to help.”

“Don’t leave,” Max says quietly. He doesn’t know why it’s so important that Charles stay—it’s not like he can go very far—but Max’s running himself close to overload and he frankly doesn’t care to interrogate useless questions like why. The lights under his hands circle to indicate completion, and Max lifts his hands reluctantly from the board, settling back into the copilot’s chair and letting a shudder work through him. This body doesn’t often feel tired, but even though exhaustion is creeping through his limbs he opens up subsystems one by one and starts running through them.

“I will not,” Charles whispers, and when Max looks over, his dark eyes reflect the lights spinning in Max’s own.

Maybe Max is still suffering some of the aftereffects of disconnection; it’s the only explanation he has for why Charles is suddenly too far away even leaning in close as he is. Charles' hands work worriedly against one another, and Max remembers them strong against his side, remembers pressing his face into Charles' neck. It had helped before. Surely it would help again, help settle this yawing ache inside of him.

“You can also—” Max sets his hands on the arms of the chair. “You can hold still.”

Charles sits back as Max pushes himself up, brows drawing down—and then he freezes as Max slides a knee onto the pilot’s chair.

“Max?” he asks very carefully as Max turns and settles himself on Charles' lap. He lets himself sink into Charles, folding his arms over his stomach and pressing his face into Charles' shoulder, breathing in deeply. He smells of the grass and dirt of the planet they’ve left behind, of the cheap detergent and soap they’d picked up on Alpha Tauri, of warmth and a security Max hasn’t known since he left the Company behind. Maybe ever. It helps, and Max does it again, drawing that scent in and letting it curl in his lungs.

“Max?” Charles repeats, even as his arm settles cautiously around Max’s back. He shifts, settling further in, and Charles' arm tightens around him.

“I don’t know how you stand it,” Max says into Charles' skin. “Being so small.”

Charles blows out a laugh that’s barely more than a breath, his free arm settling across Max's legs. “Might be the first time someone’s ever called me that,” he says lightly.

“I guess you don’t have a choice,” Max sniffs, letting routines and subroutines take up all of his background processing power until all he has room for is Charles' arms warm and solid around him, holding him steady.

“Not in this, I’m afraid.” Charles' voice is quiet, hushed like they’re trading secrets instead of having a mostly nonsense conversation. His thumb rubs back and forth over Max’s kneecap in a rhythm Max can almost understand.

Charles' hand pauses. Max frowns, but then the hand lifts and brushes over his face again, wiping away wetness. Charles turns his hand and presses the back of his fingers to Max’s cheek.

“You are warm. Warmer than usual. I mean—” the concern in Charles' voice gives way to a slight fluster and Max puts him out of his misery.

“Cooling system. I’m running a lot of processes.”

Charlespauses. “How many?”

All of them. Just in case. “I won’t crash, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ll be done soon.” Relatively.

Charles' hand drops away from Max’s cheek as he shifts, settling them more comfortably in the pilot’s chair.

“Take as long as you need,” he says, turning his face slightly into Max’s hair. “I am not going anywhere.” Max sighs. His timekeeping units are back online but he thinks that if they weren’t, he might be able to set them by the steady beat of Charles' heart, steadfast and sure in a way that Max had once been.

“They’re right to be afraid,” he murmurs. Charles makes a faint negative sound but Max knows it’s true.

“Not of you,” Charles says, and he sounds so convinced that Max almost laughs.

“Yes, of me,” he says, lifting his head. “I told you that I’m what happens when someone tells the Company no. Me, or another one like me. Sara knew, or at least she suspected.”

Charles' brows are drawn together, his eyes dark and limitless in the reflected light of the console. “You did, though,” he says, quietly stubborn. “You did tell the Company no.”

“I barely survived it,” Max says, and doesn’t say that there had been a moment when he’d hoped he wouldn’t, when he couldn’t see how anything could hurt that much and still keep going. “And I didn’t have to do it in person—I just disappeared off the map.”

“Well. Let’s not put you back on it, then,” Charles says, mouth lifting in a smile gentler than his words would suggest. His lips look unbearably soft from this close, and Max wonders what it would be like to close that distance between them, to press his lips to Charles' and learn the shape of his mouth with his own. Max’s never seen the appeal before. He thinks he does now.

His own lips part, and Charles' gaze flicks down. There’s a moment where Max can feel Charles' heartbeat stutter in his chest—and Max doesn’t even mind when Charles sighs and tuck’s Max’s head back down against his shoulder because Charles had wanted to. He hadn’t done it, but for a moment he had thought about kissing Max and that’s enough to spin what little processing power Max has left into overdrive.

Max has traded on his looks before to get a job done; there have been people who’ve wanted to kiss him and he’s even let some of them, but it has always been a means to an end. Charles is an end in himself, Max thinks dizzily as he feels his cheeks heat again. It’s not the same. Maxis not the same.

They’ll have to set a new course eventually. They can’t drift forever in the darkness between stars; but Max feels safe out here, bathed in starlight and held warm in Charles' arms. Charles himself doesn’t seem to be in any hurry, resting his chin against the top of Max’s head, heartbeat settling into a strong, steady rhythm. Max can feel Charles' chest moving underneath him, and he breathes along in sync, even when Charles' slows and enters the long pattern of sleep. Max’s processes have finished but he stays where he is for a long time, his own biorhythms settling to the rise and fall of Charles' chest and the heartbeat underneath.

Chapter 5: Charles

Chapter Text

When Charles wakes his legs are stiff and sore but Max is back in the co-pilot’s seat, feet kicked up on the console and gaze contemplative out on the slow-moving stars.

“Wh—” Charles yawns, and tries again. “What?” That could have come out more coherent.

Max glances at him, face calm and composed as if he’d never crawled into Charles' lap. “You fell asleep.”

Helpful. “Thanks.” Charles rubs a hand over his eyes. “How long was I out?”

“Less than two hours.” Max returns his gaze to the viewport. “You’ll want to get some real sleep.”

That’s probably a good idea. Charles goes to lever himself up, pausing with his hands on the arms of the pilot’s seat. “Are you going to be—” alright alone, is what he means to ask, but that suddenly doesn’t seem to be the right thing to say.

Max’s mouth curls up, eyes filled with reflected starlight. “I’ll be here when you wake up,” is all he says, and Charles supposes that will have to be enough. He pushes himself the rest of the way up, pressing his hand briefly on Max’s shoulder in passing. If Max wants to be—well, as alone as he can get with Charles… inside him…

Charlesshakes his head to clear it as he exits the co*ckpit. He needs more sleep. He’s not thinking straight.

He can feel exhaustion creeping through his veins as he makes his way back to his tiny cabin. He rubs his eyes again as the door whispers open, trying to ease the dry, gritty feeling, and when he drops his hands he blinks to dispel the spots in his vision.

The spot over his bunk does not dispel. In fact, it lifts its head and gives him an inquisitive, bright-eyed look.

Charlesblinks.

He presses a hand to his eyes again, but when he drops it there’s still a small black cat in the middle of his bed, watching him with alert eyes and forward-tilted ears, as if she hadn’t disdained all of his attempts at friendliness, as if she hadn’t followed him onboard.

Charles wonders if Max knows she’s here. He must, right? But he’d been pretty out of it when they had left the settlement…

They’re not going back. He hasn’t said as much to Max but they are never going back there, not if what Max says about Sara’s suspicions is true. If that makes Charles a cat-napper then so be it.

“I cannot deal with you right now,” Charles says to the cat, and she tilts her head at him but doesn’t move as he approaches. She watches curiously as he takes off his boots and his outer layers; Charles' fingers smooth over the faint damp spot where Max’s head had pressed against his shoulder and his mouth flattens.

He won’t be so careless again. It’s not that he forgets that Max isn’t human; it’s more like he forgets that Max isn’t untouchable, that for all that he’s been built to navigate the wild unknown by himself he’s also vulnerable in ways that Charles isn’t. The memory of Max’s lips parting barely a breath away from his own springs to mind unbidden, and Charles shoves the coveralls viciously in the small washer unit, setting the cycle to clean. Max had been hurting, and afraid, and he had turned to Charles for comfort; and Charles had nearly ruined all of that with some stupid hormonal desire.

Charles sighs, and turns to slide into bed. The cat gives him an affronted look as he gently nudges her away from the center of the bunk, picking up and resettling at the foot of the bed, a small warm weight against his foot. He can feel a tired grin stretching across his face even as he palms the lights off; at least one good thing came out of that muddy little settlement.

“You have a name? I guess you can’t tell me,” he says, yawning as he draws the coverlet up over his shoulders. “We will think of something later,” he murmurs inanely as his eyes sink closed.

The next thing he knows there’s something soft batting at his face, and Charles frowns, turning his face into the pillow. The batting takes on the faint prick of claws and Charles grumbles drowsily, turning to meet an expectant stare and a raised paw.

“Alright,” he mutters, blinking blearily at the time. He’s been asleep long enough that he should probably get up anyway. “Alright, alright, I am getting up,” he says, fending off another gentle swipe.

A short turn at the ‘fresher unit and the sink later he’s getting dressed, pulling his boots on and heading toward the galley. Surely there will be something there a cat can eat, Charles reasons, trying to remember what he’d stocked it with. The cat trots along next to him, tail upright and swinging slightly with his gait. Lights circle in the wall next to them, keeping pace with their progress, and then Max’s voice sounds all around him.

“What is that,” he says flatly, voice echoing slightly in the hallway, and Charles grins.

“A stowaway,” he says, leaning down slowly. The cat suffers herself to be picked up, and Charles cradles her carefully before holding her toward the rotating lights in the wall. “She’s cute, though, right?”

The lights contract and expand, circling like Max’s eyes when they’re lit with internal processing. Max makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like “hmph,” and the lights cut out abruptly.

The cat wiggles in his hands and he puts her down immediately, hands smoothing across her back. “You are cute,” he tells her. “He likes you too.”

The galley yields a couple likely looking cans of “meat product,” and Charles puts some down for the cat. He leans against the counter, munching on his breakfast as he watches her pick delicately at her own.

“Mao,” he tries, and she glances up for half a second before returning to her food. “Hmm, no. Pao?” The cat doesn’t even dignify that one with a response. Very sassy of her when she's the one who followed him here.

“I will keep thinking about it,” he promises him. She does need a name, but Charles is willing to wait for one that sounds right.

Max is, predictably, in the copilot’s seat when Charles enters the co*ckpit. His glance between the cat and Charles is thoroughly unimpressed, but he turns his chair around and leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees.

“Followed you, did she?” he says, locking eyes with the cat, who sits back and meets his gaze peacefully.

“Followed us,” Charles corrects, and Max snorts.

“Nah, I’m pretty sure that was all you,” he says, not breaking eye contact with the cat. “Cats don’t like me. They know.”

“I know,” Charles points out. “I am still here.”

“You’re different,” Max says after a moment, and Charles would dearly love to know what that pause had meant.

He doesn’t get a chance to ask, though, because the cat is moving towards Max, small paws making no sound on the deck. Max holds very still—Charles can’t see his chest move at all—as she stretches up and rubs her face gently across Max's dangling hands.

“Sassy,” Charles decides, and the cat starts to purr, soft but audible above the hum of the engine through the deck. “For her name,” he says when Max glances up.

Max strokes a hand carefully over her head and Sassy purrs louder. The look on Max’s face is so tentative, so fragile that Charles wants to kiss it away, to overwrite whatever had told Max he couldn’t have this.

Charles drops into the pilot’s chair, and Sassy leaves Max and hops up into Charles' lap almost immediately, settling down in a warm circle on his legs. Max doesn’t look too put out by this, leaning back in his seat and tucking hair strands behind his ears. It’s getting longer now; Charles would offer to cut it again but he thinks Max likes the length. Charles knows that he certainly does.

“Where are we headed?” he asks instead of following that line of thought. He strokes a hand over Sassy’s head and she pushes into it; he grins and digs his fingers gently into her ruff.

“Haas,” Max says after a moment, but when Charles glances up he’s spun himself back to the copilot’s board, pulling up a starchart. “Here.” He points and Charles leans forward to see. Sassy jumps down at the movement, tail disappearing under the control board as she goes to investigate the corners of the co*ckpit.

“I do not know that one,” Charles admits, and Max slides the chart over his way.

“It’s uninhabited, barely on the map. But the native plant life is interesting, and I thought—” Max pauses and Charles looks up.

“You thought?” he prompts, and Max’s brow creases.

“I thought that we might use the sublights to get there. It’s not far,” he adds quickly. “Just a couple of standard cycles.”

Which would mean less than an hour by rad-drive. “I would not mind that at all,” Charles says honestly. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a breather.”

“Yeah.” Max looks relieved, and Charles wonders briefly why he would have ever thought that Charles would say no to this, would say no to him.

A small paw snakes out from below the copilot’s board and bats at Max’s ankle, and he looks down in surprise before bending his head down to look beneath the console.

“I don’t have any rodents for you,” he says to her. “But if you can help keep this one in line, I think we can come to an agreement, yeah?” He jerks his head at Charles.

“Hey,” Charles protests, and Max lifts his head with a smug grin.

“She agrees with me,” he says, and Sassy pokes her head out, looking between Max and Charles.

“I feed you, and this is the thanks you are going to give me? Betrayal.” Charles shakes his head sadly, leaning forward and extending out his hand. Sassy comes out and sniffs it, before pushing into his hand for further pettings. “Oh I see, now you are saying that we are friends again,” he laughs.

“She has good taste, who wouldn’t like you,” Max says, sending the starchart away, and there’s a note in his voice that makes Charles look up but by the time he does, Max’s face has settled into easy, teasing lines.

So they’re not going to talk about it, about last night. Charles almost pushes, but he’s been doing that a lot to Max lately, and maybe it’s time he just lets Max be, let him come to whatever conclusions he’s going to come to on his own terms. The journey toHaas will take several days at sublight speeds; there’s no rush on an uncomfortable conversation.

Max certainly doesn’t seem to be in any hurry. He watches interestedly as Charles sets up a litter box and a little bed for Sassy, listens gravely as Charles points out what she can and can’t eat, and while he occasionally slants her a sidelong glance when she jumps up into Charles' lap he never once alludes to the fact that he’d once sought out the same place, exactly like a cat. Maybe he’d rather forget it; if Max can forget anything, that is. Max was completely self-sufficient until Charles had come along—or nearly so, Charles thinks, remembering the cracked and burned casing where Max’s Purpose had once sat.

“You want me to take a look at the casing?” he asks Max into their second day of travel. “For your Purpose,” he clarifies when Max looks up from where he’s down on one knee.

His immediate reaction is no, if the look on his face is anything to go by, but it goes contemplative as he dangles the string again for Sassy. He catches it in her jaws and he lets her drag it away to a corner as he bites his lower lip.

“You said it still hurts,” Charles prompts.

Max runs a hand through his hair, looking after Sassy. “It does,” he admits quietly.

“You do not have to live like that,” Charles says, and Max glances up at him before his gaze skitters away again. “Let me help.”

Max blows out a breath. “Alright,” he says reluctantly, which is how Charles ends up on his knees before a familiar access panel with Max sitting next to him, watching with barely concealed apprehension.

“Tell me immediately if something feels bad, alright?” Charles says as the hatch seams open.

“Mm.” Max runs his tongue over his lower lip and that doesn’t sound exactly like agreement but it might be as close as Charles is going to get. He flicks a little stylus light on, peering into the hatch to get a better look at the damage. He’d only had a cursory glimpse before, but a closer inspection indicates that there had been some electroclamps holding the board in place, likely the kind with an override somewhere else, if the blowback pattern is any indication. Max must have ripped it right out of himself without disengaging anything, judging from the amount of sooty residue. No wonder it had hurt.

Charles folds his legs, and reaches for a clean cloth he’d fetched especially for this purpose. “I am going to wipe away the char, okay? You can tell me to stop at any time.” Max nods shortly, hands clasped tightly over his stomach, and Charles reaches in.

He keeps up a running narration interspersed with encouragement and praise, describing what he’s doing as he’s doing it. He thinks it helps; Max’s fingers go a little less white-knuckled as Charles wipes the casing carefully down, as he discards the dirty cloth and reaches for his fuser. Max makes a little noise at the first touch of the fuser to his split-open casing, and Charles pulls back immediately, but Max is already shaking his head.

“It’s fine,” he says, and that doesn’t sound entirely true but maybe not in the way Charles is afraid of; Max’s eyes have already started to take on the glassy tint they’d had the last time Charles had replaced a part for him.

“Keep—” Max swallows. “Keep going,” he says, voice firming, and Charles takes him at his word. He bends his head to his work, first smoothing the fractured plating around the empty port and dismantling the broken catches. He hesitates, looking at the blackened socket.

“Do you want that capped? I’ve got some universal ones here, just a minute.” He digs in his toolbag and comes up with an appropriately-sized softcap, handing it to Max. “It is nonconductive and removable, but filling that gap might stop some of the raw feedback you are getting.”

Max turns the cap over with hands that are just barely shaking, then hands it back to Charles. “Sure,” he says, in a voice so low Charles has to strain to hear it. “I trust you.”

The cap seems to double in weight in Charles' hands, and his fingers tighten around it before he deliberately uncurls them. He leans forward, fitting the cap carefully into the port and tearing the strip of the back to activate it. Max gasps next to him as the cap expands and hardens, filling the port with an inert black plastoid. Charles hurriedly withdraws, but Max has his head tilted back against the wall and his eyes screwed shut and the look on his face is— not pain, Charles is pretty sure.

“Max? Are you hurt?” he asks, just in case, ready to remove the cap if his guess had been wrong and he’s made things worse.

Max laughs breathlessly, and if his eyes are a little wet when he opens them it’s not Charles' place to comment. “No,” he says wonderingly. “It feels—I thought I’d gotten used to it but now it’s gone and—” he laughs again, pushing himself up and bouncing on his toes.

“I feel good,” he says, spinning on one heel in a little dance. Charles smiles, sealing up the hatch and putting his tools away.

“Well, we know how you react to repairs, so I am sure that is a part of ooookay what,” Charles says as Max grabs him by the hand and spins him up and around.

“I feel great,” Max enthuses, taking Charles' hands and pulling him into a little bouncing two-step. “C’mon, let’s celebrate.”

“Oh, so now you can dance?” Charles says, smile growing as Max pulls them around the corridor.

“I can do a lot of things,” Max huffs, but the effect is undercut by his wide, goofy grin as he spins himself under Charles' arm.

“There’s not even any—oh, okay, you know what, that is cheating,” Charles declares as music fills the hallway, the vaguely familiar beat coming from everywhere and nowhere as Max laughs.

“I thought you knew that about me,” he says, pulling Charles close and throwing a loose arm around his shoulders. Charles inhales sharply but Max doesn’t seem to notice, hips moving the beat. “I thought you knew I was a cheater.” He grins wide and loose; this close Charles can see that his eyes are blown wide and Charles thinks about the way Max gets during repairs, about the sudden absence of a pain thought inescapable.

“You are drunk,” Charles says, hand turning in Max’s grip to clasp it even as his other comes up to lift Max’s arm from around his shoulders.

Max tilts his head. “I can’t get drunk,” he says.

“High, then. You are not in your right mind,” Charles says gently, and Max frowns.

“I’m completely functional,” he says loftily, and then ruins it by giggling.

“Yeah okay. Come on, you need to sleep this off,” Charles says, pulling Max down the hallway, scooping up his toolbag on the way.

There’s a thinking quality to the silence behind him, and then: “I want to claim my prize,” Max announces, and Charles blinks.

“Prize?” He doesn’t remember any contest, unless—

“From the race. On Ferrari. I won, and for my prize, I want to sleep with you,” Max announces confidently as Charles trips over the flat deck.

What. “What,” Charles says faintly.

“I want to sleep. On your bed. With you,” Max says as if explaining things to a small child, as if he’s not doing wildly dangerous things to Charles' heart right now.

“You do not even sleep,” Charles points out inanely, but Max has already moved past him, tugging him along the hallway.

“I have a low-power state,” Max says, looking back over his shoulder, and that’s a dirty trick and Charles is absolutely falling for it, for Max. This is a bad idea. This is a dangerous idea, but the door to Charles' cabin is already sliding open and Max is striding inside, and Charles doesn’t know how to do anything but follow.

Max lets go of Charles' hand as the door shuts behind them, climbing onto his bunk and turning to sit sideways across it, and this—okay this might be alright. Charles had not been at all sure that he could handle Max draped over him—and with as narrow as the bunk is, there’s not room for much else—but if Max just wants to sit together, that’s probably manageable.

Max gestures impatiently and Charles huffs softly, setting his toolbag down and bending to take off his boots. Max tilts his head, and when Charles looks up again he’s removing his own boots, letting them clunk carelessly to the floor. Max flexes his feet, clad in thermal socks, and Charles thinks despairingly that he must be really far gone if he finds even this charming.

Max looks up, raising his eyebrows, and Charles slides cautiously onto the bed, settling next to Max. He gets an arm wrapped immediately around his own for his trouble, Max pulling him close until the safest place Charles can rest his hand is Max’s knee. Max sighs, resting his head on Charles' shoulder, his feet still bouncing slightly as he hums the melody of the music he’d been playing. Maybe it’s Max’s fingers tapping out the beat against his arm, or maybe his brain is just trying to think about something, anything other than Max pressed happily and pliantly against him, but Charles finally makes the connection.

“That was playing in the bar, wasn’t it?” he asks. “The night we met,” he says when Max looks up at him.

“Yes. And this one,” Max says, switching to a slightly slower tempo beat and Charles blinks.

“We talked for a while,” he says. “Do you remember all the songs that played?”

“Of course,” Max says as if it’s obvious. “Don’t you?”

Charles laughs. “I am afraid it’s not working like that for me.”

Max hooks his chin over Charles' shoulder. “Then tell me how it works. Tell me what you remember.”

“Um.” You were incredibly handsome and I let it cloud my judgment. “I thought you were a salesman.”

Max laughs. “You did. It was hilarious.”

“You did not do much to correct me,” Charles says dryly.

“It was funny. And,” Max says, somehow moving closer. “We’ve already established that I’m a cheater.”

“You needed a pilot,” Charles says, and Max nods, still humming. “I bet anyone in that bar would have followed you out. Why me?”

Max quiets, thumb tapping out a now inscrutable rhythm against Charles' wrist. It’s something Charles tries not to think about too much; what if is not something he cares to indulge in but he can’t imagine not having this, and the thought of how close he came to never meeting Max at all is—

“I needed a pilot,” Max says slowly, and Charles lets him talk it out. “And you looked…” he trails off, and Charles turns his hand so he can loosely intertwine his fingers with Max’s. He almost doesn’t push. But he wants to know, wants to know what stroke of luck brought him this adventure, this companionship.

If that’s all this ever is, that will be more than enough. But Charles wants to know.

“Yeah?” he prompts softly.

“Kind,” Max says quietly, and Charles feels the breath leave his lungs in a rush.

He doesn’t pretend that he can imagine what Max’s life was like before. But for kindness to be the quality that drew Max to Charles over anyone else—

He squeezes Max’s fingers. “You are never going back there,” he promises, and he’s aware that that’s a larger promise than he might be capable of keeping but at this moment he feels like he could do anything, and what he wants most is to keep Max close, to keep him safe.

Max doesn’t answer, just lets out a long sigh. His fingers go slightly lax and when Charles looks over his eyes are half-closed, no lights spinning in the irises.

Low-power state. The euphoria must have finally caught up with him; either that or he had wanted to escape the conversation. Charles will let him have it, whichever it is. He shifts to make himself more comfortable, tipping his head back against the wall. It’s early in his sleep-cycle but surely it won’t hurt to close his eyes for just a bit, not with Max curled up next to him and the barely perceptible hum of his engines vibrating strong and sure through the walls. Charles lets the gentle thrum drive everything else out of his head, and closes his eyes.

When Charles wakes up he’s both alone and horizontal in his bed, and he doesn’t remember how either one of those happened. The lights are dimmed but not off, set in a configuration he never uses, and he rolls over, blinking the rest of the cabin back into focus.

His boots and toolbag are where he’d left them on the floor, and Sassy is curled up in her bed, tail tip tucked over her nose. Max’s boots are back on his feet and he’s standing near the foot of Charles' bunk, perusing the wall above the inset drawers. As Charles pushes himself up on his elbows Max reaches out and touches one of the pictures stuck to the wall, but from this angle it’s unclear which one he’s looking at. Could be any of them, really; Charles likes documenting the places he’s been, the things he’s seen, and the far wall of his cabin is filled with pictures and sketches from Mercedes to Ferrari and every nameless planet in between.

Max drops his hand and clasps it with his other one behind his back. “You took all of these,” he says, and even though it’s not really a question Charles answers it like one.

“You were there for most of them,” he says, covering a yawn with his hand.

“I’m in most of them,” Max says, and yeah, that’s—that’s probably true, now that Charles thinks about it.

“Landscapes are nice,” he says, sitting all the way up and looping his arms around his knees. “But they are not all that is worth seeing, you know?”

Max co*cks his head, still looking at the wall of photos. “I drew this one,” he says, stabbing one of the sketches with a finger. “Badly. Why do you still have it?”

“I have it because you drew it,” Charles answers honestly; maybe sleep has worn away some of his reserve instead of restoring it, but he’s tired suddenly of talking around this, and anyway Max deserves the truth. “Max—”

“We’re here,” he says, seconds before a soft chime indicates they’ve reached planetary orbit. “Haas,” he says, as if Charles might have forgotten.

Haas can wait. “Max—”

“There’s some interesting plant life I think you’ll like. It sneezed on me last time I was here, and that’s certainly an experience,” Max interrupts, and Charles sighs. If Max doesn’t want to talk about it yet, Charles won’t make him.

“I do not want to get sneezed on by a plant,” he says instead, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. Sassy lifts her head and stretches her paws out, gaze swinging between Max and Charles as if judging which one is more likely to be hiding breakfast. She pushes out of her bed and trots over to Max, tail held high as she winds her way between his ankles.

“I don’t know why you’re looking at me,” Max says to Sassy. “He’s the one that feeds you.”

Sassy rolls on her side, looking up at Max beseechingly, and Charles laughs.

“I think she’s an optimist,” he says, pushing himself up and reaching for the hem of his shirt. “And anyway, you know where her food is.” Max eyes him, and Charles thinks his gaze drops as he lifts the hem of his shirt over his head, but by the time he shakes his head free the door is closing behind Max, Sassy close on his heels.

Max seems to have recovered his mood while Charles was in the ‘fresher; at any rate he has something approximating his usual grin on his face when Charles makes it back to the co*ckpit, showered and dressed. Sassy is sitting in Charles' seat, watching out the viewport with interest as Max sets down near a grey-sanded beach, an ocean stretching azure and endless out into the horizon.

“I have been replaced, I see.” Charles says as he scratches his fingers over Sassy’s head.

Max glances up at him. “Never, Charlie,” and there’s a thread of his usual humor in it. “This one could never hold a fuser the way you do. No opposable thumbs.”

“Well I am glad I am good for something,” Charles huffs as the thrusters die.

“You’re good for lots of things,” Max counters as the console lights blink into a standby pattern. “You improvise well. You have steady hands. You make good decisions.”

He sounds like he’s reading from a list, although Charles can’t imagine what this is about. “Max—”

“You do, right? You make good decisions,” Max says, turning in his chair and looking up at Charles, and there’s something intense and almost pleading about his gaze that has him biting back the first two snappy responses that come to him. He’s not sure he’d call any of his decisions since that night in the bar particularly well thought-out, but he can’t regret any of them, not if they’ve led him here. Charles gently shifts Sassy off the pilot’s seat and sits, taking one of Max’s hands in his own.

“Is there a choice you are trying to make, Max?” he asks carefully, because Max can get prickly around choice and Charles is already flying a little bit blind here.

“Yes,” Max replies immediately, curling his fingers large and warm around Charles'.

“Do you… want to tell me about it?” Charles hazards.

Max takes longer to answer this time, brow slightly creased like he’s turning this over very carefully. “No,” he says slowly. “Yes. Not yet,” he finishes, looking frustrated, and Charles squeezes his fingers and very carefully tries not to let it look like he’s imagining brushing his lips over Max’s knuckles. It would be so easy—they’re right there—but it also seems like too much right now. Max’s already struggling with something. Charles doesn’t need to add to it.

“Let’s go see this amazing plant life,” he says instead, letting go of Max’s hand and standing. “Did not know you were a botanist.”

“I can identify thousands of varieties on sight,” Max replies, raising his nose. “More if I can analyze their chemical composition.”

“You mean if you can eat them. I am envious,” Charles says, and the resulting argument takes them out onto the rocky beach and up to the grassy flatland behind it. The swift breeze off the ocean smells sharply of salt, and the air itself is almost blue from the low-lying cloud cover. The field before them looks almost tame by comparison, tan stalks bending gently with the wind.

“Is it on the other side?” Charles wonders, shading his eyes as he stretches up on his toes to see. The grass ripples in the wind, stretching as endlessly out before him as the ocean behind them.

“No,” Max says, stepping forward. “Watch.”

As he wades into the tall grasses, the stalks part around his legs like the water down below, rustling with something more than the wind. The whole field seems to shiver, and when Max drags his hand along the top of the grass small golden motes spring up in his wake, dancing in the ocean breeze. They glow with a light of their own, bright against the overcast sky, and Max turns in a graceful circle, hands outspread and releasing trails of gold behind him. His face when he turns back to Charles is both smug and delighted; Charles is well aware that his mouth is hanging open but he’s never seen anything like this, like Max cast in blue and gold and beckoning Charles closer. Something in Charles' chest clenches up but he’s already moving forward, motes of gold drifting up to mark his passage as he’s drawn inexorably towards Max.

“What is it?” Charles asks quietly as he draws near. Even with the surf crashing behind him it seems like he should speak in hushed tones, as if speaking too loud will ruin the spell of Max’s grin, tipped up to watch the motes dance in the air.

“Part of its lifecycle, like any other pollen,” Max returns easily. He runs his hand idly across the grass next to him. “A plant sneeze.”

“This is not—when you said sneezed, I was picturing—” Charles trails off, captivated by the way the particles swirl around his hand when he waves it in the air.

“What?” Max asks, grinning.

“You know exactly what kind of visual you were implying when you said that, do not pretend you did not,” Charles says, putting his hands on his hips.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Max says, biting his lip and backing away. Charles takes the invitation and chases after him, drifts of gold erupting around them and turning the air soft and hazy. When Charles gets within arms reach, his grab at Max’s sleeve pivots Max mid-stride, throwing his momentum into Charles and tripping him over his own feet; they go down in a tangle of arms and legs, the air bright around them with gold and laughter.

Max is still laughing when Charles pushes himself up from where he’s landed on Max’s chest, eyes nearly shut and breath heaving as he laughs as freely and openly as Charles has ever heard him. He’s beautiful, transcendent; Charles wants to fit their mouths together and stick his tongue down Max’s—

Charlesblinks, freezing. He doesn’t. He what.

He does, though. The long arch of Max’s neck is barely a thought away; he could lean down and bite it, suck bruising kisses into it until Max arched and moaned against him, hands holding Charles tight against him as he ground against Charles' thigh—

Charles scrambles back as if he’s been burned, falling on his ass as Max raises his head in question.

“Charlie?” he says, the laughter dying in his voice as he sits up. Charles doesn’t know what he looks like; his eyes feel stretched wide, his mouth dry and his blood pounding, his dick hard—

“Haa—ah,” Charles gasps, his entire body trembling with the force of not flinging himself back over at Max. He wants, of course he wants, but this is something else, something that—

Something that’s not affecting Max, from the way his brow is creasing in confusion, his breathing slowing while Charles' speeds up.

“Charlie?” Max says again, with more urgency this time, and Charles scrambles back out of reach. Max freezes, and Charles hates, hates the tentative, careful look that puts in Max’s eyes, but he’s not sure he can be trusted not to try to get his hands (and his mouth, and his dick) on Max any way he can right now.

“I think, I think, I think,” Charles babbles, then swallows and tries again. “I think I might be allergic to this f*cking pollen.”

Lights spin in Max’s eyes as he sweeps them over Charles, and his eyebrows raise. “You’re—”

“Allergic,” Charles grits out, because this is humiliating enough without admitting out loud that he wants nothing more than to haul Max down with him and f*ck right here in the grass.

“Okay. Allergic,” Max says soothingly, and at the very edge of his hearing Charles hears Max’s thrusters start up. “There’s an anti-allergen in the medpack, we’ll get it in you and you’ll feel better, alright—”

Charles whines, head tipping back when Max says get it in you, the flush of shame at his own behavior doing nothing to combat the arousal he can feel building in him. It’s getting harder to think past the heat coiling around his spine, every nerve prickling with sensation even just from the shift of his clothes over his body. He’s pretty sure he could get off if Max just talked him through it, let alone touched him, so it’s a good thing that he’s over there and Charles is over here.

A sudden gust of air blows his hair back from his forehead, cooling his overheated skin for a brief moment as a hand curls around his arm. Max hauls him up and Charles moans at the press of Max’s fingers into his bicep; it’s easy to imagine those large fingers pressing into him, working him open or wrapped firm and sure around his aching dick. Max drags him up the boarding ramp and the easy display of strength makes Charles' knees weak, but Max doesn’t even pause when Charles stumbles, lifting off the ground before the ramp has even fully closed.

Charles blinks and they’re in the entryway; he blinks again and they’re in his cabin. Max sets him gently on the bunk but the effort is wasted as Charles collapses back the second Max lets go, writhing with sensation. Another blink and Max is digging through the medpack, looking as harried as Charles has ever seen him. If he would only come over here, instead of being over there, Charlesis sure that everyone would feel a lot better about everything.

His eyelids dip again and then fly open as something jabs into his thigh, his whole body arching as something cool and tingling speeds through his veins. The heat in his brain recedes for a few precious seconds, and Charles sucks in a breath as Max pulls the injector away from his leg.

“You need—” Charles swallows back a moan as Max hovers worriedly over him, close enough that he could reach right out and yank him down. “Max, you need to leave.”

Max frowns. “You shouldn’t be alone, your vitals are spiking all over the place—”

Charles drags his hands down his face, digging his heels into the bed as he lets out a breath that is almost a scream. “Please. Max, it is not, you need to leave before—” The heat is rolling back and while Charles thinks he can manage it he cannot manage keeping his hands to himself if Max keeps standing there all warm and available. The thought of sending him away makes Charles want to cry but he can’t ask him to stay, he can’t ask that of Max, he can’t.

“Before what?” Max says, reaching out. Charles jerks back, and Max freezes.

“Get out,” Charles whispers. “Please, just get out.”

The look on Max’s face carves Charles' heart from his chest, but he straightens, backing away. Charles closes his eyes, because if he has to watch Max leave he might do something irreversible like beg him to stay. His pulse pounds in his throat so thick he nearly chokes on it, as he listens for each step Max takes, and when the door whooshes shut Charles blinks against the tears that slip free.

It’s better this way. His skin is on fire and his dick is straining against his pants and he can’t, he won’t make Max deal with that.

Dragging the zip of his coveralls down his chest makes Charles shiver with sensation, squirming against the blankets as he gets his clothing undone enough to finally, finally get a hand down his pants. He nearly cries with relief when his fingers curl around his aching dick, and his head falls to the side, teeth sinking into his lip. It’s exactly what his body wants but it’s also not enough, each stroke of his hand curling the fire deeper into his gut, pulling his muscles tighter, a promise without deliverance. Charles whines, head tossing, and when he opens his eyes he doesn’t remember closing the lights on the console next to the bed, blinking in a very familiar pattern.

“I thought I told you to get out,” he says, but it sounds the furthest thing from commanding, another whine building in the back of his throat.

“I did,” Max’s voice comes anxious and immediate, surrounding Charles and making his skin prickle. “I am. I’m just monitoring your vital signs, I’m not—watching.”

Good. That's—good, right? Charles hardly knows anymore.

“I just—it’s my fault you’re having this reaction,” Max says fiercely, and Charles nearly laughs but it comes out as a ragged moan because that’s more true than Max knows. “I’m not going to let anything else happen to you.”

That wraps an entirely different kind of warmth around Charles' spine; or maybe it’s the same, it’s difficult to tell at this point. It eases the fire in his blood a little, makes it a little easier to think, and Charles gasps.

“Let me help. I’ll do anything you want,” Max says, and Charles closes his eyes because that image is not helpful. “Just don’t ask me to leave again.”

It had probably been a futile effort, Charles thinks, turning to look at the ceiling. It’s not like Max can go very far, even if he wanted to; and anyway should and want are getting harder to separate out as Charles' thinking goes fuzzy again. Max’s voice is the only thing that makes any sense.

“Keep talking,” Charles whispers, feeling the last of his self-control slip away. Maybe if he just—maybe if he just concentrates on Max’s voice, that’ll make the rest of this easier.

“About what?” Max asks, and Charles gasps as his hand starts moving again almost of its own accord.

“Anything,” he gets out, gritting his teeth, head tossing back as his fingers tighten. “I do not—anything,” he says desperately.

“There are two suns in the center of the Ethereum system,” Max starts slowly, and Charles lets out a long sigh as Max’s voice wraps around him, holding him sure and safe and steady as spaceflight. Charles is so focused on the warmth that builds inside of him that when it suddenly crests it takes him by surprise, dropping his mouth open as release pulls his body taut.

“Charlie?” Max asks, and Charles is breathing hard but he can feel the restless prickle in his skin start again.

“Please do not ask questions until this is over,” he says, shuddering as he rubs his thumb along the over-sensitive head on his dick. Maybe not even then, he thinks, although that is probably too much to hope for.

“Okay,” Max agrees immediately, and launches into the spec design for his rad-drive, which would be attractive enough under normal circ*mstances, let alone one where Charles barely has to touch himself to get hard again. It takes him a little longer to finish this time, stroking himself as slowly as he can manage to the sound of Max running through component gauges, biting his lip on the little noise he makes and one hand pressed to the wall underneath Max’s dancing lights.

The second time leaves him a little clearer-headed, but he still bites out an “oh come on,” when he feels the now-familiar prickle start up in his veins again. He manages to kick off his boots and struggle out of his cum-stained coveralls, Max’s voice talking him through the calculation for a star jump. It helps if he pretends he’s doing it for Max, and Charles does not want to examine that closely at all right now. Taking off his boxers and undershirt turns out to be too much to contemplate; easier to settle back on his bed and drag a hand down his stomach. With the burning urgency from before reduced to a mild compulsion, it’s easier to bypass his overworked dick and smooth a hand down between his legs, stretching to trace over the cleft of his ass. It’s easy to pretend it’s Max’s hand, to press in and imagine that it’s Max’s fingers spreading him open, and Charles doesn’t try to bite back his moan at all. Max’s voice falters but he picks up again almost immediately, and this time when Charles c*ms it’s to the press of fingers against his ass and a hand wrapped around his dick and Max’s voice reciting trade coordinates, steady and sure.

Charlestakes in one deep breath, and then another, but even on the exhale the prickling heat underneath his skin seems to have receded, leaving behind a bone-deep lethargy that he can tell is going to soon become inescapable. He blinks suddenly-heavy eyelids and rolls on his side; he should shower but he’s not sure his legs will hold him up right now, and anyway he can’t really muster up the energy to care that much.

There’s something important he has to say, though, before he sleeps. “I'm sorry,” Charles says sleepily.

The lights on the console spin, and Charles contemplates if he has enough energy to shift so he’s under the blankets instead of sprawled on top of them. “You’re sorry?” Max asks, and Charles can picture clearly the expression he must be wearing.

“For yelling at you,” Charles says, struggling ineffectively with the blankets and sheets. Surely his bed hadn’t always been this complicated.

Max doesn’t answer and Charles looks up at the console lights, blinking back and forth. “Max?”

“You’re my pilot,” Max says quietly. “I don’t mind.”

Pilot. The way Max says it sounds like deeper water than Charles can wade through at the moment; or maybe it isn’t, and he’s just dizzy with the receding heat.

He’ll figure it out later. “I mind,” Charles mumbles. His eyes keep closing on their own so it seems foolish to try to keep them open, but he blinks them one last time to see Max’s lights. “You are my… Max.”

The lights dance, circling and expanding even when Charles lets his eyelids sink closed. He thinks Max says something else but that might just be a dream. He’ll ask Max about it tomorrow.

Chapter 6: Max

Chapter Text

Max sits back heavily in the copilot’s seat as Charles' heartbeat slows, as his breathing settles into the regular rhythm of sleep. Max sets a listener for any variation and gazes blankly out at the stars hanging still and silent out the viewport.

This is his fault. This is Max's fault. Charles' body is more fragile than his, more susceptible to toxins, and he knows that, only—only he’d been so eager to show Charles something special, something new that he’d overlooked basic precautions. Pollen and spores have a range of effects on humans. Max’s body had neutralized the pollen on contact; Charles' had… clearly not.

Allergic. This has been like no allergic reaction Max has ever seen, although his medical databases are admittedly rudimentary. Charles had—

Charles had trembled at Max’s touch, had clung to him like he didn’t know he was doing it, and the only reason Max hadn’t turned around and razed the entire field with his thrusters is that Charles didn’t seem to be in pain.

Max has known pain before. Max has never known fear like watching Charles writhe from an uncontrolled reaction, eyes blank and glassy until he had jabbed the antiallergen into his thigh. Even then, face flushed and hands trembling and caught in the grip of an unknown toxin, Charles had still wanted—

Charleshad wanted—

Had wanted to be alone, apparently, and Max doesn’t know why. He knows that he’s attractive. He knows that Charles is attracted to him. What he doesn’t know is why Charles wouldn’t act on that when he clearly needed—assistance, unless…

Unless attraction is as far as it goes. Unless he doesn’t really want Max, not in the way that Max had come to think he might.

He leans forward, putting his head between his knees and lacing his fingers behind his head. He makes himself breathe, in and out, matching it to the slow rhythm of Charles' vitals. It helps, a little.

There’s a small mrrp and Sassy pokes her head out from underneath the console. Max cautiously reaches out a hand and she pushes her head into it, fur warm and soft to the touch.

“He just needs to sleep it off. He’ll be fine,” he tells her, and ignores the way his voice shakes. “You’ll see.”

She hops up into the pilot’s chair, settling with her paws folded primly underneath her, and he sighs and straightens. The first step was to get Charles stabilized. That’s been done. He can run a decontamination sequence while he’s sleeping, to take care of whatever pollen they’ve brought with them, and deal with the rest when Charles wakes up.

Max is used to passing Charles' sleep cycles alone; while he does occasionally make use of his low-power state, he more often prefers to remain awake. He’s downloaded some files on poetry and computational theory, and while the second is far more comprehensible than the first he likes to turn them both over in the darkness between stars, stretching the limits of his understanding. Tonight, however, he keeps turning away from his latest coding project to check the function monitoring Charles' vitals. He knows that he’s set a listener, but the third time he turns away in the middle of a conditional loop to monitor Charles' breathing he sighs and closes out the code altogether, letting his full attention sink into the listening array.

“It’s not weird,” he says to Sassy. “Don’t make it weird.”

Sassy blinks slowly, but that appears to be all she has to say on the matter.

Charles develops a slight fever after four hours, which is—troubling. He doesn’t wake after seven; perhaps acceptable after what his body has gone through, but Max still has to consciously relax his grip on the arms of the copilot’s chair, staring down the counter. At nine hours he pushes himself up, dismissing the screens as Sassy lifts her head from his nap.

“I’m just going to—check on him,” he tells her. “That’s all.”

He can feel the soft thump of her paws hitting the deck as he strides down the hall towards Charles' cabin, and when he reaches it Sassy is the first one through the door as it slides open. The lights in the cabin have been left where Max had set them, and he frowns; Charles usually wakes enough to turn them off.

Charles is still and silent on the bed, even with Sassy sitting on his chest and pawing gently at his face. Max lifts her off and peers down; Charles' face is still flushed, his hair damp with sweat. Max sets Sassy on the floor and goes to rummage in the medpack again for a fever reducer and a bottle of water, and brings both back to the bed with him.

“Charles,” he says softly, and Charles' face scrunches but he doesn’t quite wake. Max sits carefully on the edge of the bed, giving Charles a gentle shake. “Charlie, you need to wake up.”

“Nrfgh,” Charles mumbles, and his eyes when he opens them are bleary and unfocused but at least they’re open, and Max is able to coax him up into a sitting position. He hands Charles the water and the pills, and he stares at them for a moment before he makes the connection and swallows them obediently.

“How do you feel?” Max asks, although the answer is clearly not great.

“Mmm.” Charles doesn’t answer, gaze wandering around the room and settling on the refresher unit.

“...do you want to shower?” Max has his doubts about the wisdom of that but Charles nods and moves to get out of bed. To his credit he manages to stand on his own, although he seems to have forgotten Max is there as he reaches for the hem of his undershirt. Max—hovers, the word for what he’s doing is hovering, but Charles manages to make it into the refresher without assistance and Max manages to keep his eyes mostly on Charles' face. The door shuts and the water starts and he hopes Charles doesn’t drown himself.

He strips the bed while he’s waiting, stuffing the sheets and Charles' soiled clothing into the cleaner and setting the fastest cycle. He puts the medpack away and puts Charles' boots neatly at the foot of the bunk and when there’s nothing left he can clean he sits on the edge of the bed. He manages that for all of twenty-seven seconds before he’s pushing to his feet again, pacing the length of the small cabin. He can’t go very far; two paces bring him to the door and he turns on his heel, the cleaner bot beeping at him from its dock as he passes. Three more paces bring him to the other end of the room and he slows, gaze drifting over the messy collage of pictures and sketch paper.

He recognizes every one of these places, of course. He remembers the baked-silica smell of the dunes of Mercedes, the verdant jungle canopy on Ferrari, and he remembers Charles pulling out his little recorder to take snapshots of the landscapes. Max doesn’t remember featuring in quite so many of them, and he definitely doesn’t remember one of these sketches, the one that his eyes keep drifting back to.

He steps close, tracing his fingers over the soft lines. In the sketch Max’s hands are folded behind his head, his lashes dark against his cheeks and his mouth pulled up in a hint of a smile. The pattern behind Max’s head matches the weave on the blanket from Charles' bunk, so Charles must have sketched this the day Max had fallen into a low-power state as they waited for sunset, on that nameless planet where he had asked Charles to pilot.

It’s not as accurate as a photo, of course. Surely Max has never looked so—surely his smile has never been so soft, the sweep of his lashes so heavy and dark.

Max wonders if this is how Charles sees him all of the time.

The cleaner beeps to signal the completion of its cycle and Max turns away, but even as he makes up the bed again he can’t stop seeing the planes of his own face, rendered in slate gray and somehow more than the sum of the lines. Max doesn’t know how to reconcile this with the Charles that had sent him away, with the Charles that had been afraid to let Max touch him, or even with the Charles that had pressed his hand desperately against Max’s plating as he’d ridden out the pollen’s effects.

The refresher is still going, the sound loud in the stillness of the cabin. He hesitates, then knocks on the door.

“You asleep in there?” he says, and he’s less than half joking.

There’s a grunt from inside and then a “....no,” which Max takes to mean yes. The refresher shuts off a moment later, and Max makes sure freshly laundered clothes are within easy reach on the little ledge nearby as Charles emerges, thankfully with a towel around his waist. He appears a little more alert, if still exhausted, so Max busies himself petting Sassy while Charles gets dressed.

Boxers and a soft shirt appear to be as far as Charles is willing to go, however, and his eyes are already drooping again as he stumbles back toward the bed. Max catches him and lowers him down; his skin is warm to the touch, and even though he was just standing under warm water he’s shaking a little, wrapping the blankets tightly around him as he curls in on himself. He’s asleep within seconds, Sassy curling up at his back, and Max is left staring down with his nails cutting into his palms. He crouches, reaching out to brush Charles' damp hair back from his forehead. Charles sighs, the line between his eyes relaxing a little as Max presses his fingers to his skin.

Still feverish. It will take some time for Charles' body to metabolize the fever reducer, Max reminds himself. This is not cause for alarm. Yet.

“I’ll stay,” he says softly. “If you don’t mind.”

Charles doesn’t answer, but Max hadn’t really thought that he would. He turns and settles on the floor, tipping his head back against the bunk. He lets his eyes close, letting the slow rhythm of Charles' breathing fill his senses, an anchor in the darkness.

One breath, and then another. Inhale, exhale. Two hours since Charles had fallen back asleep. Inhale, exhale. Five hours, and Charles' temperature has climbed again. Inhale, exhale. Seven hours, and Charles mutters something unintelligible in his sleep. Inhale, exhale. Nine, and he’s deathly quiet.

Max opens his eyes, turning to look at fever-damp hair lying limply above a sweep of dark lashes, above flushed cheeks and a mouth parted in sleep. He has seen precious, beautiful things, but he’s never seen anything that puts an ache in his chest like Charles' still, slack face.

He’s not a doctor, not even close. Even if he turned and made for a settlement, there’s no guarantee the local physician would be qualified or even have the equipment to treat—whatever has happened to Charles.

A long-running background process pings completion and Max diverts enough attention to check on it. “You have already made the hardest one,” Charles'voice echoes back to him.

There’s a choice here as well, but making it is the easiest thing Max has ever done.

“It was about you,” he says into the quiet. “I don’t think you heard me before, but the choice I was trying to make was about you. Or maybe it was about me. I just didn’t realize I’d already made it.”

Charles doesn’t react, his chest moving in shallow breaths. Max sighs.

“I’m sorry,” he says, calling up a set of coordinates he’d never planned on using again. He reaches out, tracing a thumb over the overheated arch of Charles' cheek as Max swings around, setting a new course. “For this, and for where we’re going next.”

His credentials still work. Max doesn’t know how he feels about that.

Here’s how he feels, here’s what’s important: his credentials still work, and they get him past the perimeter sentries into the docking bay where he’s met by two medtechs. The techs run a biologic scanner over Charles who lies sleeping and far, far too still, and when it beeps its results they look at each other and load Charles onto a gurney. Max is informed but not consulted—once he would have never known the difference, or at least not cared—and he follows out into the bright lights of the docking bay. His boots ring loud and hollow in his ears as he steps foot on Company property again, but no one pays him any attention at all. He folds his hands behind his back and follows after Charles.

The physician on call takes a look at the scanner’s results as the techs hook Charles up to an array of sensors and start an IV line. “Any medical history on file?” she asks Max without looking up.

“Classified,” he says easily, and the doctor snorts.

“Classified. I don’t care who they’ve got you running around, but I would like to not kill him while he’s in my ward,” she says. “Any known allergens that you’ve observed? Any stimulants in his system in the last forty-eight hours?”

“No stimulants. One dose of fever-reducer.” Max hesitates. “Probable reaction to a plant compound out on X049.” He reaches out a hand and the doctor extends her handreader his way; Max rests his fingers on the screen and transmits the chemical composition of the pollen that Charles had reacted to.

“Huh.” The doctor pulls the structure up into the air, rotating it to take a look at the pollen’s structure. “That’s a new one. I’ll have the lab get started on a neutralizing agent.”

Max looks at Charles, lying still and flushed beneath the crisp medbay sheets. “Is he going to be alright?” he asks quietly, and the doctor looks at him in surprise.

“That depends entirely on how fast the lab can develop an antidote,” she says. “I’d adjust your itinerary by at least a couple of days, if that’s what you're asking.”

A couple of days. Max lets out a breath. He’d known this was a possibility when he’d set this course, when he’d entered these coordinates.

Max’s eyes drift back to Charles, to the shallow rise and fall of his chest and the pale cast to his lips. Whatever is going to happen has already been set in motion. Perhaps the lab will be quick; perhaps an antidote will be easy to engineer, and Max will get to see Charles' face creased in a laugh, in the smile that he wears when he’s looking at him.

He draws the guest chair from the corner and turns it so he can fold his arms along the back. “I’ll wait here,” he says, and the doctor shrugs.

“Suit yourself,” she says, attention clearly already elsewhere as she pockets the handreader. As the door slides shut behind him Max rests his chin on his arms and settles in to wait.

He doesn’t expect an antidote the first day. They’ve only just arrived, and while his presence will give the work a high priority he knows better than to expect immediate results. He watches the nurses make the evening and then the midnight rounds, checking Charles' vitals and adjusting his IV, smoothing down the bedsheets. They don’t pay Max any mind and he doesn’t speak to them. The less he says to anyone here, the better.

In the morning he heads back to the docking bay. Charles is in the best medical hands in the quadrant but Max is still reluctant to leave him for even a moment, as if the second he averts his eyes Charles will disappear. However, Sassy still needs to be fed; if he doesn’t, Max tells himself, he’ll get sad eyes from two quarters if Charles wakes up.

When Charles wakes up, he reminds himself as the door to the medbay room slides shut behind him. Charles is going to wake up.

Sassy is waiting at the top of the boarding ramp when it descends but she has the good sense not to meow until it’s safely closed behind him. She follows closely on his heels, winding around his feet until Max nearly trips on the way to the galley, and when he puts her food down she descends on it, eating quickly but neatly. Max sits and watches, trying not to think of all of the times he’s watched Charles coo as Sassy licks her bowl clean, of how it should be Charles feeding her and not Max.

Sassy chases the last little bit of food around her bowl and then looks up and around, as if searching for something. She looks at Max and makes a little chirping sound, and he sits forward, resting his elbows on his knees and pressing his hands together to stop the shaking.

“He’s going to be fine,” he promises Sassy again, and is vaguely grateful that she’s a cat and can’t point out how much less certain he sounds this time.

She blinks slowly at him, and then trots over and raises on her hind legs, putting a paw on his knee. He sits back and she jumps into his lap, purring loudly. He hesitates, in case she wants to get down, then gently strokes a hand down her back. When she doesn’t immediately leave Max blows out a shaky breath and rests his face gently on her back, breathing in the warmth of her fur.

He stays there for what feels like a very long time.

Eventually Sassy shifts and wiggles, and he sits up to let her jump down. She trots off in the direction of Charles' cabin and Max watches her go before pushing himself back up.

When he emerges again into the bay another ship is docked next to him and he pauses, eyeing the sleek lines and the silver finish; like looking into a mirror, as familiar as the lines of his own face. There has been no query against his systems and so he refrains from sending one of his own, turning on his heel and heading back to the medbay.

When he gets there, it’s almost not a surprise to see the figure standing outside Charles' room, staring through the window. Max folds his hands behind his back and goes to stand next to the other exploratory model, turning his gaze on Charles lying still and asleep in his bed.

“We thought you had crashed,” LN4 says by way of greeting. Max waits, but that appears to be all that is forthcoming.

“I didn’t,” he says, and LN4 nods.

“We looked for you,” he says quietly, still watching Charles. “There was no debris, no burn pattern, but there isn’t always.”

Max nods. He’s gone on search and recovery missions himself. He knows there isn’t always anything to find.

“You disappeared, and then months later your credentials flag, and you’re carrying—” lights spin in LN4’s irises “—a mechanic from Prema-16 as a passenger.”

“As a pilot,” he corrects, and LN4 finally turns to look at Max.

“We don’t have pilots,” he says, brow furrowing a bit. “We have Purpose.”

Max shrugs helplessly. “It wasn’t enough.” Even now, he’s not sure he can explain it any better than that.

LN4 stares unblinking. A harried-looking medtech floats a full-body scanner down the hall past them, and a pair of nurses step around them without breaking stride, but no one spares LN4 or Max so much as a glance.

“I don’t understand,” LN4 says after several long moments, and Max sighs, looking back at Charles.

“I know,” he says. “But he does.” Max nods toward Charles, and LN4 looks back into the medbay room. Max moves to the door, intending to take up his post again inside, and a hand catches his wrist.

“You’re not patched into corpnet anymore,” LN4 says, and Max shakes his head. That connection had come out along with his Purpose.

“Your credentials were flagged all the way up to Agent level,” LN4 says, and the floor drops away from underneath Max’s feet. “One is already in transit.”

Max forces himself to breathe evenly, to not overclock his processors. He’d known this was a possibility. He’s made the choice that he could, the only one that matters.

“Do you have an ETA?” he asks. It would be good to know how much time he has left.

LN4 shakes his head. “You know we don’t have itinerary clearance. But the status change happened less than twelve hours ago.”

A little time, then. “Thank you,” Max says faintly, and gently disengages his wrist.

“There’s a chance you could leave before the Agent arrives,” LN4 says as the door slides open and Max steps into the medbay room.

“Yes,” he agrees, pulling out his chair and settling into it.

“...will you?” LN4 asks, and he sounds only mildly curious.

“I’ll leave when Charles wakes up,” Max says, resting his chin on his folded arms. “Not before.”

LN4 pauses. “You know what happens—”

“I know,” he says. “Of course I know. We know it better than anyone.”

“Then why—”

“I will leave,” Max repeats, turning to look LN4 in the eye. “When Charles wakes up. Not before.”

LN4 is quiet for a long moment. “Then I hope he does it soon,” he says eventually.

Max sighs, feeling suddenly heavier than the artificial gravity here should allow. “I hope so, too,” he says looking back at the soft rise and fall of Charles' chest. LN4 doesn’t respond, and when Max looks up, the hallway is empty.

He sighs again, and settles back down. The lab will deliver an antidote. Charles will wake up. That’s what’s important; everything else is a matter of timing.

Max knows what happens to those who tell the Company no, but the Company also always leads with an offer. Easier all around, that way. That kind of offer could set Charles up for life, out here on the Rim— if he takes it. Max is going to make sure that he does. It’s the last thing that he can do for Charles, and he’s going to make sure neither of them screw it up.

There’s nothing left to do but wait, and match the rhythm of his breathing to Charles', for as long as he has left.

Chapter 7: Charles

Chapter Text

Charles surfaces abruptly, like the dark water holding him down has drained away all at once. He blinks and then winces as harsh fluorescents sting his eyes; Max’s lights have never hurt like this, Charles must have turned them up somehow or slept longer than he’d thought.

The air smells wrong too, though, filled with a sharp antiseptic tang, and—there are sensors stuck to his chest and arms, an IV in the back of his hand, and a woman in an unfamiliar medical uniform drawing a needle out of it. He tries to jerk back but her grip on his wrist just tightens, and Charles opens his mouth to demand to know what the hell is going on—

“It’s alright,” Max’s voice says quietly, and Charles looks up wildly to see him standing on the other side of the bed. “You’ve been asleep for a while.”

“What did you just give me?” Charles asks tightly as the nurse checks his pulse and shines a light in his eyes.

“Modified thyroxidrin. Are you allergic to anything in that family?” Charles shakes his head and then winces as she starts tearing sensors from his skin with practiced efficiency. “Good. The lab combined the stimulant with a slow-acting proton inhibitor, which should clear the rest of the allergen from your system. It’ll take a few hours to work its way through, but until then you should be feeling pretty good.”

“I—” He does, Charles realizes. He feels rested, almost restless with energy thrumming underneath his skin. “Thanks,” he offers, relenting a little. He remembers feeling—not great, remembers falling asleep. How long has he been out?

The nurse blinks at him, and it’s not until Charles sees Max’s knuckles whitening on the guardrails of the hospital-style bed that he realizes where they must be.

“You’re… welcome,” the nurse says slowly, and as she moves to pack away her equipment Charles can see the Company logo stitched high on the shoulder of her uniform. He glances at Max, but he’s studiously looking somewhere over Charles' head, arms now folded across his chest.

Fine. They can talk about this later. After they’re off Company property.

The door across from the foot of the bed slides open, and Charles looks up to see a neatly dressed man in an immaculate corporate uniform step into the room. Everything from his medium brown hair to the lines of his face to his polished shoes is average and forgettable. His smile is amiable and pleasant, and Charles doesn’t f*cking trust it at all, unease slipping down his spine.

“Thank you,” the man says to the nurse. “You may go.” Charles almost wants to ask her to stay, but her uniform bears the same logo sewn discreetly into a pocket over the man’s chest, and he feels the unease bloom into full disquiet.

Charles glances at Max, but he is now looking at the floor, shoulders hunched. He’s making himself small, as unobtrusive as he can and Charles doesn’t know what’s happening but he knows that Max should never have to cut himself down, not for anyone.

“Charles Leclerc,” the man says as the door slides shut behind the nurse, and Charles looks back to see him reading off of a handreader. “Age twenty-six. Core-born, worked for several years on Prema-16. Quit your job several months ago and booked passage for McLaren, where you participated in the sale of illegally obtained corporate property. Whereabouts since then unknown, last seen heading Rimward. Did I miss anything salient?” he says, setting the handreader down on the foot of the bed and looking at Charles expectantly.

“I don't know anything about an illegal sale,” he says tentatively. Denial seems like the way to go.

The man smiles. “Of course you don’t. MV1 can be very convincing. It’s how he was built,” he says, and it takes Charles a minute to understand he means Max.

“The Company thanks you for taking such good care of its property,” the man continues, and Charles' blood slows to a crawl. “Exploratory models are expensive and difficult to manufacture, as you might imagine, and MV1 is the best of them."

“You mean Max,” he says flatly.

The man co*cks his head at Max. “You named him? Charming. We are, of course, prepared to compensate you handsomely.” The man names a figure so high that Charles' head spins, and he looks back at Max helplessly. He’s still gazing at the floor, and Charles needs him to look up, Charles needs to see him.

“Max?” he whispers. Max nods fractionally, still staring at the floor, and Charles can’t—why is Max going along with this, he can’t think that Charles would ever—

“You cannot be serious,” Charles says, pushing himself up into a sitting position, and Max finally glances up. The lines of his face are blank and haughty, but his eyes are resigned, and Charles sucks in a breath. “No,” he says, trying to scramble out of the bed but hauled up short by the sheets twisted around his legs. “No, you can’t— I am not letting you—”

“I think,” the man says as Charles fights to untangle himself from the hospital bedding. “That you will find this is not a negotiation.” He reaches inside his uniform jacket, and pulls out a large wad of cash, more money than Charles has ever seen in his life. His jacket gapes as he does and Charles catches a glimpse of a pulser in a side-carry rig, but he’s too busy ripping the sheets off his legs to worry much about it.

The man tosses the cash in his lap and moves toward Max. “Erythrite,” he says, apparently apropos of nothing, but Max’s eyes jerk away from Charles'. “Magenta. Lambent. Nightless,” he says, and the words mean nothing to Charles, just a string of nonsense—

But they apparently mean something to Max, because he stiffens, eyes rolling up in his head. He collapses down to his knees, graceful as an athlete but lifeless as a doll when his head lolls forward, hands hanging limply at his sides.

“What—what did you do to him,” Charles whispers, scrambling out of bed and then catching at the side of it when his legs wobble underneath him. “Max? Max?”

The man glances at him. “All exploratory models come with an override code,” he explains patiently. “Standard safety feature.”

Override code. “What are you going to do with him?” Charles demands, staring at Max’s dull, lifeless eyes and fighting down the roiling in his stomach.

The man looks at him pityingly. “It’s no good getting attached. He’s just a complicated algorithm.” He moves around Charles, toward Max. “Reprogrammed, most likely; stripped and recycled if that doesn’t take. His circuits could advance the science of AI by years, maybe even decades—”

The man cuts off, stumbling as Charles shoves him from behind. He grabs the man’s arm and spins them, using the jumble of bodies and the few precious seconds of confusion to grab at the man’s pulser. The Company representative stumbles back as Charles pushes him away and stands over Max, pulser raised and feet set apart just the way Max had taught him.

“I said no,” Charles says as the man cautiously straightens. “There is no sale. It is not happening, and Max is never going back with you.”

The man co*cks his head. “You might, might be able to get off this station,” he says, as if this is an interesting theoretical problem and not Max’s life. “But the only reason MV1—”

“Stop calling him that,” Charles snarls, the barrel of the pulser shaking slightly. “His name is Max Verstappen.”

The man smiles slightly. “The only reason the code hadn’t been broadcast was because we didn’t think he was—functional enough to hear it,” the man finishes delicately. “I’ll be interested to see how far you think you can get.”

Charlesblows out an unsteady breath, hands tightening on the pulser.

“You’ve been ill,” the company representative says sympathetically. “You’re not thinking straight. And you’re not going to shoot me,” he says confidently, and Charles' eyes narrow.

Max had taught him how. It wouldn’t be hard, and it would buy them a little time.

Inhale, exhale; inhale, fire. Just like Max had taught him.

He breathes in, then steps forward and swings the pulser as hard as he can against the Company representative’s temple.

The man drops with far less grace than Max had, and Charles breathes out again.

He doesn’t bother checking for a pulse, letting the pulser clatter to the ground as he whirls and kneels in front of Max. He grabs one of his hands, but his fingers lie still and limp in Charles'; he cups Max’s cheek and tilts his head up but Max’s eyes are so empty it makes Charles want to throw up.

Okay. The override code had—had turned Max off, so presumably it will also turn him back on.

Charles bites his lips and tries to remember, tries to ignore the pounding of his heart, each beat another second that they’ve been here too long, a reminder that they’re running out of time. “Erythrite,” he says cautiously, but nothing happens. He must have to say the whole phrase. “Magenta. Uhh Lambent,” he says, hoping the moment of hesitation hasn’t screwed everything up.

“Nightless,” he whispers, and when the lights start to spin in Max’s eyes Charles has to bite back a noise that feels suspiciously like a sob. Max’s lips part as he takes in a breath and Charles wants to kiss him so badly, to reassure himself that Max is here, he’s alive—and Max is alive, no matter what the man on the floor behind him might say. Instead Charles lifts his hand and presses it to Max’s other cheek, resting his forehead against his as he blinks his way back up into a run-state

“Charlie?” Max whispers, and Charles would love nothing more than to pull him close and not let go but the man on the floor behind him is a reminder of why this is neither the time nor the place.

“Can you stand? Where are my f*cking clothes,” Charles says, finally looking down at himself. He’s wearing his own undershirt and boxers, thank goodness, but he should probably put on more if they’re going to get out of—wherever they are.

“In your pack, by the bed. I think so.” Max sounds a little dazed, and he’s answering the questions in reverse order but he’s answering, and Charles' stomach clenches at how close he came to losing this, to losing his Max.

“Okay. I’m going to get dressed, and we’re going to get out of here, and then you can tell me why you thought giving yourself up was at all acceptable,” Charles says, pushing himself up on legs that are only shaking a little. He spots his pack and goes to dig through it, pulling out his usual coveralls and boots.

“Where did—oh,” Max says faintly as he catches sight of the company representative on the floor.

“He is not dead. I think,” Charles says, pulling on the coveralls and reaching for his boots. His head is aching and his body is both stiff from disuse and flush with adrenaline; that’s going to be real fun later but right now it means that he can shove his boots on his feet and scoop up his pack and stand without falling down, so he’ll take it.

He eyes the money the Company representative had tried to offer him for Max, lying abandoned on the bed. It would set them up for a long, long while.

Charles shoulders his pack, and turns toward Max.

Max appears to be fully back online by the time Charles extends down a hand to him, his grip firm and sure as he lets Charles pull him to his feet. He can’t seem to stop looking away from the man sprawled on the floor, and Charles has to tug him toward the door.

“Are you okay to fly?” Charles asks, and Max nods slowly, irises lighting up as he checks through his systems.

“Great.” he blows out a breath. “Let’s get out of here before anyone catches on, okay?”

Max nods again, a little surer this time, lifting his chin and squaring his shoulders. He steps over the company representative, heading for the door, and it’s only because Charles is watching that he sees how Max’s fingers dig into his palms.

Charles is halfway expecting to be challenged as soon as they leave the room, but the hallway is empty and it appears that they can just—walk out. Part of that is speed, he knows—as soon as someone finds the man he’d clocked over the head, things will get a lot trickier—but part of it appears to be Max. They pass technicians and nurses and, as they leave what is clearly the medical wing, other workers, all with the corporate logo on their chest—but no one looks at Max at all, any more than they would an elevator or a floatcrate. That disinterest extends to Charles as well; he gathers a few curious glances but by and large this facility’s workers are uninterested in Max or anyone with him.

Charles thinks about how the Company representative had never looked at Max, not once until he’d been deactivated, and he feels something sharp and acrid bubble in his gut.

He swallows it back down. Not the time, or the place, and Max’s apparent invisibility takes them all the way out into a sizable docking bay, one wall completely open with the barely visible shimmer of a containment field holding the vacuum at bay.

Oh. They’re in space. Well, that makes things easier.

Max’s footsteps slow as they near where he’s docked, his eyes lingering on the empty bay next to him, and Charles curls his hand into a fist to keep from reaching out.

“Everything okay?” he murmurs instead, and Max shakes his head as if to clear it, pace picking up again.

“Just saying goodbye,” he says, and Charles wonders just how long he’d been unconscious.

Long enough for Max to get worried, apparently. Long enough for Max to seek aid at a Company facility. Charles' mouth flattens as Max’s boarding ramp lowers, and he casts an eye around the bay behind them; the crew carries on with their work, apparently uncaring of the comings and goings in their midst, but behind them—

A familiar figure in a corporate suit emerges into the bay, one hand pressed to his head, and Charles' heart stops in his chest.

“Thrusters,” he says, shoving Max up the boarding ramp. “We have to get out of here, now.”

Max stumbles, and almost freezes when he gets a look over his shoulder, so Charles grabs his arm and drags him the rest of the way up. Max still seems to be a little shocky, but his thrusters are rumbling to life underneath Charles’s boots as Max undocks, turning and heading for the containment field and the freedom of deep space.

The comm board crackles to life as they make it to the co*ckpit, and the Company representative’s voice rings out calm and self-assured as Charles drops into the pilot’s seat.

“I told you,” he says. “Broadcast range.”

“Max is fast,” Charles snaps back, pulling up a list of jump coordinates as Max slips through the containment field.

“Not that fast,” the man says dryly. “Erythrite.”

“What’s Erythrite?” Max asks, strain threading through his voice.

“Magenta,” the man continues, and Charles grabs one of the coordinate sets at random, tossing them across the board to Max.

“No time,” he says tersely. “Just trust me, anywhere is better than here right now.”

“Lambent,” the company representative says, sounding like he’s enjoying himself, and Charles grabs for the control, letting it form around his hand as Max gives him a nod and the board lights up before him.

“Night—” the man starts just as Charles says “f*ck off,” and engages the rad-drive.

The stars stretch and elongate around them, and Charles holds his breath—

The comm link dies out with a crackle, and as the starlight cascades through the viewports as Charles lets out a breath, peeling his fingers off the controls one by one. He collapses back into the pilot’s chair, turning to look at Max.

His face is cast paler than Charles has ever seen it, his lips pressed flat together, but he’s awake, he’s alive, he’s here, and they’re safe.

For now. Charles' hands start to shake and he presses them into the arms of the pilot’s chair.

“What was he saying, there at the end?” Max asks quietly, his eyes heavy on Charles'.

“You do not—you don’t remember him saying it before?” Charles guesses, and Max shakes his head, frowning.

Ah. “You have an—override code,” Charles says awkwardly, and Max’s eyes widen. “He said all the exploratory models do. Uh—here.” he doesn’t want to say it, he doesn’t ever want to have to say those words again, but writing it should be safe so he calls up a blank screen and lists the words out for Max. He slides the screen over and Max expands it so the four words hang in the air in front of them.

Erythrite. Magenta. Lambent. Nightless.

“EMLN,” Max says flatly. “f*cking figures.”

“EMLN. Is that,” Charles says , and Max glances over. “Is that your–”

“Serial number,” Max replies.

“So Max Verstappen—”

“Is my name, ” Max says fiercely, and this time Charles does reach out, folding his fingers around Max’s as he stares down the code that can shut him down at will. Max’s fingers grip Charles' tightly, and Charles sighs.

“Listen,” he says, tugging Max around until he’s facing Charles. “We’re safe as long as the rad-drive is engaged—no communication can reach us here. But as long as you are in broadcast range you are vulnerable to that code.”

Max looks back at the four words hanging in the air. His fingers tighten on Charles'—and then release, pulling back into his lap. “You should have taken the deal,” he says softly.

“No,” Charles says reflexively. “What? No. Hey—hey Max, look at me,” he says, and Max does, albeit reluctantly.

“You would have been safe,” Max says as if pointing out the obvious, as if that’s not the most ridiculous thing Charles has ever heard.

“I did not come all the way here to be safe," he says, a small smile making its way to his face despite everything. "And you would have been on your way back to the Core, to be—” Charles stops, because the look in Max’s eyes tells him that he knows exactly what had awaited him. “Anyway. Look. We know the code is there, so now we can—I don’t know, neutralize it, right?”

Max looks deeply skeptical. “I’ve run thousands of diagnostics on myself and I’ve never seen anything that indicates—” he pauses, and turns to look at the copilot’s board.

“Max?” Charles ventures, and Max holds up a hand.

“I’ve run thousands of diagnostics,” he says, almost to himself, and this time he sounds sure. “Of course that’s where it is.”

“I cannot read your mind, Max,” Charles reminds him, and Max looks up.

“You look for it,” he says, gesturing toward the pilot’s board, and Charles slowly sits up.

“If you cannot find it,” he says, reaching out typing in a quick preliminary search. “I am not sure how I am going to have… better… luck…” he trails off as the results come back, hanging red and damning in the air.

“I don’t use that board,” Max says grimly, and Charles looks back at him.

“What—never?” Charles asks, and Max shakes his head.

“I don’t need the board to fly, you know that, and this is my seat, always has been.” Max’s fingers dig into the copilot’s seat. “I’ve never even questioned why.”

Charlespulls up the schematics. “Looks like—there,” he says triumphantly. “Must be hardcoded into the chip; but that means it can be uninstalled.”

There’s silence next to him, and when Charles looks over Max is staring flatly at the diagram. Lights spin in his eyes and the schematics zoom out, highlighting the location of the chip, and Charles whistles softly.

“Embedded in the pilot’s board,” he says, rotating the display in front of them. “That is a tricky piece of work.” The chip is embedded under layers of fail-safes and circuit loaders. It’s going to be difficult to get out.

“You have to do it,” Max says.

Charles frowns, zooming in on the display again. “It looks like—here, look,” he says, pointing. “It’s hooked into your main power line. You would have to—” he stops, stomach sinking.

“Be offline,” Max finishes quietly. “But you have to take it out.”

Charles brushes his hand over the pilot’s board, thinking about how dark Max’s eyes had been in that medbay room, how he never wants to see that again. Max shivers next to him, and Charles stops, but leaves his hand pressed to Max’s board.

“I do not wat to hurt you,” he says, and Max’s hand finds his.

“Your hands are gentle,” Max says, blooming something warm in Charles chest—

And then Max ruins it by adding, “And anyway I’ll be offline, so if you screw something up, you’ll still have a functioning ship, just no AI capacity.”

“Don’t,” Charles says immediately, jerking his hand away. “Do not even—do not even joke about that, f*ck. ”

Max’s half-smile falls, and Charles drags his hands down his face, turning his chair so he can look at Max. He takes both of Max’s hands in his; they’re larger than his own, Max’s skin warm to the touch as always. Charles rubs his thumb over the back of his hand and Max shivers again.

“I’m sorry,” Charles says roughly. “I did not—you are not an acceptable sacrifice, alright? That is not true back on the station and it is not true now. It will never be true. Okay?” Charles squeezes Max’s hands as if he can impress this truth into them. Max’s fingers curl slowly around Charles’ but he doesn’t answer, and when Charles looks up Max’s face is locked in set, stubborn lines.

“Why did you send me away?” he asks abruptly, and Charles blinks.

“Because if I had not I would have hauled you down into bed with me,” Charles says bluntly. The memory of the need running through his veins is more distant now, thankfully, but his breath still catches at the reminder.

Max tilts his head. “Did you think I wouldn’t have helped?”

“I—” Charles doesn’t know how to answer that. “Why did you think a Company outpost was the place to go?”

“You weren’t waking up,” Max says flatly. “You had sent me away and you weren’t waking up and I wasn’t going to let you die, not when there was anything I could do about it.”

“Max.” Charles' hands tighten desperately on Max’s. “I am not worth that.” I’m not worth what they would have done to you.

Max blinks slowly. “You are to me,” he says, as if that should be obvious, as if he’s not letting loose something breathless in Charles' chest. “Some sacrifices—some choices are worth making. I chose this, and I would choose all of it again. All of it,” he says over Charles' faint protest.

The stars outside slow and shift, settling back into singular points outside the viewport, the rumbling underneath Charles' boots settling back into the subtler thrum of Max’s sublight engines. He sighs and sits back, releasing Max’s hands. “We can argue about this later,” he says, and hopes desperately that that’s true, that there will be a later for both of them.

“You can try,” Max says with a ghost of his usual smile. “I’ll win.”

“You will not,” Charles says, because if he focuses on putting that teasing light back in Max’s eyes he won’t have to think too hard about what he’s going to have to do. Besides he hates losing too.

“Will,” Max counters, mouth pulling up. He swings his chair around, gazing at the viewport as the hanging stars rotate around them. “I’ll find a place to set down. You get your tools.”

Charles swallows. “Right.” He pushes himself out of the pilot’s seat, hesitating before resting a hand on Max’s shoulder. One of Max’s hands comes up to grip his for just a moment, and Charles has to take a deep breath and blow it out again before he can make himself let go.

The pullwrench has never felt so heavy in his hands as when Charles uses it to take the lower casing off the pilot’s board. He sets it carefully aside and levers himself back out from underneath the board, moving to crouch next to where Max has settled against the wall, hands in his lap. Charles picks one of them up on his own, rubbing his thumb over Max’s knuckles.

“Ready?” Charles is not at all not sure that he is, but Max has found a wide grassy field to set down on in a lonely moon off a slowly spinning gas giant. The moon itself is large enough to have its own atmosphere, the gas giant hanging omnipresent in the sky outside. The sun is shining. It feels like it shouldn’t, like there should be something other than sunlight beaming in through the viewports and the slowing tick of Max’s cooling engines to underscore the moment, but there isn’t. There’s just the two of them, just Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, and Charles is putting off the moment when there will be only one.

Max’s fingers curl around his. “Ready,” he says. His eyes are steady on Charles' and he wishes he had half Max’s certainty.

“I am going to turn off the power from the pilot’s board,” Charles says. They’ve been over this already but it makes him feel better to say it again. “It will be just like going to sleep.”

The corner of Max’s mouth turns up. “I don’t sleep.”

“Then you will learn what it’s like,” Charles says. He squeezes Max’s hand, although who that’s meant to reassure is anyone’s guess. He reaches out to smooth a hand over Max’s hair, and before he can lose his nerve about it entirely he leans in and brushes his lips over Max’s forehead.

Max’s eyes are wide when he pulls back. “Charlie,” he breathes, and Charles gives him what he hopes is a reassuring smile.

“Something to come back for, okay?” he says, and the wonder in the curve of Max’s mouth is almost enough to make Charles lean back in.

Instead he lets Max’s fingers slip through his, forcing himself back up and over to the pilot’s board. He pulls up the power interface, selecting the command line that isn’t available from the copilot’s board, that Max hadn’t even known was there. He looks over his shoulder, at Max rearranging his hands neatly in his lap.

Max nods, and Charles hits Execute.

He makes sure he’s watching; it seems only appropriate that he bears witness as Max’s eyes go wide, as the lights in his irises spin and then go dim, as his face goes slack and the life in it drains away. It’s f*cking awful, and Charles grits his teeth as Max’s eyelids fall; not all the way, just enough that Charles can still see how utterly empty Max is.

His gut churns as the everpresent hum of Max’s systems shut down one by one, as the cabin lights fade and the air recyclers shut off. Soon the only sound is his own ragged breathing, the only vibration in the floor is the thump of his boots as he crosses to where Max sits. Charles picks up his wrist. There’s no pulse; of course there’s not, Max doesn’t have a pulse even at the best of times, and Charles really needs to get his head on straight if he’s going to pull this off. Max’s wrist hangs limply in his hand, and it might be Charles' imagination but it seems like Max’s skin is already cooling from his more-than-human warmth.

A plaintive meow sounds in the silence, and Charles looks up to see Sassy sitting in the doorway to the co*ckpit, watching Max intently. She trots over as Charles places Max’s hand gently back in his lap.

“He is just—sleeping,” he tells her when she puts a paw delicately on Max’s leg. “He’ll be fine.” He’s trying not to think about the alternative.

She gives him a clearly dubious glance, and then curls up next to Max’s thigh, tucking her paws underneath her. It makes Charles feel a little better; at least Max won’t be quite so alone while Charles is working.

He needs to quit stalling. The sooner this is over with, the sooner he can have—the sooner Max can come back. He needs to get this done while he’s still awake enough to do it, too; he can feel the thyroxidrin in his veins, keeping the exhaustion at bay, but that won’t last forever.

Sliding under the pilot’s board is a familiar maneuver, enough to put him slightly more at ease. Even if he’s never worked on Max in quite this capacity before, Charles has always enjoyed working with his hands and Max isn’t too far off from standard. Advanced, certainly—Charles finds himself admiring the elegance of the engineering underneath his hands as the board comes apart piece by piece. He forces himself to concentrate and go slow; even with the power turned off, one slip of his hand, one carelessly crossed wire could overload Max’s circuits when Charles turns the power back on.

Charles breathes out, letting his hands still and glances over at where Max sits, still and lifeless as Charles' never seen him. Max rarely sits still for long, tapping his fingers or peering over Charles' shoulder or even just breathing, even though he doesn’t need to. Charles would give anything to see just the rise and fall of his chest again, to erase this eerie stillness that curls unease in his gut. He’s never felt so alone, even working late nights at the shop; he tries to hum to himself, the way he used to on a long evening shift, but that just seems to emphasize how very silent Max is, the stillness of his engines and the emptiness in his eyes.

Charles can tell when he gets closer to the chip, not only from the schematics pointing the way but also from the fail-safes built in as he digs deeper into the board. He carefully disconnects redundant wiring, unbolts the protective casing, and blows out a breath as he finally gets a look at the override configuration.

A small array of lights come into view as he sets the casing aside, and Charles frowns. He’d shut down Max’s internal power; the chip must have an independent power source, and that gives Charles pause. He glances over at Max. Disconnecting the chip while it’s still live is risky. At best, any short from the interrupted circuit will blow out harmlessly while Max’s systems are dea —down, Charles corrects himself. At worst—

At worst, Charles will blow out something vital and not know it until he tries to power Max back up.

He takes in a deep breath and lets it out. Risks? Charles wouldn't be here in the first place if he was scared of taking them. The chip has to come out. This is what Max had wanted, what he had asked for. If it doesn’t come out the Company will catch up with them, sooner or later. There is no other way forward.

Charles checks, then double checks that all the nearby circuits are closed, that all of the couplings he can find are disconnected. When he finds himself checking for a third time he tells himself to stop. He sets his fingers around the chip, thinking about the cracked and blown casing around Max’s Purpose, about how Max had felt the ache for months afterward. Charles glances at Max, still and dark, and tells himself it’s not the same.

Charlespulls out the chip, and the array of lights set around it die.

Nothing else happens.

Charles makes himself breathe out, and looks over at Max again. No change; but that’s to be expected. He won’t really know if he’s ruined—if he’s murdered the best thing that’s ever happened to him until he tries to turn Max’s power back on.

He sets the chip aside. He wants to crush it, to smash it with a wrench or grind it under his boot, but he figures that what happens to it should really be Max’s choice. He forces himself to be as slow and methodical putting Max back together as he was taking him apart, even as his heart pounds in his chest and he has to swallow past the tightness in his throat. It seems like both an eternity and only a second later that he’s securing the last bolt and smoothing his hand down the underside of the reassembled pilot’s board. He makes sure there are no stray bolts or parts, then pulls himself out from underneath the board.

Sassy lifts her head as he stands, shaking out his legs. He doesn’t bother sitting in the pilot’s seat, just pries the cover off the manual power override on the side of the board and hits it with shaking fingers.

Two and a half beats of his heart later, the pilot’s board lights up and Charles grabs at the board as his knees go weak. The co*ckpit lights glow and then brighten, the familiar whir of Max’s air recyclers humming back into existence as the idle-state of his engine rumbles through the floor, almost too faint to pick up except for how Charles had missed it terribly while it was gone. He turns to Max—

And Max sits still and dark against the wall of the co*ckpit, and Charles breath stops.

“No, no, no,” he hears someone murmur, and it’s not until he finds himself dropping into Max’s lap, Sassy scrabbling out of the way, that Charles realizes it’s him. “No, ” he repeats desperately, catching Max’s face in his hands and tilting it up. Max’s neck moves far too easily under his hands, and Charles blinks furiously as his throat tightens up.

“Please,” he whispers. “Please come back to me.”

Sassy meows worriedly but Charles can’t look away from Max’s face, lifeless and slack and far too dear to be as empty as it is. Charles holds his breath as if that will slow down time, as if that will give Max the seconds that he needs to find his way back—

Max’s lips part, and his eyelids flutter, and then there are lights spinning in his eyes and he’s tilting his head up under Charles' hands.

“Charles,” he breathes, and Charles can feel the tears tracking down his cheeks but he doesn’t think he’s ever smiled so wide, he doesn’t ever want to stop smiling, he’s not sure he could even if he tried.

“Max,” he says, and then because he had kind of promised and because he wants to more than anything, he leans forward and fits their mouths together.

Max makes a surprised little noise against his lips, but he’s tilting his head up into it and his arms are coming up to rest against Charles' back, tentatively at first and then with more force, hauling Charles closer as Max’s lips move against his. Max kisses like he’s trying to drink Charles down, like he’s trying to learn the shape of Charles' mouth with his own, like he never wants to stop and it takes Charles longer than it should to remember that only one of them needs to breathe.

He breaks off, resting his forehead against Max’s and sliding his arms around his neck as he struggles to catch his breath. He just needs a moment. Maybe five. Maybe ten.

Maybe what he needs is more than a moment.

Chapter 8: Max

Chapter Text

Coming up from a cold boot had been hard enough the first time, when he’d still been partially online; Max can’t say that the experience is significantly better this time around, although the sensation of coming back online to Charles' hands warm on his face and his weight heavy over his lap is certainly an improvement. Falling offline had been terrifyingly uncertain, but if waking up means Charles is waiting for him, Max would brave it all over again.

Charles' arms tighten around Max’s neck. His vitals are spiking and he’s trembling, nearly shaking in Max’s arms as his system tries to balance itself. Charles had been—afraid, Max realizes. Which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense; Charles hadn’t had a lot to lose here except—

Except Max himself, and that’s twice in the last twenty-four hours that Charles has refused to put Max down, to let him go when it was easy, when it became convenient.

“We are never f*cking doing that again,” Charles declares determinedly, and the we warms something in Max, something deeper than circuitry or code, something he doesn't have a name for. He licks his lips and when Charles' eyes drop to his mouth he grins; kissing Charles had been everything Max had ever hoped it might be, except that now he knows that he won’t be satisfied with just once. He thinks that he may never be satisfied, that whatever condition is met by Charles' mouth will never be fulfilled, and once that kind of logical loop might have made Max frown but now he can’t seem to stop the grin pulling at his face.

“It worked, though,” he says, and then pauses. “Didn’t it?”

Charles leans back, reaching out with one hand; the other he keeps solidly locked around the back of Max’s neck and that’s just fine with him. Charles returns with a small chip branded with the Company logo pressed between his fingers, and Max accepts it cautiously, balancing it between his thumb and forefinger. It feels heavy, outsizedly so. His Purpose had felt the same way.

“Try it,” Max says, watching the chip. It was clearly built to run independently of the ship’s power, and while it should be disconnected by now, he wants to be sure.

“I—what?” Charles' voice is lined with discomfort and Max looks back at him. “No, I do not—I do not ever want to have to say those words to you again.”

“I have to know,” Max says, and Charles' face does something complicated before settling into resignation.

“Fine,” he says reluctantly. “Erythrite. Magenta.” He rushes through it as if the words taste bad, and Max scans through his systems, looking for any kind of reaction.

“Lambent.” Nothing, but Max can see the fear building in Charles' eyes, hear the effort it takes to keep his voice steady. “Nightless,” Charles says, and visibly holds his breath.

Max blinks—

And then grins, bearing down on the chip until it snaps between his fingers.

“I knew you could do it,” he says, running through subsystem after subsystem. Nothing, and Max has never been so relieved for a negative result.

“Then why did you have to make me say it,” Charles grumbles, but the effect is ruined by the way a small smile spreads on his face again. Max lets the fragmented remains of the chip fall to the floor and wipes his fingers on Charles' pants.

“I wanted to be sure,” he says, ignoring Charles' pointed look at his hand. “And I wanted you to be sure. About me,” he says, and Charles' face softens.

“I am sure. About you,” he says quietly, one hand running through the soft hair at the nape of Max’s neck. “Have been for some time.”

Max’s cheeks are starting to hurt. “I am too,” he says. “Never had a better pilot.”

Charles scoffs. “You never had another pilot. You do not need—” he stops, as if something’s just occurred to him.

“Charles?” Max rests his hands on Charles' thighs, thumbs stroking over the rough material.

“Hold on,” Charles says, scrambling up, and Max almost pouts as Charles' weight leaves his legs. “Do not go anywhere,” Charles says, heading for the co*ckpit door; as if Max could go anywhere, as if he would.

The co*ckpit seems suddenly quiet without him, even with the fading echo of Charles' boots as he sprints down the hall. Max can’t imagine what’s so important, but he pushes himself to his feet, testing his balance. Everything appears to be operable, even with Sassy winding herself around his legs.

“Hi,” he tells her, and she chirps back. He grins, leaning down; she suffers herself to be picked up and deposited on the pilot’s seat, settling down and tucking her paws underneath herself. Max turns back and eyes the remains of the chip on the floor. His Purpose he had dropped into a nearby star; these pieces might go into a deep ocean, he thinks, to corrode and be forgotten.

Before he can sweep the pieces up for eventual dissolution, Charles bursts back into the co*ckpit, handreader and stylus clenched in his grip. He thrusts the handreader toward Max, and he accepts it bemusedly, although he feels the smile on his face faltering as he gets a look at what’s on the screen.

He looks back up at Charles. “This is the title to—” to me , he almost says, but surely Charles knows this.

“Yes.” Charles says, holding out the stylus. “Sign.”

Max blinks. “I—what?”

Charlesreaches out and scrolls down to the bottom of the deed of ownership, where a new line has been added. Transfer of Ownership, it says.

There are spaces for two signatures. Charles has already signed one.

“You do not need a pilot,” Charles says gently, over Max’s instinctive noise of protest. “You do not need anyone to fly, or make choices. Why not make it official?”

“I do need you,” Max says. “I can’t own myself.” Charles' smile softens.

“I am not going anywhere,” he says gently. “And I do not see why not. It’s what the rest of us do.”

“I’m not human,” Max points out, very reasonably in his opinion, but this just makes Charles laugh.

“I don't think that is a requirement,” he says, still patiently holding out the stylus, like he could offer it forever. Maybe he can.

Max cautiously wraps his fingers around the stylus, but doesn’t draw it toward himself. “You love owning a ship,” he says, and he knows it’s true because Charlesdoes: it’s apparent in every line of his body when they lift off into the stars, leaving the ground behind.

Charles smiles, the kind that puts meteors to shame. He lets go, leaving Max holding the stylus. “I love you,” he says, like it’s obvious. Maybe it is. “Sign.”

Max looks back down at the handreader. He hefts the stylus, hesitating—then he scrolls up to where the line for Ship Name had been left blank.

He’d left it blank on purpose, when he’d forged these documents. He’s not MV1 anymore, and he’d figured that whomever he eventually connected with might have their own ideas along those lines.

Charles had never touched it. He’d named Sassy, and named her well. But maybe he thinks Max already has one.

Max Verstappen looks good on that line, like it fits. Max finishes carefully printing his name and then skims to the bottom of the document, signing with a flourish. He blinks, almost dizzy as he pulls the stylus away. Charles' arm slides around his waist, warm and steady as he’s always been. Max lets himself lean into it, looking down at his name.

“I made these documents up, you know,” he says, and Charles just laughs.

“I know,” he says, pressing his lips briefly against Max’s temple. “That does not make them any less real, though.”

Max is fairly certain that it does; but that doesn’t stop the laugh bubbling up in his throat, and he feels like he can just about see his way to what Charles is saying. He thinks it might help if he kissed Charles again—might further his understanding—so he tilts his head down, grinning slightly as Charles' gaze drops immediately to Max’s lips.

Max bites his lower lip and Charles' hand flexes on Max’s waist. Max can feel his pulse pounding even from here and he wants to taste it, to press his lips and his fingers to it, to learn all the ways Charles' body will respond.

“That is cheating,” Charles says breathlessly, ears pinking, and Max can feel his face breaking into a grin again.

“I am a cheater,” he reminds Charles. “I thought you knew that.”

“I do,” Charles laughs, and finally, finally he’s leaning up for those last few centimeters. Max stretches down to meet him, and if he’s smiling too much for a proper kiss then so is Charles, but they’ve got time to figure this out. They’ve got time to get it right, now; and while some sacrifices are worth making Max wouldn’t trade this moment for any of the ones behind him. Charles' free hand takes the handreader from Max’s and flings it into the copilot’s seat so he can pull Max closer, and he returns the favor, winding his arm around Charles' neck and leaning into him.

Some sacrifices are worth making, and so are some choices. Max had chosen himself, once; he’ll choose Charles again and again, as many times as he can.

”It is only with the heart that one can see rightly,” Max recites, reading the words into the pre-dawn light. “Whatis essential is invisible to the eye."

He pauses, then looks over at Sassy. “Do you know what that means?”

She blinks at him from the pilot’s seat, slow and content, paws tucked under her body. If she has opinions beyond this, she isn’t sharing.

“Yeah.” Max settles back into the copilot’s seat, linking his hands together over his stomach. “That’s what I thought.”

Computational theory is still easier, but as Max dismisses the poetry file he thinks that he might be starting to make some headway. He likes the way it sounds, at any rate. Sassy isn’t much of a poetry critic but she’s willing to let him try it out without comment, and Max finds that he likes the audience.

Speaking of—

“You can kick her out of your seat any time, you know,” he says, looking over his shoulder.

Charles starts guiltily, a smile pulling at his mouth as he pushes off from the doorframe. His eyes are still soft from sleep, his hair tousled from bed and from Max’s hands running through it. His fingers itch to do it again and he tightens them against his stomach.

This will have been the second night he’s spent in Charles' bed, but the first he’s been awake for; the hours spent learning the shape of Charles' mouth had gone by too quickly, and if it weren’t for the way he had yawned into his neck Max would have been tempted to keep going. Max should have expected the crash; adrenaline and even thyroxidrin wears off eventually, and Charles' body had been through a lot in the last few hours. He had tried to shift away but Charles had muttered a sleepy protest, and so Max had stayed. He’d watched Charles' face relax into sleep from centimeters away, feeling the chest underneath his rise and fall in a steady rhythm, Charles' hand warm and centering against his back.

He would have been content to stay there until Charles woke up again, but in the early hours of the morning Sassy had apparently decided that since he was awake and had opposable thumbs, he was in charge of feeding her. Max had been afraid that her increasing volume would wake Charles, so he had carefully extracted himself, settling Charles' hand gently back on his stomach. Charles' face had creased and he had mumbled something unintelligible, but had just rolled on his side without waking.

“Don’t get used to this,” Max had warned Sassy once he had put her food down. “He’s the one that feeds you.” She had glanced up, licking the side of her mouth, and the smug look in her eyes had told Max exactly how likely she was to abide by that.

So. Cat-feeding appeared to be a new part of his morning duties, but Max can’t say he minds, not if it means he gets to catch Charles watching them with that soft, wondering look in his eyes, like Max talking to a cat in the gray light of dawn is anything special, like it’s something Charles has been looking for.

Charles crosses the short distance between them and rests a hand on Max’s shoulder. “She’s fine where she is,” he says, squeezing, and Max tips his head back to look up.

“And you?” he asks. He covers Charles' hand with his own, linking their fingers together to feel Charles' pulse beat against his skin.

Charles grins down at him. “Never better,” he promises, and Max has to tug him down and kiss him, to remind himself that he can now. Charles bends easily, and his lips are as soft and as warm as Max remembers.

Max lets him go after only a few moments; not too far, just far enough that he can rub a thumb over Charles' cheekbone, cast in a warm red. The cabin lightens, painted in red and yellows and golds, and Max glances out the viewports at the sun emerging from the shadow of the hanging gas giant.

“Sunrise,” he murmurs, looking back at Charles. “We haven’t seen too many of those.”

“First of many,” Charles replies, brushing his lips against the palm of Max's hand. “The first of all the rest.” He straightens, moving behind the co-pilot’s chair, and Max nearly protests before Charles' arms settle around him again, folding him back against the seat. Max sighs, settling back as Charles' lips press against the crown of his head.

“Where to next?” Max asks into the brightening dawn, and Charles hums thoughtfully against the back of Max’s head.

“Somewhere brilliant,” he says eventually, and Max frowns, because he’s not sure how to quantify brilliant. “Somewhere unique. Somewhere brave.”

Somewhere— “Are you talking about a settlement again, because I’m not sure that’s a great idea—”

“No,” Charles interrupts, and Max can feel the smile pressed against the back of his head. “No, I am talking about you.”

Oh. “Oh.” Max blinks, hoping the hum of his cooling system isn’t audible. “I’m right here.”

“Yes,” Charles agrees. “You are. I think you should pick our next destination, and I think that wherever it is will be brilliant because you will be there.”

“Are you going to say stuff like this all the time,” Max says faintly, pulling up their list of jump destinations. Charles doesn’t have subroutines for this kind of behavior, he doesn’t have the excuse.

“Yes,” Charles says peaceably. “You are just going to have to get used to it. And stop complaining, it’s not like you are any better.”

Max thinks that won’t be difficult; but then, very little about Charles is difficult. Max narrows his eyes at the list of potential destinations, and then points at one near the middle of the list. “There.”

Charles leans forward to get a better look, and makes an appreciative noise. “Rosso Corsa?I like it.”

Max dismisses the list, already running the jump calculations. “Have you heard of it?”

“No,” Charles says, and Max can hear the smile in his voice. “But that does not matter.”

Max tilts his head back so he can look Charles in the face. “What does matter, Charlie?” The angle makes his voice go breathless, and entirely worth it for the look it puts on Charles' face, fond and exasperated and hungry all at once.

“You already know the answer to that,” Charles replies, leaning forward, and Max grins into the kiss.

There are planets and settlements and the edges of human exploration to test, but the frontier Max is most interested in is right here with his arms wrapped around him, holding him like he’s something precious, something... lovely, like he’s worth keeping.

Max does know the answer: everything that’s worth keeping, that’s worth choosing, is right here in this co*ckpit. It’s not Purpose, or even purpose; it’s something better, and Max holds tight and lets it fill him up, lets love bring him home.