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Sometimes Wash dreamed of the crash. He was lying on the floor of the med bay for too long and he was beginning to wonder if no one else had made it since he was left there alone in the smoke and debris with the alarms warbling as the electrics cut in and out. Sometimes in the dream there weren’t any sirens and that made the flashing lights and smoke in the silence even more surreal. Whether or not the sound was in the dream it always cut from there to being picked up off the floor and half carried, half dragged out of the wreckage of the ship by Maine. The details of how exactly he got outside, even with the help, were fuzzy at best when he was awake and not important in the dream.
The next thing he remembered was laying in the snow with the hulking figure in white armor leaning over him. Maine took off his helmet and leaned over to touch Wash's face, his movements were jerky like he was having to fight for every inch he took from Sigma and it screamed that he was saying goodbye. Wash stayed limp with a dazed look on his face that wasn't that hard to feign since he'd been thrown around the med bay like a rag doll in the crash. When Maine was leaning in close enough and his glove touched Wash's face Wash surged up off the ground to wrap his arms around Maine's neck and kissed him.
He wasn't letting Maine get away that easily.
While the other man was startled and both he and the AI implanted in him froze Wash's fingers found the chip in the port at the back of his neck and he pulled. Losing Sigma when he was wrapped that fully into his brain meant that Maine dropped like someone had switched him off and Wash ended up trapped underneath him in the snow in nothing but his under suit and had to lever Maine off of him so he could move.
That was where Tex found them. Wash shivering in the snow with the chip with Sigma clenched in his fist because he hadn’t been able to find a rock to beat it into shards without moving away from Maine.
But that was almost a year ago and the dreams didn’t come that often anymore because when Wash wakes up Maine is there beside him and the sound of his breathing in the night keeps him asleep. They were too injured to go on the run with the others so Tex had left them on a small colony planet and took the others she’d been able to round up from the MOI to lead any hunters away.
At first people in the colony had looked after them because they’d been paid to. But eventually as they started to spend time around the other residents, things started to change.
Wash ended up with a job when one day he started helping the older couple who repaired what they could of the colony’s broken machinery. He found that his military training meant to let him hold a field radio together with duct tape and strong wishes until he could get an emergency message out came in really handy on a far rim planet that rarely saw supply runs. When they saw the food he was bringing in to eat (ration bars and things that could hardly be called food) suddenly Wash started to go home with fresh cooked meals to share with Maine and after that work started to include lessons on how to find local plants to season up things and how to start up a stew that he could leave to cook slowly so it would be ready to eat when he went home.
When some of the colonists saw Maine working on the half finished house they’d been given to repair and live in with his knitted hat on and pulled down to cover his head in the intense summer heat they eventually figured out why and soon half of the people in the tiny excuse of a town were showing Wash and Maine their tattoos and coming up with design ideas to cover the mark of the Meta. The intricate designs they came up with to cover his scalp somehow ended up not stopping there. Instead they trailed down his neck and arms before they were done. Wash liked to trace the patterns with his fingers down the neck, over his shoulders and down his arms until he followed the intricate loops around his wrist when they lay in bed at night. The light touches over Maine’s skin helped both of them fall asleep. It also helped Maine center himself when he had a bad day with headaches he still suffered from having Sigma’s chip torn out.
And then there was the day Wash came home and found Maine sitting on the steps to their half built excuse of a porch with a tiny girl with him. She showed no fear of the huge man who was watching her carefully as she pointed to various things then moved her hands. If Maine didn’t seem to do exactly what she wanted the little girl would take his hands and move them through the motion she wanted him to make. Instead of moving closer Wash stayed half hidden by a pile of wood and watched as the little girl made Maine do this over and over until she was satisfied with how he did and she jumped up and threw her arms around his scarred neck in a hug. There was a shadow of a smile on Maine’s face and he lifted a hand to gingerly pat the messy mop of curls pressed against his cheek.
Her name was Greta and she’d been born without vocal cords and since she knew what it was like to be different and to have a hard time talking to others she’d taken it on herself to help Maine learn how to communicate. She thought the reason Maine stayed away from everyone and worked on the house was because he was scared or embarrassed that he couldn’t talk to anyone.
As soon as he learned enough signing to understand and answer her questions Maine assured her that was exactly why he’d always stayed by himself. After that Maine was often seen being pulled around the streets by his wrist by Greta while she introduced him to everyone and taught him words for everything they came across. Her mother, a widow with three other children just smiled and said that was how Greta was and let her make friends with the former Freelancers.
And the months stretched on and two sets of armor stayed stacked neatly in a space beneath their floor while Wash and Maine lost the callouses from firing a gun and forgot what it was like to wear their Kevlar under suits and fight every day. Somehow, even though they still both wore the scars from the program they started to learn what it was like to be something other than soldiers.
The planet they were on was a long way out and it had a long orbit. It had been late Spring when Tex brought them and now over a year later Fall was finally giving way into Winter. Once they knew how long the seasons were Maine had not only stocked their own house with wood but he’d made sure others had more than enough to keep them. Newly split wood appeared at Greta’s house, and at the shop and home of the couple Wash worked with and was stacked clear up to the roof. Despite the fact there was supposed to be heaters wired into the houses they had trouble keeping the parts on hand for the tech at first almost everyone also had wood stoves for the inevitable break downs. During the war when the supplies had stopped coming very often most of the residents had just stopped using the high tech heaters all together so they could use any parts for more important machines.
Knowing that winter was coming didn’t help all that seemed to happen was it got colder and rained until the whole world seemed to just be a damp, grey eternity. Machines broke and tempers around the colony flared more than they did during the rest of the year. Wash was tired of mud that you couldn’t keep out of anything and the sun going down early and coming up late until it felt like it was just dark all the damn time. It made it hard to concentrate or care if anything got done.
It was a rest day and they didn’t technically have to be anywhere but Wash was in the habit of taking a run despite the cold and checking in on people so when he’d rolled out of bed, bitching about how cold it was, he’d pulled on his clothes planning to get the run out of the way after he’d brought in more wood. Maybe if he built up the fire before he went on the run it would be acceptably warm inside when he came back.
“Maine! Come out here!” The cold had slapped Wash in the face when he’d opened the front door but that wasn’t what had him calling out. The damp, grey landscape had been transformed overnight with a coating of soft white and the fat furry looking flakes were still falling. It had only been a year since Sidewinder and the snow there but unlike Sidewinder this snow wasn’t filled with the smell of burning metal and blood. Instead the snowfall had softened the air somehow turning everything into a hazy blur. Sounds didn’t make it very far through the air. There was a hush that made the scene feel very peaceful.
Wash didn’t wait, or stop for a coat, he just walked out into the snow with his arms out, palms up, and let the feathery flakes fall on his skin and hair. It was cold when they hit and turned into water but he didn’t care. It just felt too magical to care that it was cold. He knew that Maine had joined him when he felt the scarf being put around his neck. Wash turned and slipped his arms around Maine’s waist with a smile that lifted when he saw Maine smiling back at him and he was reaching up to pull Maine down to him even as Maine leaned down and the kiss was warm and full of the shivery feeling of snowflakes melting on his skin.
Then Maine had pulled back with a grin and Wash knew exactly what he was going to do so he started to try to push away. “No! Don’t you dare!” But it wasn’t any use and he couldn’t escape the cold fingers that wormed their way under his shirt making Wash let out a shout of outrage that turned into laughter as he punched Maine lightly in the shoulder.
“Such a brat.” But Wash wasn’t really complaining. It wasn’t very often even before Sigma that Maine felt playful and teased him like this. Maine obviously didn’t mind being called a brat since all he did was ruffle Wash’s hair with one hand making the snow melting in his hair drip down his neck and behind his ears. “Gah! Okay let’s go inside if you’re going to keep doing that.” Wash batted at Maine with a laugh.
Maine nodded and then pointed to Wash, the house and himself before bringing his fingers and thumb together and touched them first beside his mouth then touched his cheek an inch or two closer to his ear before looking at Wash and raising his brows at him asking a question.
Wash nodded before he pulled Maine back down for another kiss, this one soft and lingering before he broke off the kiss and leaned his forehead against Maine’s wanting to stay close. “Yes, let’s go home.”