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“Ahead!” Martyn shouts. “I’ll try and get them, but just in case —“
“Seen it.” Ren takes the nasty swerve around turn fourteen, and it sends them three-deep on the track for a breathless, screeching instant. Only one of Martyn’s potshots hits, but it nudges the terraracer on the inside into an awful spin that takes it within inches of the rock formation.
“All clear.” Martyn lets his breath out through his teeth, already swiveling to check behind them. “Field’s looking pretty good — a couple good teams spun out already. Few laps more.”
“Time to take it to ‘em, baby,” Ren says. “Here we come, baby!” Martyn can here the feral grin in it even before the g-force slams him back into his seat.
There’s hardly any time to think in a race. The miles whip by in seconds, Martyn’s hands clenched tight as he rotates and shoots. It’s always beautiful when he gets an impact, ball of force ricocheting off another racer. What’s better is that he barely needs to think about calling the track ahead when Ren knows them all like the back of his hand. So much practice, so much being his own drill sergeant and it’s all worth it to be able to shoot as easy as breathing. He could already read Ren in a glance, but now it almost feels like they’re one machine, unbroken and aligned.
“Got ‘em,” Martyn yells as Ren swoops past another racer. The little glowing display in the lower corner of the viewscreen reports that they’re in second, now, just one more to go.
The outside is a blur. Everything’s a blur except the pieces Martyn picks out like mosaic tiles. Hairpin up ahead. Terraracer behind them, whoops, not anymore. Firing down shots from the other gunners. Flashbulb memory of Ren, grin stretching his face and vast expanse of purple sky and viewscreen mirrored in his sunglasses, hands wrapped around the controls as he flicks from one to another to another.
“Up ahead,” Ren grits out. The acceleration gets him worse than it does Martyn, something about their biologies. “Head ‘em up for me.”
“On it,” Martyn promises. The terraracer comes into view, a model just a few months off the line — new enough that no one’s spotted the glaring problems with how the exhaust system’s set up. Martyn lines up a shot. In, out. Wait for the perfect moment.
There’s no kickback as the ball of force plunges its way out of the gun. No sound as it collides with the external vent, craters it inward just a fraction. Like a tree falling, the terraracer slows to a crawl, and in barely a blink Ren swoops past it.
“First place,” Ren whoops. “First place!”
“You know it,” Martyn says. His hands are the beautiful kind of still that comes with a gallon of adrenaline. Maybe his brain just hasn’t caught up to what’s happening, the fact that whatever this is, they’re doing it. They’re doing it right.
If anything, Ren gets faster after that, even though there are twenty laps to go and no one at all near behind them. It’s sky and stalled clouds, and Martyn’s hungry for it. It’s what Martyn had hoped pilot’s school would be, way back when he thought wandering the stars would be anything other than lonely.
Martyn’s holding his breath when their terraracer bursts past the finish line.
“I — Ren.” The words are bubbling out of him almost without permission. His heart is beating like a bird’s. Joy fizzes in his ears. “You — that was magic.”
Ren’s bouncing up and down in his seat as he guides them gently to the ground. “It’s just like it was, dude.” He sounds breathless, even though he couldn’t have been, a moment ago. “I didn’t think that was possible. Not without…”
It damps part of Martyn’s emotions, lets him breathe a little bit easier. “Still. Still!”
“Still,” Ren says, and then he’s unclipping his harness and scrambling up to where Martyn’s still perched in his gunner’s seat. He’s a heavy weight on Martyn’s lap, warm, wriggling with delight.
Their faces are close enough together that Martyn doesn’t bother with formalities, just hauls Ren in for a kiss. The press outside can wait — their terra-rider’s all mirror for a reason.
Ren’s mouth is warm against his, wet. His cheeks are stubbly under Martyn’s palms, scratchy in the long moment before he goes abruptly still.
“I didn’t think it would be like this,” Martyn says when Ren pulls back for air. “Every time?”
“It’s better when we’re winning,” Ren says, ridiculous wicked smile on his face. “You were so good. My hand. My eyes in the sky.”
Martyn lets out a heavy breath. “You too,” he says, as tender as he can make it. “Let’s face the press.”
It’s an awful whirl of cameras and crowd noise and soundbites, after that, penned in by the media and hardly anywhere to turn. They stick together by instinct, at first, and then because they have no other choice, but eventually they wend their way into the dismal grey pit hub, where their pit crew — Etho, Skizz, whoever’s hanging out on Dogwarts lately — are gathered in a loose knot. They’ve already started celebrating by the look and smell of it.
“Let’s get home, my dudes!” Ren announces, to general cheers, but his hand wiggles its way into Martyn’s.
Almost as soon as they’re back in the air, Ren tugs Martyn away from his spot at the executive officer’s screens, away from the messy semblance of a party that’s kicked into gear.
“We — we got them, baby,” Ren says. He can’t seem to stop moving, almost hemming Martyn into the dark corner he’s pulled them to. “The Red King is back!”
“He sure is!” Laughter bubbles out of Martyn’s chest, free and joyful in the way that only Ren seems to bring out of him. “Your eyes, man, your eyes. So good!”
“Nothing without you,” Ren promises, oddly serious despite how his ears are perked straight up. Then his grin flicks back over his face, infectious. “Woohoo!”
Martyn can’t resist pulling him into a massive bearhug. He’s fidgeting even then, tail twitching in the air, but the rest of him is warm and solid against Martyn. His sunglasses dig into Martyn’s shoulder, but Martyn just holds tighter. “Anything for you.”
Ren lets out a content sigh. “I see, you do,” he says, a whisper of irony to it.
Martyn holds tighter. “Sounds about right.”