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River had decided—a very long time ago, now—that if people were going to be awful, River just wasn't going to talk to them. They hated most of the other heirs, anyway; they knew everything that people said about them behind their back, because contrary to popular belief they weren’t an idiot. Even Aubrey had maybe three jokes about them, the stupid “projectile autism” one included.
However, almost three years ago now, Kali Gale had decided that River needed a publicist, even though at the time they had only been an adjunct professor. River was too scared to turn them down, and now they were in too deep; Solly Francis was all of twenty, and actually seemed to like working with the Gales. It would be awful to turf them out now. Which was to say, River had attended this stupid Consular gala against their will—Mx. Francis’ suggestion.
“You are a member of the Great Houses,” they had lectured River. “Show your face in public once in a while—it won’t kill you.”
River had disagreed with that, but Mx. Francis didn’t want to hear it. So, now River was here, wearing something multilayered and floaty that a stylist had picked out[1] and surreptitiously working on a paper at the back of the ballroom of the Tiangong hotel. They weren’t alone, at least—a few other people had collected in this small corner, including a brand-new senator double-fisting the tall, fluted glasses of champagne that were being passed around and a Marine in full dress uniform who’d managed to sneak their knitting in. Nobody spoke, but there was a kind of silent solidarity—none of us want to be here, let’s not make it worse by trying to strike up a conversation.
There was nobody to talk to here, really. Sure, they’d grown up with most of the Senate, whose investiture they were here to celebrate tonight, but none of River’s childhood friends would ever be caught dead with Robot River. They’d seen Max earlier, but they’d been dancing with Aubrey; had to keep up appearances, and all that. It was fine—River wasn’t jealous. Someone like Max would never look twice at someone like River; it wasn’t pessimism, it was just reality, especially when your acquaintances had made a tradition out of drawing straws to see who would have to sit next to you at dinner. It was fine.
All of a sudden, River felt a tap on their shoulder. They shoved their tablet into their pocket quickly, expecting to be mocked—but no. There, in the navy-and-gold uniform of the Tharsese Marines, was Maksim Liu.
It had been a long time since River had seen Max in their dress uniform, and River had forgotten how good they looked. Every inch the soldier-consort, the cursed Gale pearls gleamed under the fold of their collar, and matching earrings shone like stars against their dark hair; River had forgotten how curly it was, liberated as it now was from Max’s habitual military updo. River had read a few seedy romance novels in their time—Max could have been a protagonist straight out of their pages. They weren’t the only one who thought that, either; River could still feel the buzz at the back of their brain as social media went wild over the red carpet photos.[2] The fact that all the chatter irritated them was nothing. River was above stupid media stunts, that was all.
River couldn’t stop themself from smiling, squishing whatever silly annoyance they had down. “Hello, you.”
“Hey,” Max greeted them, a small smile flickering across their face in return. “Not a dancer?”
“Nope. Never cared for it.” River shrugged. “Always seemed too difficult.”[3]
“Oh, it’s not that hard. Come on,” they chirped; before River could protest, Max had them by both hands and out onto the ballroom floor.
“Alright, hand on my shoulder.” they instructed; River obeyed, although filled with trepidation. Something felt like it was eating at them—some sort of vermin had snuck into their chest cavity, and was now gnawing on the wires running through their ribs, tiny clawed feet making the inside of River’s torso itch.
Max extended the pair’s intertwined hands, resting the unoccupied one on River’s scapula. “Alright. Hear that?” they asked, and River supposed they meant the music. Straining to hear over their own pounding heart, they picked up, eventually, the beat of a waltz; one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three.
On the underside of River’s shoulder, Max’s fingers tapped out the same beat. “You just need to make sure you stay on time; you can count out loud if you need. I never stopped, at least.”
River nodded wordlessly as Max continued. “Alright—mirror me, okay? You just need to keep track of the beat. Here, start with—well, my left, your right—and we’re going sideways on one. Okay, good; now you’re going back on two and I’m going forward. Then, on three we close.”
River followed as best they could. “You’re really bad at this,” they observed.
“I’m rusty, alright?” Max defended themself; they were smiling, though. The pair continued the clumsy pattern in tandem; though River’s eyes were fixed on their own feet in their attempts to follow the steps, they could hear the medals pinned to Max’s chest jingling as they moved.
“Hey,” Max murmured. “Your feet are still going to be there. Look at me.”
River obeyed their order. They’d always wondered what drove people to self-sacrifice—what made them march like lemmings into battles they had no hope of surviving, what made them fall onto their own swords. Looking into Max’s face now, they thought they had their answer; was this the effect Max had on their soldiers? River knew they would have died for Max then and there, if they had only asked.
But River didn’t say any of that. “That’s healed up well,” they said instead, motioning with their eyelashes towards the now-cicatrised wound bisecting Max’s eyebrow.
Max shrugged. “Lieutenant Wu’s good at that; they put my finger back on last year.”
River had wondered about that scar, encircling their index finger like a ring. “How’d that happen?”
“Same as it always does,” they explained, exactly as River had known they would. “Ran into some trouble we weren’t expecting.” They went quiet then, eyes focused not on River, but on something very far away.
Gently, as though afraid of breaking them, River squeezed their hand. That seemed to snap them out of it, at least—spiralling back down to Mars from wherever they had gone, shoulders tensing a moment. River doubted that anyone else would have noticed it. “Yeah,” they said with a nod, as though determined to pretend it hadn’t happened. “It’ll be good to have them on this next mission.”
“Next mission?” River inquired. “What for?”
Max laughed softly. “Always the same game. You know I can’t tell you that, зая.”[4]
“Well, then where? Surely you can tell me that.” River tried for humorous; it more than likely ended up nearer to whiny, but Max hadn’t seemed to notice. Good.
“We’re taking a battalion out to Titan next week.” they mentioned, sounding forcibly flippant, and River’s heart dropped.
“Titan? But that’s at aphelion—”
Max cut them off, dismissive again. “Yeah.”
“What.” River asked, although their tone made it much less a question than a demand. “Sorry, you signed on for—”
“For the Titan mission, yes.” Max snapped. “I already fought with Aubrey about this. I really don’t need to fight with you, too.” They fell silent, although less fell and more snapped shut; Max was clenching their jaw so hard that River could see the muscles in their temples twitch.
The song ended, then, people filtering away from the dance floor in pairs and trios; River thought it might be prudent to leave Max alone.
Max caught the edge of River’s sleeve with their fingers, stopping them in their tracks. “Hey, I’m sorry. I’m being an ass. What was that paper about—the one you were writing earlier?”
“No. You can’t dangle discussion of my life’s work in front of me to distract me from arguing with you. I’m not a cat.” River snapped.
Still holding onto their sleeve, Max tugged River gently off the dance floor as couples started to come back on in different permutations. “You’re not my superior officer, either but you seem markedly interested in my career choices nonetheless.”
“You make stupid career choices, Max.” River snapped. “Any career choice where you come back with missing fingers is stupid.”
Max was silent for a long time, as though considering. “I don’t understand why you’re so fixated on this. I swore an oath, ” they finally intoned with a scowl. “I swore an oath to Tharsis—to the people and the colony that I love.”
“Yes, for the people and all that.” River’s voice dripped with sarcasm, hand pressed to their heart—aping sincerity. If Max minded River mocking the organisation they’d given their life to—mocking the words they had inscribed on their arm, what the fuck—they didn’t show it. “Come on,” River begged them, a hint of desperation creeping into their voice. “This can’t be the only way. Take a desk job, it’s not that hard. The Defence Department would love to have you.”
Another wave of photos must have hit social media, because River could feel the collective chatter of thousands of people in the back of their mind. They flinched, and Max’s face immediately turned to concern, clutching the thin fabric of River’s sleeve like a lifeline. “Are you alright?”
River nodded, the aftershocks of second-hand dopamine still working their way through their system. “Yeah. Socials.”
Max nodded. “Right, of course.” Head swivelling from side to side, they seemed to notice, then, just how many camera drones there were in the ballroom. “I’m going for a smoke—care to join me?”
River nodded silently; together, the pair drifted away, unnoticed in the crowd. Max stiffened when they walked past a crowd of soldiers, snatching their hand away from River’s sleeve like one would from a hot stove—River was the one who burned, though, not with heat but shame.
“Give my felicitations to Senator Gale, sir,” one of the officers said, hand raised to their brow in salute. “I tried earlier, but—well, you know.”
Max inclined their head. “Thank you, Captain. I’ll pass them along.” If the mention of the newly-elected Senator Aubrey Gale made either their Artemis or their spouse uncomfortable, neither of them let it show on their face. Together, they pressed on, through a network of hallways that made River’s head spin—away from the “presentable” part of the Tiangong and into it’s guts, its moving parts; where thousands of people laboured away from the eyes of the cameras to make the magic happen.
The back alley of the Tiangong was nothing special, but it was blessedly quiet; no eyes were trained upon them, now, human or lens. River finally let themself drop the pretence and lean against the wall, feeling a sense of deep relief as the muscles in their body relaxed—no longer involuntarily camera ready. Though Max remained as ramrod-straight as ever, they were obviously more comfortable back here, to. From within their jacket, they removed a lighter and a packet of cigarettes, and River felt a small flash of surprise; it was one thing to see the evidence of a nicotine addiction on someone’s halo,[5] another thing to watch them imbibe illegal substances right in front of you.
Max lit their cigarette, taking a drag before offering it to River; River shook their head. “I, uh. Don’t smoke. I just wanted to be here. With you.” The admission sounded childish and clingy coming out of their mouth, and River half expected Max to turn away, disgusted. Instead, to River’s surprise, Max nodded.
“Good for you. Don’t start.” they said, taking another drag. “It’ll kill you.” Someone, maybe Max themself, had painted their lips bright red to match the piping on their uniform; it was coming off on the end of the cigarette. If River had accepted their offer, raised the cigarette to their own mouth, Max’s lipstick might have come off on their own lips the same way it would have if they had kissed.
River quashed that train of thought with prejudice—it was simply unhelpful. Instead, they steeled themself for what they were about to suggest. “There’s no cameras out here, you know. Nobody’s watching us. And I know there’s some things I wanted to say to you earlier, that we couldn’t inside.”
“So?” Max inquired, not unkindly.
“So I think we ought to be honest with one another. We’re barely ever alone—we should clear the air.” River blurted out; their heart hammered, rabbitlike, in their chest.
“Not a bad idea,” Max conceded, eyeing them with caution. “But one question only. And no classified information.”
“No classified information,” River conceded. “One question each. And it’s got to be real; you don’t need to get all emotional if you don’t want to, but not the versions we put on of ourselves, either.”
Max nodded, smoke curling from their nostrils. “I could agree to that.”
“Also, you first.”
“Get fucked!” they exclaimed in mock indignation. “Fine; why were you so fixated on my military service, earlier?”
River had to think about that for a bit, sorting through the jokes and dismissive responses that immediately came to mind. “Because I care about you, and I don’t want you to die.” A pause. “Also, because the Defence Department would fall apart.”
Max sighed, flicking the burnt-out nub of their cigarette into the gutter. “G-d, you sound like Nikola. Look—I appreciate your concern. Genuinely, River. It’s nice to know I have someone looking out for me. But this is what I was born to do, and my troops need someone to protect them. When something happens to me—” when, not if, what the fuck, “—we’ll talk about it then, but the only way I come off active duty is on a stretcher or in a coffin.”
River sighed. “Alright. I’ll stop pushing.”
“I know; I’m sorry, зая.” Max nudged them. “Your turn.”
There were so many things River could ask—their head buzzed with them, each one clamouring for attention and screaming that this, this was the thing River needed to know the answer to. “Why did you dance with me?” they settled on, finally; it was almost at random.
Now it was Max’s turn to think things over. “You looked—sad.” they finally forced out. “And lonely. I wanted to—I didn’t want you to be sad or lonely anymore.”
“Oh.” River breathed softly, surprised. “I didn’t know you…” that you cared about me like that, they had intended to add, but the words stuck in their throat.
“Me neither.” Hesitantly, Max wrapped an arm around River and pulled them in close. River wasn’t short, but Max made them look tiny; they were tall enough to rest their jaw on the top of River’s head, entangled as they were.
River held them tight in return, skin buzzing where they touched Max—another thing to ignore, repress, discard as non-actionable. “So…what now?”
Max’s fingers were tapping out a rhythm on River’s shoulder again. “I’m—I’m not sure. Stay here until someone comes looking for me, I guess.”
“Yeah. Me, too.” River murmured; the pair were clinging to each other like the their last port of refuge in a terrible storm. Neither of them spoke, neither of them would even look at the other—they simply stared at the wall of the building opposite. Deep inside River, the terrible gnawing anxiety had resurfaced, a surety that they had just crossed some line, that they could never go back—but no.
Just this once, River wouldn’t worry about the consequences. Just this once, they wouldn’t let themself be tripped up by their own fears and retreat to the safety of their academic work—River was going to stay here, wrapped softly in Max’s arms as though they were something worth protecting. River was going to be happy.
1Trends in formal clothing took a lot of inspiration from historical periods, now; the Han Dynasty was presently en vogue. People had a lot of opinions about it, if you could count a sample size of one Aubrey Gale as representative of a population.
2The general population loved Aubrey and Max—everyone likened it to a romance novel. River supposed it was the whole “opposites attract” principle; Max’s reputation as the perfect soldier and Aubrey’s gregarious, camera-loving nature had spawned a frankly unnecessary amount of buzz on social media. River could still vividly remember the day when Max asked them, befuddled, why people were setting videos of Max and Aubrey to music on some short-video platform, and River had nearly died laughing attempting to explain to Max what a “fancam” was.
3Kali had tried to teach River when they were young. River, being a teenager and thus extremely shitty about everything, fought them every step of the way.
4The endearment meant “little rabbit,” apparently, and River tried very hard not to read anything into it; Max used it for their soldiers , for fuck’s sake, get a grip .
5Max had consented to the halo a very long time ago, when River had been a deeply curious undergraduate; it had shown addictions to nicotine and caffeine, once you got past the horrible black-and-white flashing of their brain activity. One of their colleagues had managed to surmise that it was calculations—the constant anxiety of tracking the entrances, what was behind you, what represented potential threats. They had wanted to study some more Marines, see if that was something they trained into you, but they hadn’t managed to secure enough funding.