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Looking back, Marya is the first one to make a comment.
“You surprise me, Gotch,” she says. They’ve taken a moment away from her workshop and are standing on the deck of the Zephyr, leaning against the railing to watch the sun crest the horizon and illuminate the skyline of Zumhara. It’s more than worth the break in momentum: the way the light catches the crystal and shatters it into fractals that paint the sky and the ground in sweeping watercolors is as breathtaking on the fourth morning as it was on the first. It’s the first words either of them have spoken since the earliest light caught the tallest spire and they’d sat in awed hush as it flooded the scenery.
There’s still the last bits of work left to be done before the ship is ready to take to the skies again, but they’ve made remarkable progress in a short amount of time. It’s a different kind of getting his hands dirty, of putting his body to use, but it’s brought a bone-deep satisfaction, feeling the aches of muscles tired from good, honest work as he slips into clean sheets each night. Helping Van with the heavy lifting has been his first priority, but being Marya’s second pair of hands is a role he’s played a surprising amount the past few days, too, when it became clear that Ludmila wouldn’t be slotting in as Marya’s protégée as easily as if no time had passed for either woman.
Maxwell, of course, can’t tell from her tone if it’s a good kind of surprise or bad: there’s something almost amused to her voice, but that doesn’t provide any more clarity. “Oh?” is all he says, knowing all too well that she’ll elaborate.
Sure enough, she smiles. It still looks somewhat too uncomfortable and awkward, sitting poorly on her gaunt face, but it feels more natural than it had when they’d first met. “Torse is leaving with the rest of the Aganti Zernai in a few hours.”
He knows. It’s something that brings his heart both joy and sorrow. It feels like the ending of one chapter, and the beginning of another. All he can allow himself is the hope that it won’t be too many more in between before their stories can intersect again. “Yes. I know they’re eager to get back to Zern.” His mustache twitches in amusement at his friend’s expense. “I have to imagine that’d be the case regardless, but particularly with how, ah, unsettled they find themselves in Zumhara, it’s less soon than I anticipated.” Bulls in china shops come to mind.
The smile fades, and there, in the deep lines on Marya’s forehead, is something like a furrow. “Hm. Did you ask Torse to come with us?”
Maxwell blinks in surprise. “No.” The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. It’s not that he likes the thought of continuing on without Torse. Even if there will be more people on the Zephyr’s flight back to Gath than there had been on the way here, he knows it will feel emptier for Torse’s absence. But he wouldn’t dare ask, not when he knows how much it means to Torse to have this chance to rebuild his home alongside the people he’d once thought lost to him forever.
Marya’s frown, if anything, deepens. “Gotch,” she says, and all amusement has fled from her voice. She sounds serious, grave, almost, when she tells him, “You are part of this crew, no matter what happens next. You are a Wind Rider, even if you do not know what that means for you, yet. Adventure can take many forms. If you wanted to stay–”
He blinks again. “Stay?”
“With Torse,” she says, slow and deliberate as though he’s the one that’s not making sense.
Even without having considered it before, Maxwell knows in an instant that if he went to Torse and asked to stay, to help, Torse would hear him out. They would discuss it, to see what Maxwell could possibly do to assist the Aganti Zernai. He can see it, for a moment, what that might look like: his organic strength and fluid movement and experiences of multiple worlds matched with Zernian craftsmanship and knowledge of their home world and mechanical expertise. Him and Torse, side by side, helping to lift Zern from the ashes and recreate the homeland Torse had talked about with such pride, such wistful nostalgia. There would be joy and satisfaction in it, in being there for every step of the way.
But it’s not his place, not his story. Torse hasn’t asked, hasn’t even so much as hinted towards wanting Maxwell’s help. The few discussions they’d had the time and space to have in the wake of Comfrey’s death have been fragmented, far-flung things: every time Torse has mentioned wanting Maxwell to see the beauty of Zern, it has been in one-days and eventuallys and once-we-have-finisheds. This is Torse’s journey, and Torse’s home, and Torse’s people. Maxwell will not impose himself. And besides, he has his own agenda to fulfill.
“I’ll miss him,” he admits, clunkily and awkwardly, but meaning it. In Gath, he had never considered himself a lonely man. He never had many friends, but he was not often wanting for connection. He found it where he could, when his eyes would lock onto his opponents’ across a ring, his own adrenaline and thrill mirrored in theirs alongside a kind of understanding and cameraderie. When Wealwell would say something unbearably kind couched in enough ridiculousness to pass for nonsense, and Maxwell would give him an incredulous look and a scoff, but they’d both hear all the unsaid promises and affection. When his classmates would engage in debate with him, and he’d feel the determination and fervor in their words as they verbally parried him, nearly as thrilling as the physical parries he’d get in shadowier fighting clubs. When he’d share a whiskey or a smoke or a meal with one of the men from his department and they’d talk about the state of the world, about books and newsreels and radio shows. He’d been content, even when happiness felt an alien and hard-to-reach thing.
The first few days aboard the Zephyr had showed the cracks in that theory, but meeting Torse had made it undeniable. Maxwell had never understood the concept of a kindred spirit, of an instant friend, of someone who saw every bit of him and appreciated and understood it, until then. He knows, now, how lonely he had been, if only for how unlonely he has been ever since, bathed in the red glow from Torse’s visor, hearing the humming and ticking of machinery that drowns out unbearable silence, feeling the cold shock of metal grow warm the longer it presses against human skin.
The idea of being without it again chafes, aches, but even with how short in time their acquaintance has been, better than perhaps anyone he’s ever met, he knows Torse. He trusts Torse. They will meet again.
“But I have my adventures ahead of him, and he his,” Maxwell tells her, and despite the bittersweet ache in his heart, he means it. He’s not sure what it is that the expression on her face is meant to convey – he’s never been good at determining that sort of thing – but he can tell she’s still concerned. He smiles and just as clumsily, just as awkwardly adds, “Though I wouldn’t be opposed if you figured out a way we can keep in touch with him. To see how things are going.” Letters sent through biangles might get tricky, after all.
She blinks, and then laughs, and for a moment it chases away the shadows on her haunted face. “Oh, Gotch.” She reaches out and pats his arm like a dog, and he finds himself with the all-too-familiar feeling like he is missing something. It’s one he still hates, but he doesn’t mind it so much in this moment, not when it’s bringing such clear joy to a woman still getting used to expressing it again – even if he has the suspicion it’s at his expense. “We will get you sorted. Don’t you worry.” She winks and pushes herself off the railing with a surprising amount of vigor. “Come. Let us finish in enough time for you to say goodbye to your Torse.”
The phrasing is odd, but he thinks nothing of it, too preoccupied with the mental image of it, both good and bad. He hates that they have to say goodbye, but he is eager to be there, to see the look on his friend’s face as Torse readies himself to return back to a home that now has a future, bright and uncertain and his for the making.
It’s five days into their journey back to the Effulgent Biangle and through to Gath, and he and Van have taken to sparring in the down time, working out the restlessness in their bones together. It’s not quite the same as with Torse, who’d very quickly become Maxwell’s preferred sparring partner, but it’s a thrilling kind of change despite the reminder of how much he already fiercely misses his friend. Van is not as brutal and blunt in her movement, but with every day that passes she gets more comfortable in using her tentacle to her advantage, lashing out and feinting in quick movements and making him think on his feet, adapting to a new kind of weapon wielded by his opponent. By the time they call it, they’re both covered in a thick sheen of sweat and beaming.
They sit side by side on the deck of the Zephyr, drinking the water Bert’s brought out to them and waiting until their heaving breaths even. Van’s expression when she looks down at the cup of aioli her husband’s left her, too, is far too affectionate to be truly about the snack in question. (Frankly, if Maxwell never has to consume aioli ever again in his life, it will still be too soon. Priority number one will inarguably have to be procuring enough protein to store for the journey back to Zood and beyond, to Shahar or whatever else comes next. If they resupply and Bert comes back on the ship with nothing but more garlic and oil, Maxwell may well resort to something drastic and ungentlemanly.)
“Is any part of you tempted to go back to the Nut?” he finds himself asking, mostly from the look on her face as one rough finger traces the letters etched in the chipped porcelain.
“No,” she says instantly, a smile appearing on her grizzled face. It’s not quite happy, he thinks, but he can’t possibly begin to read more than that. “Got unfinished business, me.” She flexes her human hand, the fingers curling into a fist, the flexor muscles in her forearm visibly straining. The tentacle on her other hand mirrors it, whips around, curling into itself, the closest approximation to a fist he thinks there can be. “Spent my whole life scared of this thing. Not about to turn my back now that I know there’s something to protect instead of fear.”
It’s unsurprising: he thinks if it’d ever been just Van, he wouldn’t have even asked. But there’s the Bert of it all, and however kind the man may be, his presence is something that Maxwell thinks won’t ever quite slot into place for him, no matter how clear it is how much the man loves his wife.
It’s almost as if Van reads Maxwell’s mind, because her smile warps, twisting into something wrier and carrying a fondness even he can detect. “Don’t get me wrong, I miss the Nut. But long as me and Bert’s got me and Bert, we’ll be all right.”
Maxwell clears his throat. He’s never been good at mincing words, never enjoyed it, but he tries to tiptoe around it, all too aware of how a perceived slight against her husband gets Van up in arms. …Up in arm and tentacle? “Is– perhaps we should focus on getting Bert some basic training, then.”
“You’ll do none of that,” she says, cheerily for all that the steel is audible in her voice. He may not always be good at reading tone, but he knows the sound of a warning to heed. “He’s fine the way he is. Don’t need him getting any more grand ideas about guns and joining in battles, do I.”
That’s… probably for the better, to be fair, but if there’s anything that adventuring has taught him, it’s to be prepared for the unexpected. Bert’s already been thrown into the fray more than once: surely Van should want to make sure her husband is as equipped as possible for another inconvenient battle.
He doesn’t say a word but something about her face visibly softens. “Look, kid. I know it makes no sense to you. But that’s love, you know?”
“I… of course.” He doesn’t know. Bert’s fine, horrendous taste in snacks notwithstanding, but Maxwell doesn’t begin to understand any of it. If it were him, if he were in Van’s shoes– it. Well. To be fair, he can’t imagine himself falling in love with someone like Bert, regardless. He can barely picture himself falling in love with anyone, but if it was Bert, he’d want to make sure Bert was prepared. He’d want Bert to be honed, battle-ready, able to defend himself in case Maxwell couldn’t be there to protect him. Or he’d want Bert home, safe and far away from the danger and high stakes of it all. Just a few weeks on the Zephyr Mark II had been enough to show Maxwell that safety is not something he can count on. For him, it’s addictive. Exhilarating. He can’t imagine it’d be the same for Bert.
Whatever is showing on his face, Van just laughs at. “I know,” she says, and Maxwell wishes he had any idea what it is she does know. “All my life, I thought, nah. Wasn’t for me, was it? Sounded fine, sure, but something that happened to other people, mostly.”
That, he understands completely, even if he doesn’t quite understand how they got to this topic of conversation. He remembers the first time he’d stumbled upon Roywell and Martha Abernathy kissing in the gardens, remembers seeing his normally-scowling brother looking so soft and besotted, and wondering with curiosity and dread both what that must be like, how overwhelming the feeling must be to make him look like a completely different person. He remembers the few times he happened upon a private moment, seeing foreign grief on his father’s face for his mother, the only true time he can remember seeing any kind of remorse on Longspot’s face. He remembers attending his first wedding, tall and upright and proud in his waistcoat and matching cravat, and watching the proceedings with a keen eye, feeling like this was a performance that everyone had the script for but him. Every time he’s tried to picture it, himself kissing someone or standing at the altar opposite his future spouse, it’s been with a sense of removal, of dissociation. He can’t fully imagine it, whether it’s with a woman or a man, light- or dark-haired, taller or shorter than himself. Any time he tries, it’s as if he’s disembodied, looking at a different, unrecognizable Maxwell, and his partner is nothing more than a blur, impossible to picture.
“I always thought love looked like one particular thing. Like a stormy sea. Rough. Dangerous. Kinda thing that could pull you down in an instant, leave you drowning in it.” Van’s not hard to read in general: it’s one of the things he likes most about her. She doesn’t pull her punches, doesn’t soften her words in niceties or sandwich them in subtleties that make it near-comprehensible. She usually says what she means, even if it’s clumsily done. But Maxwell can’t begin to read all the complexities of the smile she gives him now. It’s rueful, he can tell, with something almost wistful and amused, but he can’t begin to read anything beyond that, or what she could possibly be amused at. “Found that a couple times, even. But Bert– he’s like my harbor. All the choppy waters out there, and he helps guide me home. Keeps me safe and steady. It’s– sometimes it creeps up on you, when you’re least expecting it, in the kinda place you never expect. And it don’t look nothing like what you always imagined it would. Or who you thought it would, even.”
Something about the way she says it sounds weighty, pointed, like she’s urging him to understand something. He frowns. “…Okay?” he says, and it comes out almost like a question.
Her mouth twitches. “Sometimes you don’t even know you’re in it, ‘til you realize you’re missing someone something fierce. Do you understand what I’m saying, Gotch?”
He really, really doesn’t. “That’s… why you brought Bert,” he guesses. So she didn’t have to miss him? It makes as much sense as anything else, but he can’t begin to understand why she’s saying it like this, like she’s trying to spell something out for him.
Van laughs, but it doesn’t sound unkind. If it’s at his expense, he doesn’t think it’s to be cruel. It doesn’t make it any less frustrating. “Yeah. ‘S why I brought Bert.” She sighs and uses one brawny arm to rub at the sweat crusting her brow. “You’ll figure it out, too, kid. Sooner or later.”
It sits strangely, and the smile he fits on his face feels wooden. “If you say so.”
It’s not a surprise, really, when Monty presses a leather-bound package into Maxwell’s hands with a wink when they land in Bellenuit. The man’s taken to his rooms far more often in the past few days, any time the Wind Riders haven’t been doing anything as a group, the ink stains darkening the skin of his hands becoming more and more apparent every time he’s emerged. “It’s only a draft,” he tells Maxwell, dark eyes twinkling in the Gath morning sun. “A real one, this time.” He’d got the reaction he was looking for from Maxwell, when the man in question had spluttered his way through arguments about why changing the journey to be sparked by Van and Marya didn’t work, and why the silent The Max character definitely didn’t work, and Monty had roared his way through laughter until he’d tired of Maxwell’s affront and admitted how it was payback for all the comments about his body of work.
Maxwell is composed and stoic about it all, and definitely doesn’t run back to his quarters the first moment he can. Bellenuit is tiring, is all, and he needs a repose before braving the evening’s festivities.
The writing level is still aimed more at children than not, but as Maxwell devours chapter after chapter, it doesn’t rankle the way it had as an adolescent. Maybe it’s just because he knows this adventure is real, or because he’s come to learn that Monty’s tone when he explains is soft, patient, steady, eager, without any of the imagined condescension Maxwell had once heard so clearly in the plain words and simple, if sometimes meandering, descriptions. The joy and wonder the older man had found at every turn pours from the pages, even if the narrative does spend a bit too much time on the flora and fauna for Maxwell’s taste.
When the draft gets to Ramansu, Maxwell finds himself smiling, racing through the pages quicker in anticipation of what’s coming. He remembers being a child, reading Monty LaMontgommery’s books before the shine started to wear off: he remembers how much larger than life all the characters seemed, how fascinating he’d found them all. He imagines it now, tow-headed children with slack jaws as they read the introduction of a hulking, cast-iron man, how fascinating they’ll also find Maxwell’s friend, surely as intriguing and easy to like on paper as he is in life.
The adjectives Monty uses for Torse’s introduction are only barely ambiguous: Maxwell is positive that it isn’t his own affection making him read things there aren’t there. Even with the framing of the introduction like it’s a toss-up as to whether the chapter’s titular Metal Man is there to be friend or foe, Monty’s own fondness for Torse all but leaps from the paper, painting him as an ally even before Torse agrees to travel with them to Fehujar. Maxwell doesn’t quite realize how wide his smile is until it starts aching. His fingers itch with the need to write his friend, to tease him about how wonderful thousands of children on Gath will soon find him, how brothers will argue about who gets to be brave, fierce Torse with his iron heart when they reenact their favorite LaMontgommery scenes. He can imagine the noise it would receive, the way Torse would grunt like he can’t decide if he’s pleased or affronted, how his eye-light would flicker as he tries to process the implications of becoming a beloved character in a novel for children. Later, he decides: they still haven’t discovered a way to reliably communicate through the Biangles. He’s written half a dozen letters already, and while he knows another will join the pile once he makes it fully through the draft, there’s still much more ground to cover, both on the page and off of it.
Maxwell can’t tell if it’s just that he knows Torse’s mannerisms better than Monty, or if Monty’s made his own tweaks for publishing, but as the narrative continues on, something about it feels slightly askew, like looking through a mirror that’s not entirely flat. Torse’s diction is a little too stilted, the descriptions a little too anthropomorphized, the edges rounded out especially when it comes to Comfrey. It makes sense, Maxwell knows, especially for a children’s novel – or set of novels, if that is how it ends up: even this first draft is much longer than any of the previous published books – but it’s strange to see, and reminds him far too much of Olethra’s childish, well-meaning but intensely uncomfortable assertion that Comfrey had loved Torse. Most strangely of all, perhaps, are the scenes that have him with the fictionalized Maxwell: Monty’s language gets flowery – well. Flowerier – and even more emotive than the usual. He mentions long stares, shared smiles, longing looks–
Longing?
It’s after Katur, when the Maxwell of Monty’s narrative is compared to something akin to a grieving widower sitting vigil for a disanimated Torse that it strikes Maxwell all at once, like brass knuckles to the sternum. Oh. It’s– ah. Of course.
It’s with a kind of numbness that he picks his way through dinner later, something far too elaborate and expensive but with generous portions and endless pours of wine instead of the tiny, meticulously-plated pretentiousness that he’s experienced before when forced to bear witness to his father’s attempts at schmoozing. The bites he does manage are delicious on his tongue, but feel like sawdust as they slip down his throat. Everyone around him is merry, deep in their cups and laughing boisterously, pretending they all aren’t all too aware that this may be the last time they ever see Monty, should things go poorly in Zood or Shahar, or should time pass even more befrumpledly than it had on their previous adventures.
“Was the tone that bad?” Monty asks sometime after dessert. Maxwell didn’t even hear him come up behind him, and he’s not sure it can be attested to how light-footed the naturalist is despite his heft and not how distracted he’s found himself all evening.
Maxwell’s lips twitch wearily upwards. “Hah. No. It’s– not a beach read,” he attempts as a compliment for all his tangled emotions, and Monty’s mustache twitches, too, but his eyes grow serious. “It’s good. Much better than your last few, if that’s any reassurance.”
Monty only barely rolls his eyes. “Son. What’s on your mind?”
The words jump to his lips, but somehow, they get stuck on his tongue, rattling behind his teeth with every inhale and exhale. He finds he can’t ask. “Nothing,” he says, and it’s as effective as he knew it would be. He sighs and ducks his head, a small huff of laughter escaping the lips he keeps nervously wetting. “I would ask if it gets any less strange, seeing yourself represented on the page, but as you’re the writer, I believe you may be the wrong one to ask.”
At that, Monty laughs, too, the chuckle warm and fond, and Maxwell is struck all at once with a funny kind of preemptive missing. Monty is right in front of him, but there’s this awareness that all too soon, he will be gone. The warmth he brings to a room will only be a memory, vaguely recreated through letters and recordings. It is the part of being lonely Maxwell never had to reckon with, he’s come to realize: now that he’s not, he keeps having to say goodbye to the people who made him unlonely.
“It’s a representation of you, but it’s not wholly you,” Monty allows, and it should be a relief, if not for the fact that Maxwell still isn’t sure what to think or feel at all. “You’re so much bigger and more complex than I could ever put on the page, Gotch.” His voice is fonder than Maxwell perhaps thinks he’s ever heard it, whether that be due to the wine or the impending goodbyes they can all feel lingering heavy in the foreground. He laughs, a boisterous noise, and adds, “And more violent. So many things I think my editors would give me a reaming for if I tried to submit them.”
Maxwell laughs, too, an awkward, grateful thing for something to latch onto. “Yes, I did notice the lack of, ah, a certain battle encounter.”
Monty’s still laughing to himself, shaking his head. “‘You’re meat’. Damn. You’re something else, kid, you know?” Now, far too belatedly, Maxwell can place the tone, and it’s a shock to realize where he’s heard it before: it’s the same nostalgic, affectionate note in his voice that he gets when he’s reminiscing with the other Wind Riders about the glory days. He reaches out a hand in a familiar gesture.
Perhaps it’s that, or perhaps Maxwell has learned when and where a question is appropriate after all, but he doesn’t ask. He doesn’t want to know if it’s something added for the books, or something Monty has misunderstood, or a stranger, more uncomfortable third option. He just lets himself clasp Monty’s arm, feeling the camaraderie and joy and sorrow envelop him. This is far more important to focus on tonight than any imagined misperceptions. There will be time to unpack all that later, once the starry skies of Bellenuit are behind them and the return to Zood ahead.
He’s not sure what makes him broach the topic with Olethra – sky-eyed, hopeless Olethra, who’s somehow been oblivious to the puppy dog eyes Ludmila has been sending her the entire time they’ve been in the skies, when even Maxwell has picked up on it – but when he sees her in front of a stack of papers, scrawling out correspondence in her loopy letters, it falls out of his mouth.
“Did you read Monty’s draft?”
Her whole face explodes into a broad smile. He’ll never know how she does it, he thinks: she’s so unselfconscious, so wholly and truly herself in whatever feeling the moment calls for. “I think I’ve read it a dozen times already,” she says, leaning in like it’s a secret, eyes bright with emotion.
It makes sense, he thinks. If there’d been anyone the narration had treated the most kindly, it’d been Olethra. The affection Monty has for her had been clear in every word, painting her as the endearing ingenue, the main character in a novel with many of them, her stubborn hope and joyous sense of adventure carrying a story all the more brightly and wholeheartedly for the corners and sharp edges of nuance that had been softened for a less discerning audience. What must it mean to her, to be the heart of a story written by the man she’d so idolized for all of her life? Well. Everything, he finishes the thought almost despite himself, and he finds himself smiling back. It’s hard not to, in the face of a smile like that from her. “It’s… strange,” he manages. “Reading about oneself in a manner that’s.” He clears his throat, and he can feel his cheeks flush, especially when her grin sharpens, taking on a wickedness he knows spells trouble. “Not always accurate.”
It’s wholly unladylike, the laugh that emits from her throat when she tosses her head back to tilt in the direction of the clouds. “Oh, please say you’ve finally caught on. Mila was saying that Marya was despairing about it.”
He hadn’t thought about it, but now it hits him at full speed, the realization that of course that was what Marya had been insinuating, when she’d asked about Torse joining him, or him staying with Torse. It… was likely what Van had been not saying, too, when she’d started rambling about love and how it could look so different, hadn’t it? He feels almost nauseous with dismay at the thought, a belated embarrassment and defensiveness hitting him for how many signs he had missed, because it’s. It’s not. It–
“Monty really thinks that, then. It wasn’t just… some trite subplot for the novel,” he says, more of a sentence than a question. It’s obvious in the glee on her face, in the slyness his mind is remembering in the voices of his crewmates as they laughed at him for not picking up on what they felt was obvious.
The glee, the entertainment on her face shutters and dies when she realizes that he’s not spluttering in a show of denial, when he’s not flustered and flushed in embarrassment at being found out, but something frostier and more horrified. “It’s… well. No, Maxwell,” she says, awkward and kind and gentle and truly horrible. “I– we all think– thought.” She looks truly taken aback, something somber and serious taking root on her face instead of the joy and enthusiasm that’d sat so much more naturally in it. He regrets opening his mouth at all. "Are you sure you… Max. Is there any way you’ve…?” It’s… pity, he realizes, that’s making her mouth half-curve upwards at the corners, that’s softening her eyes. She thinks he’s truly just that dense, to not know his own heart.
He’d thought the pit in his chest was discomfort or embarrassment. It feels more like anger, in this moment. “I think I know what I feel,” he says far too stiffly, far too abruptly. He doesn’t know what he’s more angry at: himself, for not realizing. Her, for the pity and unsurety that deepen on her face at his words. Marya and Monty and Van and God knows who else, for the amusement at his expense, laughing behind his back at how poor Maxwell just doesn’t understand his own heart. Torse, for not being here to endure this with him, for making it all the harder and more uncomfortable and more confusing with the distance between them. The world, for creating this narrative that any kind of deep, abiding affection between friends, between kindred spirits, simply had to be something else, something scandalous to smirk at and waggle eyebrows at. Himself, for it not being something else. Himself, for bringing it up at all. Himself, for caring so damn much about what was even on Olethra or Monty or Van or Marya’s faces or what they thought or what they wanted.
“Okay,” she says, steady and soothing like he’s one of the guinea fowl back at Pilby.
He won’t let himself be wrangled. “You don’t even believe me,” he realizes, and it’s not just anger now, it’s hurt.
“I do!”
Maxwell laughs, a gravelly, rusted thing that sounds more like it belongs in the mouths of one of the automata of Zern than a Gathie. It hurts too much to be anything but human. The cruelest irony of this, he thinks, is how aware he is in this moment of just how much he misses Torse, and how much that thought would be used against him if he were to vocalize it. It’s just– he knew none of them understood him in quite the same way that Torse did, but it’s never felt truer. No matter how unprepared Maxwell was for this turn of events, for this particular topic of conversation, he knows without a thought that Torse would have his back in this. He’d be just as flabbergasted and frustrated at the idea that people were ascribing something to Maxwell’s actions and behaviors that he never intended, just as angry at the insinuation that their friendship was wanting in some way, that the devotion and understanding and affection must be explained by something else.
Olethra chews on her lip for a long moment, and he can’t begin to tell what she’s thinking, what will come out of her mouth next, but he has a feeling he won’t like whatever it is. “The thing is,” she finally says, and he doesn’t bite back the infuriated groan. “The thing is! …Maxwell, you could.” For all that her naivete has frustrated him at times, he doesn’t think he’s ever truly detested it until now, when she looks at him wide-eyed and kind and hopeful. “Torse, he loves you. I know he does. It– would it be so bad? Letting things change? It– you could be so happy together.”
“We already are.” He closes his eyes and lets his hand come into a fist at his side. He aches for something to touch, whether to punch or to hold, steady and cool and firm. “Why must I always be the one to change to suit the rest of the world?” The words, unplanned, surprise him almost as much as they do Olethra, and he just blinks, cheeks flushing in self-consciousness, eyes watching as she rears back, stricken.
“Max,” she says helplessly, and all Maxwell can think of is how Torse had once offered to strike down anyone who would shorten his name against his will. Despite everything, a smile threatens to form at the memory: what would he threaten on Maxwell’s behalf now, in the face of… all this?
“If you’ll excuse me,” he says stiffly, and turns to leave. She reaches out to grab his arm, saying his name again, more distraughtly, and he snatches it back with a snarl. “Damn it all, Olethra, for once, will you leave it be?”
Her hand waves and withdraws, and even with the fury and loneliness swirling in his bones, he still winces when he spots the unshed tears making her eyes glisten. His fists clench, his shoulders hunch, and with an aggravated sigh, he turns on the spot and marches off, opting for the peace and quiet of his quarters over any of this.
Maxwell’s known the shape of his brother’s stances too well for too long to be under any disillusions when he feels someone lurking in the doorway. It makes him surlier, more petulant. “Did they send you to handle me?” he asks, feeling like a sulky child instead of a man nearly thirty years of age.
Wealwell gives a ridiculous scoff. “What,” he says, tone obnoxiously light, the one he takes on when he’s purposefully laying it on thick, when he thinks he’s being clever hiding his curiosity and concern in layers of pretentiousness and then another layer of dramatics on top of that. “Can’t a man take an interest in what his baby brother is doing?”
“So, yes,” Maxwell surmises. His jaw is clenching so hard between words he half-expects to hear a tick, a mechanical buzzing like the one that’d nearly overwhelmed him in Ramansu. “I’m fine. Olethra’s fine. She might come across all bright-eyed and innocent, but she’s too strong to be taken down by just a few sharp words.”
His brother swats a hand in a shooing motion, like he’s trying to brush off the imagined worry for either him or Olethra. “Please. I’m not concerned, Maxwell,” he says, like a liar. Maybe someone who didn’t know Wealwell as well as Maxwell does would think it was gossip, intrigue making him seek out answers, but Maxwell does know better. Even the way he stretches out, flamboyant and exaggerated, is a distraction. “Just curious what’s got your britches all in a bundle.”
Maxwell doesn’t want to have this discussion with anyone, least of all his brother. But all he can think about is a memory, years and years ago. “There’s a time in every young man’s life when he must deal with… urges,” Samwell had told him, formal and awkward and stilted and kind and utterly incomprehensible. They’d stumbled through the discussion, Samwell getting increasingly flustered and frustrated, and Maxwell increasingly annoyed at how little sense his brother had been making. He’d gone to Wealwell to complain, as he was wont to do with anything concerning their family.
Wealwell had looked at him incredulously, and to this day Maxwell doesn’t know if the twitch in his expression had been a repressed laugh or disbelief or understanding, but it’d been obvious enough that it’d stuck with him, pinned in his brain. “Sex, Maxie. He was talking about sex.”
When Maxwell had scoffed, immediately rejecting the idea, the look Wealwell had given him then, too, had stuck in his brain. It’d been blatant, plain and unadorned for all that his brother’s expressions usually were anything but.
It’s not that different from the look on Wealwell’s face now, despite the extravagant pose he’s fixed his body in. Maybe that’s what makes Maxwell say it.
“Everyone seems to think I’m in love with Torse.”
He doesn’t think he’s ever been so grateful to see Wealwell’s face remain so solid and steady. “Are you?”
Is he in love with Torse? Maxwell thinks maybe he could be. He thinks maybe he should be. He think maybe he would be, if things– if he were different.
He thinks maybe he isn’t.
There’s something in that, a strange, complicated sort of relief, because. Well. If he were ever going to fall in love with someone, it could, should, would be Torse. If it isn’t, if he isn’t, it’s finally an answer to something he’s never had reason enough to ask his entire life. There is freedom in finally allowing himself to find an answer, no matter the tangle of emotions that accompanies it.
“No,” he says faintly, and the world doesn’t end. Nothing changes, except for a slight lessening of the roaring in his ears. “No, I don’t think I am.”
He tries to picture it, the same, soppy look on his own face that he’d once seen on Roywell’s. He can’t, but maybe that doesn’t mean anything: he’s never been good at putting himself in scenarios that had no basis in reality. He tries to picture kissing Torse. Torse… doesn’t have lips to kiss, doesn’t have the sensory input required to feel a brush of lips on most places on his metal body. He tries to picture extending a hand out to Torse to request a dance. He hates dancing, and he can’t imagine his friend would enjoy it any more than he would. He tries to picture being coy with his words, using flattery and banal pleasantries that he’s been taught would make women titter at him. Torse might not have the organic parts to become nauseated at the idea the way that Maxwell feels he might be, but Torse would certainly make his displeasure known.
If there’s any slightest bit of regret in the idea, it’s not for himself. It’s only that, well. Torse has a heart that was forged for war, but that longed for peace. His body was created to destroy, but he finds beauty in the small things, in being gentle with the Zoodian creatures he finds so fascinating, in letting his cast iron fingers stroke the kinds of greenery that did not cover the lands of his people. He’s a fearsome, impressive creature, and anyone who would mistake the moments of softness for weakness would be struck down in a single blink. But if there’s anyone who deserves that kind of softness Maxwell has seen in others, it’s Torse. If there’s anyone who deserves to be loved like that, it’s Torse.
Maxwell just doesn’t think it can be him, to offer his friend that. And no matter how he is almost certain that the kind of love and affection he does feel for Torse is more than enough, especially with the distance and the doubt ringing in his head from the shock on Olethra’s face, he cannot be entirely certain.
He hates that. He hates this whole blasted day, for giving him doubt where there’d previously been none.
“Okay,” is all Wealwell says, and now it’s Maxwell’s turn to look incredulously. “What?”
“That’s all?” he asks. “Just, okay?”
Wealwell gives him an exaggerated look of offense. “Yes. Okay. So you’re not in love with Torse. Is that a problem?”
Maxwell blinks. He clears his throat, stammers, and shuts it again.
The sigh Wealwell lets out is dramatic and annoying. “Honestly, Maxwell.”
“No!” he retorts, finding his words immediately upon hearing that particular tone. “No. It’s not a problem, it’s just–” His mouth slams shut again. He doesn’t know what it’s just, only that this whole thing chafes. All his life, he’s been used to being misunderstood. The Zephyr crew are hardly perfect about it, but slowly, he’d thought, they’d started to come to some kind of critical point, where they were starting to see him and him them, all the mismatched eccentricities and peculiarities and tone issues be damned. It stings, being proven wrong, and the feeling of being let down yet again is lonelier than it once was.
His brother’s eyebrow arches imperiously. “I don’t pretend to understand the kind of strange friendship you have with that metal man, but anyone with eyes could see he’s as weird about you as you are about him.”
From anyone else, Maxwell thinks, it would sound like another accusation, another thinly-veiled questioning about whether it was as platonic as he said. Somehow, from Wealwell, it feels like nothing but support. He manages a smile, most of it hidden beneath his mustache, and just huffs a small breath of laughter. “We’re not weird,” he says, more from rote than any true offense.
Wealwell waves a hand again and shifts into another stance, peacocking just as effectively and grandly as ever. “Anyway,” he says airily, as if the contortion is effortless, “it’s for the best, isn’t it? We hardly need yet another Gotch brother joining the family, however much better the current rota is without Hatwell.”
“Fucking Hatwell,” Maxwell says with a grin, the thrill of relief that Hatwell is no longer a thorn in their sides.
“Fucking Hatwell,” Wealwell agrees solemnly.
Now, Maxwell laughs again, and it feels easier, truer. “So no wedding bells in the future for you and Dufresne, then?”
The grin Wealwell gives him is all teeth, sharp and predatory and containing far too much wicked glee. “Please. I intend to live in thorough sin with that man.”
Instinctively, Maxwell grimaces, regretting even asking. Still, even with the mild disgust, he can feel it, the appreciation and love he has for Wealwell, the only one who’s been solidly at his side their whole lives. No matter how ridiculously it’s been at times.
All of the hesitancies, all of the sideways glances from the Wind Riders, all of the frustrated questions that have been swirling in Maxwell’s brain for weeks, all of the ridiculousness melts away when he sees Torse striding towards them, tall and proud. He has no mouth to smile, but Maxwell can tell even from a distance how happy he is to see them, and Maxwell mirrors it with a grin of his own, uncaring of the way he can see others looking his way. If there is a benefit to all this, it is that the crew has been tiptoeing around him with enough guilt and doubt that no one attempts to stop him or compete with him to be first off the ship, and he rushes forward as it touches down. It’s far too eager to be proper or gentlemanly, but he doesn’t give a damn as he jumps down the last few feet and takes off at a fast pace to meet Torse halfway there.
The breath is slammed out of him when he barrels into his friend, flesh and muscle meeting unforgiving iron, but he’s still beaming when he slaps him on the back and pulls back just enough to push their foreheads into one another, an affectionate headbutt of joy. “It’s good to see you, my friend.”
It’s almost funny, how difficult Maxwell finds it to interpret tone and body language of his fellow humans, but he has no trouble reading the noises Torse makes. The loud whirring and clicking of gears he hears now is nothing but his own unfettered joy, an eager returning of the sentiment. “It has been too long,” Torse says, and the modulation of his voicebox is a sound Maxwell didn’t realize he’s missed as fiercely as he had until this moment.
He’s never been so sure of how much he loves his friend, and how utterly unlike the kind of love he’s been accused of it is, and how little any of it matters to him anymore. He’s used to being misunderstood: so long as he and Torse are on the same page, the others will learn to understand it, some day. “Torse,” he finds himself saying as they part, still beaming. “I don’t want to kiss you.”
The visor is unable to blink, but the way the lights flicker feels like surprise, regardless. “…Okay?” his friend says, the ‘what the fuck’ audible in his voice. “I don’t even have a mouth.”
Maxwell laughs, bright and affectionate and thrilled at how even in this train of thought, they were on the same page. “Precisely.” Their hands are still locked together, and he squeezes, enjoying the feeling of the metal slowly warming under his calloused hands. “And I don’t plan on writing you poetry.”
Torse’s eye-lights still waver, and the whirring is beginning to take on a concerned note. “I– Maxwell,” he says gravely, “you have many admirable qualities, and many unparalleled skills. But if I wanted poetry, I would not be coming to you first for it, however curious I now find myself at what your attempts at it would look like.”
“It would be a disaster,” Maxwell agrees to the unsaid part of that. It isn’t that he doesn’t appreciate beauty: he does, and he admires the effect a well-crafted combination of words can have on the soul. But it’s not a skill he himself has spent much time honing. "I also don’t think I would be the greatest dance partner, but who knows, practicing that may help take our sparring to the next level.”
“Maxwell. What the fuck is happening.”
He’s sure they look a sight, Torse all but with visible question marks over his head, himself throwing his head back in giddy laughter. “God, but I’ve missed you.”
He’s fairly certain it’s only the clear joy and amusement on his face that’s keeping Torse from working himself up even more, but Maxwell still gets a little snorting noise and a tiny puff of steam from his vents in response. “And I you, my friend, even if I’m at a complete loss as to any of what you’re talking about.”
Maxwell beams. “You’re my best friend, and I’m not in love with you, and I cannot wait to see the adventures you’ve been having without me.”
“Who said you’re in love with me?” There’s a hint of steel, of danger, like Torse is ready to start fighting anyone who may have upset Maxwell by insinuating otherwise, and it only makes Maxwell’s heart clench, all the fonder for it.
“Everyone,” he admits. “They seem to think something should change with us. That somehow I’ve misunderstood our friendship.”
The hint turns into a full on whir, gears clunking angrily, and the look he shoots over Maxwell’s shoulder is full of fire. Almost literally, with how intense the red light now is. “I will gut them where they stand, if you so like.”
Maxwell grins and lets both of his fists wrap around Torse’s iron one, heart full and head clear, and he steps around Torse, tugging him until he turns, so that he’s no longer looking at the Zephyr, but the path to Zern, bright with fire and reflected sunlight and the first signs of greenery peeking up stubbornly through ash and stone. They’ve known each other so little time in the grand scheme of things, but already Maxwell feels so transformed by it. He can’t wait to see how much better he gets to learn himself through better learning his friend. This is truly just the beginning. “Come. Show me your home. I want to see the place that made you who you are.”