Chapter Text
1962
When Charles Emerson Winchester III had accepted a sabbatical from the hospital to go on tour as a conductor, he had been shaken by the generosity of his boss and mentor in allowing it. Honestly, he had expected Dr. Blossom to scold him for acting the dilettante, a rich man who could drop his profession for play on a whim and not miss it. Instead, Blossom had encouraged it.
“The kind of work we do… if you don’t seek after a renewal now and then, you’ll wear right through. Besides, I have ulterior motives. This will give me a last chance to torment a couple of residents before I hand the post over to you.”
Blossom has never made it any sort of secret - that he intends Charles to take over as head of the unit, but it still fills Winchester with pride. For today, however, the hospital is behind. The concert halls of Europe lie ahead.
After a peculiar sort of detour.
Charles glances over at his husband of eight years. He isn’t sure how it is possible, exactly, but Max looks precisely as he did when he had acted as his chauffeur in Korea, down to the ruffled lace topping his socks, the hem of his skirt that keeps inching up and down, begging investigation. “I really must more carefully monitor your friendships,” he says, affecting a haughtiness that had been real in his war days. “If they are going to send us into such forsaken backwaters as Appalachia.”
Max chuckles at the way he’s able to make the very word convey such disdain. “Could be worse. Could be California.”
Charles mock-shudders. “Do not remind me. I cannot believe you managed to turn the part of our journey that takes place on American soil into a veritable reunion tour!”
“Toldja I’d make it work. Would getcha back into your pink and greens if I could, too. Then out of ‘em.”
“Do not menace me while you are driving - especially on roads such as these. I am starting to think that creating convoluted by-ways is some sort of state sport… or state joke.”
“They’re just following the water, Major. And don’t forget, I drove you safe under fire plenty. Can handle a few curves.”
“Yes, your proficiency in that is not up for question.”
Max hears it in his voice but glances over to be sure. “You’re allowed to get me thinkin’ about things like that?”
“A professional such as you ought to be beyond capable, Corporal.”
Max shivers at the tone, the reminder of the days when he had ached for Charles to order him onto his knees. He pats one of the Major’s pretty thighs. He doesn’t have to say it aloud, that he’s proud of how far Charles has come, that his beautiful partner finds it easier to accept that he is beautiful, curves and all. “Just glad this trip of yours has plenty of hotels.”
Charles laughs. “You would trade the history and riches of Europe for a door that locks, is that it?”
“Mmm-hmm. Long as you were on the same side of it as me.”
After eight years, it is not a statement that Charles is prepared to doubt!
It is greyest November, and the iron sky does little to endear Charles to what seems to be a land of hardscrabble farming, abandoned homes and rusted out cars, and coal mines. He is grateful that they have not come by train. The physician in him would look on the poverty-stricken residents of these hills and see more than he wanted to know.
Maxwell, however, bestows gentle admiration on the hardy growths existing at the edge of winter: ironweed, paintbrush, and Joe Pye weed. Charles teases that he is as Lancelot in that Tennyson poem, with a kind word and a blessing for everything, no matter how humble or off-putting to others.
They enter what feels to Charles like real wilderness at five o’clock. The road is yet paved, but darkness seems to rush along the sides of the vehicle. He almost sinks into his old snarkiness to make a jab about giving Max the glories of Europe only to be given this, but he stops himself with a reminder that he is not that man anymore. He is Max’sCharles - and that makes all the difference.
When they park in a graveled arc, however, he cannot stop himself from saying, “Dearest, this is how horror novels begin!”
Max laughs and squeezes his hand. “It’ll be worth it. You’ll see.”
“I didn’t think you would really convince him,” says the voice of Dr. Seljoiner. Charles gapes at the transformation. The young surgeon wears hiking boots and a heavy flannel jacket weighted with all sorts of unrecognizable implements. A cloth cap covers his head and this is, in turn, covered by a headlamp.
Charles frowns at the man. “I am rather regretting permitting you to make Maxwell’s acquaintance.”
Seljoiner shoves at him, no more convinced by this reversion to a former self than Max. “Now, now, doc, you don’t mean that. Where would your better half be without my help?”
Charles sighs. “I thought you a child,” he remembers, voice sheepish.
“And a fool. You were scared out of your wits, Winchester.”
Max pats his arm. “Y’don’t do scared so good, Major baby.”
“Well, let us have no repeat occurrences of pneumonia nearly carrying you off and I shall promise to be nothing but nice to you both.”
Max rolls his eyes, attuned to the concern beneath the words. “He’s been worried about the cold all week,” he confides to Seljoiner. “I’ll be so bundled up - won’t be able ta move.”
“I would have preferred you had stuck to bats,” Charles tells his colleague. “Caves are a constant temperature, at least.”
“Nobody is going to end up with pneumonia,” Seljoiner promises. “You might even have fun.”
The surgeon-turned-amateur-scientist leads them past a metal gate installed by the Division of Natural Resources and to a trailer lit by oil lanterns. It is chilly inside the tin box, but there is a table to play cards, a kitchenette, and beds carved into nooks. Charles cannot help thinking that it might be fun to have a small camper. He and his sister have most delightedly disposed of the bulk of Winchester properties (like selling off a curse, they had joked), but there is nothing to stop him from buying a little tract in some wilderness and disappearing there with Max after their tour. Disappearing into one of those little beds, where Max would be close to him as skin…
They bundle up, Max only slightly less a marshmallow than he feared and (Charles understands this magic not at all) somehow more adorable in his absurd Ohio mittens, headlamp, and hiking boots that he has, in signature Klinger style, embroidered with toadstools!
The path is slick and each man temporarily loses his footing to damp leaves (this autumn’s leaf-fall joining several years of downed litter being diligently processed by the creatures of the understory), mud, or moss. The path is easy to follow, however, without curves or bends, and they’re soon standing beneath a three-sided apparatus bedecked with caution tape.
Zvi shows them how to free and set the nets. The metal is almost cold enough to make itself felt through their gloves. Max smiles to see his breath made visible, rising toward impossibly bright constellations. He knows their names because Charles had taught him, sitting on the slate roof August through October when the nearness of the sea seemed to lend added clarity to the New England sky. The memory lives in him, bones and skin, and he can nearly feel Winchester’s arm at his back, see him pointing out the contours of icily burning Pegasus as he stamps.
“Nice to have someone tall along,” Zvi says, patting Winchester on the shoulder. “I usually have to open the top nets with a stick.”
Pine branches crack underfoot, pale as bone. A low howl rises far away. They pause and hear it echoed, redoubled, and joined. “Song dogs singing up the moon,” says Seljoiner, making a few final adjustments.
Charles suppresses a shiver. He doesn’t like the idea of being close enough to a pack of predators to hear their nightly arrangement! Max is, of course, thrilled. He loves creatures of all stripes and voices. “Why do they do that?” he asks Zvi with almost childlike wonder.
“They’re letting each other know they’re all there, I suppose. For their family members, it would be a comforting sound - ‘hello, I’m here,’ but for other packs it’s probably a warning - ‘hey, this spot is ours.’”
Max nods thoughtfully, and Charles knows that their already expansive nature library will be getting an influx of books on coyotes! He never minds buying books for Max, or reading them to him when his dyslexia or his headaches trouble him; in truth, he admires his husband’s boundless and eclectic curiosity- and regrets that he hadn’t noticed and engaged this aspect of Maxwell earlier in their acquaintance. I thought you an idiot. Below me. God forgive me for being such a fool.
Nets seen to, they march back with Mars winking at them like a red jewel. Winchester thinks of Queen Victoria’s Timur ruby and forgets the deepening cold as he designs a ruby ornament made to flame at his lover’s ankle. It is a cliche, perhaps, but love has, in some ways, taken him back to his youth. Things he would have scoffed at as folly only a decade ago… now they fill him with light and life.
The moon hasn’t broken the horizon line yet, so the stars are in their glory, seeming to throw off blue-white sparks or shimmer, pale gold and laughing. “They’re sure somethin’,” Max murmurs. “Without city lights ta get in the way.”
As of yet, Charles would prefer those lights - and the ones in the den, glass of cognac in reach!
“And you’re about to be under a whole new set of stars,” Zvi points out. “Are you excited, Max?”
“Yeah. Never traveled for somethin’ good before - just the war, y’know? Then back from it so the Major could keep my lungs workin’.” He elbows his Charles. “‘S what he told me, anyway. Woulda been lots less nervous about that trip if I knew I was going home for good!”
This leads to a rather boisterous bout of the two ganging up on Winchester. The surgeon shoves his gloved hands in his pockets and gives a long-suffering sigh; he lived with Pierce and Hunnicutt and has endured far worse! Back in the trailer, Zvi warms cider on the miniature stove, then fortifies it with butter, rum, and melted caramel. They drink from tin campfire cups, the feel of them bringing back memories of Korea for the two veterans, and eat popcorn. Charles and Zvi settle into a game of cribbage, while Max pages through binders that contain pictures of past night’s catches. He coos over them, an owlish sound, and Zvi gives Charles a wink that silently salutes his excellent taste.
Typically, Zvi tells them after half an hour, he would wait an hour to seventy-five minutes between net checks, but he knows they still have to drive back to the place they are staying and doesn’t want to keep them out past eleven. (Charles is privately grateful. He would, of course, do anything for Max, but there are things he wishes to do to and with his lover … and that necessitates being awake). Tonight, they check at thirty-five to forty minute intervals.
Outside of the camper, the night draws crystal knives, aiming them at any exposed bit of flesh. Charles keeps an eye on his husband - listening in case the cold air causes him pain, watching so that the ground, any residual moisture now becoming ice, does not take his legs out from under him. He hopes that he remembers, later, to tell Max how very changed he finds himself. The doting husband is not a role he had ever imagined would be his - and he loves it.
At the nets, Max is the one to spring forward with a cry, hurrying to put his hands under the tiny owl caught in the netting. “He’s okay,” Zvi promises. “He’s my seventy-third one this year, so you can trust me.” But Max still watches protectively as the first tiny owl of the night is placed in a cloth birding bag after being disentangled, feathers carefully guarded against harm.
“What is that noise it is making?” Charles is trying not to be intrigued by this tiny winged thing with its yellow talons and its fired-dandelion eyes.
The sound is a sharp clack! like the claws of a lion on marble or a blade turned by armor.
“That’s his beak,” Zvi explains. “He’s warning us off, telling us he’s annoyed.”
“Such a large sound for something so small…” Oh, dear. It seems that he is in one of those moods that cause Max to call him a “softie.” The tiny owl has made him think of his little love, Maxwell’s fine frame crushed into the strength of his chest. P’raps this is why they call it twitterpated, he muses. It derives from the birds!
As they walk back, Max asks a dozen questions. Inside, he happily holds onto the owl as Zvi directs him, leaving the scientist to measure while Charles takes down his calculations in his flawless script. Zvi shows Max how to count feather groupings to determine the owl’s age. They weigh the owl and measure its beak, wings, and tail. All the while, Max pets it like a cat and reassures it. Zvi blows on the owl’s belly with a straw to check its weight reserves.
“Weight almost always tells us the gender,” he explains. “Ninety to one hundred grams is a female. Anything smaller is a male. Can you guess why the females need to be bigger, Max?”
He considers, pleased that Zvi thinks him smart enough to try to riddle this out. “Eggs,” he guesses at last. “If they gotta make eggs, they need more, uhm, y’know,” he gestures.
“Reserves,” Zvi agrees. “Exactly. We’ll make a birder of you, yet!”
Once the owl is banded, they stand together in the dark. “His eyes need to adjust,” Zvi explains. But Max is suffused with awe as the sky is suffused with starlight, soft swathes of it waving like grass in astral meadows. The owl rests on his arm, free, nearly weightless. When it ascends, there is no sound.
“Magic,” Max whispers, blessed. “Let’s do it again!”
They catch, band, and liberate five owls that wintery night. The wonder of seeing wild things up close is so exciting that they grow warm even as an ice halo forms rainbow rings around the frosty moon. They stay near the nets to ward off barred owls, who would happily kill the sawhets, protecting these miniature migrants from the boreal forests of the north.
By eleven, they are tired, cold, and happy. Charles shakes his fellow surgeon's hand. “That was most lovely. Wonderful, truly. Thank you.”
“Anytime. You two be safe across the ocean, hear? Don’t forget to send postcards.”
“Bird ones,” Max murmurs sleepily, leaning into Charles. “Don’t let any little owls get eaten!”
“I will try my hardest,” Zvi promises.
***
Charles is the one to drive them back, carefully and slowly navigating unfamiliar roads until the lights of something approaching civilization appear around them. Acting on Zvi’s knowledge of the area, they have rented a small cabin near a local park. It is close enough to town that Charles will be able to wake early to buy fresh pastries and tea, but far enough away that they don’t have to pretend to be only friends as they cross the threshold.
Leaving luggage to be sorted and dealt with during a fast-approaching tomorrow, Charles follows the love of his life into the shower. Maxwell’s eyes laugh and laugh.
“Like ta believe y’just want in the hot water with me, Major. You’re s’posed to be done with doctoring for a while.”
Charles pretends to be wounded. “My dear, my profession was, at first, the only thing about me that you possibly could have found to be worthy of respect. You would have me renounce that?”
Max knows when Charles is serious and when he’s pretending to be a character in a tragic opera. “Wasn’t,” he corrects. “Not for a minute. I admit, didn’t buy into all that Winchester stuff you were sayin’, but I liked you. The light in your eyes. Way you wore your dress uniform. Pretty pretty pretty.” As he says it, his hands brush over Charles’ strong chest.
They undress between kisses, slow-waltzing into the warmth, and barely surface from kissing long enough to get clean. After years together, both men know that this will be a soft bout - and slow - gentle as their first nights when Charles had been so worried about Maxwell’s health that he had barely let the pretty thing stir, pleasuring him over and over so gently that Max had wept at the unexpected feelings the act had stirred.
What Charles had not imagined was that Max would consider him deserving of the same gentle treatment. No one else ever has, and he is still made nearly breathless each time Maxwell takes his time mapping his body, caressing him, praising the look and feel of him from the crown of his head down his long, long legs.
Dried off (sort of) they bundle under the clean, soft covers without turning on the light. Charles intends to make a veritable Versailles out of their hotel rooms abroad, filling them with candlelight and the fizzing sparkle of good champagne (Max deserves a proper honeymoon, after all), but, for tonight, he is happy to curl up with Max in the shadow, like a pair of sparrows under the eaves.
Their bodies shift against one another lazily - drawing the sweetness out like strands of warm caramel - and Max kisses and kisses his Major’s neck. Charles is the one who takes them both in hand when things get sufficiently warm - and Charles is the one to clean them up and tuck in around his darling.
Max laughs softly into the dark.
“What is it, pet?”
“Must be on vacation if you’re gonna sleep naked.”
They laugh together until the dark feels as safe and warm and theirs as home.