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Garrett, his voice clear and distant but playful and fond. Maxwell sat up out of the blankets he’d tangled himself in and rubbed his eyes. He’d fallen asleep in Garrett’s arms but hadn’t even felt the other man stand. Had he slept that heavily? He shouldn’t be surprised. He hadn’t slept well in years.
“Storm cleared up just a few minutes ago.” Garrett spun his chair away from the command panel to smile at Maxwell, then handed him his glasses. “Buckle up. Take off in sixty seconds.”
“Right.” Maxwell settled his glasses over his nose as the last sleep fuzziness receded from his mind, then kicked the blankets out from around his legs. “How far are we from the building?”
“’Bout an hour.” Garrett gathered the blankets and stuffed them into a storage bin in the wall. “We need to move fast, though. No telling when the next storm will be.”
“I used to always know when a storm was coming.” Maxwell shook his head as he buckled himself into his chair.
“Same.”
Garrett latched the container and then dropped into the pilot’s chair and did up his own straps. He raised his voice as he powered the engines all the way up, and they hurtled over the field and then lifted off. The blue sky stretched out overhead as though it hadn’t been filled with poisonous gas minutes ago. “You could feel it in the air.”
“That and the birds.” Maxwell fished out his half-eaten ration bar from his bag and remembered watching the flocks fly out toward the mountains and feeling the strange anticipation he always felt before the winds began to howl and the thunder rolled over the fields. He’d have to dash through the town to see everyone who needed seeing before they all had to hunker down, but he’d always had enough time because he’d always had enough warning.
“Yeah.” Something wistful in Garrett’s tone made Maxwell glance over to see him looking at Maxwell with a soft, vulnerable little smile, and Maxwell flashed it back at him. He knew that look—the shared nostalgia for a place that most of their companions these days didn’t even know. He remembered the look Garrett had given him when he’d first heard Maxwell’s accent and realized they were the same. He’d seen in Garrett’s face the same comfort and kinship he’d felt in his heart at hearing Garrett’s own voice, even if he hadn’t shown it quite as plainly.
They never said it in so many words, though, and after a glance, they both looked back out the window and watched the fallow farmland roll by. After a few minutes, Maxwell could make out the gray smear of a town on the horizon but knew it would be some time yet before they reached it.
“I want to ask Leon to get rid of Kurt.”
Thank god Maxwell had just swallowed the last bite of his bar, or it would have lodged in his windpipe. “What?”
“He can send him on some mission far away and keep him away.” Garrett kept his eyes trained out the windshield and held the control stick so tight Maxwell could see the tendons bulging in his wrists even though they were doing nothing but flying straight in perfect weather. “He—”
“No.” Maxwell swiveled his chair to face Garrett, saw frustration flash across his handsome features, and put as much steel in his voice as he could. “Don’t.”
“Why not?” Garrett scowled for just a second before he softened the expression into a frown. “You don’t want him around, do you?”
“No.” Maxwell would give just about anything to make Kurt disappear off the face of every planet in the galaxy, but Kurt wouldn’t go quietly. “But don’t talk to Leon about him.”
“But why not?” Garrett looked at him beseechingly for a few moments before pulling his eyes back to the front, and Maxwell was thankful they were having this conversation on the surface where Garrett had to watch where he was going instead of in open space.
“Because he’ll find out.”
“He doesn’t have to. I can—”
“He always does, Garrett.”
It hadn’t taken Maxwell long to stop trying to do things behind Kurt’s back. Kurt had always found out, and the consequences had always been terrible. The guilt he’d piled onto Maxwell afterward had entombed him. Sometimes Kurt had “found out” things Maxwell hadn’t even known he’d been hiding and the consequences were even worse. The guilt, then the forgiveness, and then the forgiveness being rescinded, and the guilt again, and then the kisses, and then the cold shoulder, and then the love, and then the threats, and then the fucking, and then the guilt, over and over until Maxwell hadn’t even known what was happening or what he had done. Only that Kurt had found out about it.
“He always does.”
“And then what happens?” Garrett switched hands to hold the control stick with his left and reached out his right to Maxwell.
Maxwell caught it in both of his and held it tightly. He took a deep, steadying breath. “Just promise me, Garrett.”
Garrett grimaced, and Maxwell saw the reluctance twist across his face. “Maxwell.”
“Promise me you won’t go to Leon, and you won’t confront Kurt.”
Maxwell squeezed Garrett’s hand as Garrett’s expression started to break down. If Kurt sensed any threat from Garrett, he’d find the biggest wedge he could force between Maxwell and Garrett and split them apart. He’d use whatever he could to splinter Maxwell into isolation again. And Maxwell knew exactly what he would use and how devastatingly effective it would be.
“Just stay away from him. Promise me, Garrett.”
“Alright, I promise.” Garrett ground his teeth together and growled but squeezed Maxwell’s hand back. “I won’t start anything with him. I’ll stay out of it.”
Maxwell breathed a little sigh of relief, then nodded and released Garrett’s hand back to him. “Thank you.”
