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“Torse,” Maxwell says, suddenly, in a conversational lull at dinner. Eyes turn to look at him. “I realise, we have been referring to you as a man. Is this your… preferred mode of reference?” A short, sharp silence. “Sorry. Having said that, I realise it may not be a question for the dinner table. What I mean is- khm- if you have other preferences, you are welcome to tell us about them. Should you desire.”
“Perfect tone, Gotch,” says Olethra. “I can't believe I didn't think to ask that. Damn!”
In Olethra's defence, Maxwell has probably spent far more time thinking about Torse than she has.
Marya looks at him in that way she has, like she knows him better than he knows himself, like she can see his motivation peeking out from underneath the facade.
“Thank you, Maxwell,” Torse says, in slow, considered tones. “I appreciate your asking. While Zernians have… less of a concept of gender than those of Zood or Gath seem to, I have rather enjoyed my time being a man. It is… a satisfactory mode of reference.”
“Good,” says Maxwell, like he has any right to opinion on this. “I'm glad. That it's satisfactory, I mean. I would not- I am glad we have not caused you… undue distress.”
Torse's vocal processor twitches, reaching to comfort him, but Olethra opens her mouth first. “Not just glad he's a man, Gotch?” she says, but there's a twinkle in her eye that belies teasing.
“Shut it, Olethra,” says Maxwell, with a glare. The adults at the table watch, amused.
“I am confused,” says Torse, because he is. “Why would Maxwell have a personal investment in my gender?”
“Because he-” starts Olethra, but Marya cuts her off.
“I think this is a conversation for you to have with Gotch in your own time, Torse,” she says. And then “Olethra, stop meddling. You know the rules.”
Olethra pouts. “Fine.”
Torse is barely paying attention to her. There is the palest, prettiest red flush across the bridge of Maxwell's nose, bringing attention to a small white scar on it. He doesn't know the rules that Marya is talking about, but doesn't much care, too distracted by following the pink curve of Maxwell's ears with his gaze, the way his brown-black lashes frame large dark eyes.
“Is there something on my face?” Maxwell asks, a little sullen, a little surly.
“I- No,” Torse stammers. “Sorry. I- I was not paying attention to where I was looking. Your face is- no. There is nothing on it. I am sorry for any discomfort.”
Max sighs. “No, it's- no apology needed, Torse. Sorry. Can someone else talk?”
Monty starts talking about his ideas for training Little One - not for battle, he's already good enough there, but for communicating discomfort. Maxwell zones out, finishes his food, and eventually departs the table, heading to the aft deck. He spends a lot of time here, staring up at the sky. Down at the clouds. Trying to become as sky-eyed as the rest of them.
He might manage it one day. Maybe. Would that let him fit in?
They sail towards Oda, and he looks out at the twisted horizon, the flocks of birds and flying turtles that gather and flit around the ship, curious about the great wooden vessel. They're rather sweet - he never had a head for animals, found pets confusing more often than not, but they're lovely to observe in their natural habitat. Not that he knows much about said habitat, but he's not sat down this end of the ship for knowledge.
He hears footsteps. Heavy ones, metal ones, approaching him.
“Maxwell,” comes Torse's voice. “I wanted to apologise. For any… discomfort stemming from our earlier conversation.”
Max sighs. “No need,” he says. “You did not make me uncomfortable. Olethra was merely teasing me. Come,” he says, and pats the floor next to him. “Sit down.”
Torse nods, and sits down, folding his legs under him. He moves delicately, despite the weight of him. Maxwell has always admired it. He admires a lot of things about Torse - and Olethra had been right, earlier. He had long known he felt no desire for women. Torse being something other than a man-
It would be fine, obviously. But he would have been… disappointed.
“What was the teasing about?” Torse asks. “I did admit my confusion, earlier. Marya said it was something I should ask you about. But- ah- if you would rather not discuss it, that is also fine.”
Maxwell turns to look at Torse, traces the clean lines of his face with his eyes. He's polished that iron with his own hands, while cleaning it. Not the face, but the arms, the legs, the knuckle knives which have featured a little too much in late night wanderings of his mind. He could tell Torse. At worst it would be awkward, for a few days, but he could recover from it. Maybe. He hopes.
How awful, to have made it to the mythical wondrous land of Zood, and to still be so tongue tied in front of a beautiful boy? At twenty-nine, Maxwell really sometimes thinks he should have grown out of it. So. He'll bite the bullet, this time. Give it a shot.
“Do Zernians have concepts of… sexuality?” he asks. “Attraction, and the like.” He's not used to discussing this part of himself, but he's also been relatively single for the entire twenty nine years of his life. Not that there hadn't been- But that had been schoolboy stuff. Everyone did it, at Revington.
Torse nods. “Somewhat. There is little room for love, in Zern's current state. And we are not necessarily given to reproduction the way humans are.” A beat hangs in the air. “But I know others who have fallen in love.”
No mention of himself. But- he is capable. His people are capable. Maxwell's may not be a fruitless longing.
“In Gath, at least,” Maxwell begins, “the… typical arrangement is between one man and one woman. Not that that is the only one, but others are… somewhat rarer.”
Torse nods, silent. His gaze points out towards the horizon, and Max is a little glad to not have to make eye contact with him. Eye contact has always been a bit of a struggle for him, even though Torse's lack of true eyes makes it a little easier.
“I…” His voice cracks, nervously, and he tries again. “I came to know from- from a young age, that I… prefer the company of men. I do not often talk about it. But- that- to say- Blast, this is difficult. Olethra was right, earlier. I- I asked, because I care for you, and want you to be comfortable, but, I also, may happen to have developed… a level of feeling towards you that outstrips pure platonic affection, and admiration for a fellow fighter. If you- If you do not feel the same, that is understandable, I can… leave you alone, I can get over it, I just- khm- That is why. The motivation behind Olethra's comment. If you- I may leave.”
Torse shifts around, facing Maxwell, and a metal hand comes up to his face, stopping his words in their tracks.
“Maxwell,” says Torse, glowing golden in the evening dark. “Do not leave.”
His hand is cool against Maxwell's face. God. He's beautiful. Perfectly crafted. Maxwell can feel every twitch of mechanical joints against his face, can feel his pulse rocket, can damn near watch the sky get brighter as his pupils blow wide, as the tip of a tongue sneaks out and dampens his lower lip. “Okay,” he says, awkward and stumbling and surprised at how well this seems to be going. “I won't.”
Torse looks at him. Maxwell looks back. He wants, absurdly, to laugh.
A contemplative noise rumbles in Torse's chest, then aborts. “This is… I am unused to such discussions,” he says, eventually. His hand is still on Maxwell's cheek, thumb on the delicate skin underneath a deep brown eye. “I have not engaged in such relationships before. But you- Maxwell, I am glad that you prefer the company of men. My company.” He pauses, and Max presses his face gently into Torse's palm. “I have a selfish desire for your affections. Above maybe all others here. Would you- Will you- I do not know what the correct response is. Yes. Please. I would like- I wish to know you in a way that I have wished for no other.” He goes silent, the air between them heavy with Maxwell's breaths, with expectation. Something giddy fills Maxwell's chest, like a laugh about to explode from his mouth. He leans forward, presses his forehead to Torse's, closes his eyes.
“I'd kiss you,” he says. “With your permission.” Smooth. Smoother than he'd expected to be.
“Yes,” says Torse, even without a mouth. Maxwell leans into him, presses his lips to the place on Torse's face plate where the top and bottom of his head seam together, the tiniest indent in the metal. Torse's hand moves around to the back of his head, hair catching on the blades, a tiny, blissful, sharp tug. Max puts his gloved hands to Torse's own face, pulls him close, closer, as if they could somehow meld into one through the sheer power of want. It's a little awkward. All first kisses are. This is maybe made more so by Torse's lack of requisite parts, such as a mouth, but he tastes like iron and inexplicable salt and Maxwell can hardly find it in him to care. There are iron fingers tangled in his hair, a golden gaze fixed steady at him, and when he pulls away and opens his eyes he can see the smallest damp smudge on Torse's face, where his own mouth had been, seconds earlier. He dives back in for a second, a long, lingering touch of his lips to cold iron, rapidly warming from the contact. He presses his forehead against Torse's, runs thumbs across his cheeks, hands down the sides of his neck, down shoulders and chest and-
He stops. This is- Torse hasn't done this before, and while Maxwell wants Torse - god, does he want him - he almost wants to do this properly more.
“I- If we continue,” he says, around the tight draw of his throat, around the heavy weight of arousal in his abdomen, “Things may become… indecorous. I would- I would like to touch you,” he says. “But- you said earlier you had not done this before. I do not want to pressure you.” The careful restraint of his words is at odds with what Torse can see plain on his face, in that crushed red lip, in those flushed cheeks, in the wide black expanse of those pupils, nearly eclipsing the iris.
Torse hums, and trails a hand down the back of Maxwell's head, feels soft hair between his fingers, delicate skin underneath his palms. “I would not feel pressured. I would- I am… amenable,” he says, “to a little indecorum.”
Maxwell swallows. Torse's gaze fixes on the motion, on the bob of that perfect throat, and his mind wanders to bruises he could put there, were he in possession of teeth. He has never understood the fleshly desire of consumption until now. Maxwell's flesh would be sweet, peach-sticky and sunripe.
He does not have a mouth. No matter. There will be other things they can do to each other.
“Presumably not on the aftdeck,” Maxwell says, as if he is not fighting the urge to run his hands under Torse's ribcage, or to put Torse's hands to his own skin, metal cooling the feverish heat within him. “I have a room,” he says, which is hardly new information. He feels suddenly stupid, struck dumb by luck and happiness and no small amount of lust, the image of his hands working at whatever pleasure centres Torse has filling his brain.
“I am aware,” says Torse. “Is this an invitation to it?”
“Yes, you ass,” says Max, grinning almost against Torse's face. “Let me take you to bed.”
He stands, holds a hand out to help Torse up, despite not needing to. Torse takes it anyway, mindful of the blades that decorate his hands.
They're sharp. Max knows this. They could have so many applications - he doesn't know if Torse would use them for that, would use him like that, but the thought of his own skin scratched, and bruised, and cut by a lover has him running hot blooded and feverish with sheer want.
He could ask Torse to do it. The worst that happens is he says no. Or - he could save it for next time. There will be a next time, he hopes. Hasn't even finished the first, and already he is cataloguing a list of methods by which he could take this man apart, be taken apart by him.
They don't see anyone on their way back to Max's room. Small mercies. Olethra would have a field day - he's going to have to thank Marya, later, for telling Torse to ask him.
The bed - the two beds pushed together - suddenly seem an insurmountable obstacle. It is rare for him to be in this situation with such genuine emotion attached to it. Casual sex feels like a script, somehow, the perfunctory joining of flesh to no end greater than lacklustre pleasure.
This is different. There is no script to follow.
Torse looks at him. “Is everything alright?”
“Yes,” says Maxwell, hesitant. “I… hm. Yes. Is it strange if I say I care more about you than most of the other people I have taken to bed?”
Maybe. Torse doesn't care. It thrills a little jealous part in his chest, one that he thought would be removed with the swap of his iron heart for gold. “No,” he says. “I- say it again. That I'm more important. That you care more.” A selfish desire. He won't worry about that, here.
“You are. I- None of them ever mattered to me, not like you do. Not like this.” The words spill from Maxwell's lips, unthinking truth. “I want to- Tell me what to do,” he says. He hadn't planned on it, on displaying such open, wanton need, not yet. Something about Torse-
He wants to spill his guts to him. Have them spilt by him. Hands in ribs, on clockwork against red, wet, flesh. It's all combat, in the end, in a way.
Torse sits on the bed, thighs spread, and tilts his head at Maxwell. “Take off your jacket,” he says, with an unexpected confidence. Maxwell does, tugging it off by the sleeves and folding it over the back of a chair. “The waistcoat,” is all Torse says next, and that goes too, Maxwell's hands shivering on the buttons. Torse's voice is steady, calm, but Max can hear the clockwork tick of his heart speeding up, can watch the golden glow of his visor quiver. “Come here,” he says, and pats the edge of the bed between his legs.
Maxwell moves to stand between his knees, his mouth dry, his every inch of skin prickling with want.
“Your shirt, please,” says Torse.
“So polite,” murmurs Max, barely audible, and his hands go to the buttons, working them open quicker than he ever has in his life, desperate to obey, to be good.
“I'm learning,” says Torse. He sounds like he's smiling. Maxwell wants to kiss him again. Wants to be told to kiss him again. He's so unbelievably gone on him, and when Torse's hands go to his waist, pull him in, he shivers. “The rest,” Torse says. “Except… would you leave the gloves on?”
Max nods, removes his shoes with his feet, bends to pull off his socks, and then undoes the buttons of his trousers and tugs them off, all pretense at neatness abandoned. There is a sizeable wet patch on the front of his underwear, and when he pulls them down his cock bobs and bats against his stomach, damp and hard. Torse wants nothing more than to touch, to sink his hands into the single inch of spare flesh above the hips, to wrap a hand around Maxwell and feel him twitch into the grasp, to run his fingers through chest hair and treasure trail and-
He's staring. He hasn't spoken. Maxwell still has the gloves on.
“May I take your hand?” Torse asks.
“Yes,” says Max, breathless, and they both ignore the crack in his voice.
Torse takes the hand around the wrist, unhinges the top of his head, just a little, and traps the tiniest amount of fabric in what passes for his teeth. They are not suitable for much that a human mouth can do, but for this they will suffice. Maxwell's heart stutters in his chest.
“I have wanted you,” Torse says, as he drops that glove and removes the other in much the same manner, “since I first saw you strip those gloves with your teeth. I had never experienced such a desire before.”
“Please,” says Maxwell, and does not know what he is asking for.
Torse might. He tries. Finally sinks his hands into Max's hips, pulls him into his lap, Max's knees parting over his thighs. He's so warm, soft and full of life. Torse buries his face into the crook of Max's neck, allows sweat and hormones and traces of cologne to filter through him, smelling, tasting.
Max's arms come around him, fingers scrabbling against his back, and Torse's hands move back, grip sinking into the firm flesh of Maxwell's ass. Max's hips twitch, cock brushing against cool metal, and he whines, forehead pressed into Torse's shoulder, a breathless, human noise. Torse wants to wring it out of him for hours, wants to etch it in a wax cylinder to keep and replay and learn by interchangeable heart.
He lifts Max's head, gently, draws his gaze upwards. “I would like to touch you,” says Torse. “But- I have not… done this before. And I lack the anatomy to- it is an unfamiliar task. To me. Would you-” There is a noise like a throat clearing, nervous and precious and sweet. “Show me, Maxwell.”
“Show you what, Torse?” he asks, a grin slanting across his face.
“Show me how you touch yourself.” Torse's voice is desperate, and he pulls Max down into him, the movement near unconscious. “Please.”
Maxwell is helpless but to obey. How could he do anything else? He licks a stripe up his palm, wraps a hand around himself, and strokes, slowly, his eyes intent on Torse's face, watching for any minute reaction. Torse's own gaze is intent on Max's moving hand, unabashed and almost hungry.
“Torse,” sighs Maxwell, as his hand works at himself, just slow enough to not truly satisfy. “Fuck, Torse, please-” he cuts off into a whine, grips hard at Torse's bicep. “I want- Please- I want you to be the one- Touch me,” he gasps, begs, pleads.
A cool metal hand catches his wrist, pulls his hand gently from his cock, intertwines fingers with him.
“Maxwell,” Torse breathes, low and sweet.
“Say it again,” Max manages to gasp as Torse pulls at him with long, delicate fingers.
“Maxwell,” says Torse, and again, “Maxwell,” like a chant, like a prayer.
“Ah.” It is more noise than word, escaping Maxwell's mouth without thought. “Again, please, let me-”
“Maxwell,” he says. “Max, please, let me- I want to see you, to watch you finish, Maxwell, Ma-axwellll-” Torse's voice devolves into broken, mechanical noises when Max leans forward, presses his mouth to the gap in his chest where his heart sits, sweat glistening on his forehead, across the curved musculature of his shoulders. Torse moves his wrist, once, twice more, and Max spills over his hand, with a desperate cry of Torse's name.
Torse's clean hand runs up and down Maxwell's spine, gentle. “I enjoy my name in your mouth,” he says, in such matter of fact tones that it makes Max's heart ache. “It sounds sweet.”
“Tastes it,” Max says, half mindless. “So sweet.” He kisses Torse's chest again, listens to the tick of his heart become uneven. “Give me a- a moment. I would like- I want to- to reciprocate. If possible.”
Torse hums, and wipes his hand against his own chest, smearing Max's spend against the metal. Max leans down, licks it off, dragging his tongue up Torse's chest.
“I do not know if I am bui-ilt-” he starts, but his voice devolves into sharp mechanical feedback when Maxwell's tongue touches the heart-slot properly, delves deep into it. “Oh,” is the only noise Torse can make after that, sharp and sweet and wanting and wrecked, god, he feels more wrecked than ever before, like he's fought a hundred battles, like he could fight a hundred more. “Yes,” he manages. “I- I do think it might be possible.”
“Good,” Maxwell says, a little proud to have worked this out. He can taste metal on his tongue, from where it had been pressed to Torse. Their fingers are still intertwined, Torse's hand warming from Maxwell's skin. Maxwell draws the hands to his mouth, kisses Torse's wrist, the inside of his forearm, mouth chasing wires up to the shoulder, hot and wet and hungry. “Beautiful,” he murmurs, more into the metal than the air around them. “You're beautiful, Torse.”
The gears in Torse's chest tick faster, his feet grinding into the floor. Max's hand finally - awfully - separates from his, and both hands go to Torse's come-smeared chest, pushing him back into the bed. Max shifts upwards, straddling the narrow plate of his pelvis, and bends his head forward, kissing the corner of Torse's jaw, down the column of his throat, leaving wet patches of condensed breath and spit behind. He wishes, absently, for a split lip, something that would allow him to mark Torse's neck red and shining and his, possessive, like a dragon. His kisses move down the chest, to the edge of Torse's exposed heart, to the gap in his chestplate that houses it. Maxwell - The Max - Just Max - whoever he is right now, stripped of all pretense, is used to picking out weaknesses, finding them and exploiting them. Most of the men he had fucked had been men he had fought first - it was a natural conclusion to being pinned between a pair of strong, muscular thighs. He could get Torse to pin him, maybe.
This weakness has been far sweeter to find. “You can direct, if you need,” he says, just to be sure. “I-” the flush creeps up his cheeks before he can even get the sentence out- “Would like it. Slide your hand in my hair, make a fist. You can pull on it.” He's communicating. It's an experiment.
Torse pauses, his fingers on the back of Maxwell's neck. “Would that not hurt?” he asks, golden gaze ticking from side to side.
“Yes,” says Maxwell. “Not much, but a little. That is the point.”
The glow in Torse's chest brightens. He fists his hand in Maxwell's hair. Maxwell gasps at the bright tug of pain, damn near sure he could go again if Torse asked, and presses his mouth to the golden gap in Torse's chest, sucking the edges. Torse does not whine, exactly, but a high-pitched whir comes from his chest, vibrating against Maxwell's tongue. It is an honour, a privilege, to make something not designed for it feel pleasure like this.
“You sound beautiful,” Max murmurs into warming metal, barely loud enough to hear. Torse's neck whirs as he tilts it back, somehow bashful. Max traces two fingers along the slot, then pushes in, touching the wires of Torse's heart. “You're beautiful, Torse,” he says, as the man below him twists and twitches from simple contact.
“M-Max,” comes a mechanical voice above him, and the hand in his hair twists, brings Max back to his chest. Lips against metal skin. Tongue tracing wires. Torse's voice, wrecked, perfect, wanton, chanting Max's name, a litany on repeat. The hiss of steam escaping from - from somewhere, Max can't see, can only kiss and lick and suck at the most intimate part of Torse's body, push fingers in along the sides, under metal ribs, wonder if Torse is sensitive enough to feel stubble and facial hair against him. It's not enough to dislodge anything, but he comes up under the heart and Torse makes a beautiful, broken sound, unreproducible by a human mouth, pure machinery.
It's so- Maxwell had never known he could want someone so badly. Want to please someone so badly. Torse's grip in his hair tightens, pushes Max's head further in, and his tongue moves under something, sucks a particularly alluring piece of machinery into the hot, wet cavity of his mouth. There is a high pitched whine from Torse, a wrecked gasp of “Yes, please, right there, don't stop, Max, Maxwell, I'm-” His words collapse in on themselves, whatever mechanism that allows him to speak scrambling air into noise instead of words, and the golden glow in his chest brightens, dims, brightens again. Maxwell licks, sucks, tests the metal with his teeth, until Torse pulls him off, chest heaving.
“Okay?” Max asks, and Torse just stares at him, at those kiss-swollen lips, the smudge of engine grease on his nose, the imprint of mechanics in his forehead.
“Yes,” says Torse, eventually, still staring. “I- yes. Successfully reciprocated. That was-”
“Good?” Max ventures.
“Incredibly. You are-” Torse's hand releases his hair, a few errant strands coming out in the knuckles, and moves round to cup Maxwell's cheek- “Incredible, Maxwell.”
Max turns his face into the palm, kisses it, a featherlight touch. “Flatterer,” he says. “I am glad it worked. I didn't know if it would. I- I enjoyed getting you off.” His cheeks colour as he says it, as if he had not just been gentlemanly fisting Torse's innards.
“I am… glad,” Torse starts. “To have been able to share this with you.” Maxwell is still sat astride him, hands braced on his chest, mindful of the areas he had learned were so sensitive minutes before.
“Good,” Max says, and he doesn't exactly feel awkward, but that sensation of being out of his depth, of having too many feelings he's never practiced saying before, is back, thrumming within him. “I'm glad too. It was… good. Pleasant. Enjoyable. Yes. I- khm.” He doesn't finish his sentence, aborted and incoherent as it would have been.
“Is everything alright, Maxwell?” asks Torse. “We do not have to- if this was not satisfactory-”
“No,” says Max, hurried, tripping over his own tongue to speak. “This was- Torse, you are- God, this is still difficult. Give me a moment - to order my thoughts.”
Torse nods, and his hand moves to Maxwell's waist, where Max's own falls over it, possessive, the movement the most natural thing he's ever done.
“You are,” Max starts, eventually, with his thumb running along the knuckle knives of his beloved, “Possibly the first person I have slept with who I wanted so… romantically. I- I am not an emotionally gifted man, Torse,” he says. “I am poor at expressing myself. But- I would like to do this again. With you. And-”
“Yes,” Torse says, and he is aware that interrupting is rude, but Max doesn't seem to mind. “I would like to- to do this again. And other things. I cannot take you for dinner, exactly, as I do not eat, but- hm. I could watch?”
Max laughs. “You want to watch me eat dinner?” he asks. He's not exactly opposed to the idea.
“I want to watch you do most things,” Torse says, turning Max's insides to jelly with his honest, level tone. “Eat. Sleep. Shower. Fight. You fascinate me.”
Max flushes, a deep red that travels from his perfectly curved ears down to the dark hair on his chest. Were he not bone tired, he would ask Torse to go again, but sleep is starting to call his name. “Good lord,” he says, a little stunned at the affection. “I- Yes. Good. Did you- My hair is wrapped around your knuckles,” he says, and brings Torse's hand up to his lips. “Will it cause problems?”
“I doubt it,” Torse says, and bites back the urge to apologise.
“Good,” says Max. “Leave it there. I- I like it.” It satisfies the possessive curl in his gut, the hungry dragon of his jealousy. “I need to sleep,” he says, and he rolls gently off of Torse's hips. “You can stay, if it suits you. I know you do not need to sleep. I shan't be offended, either way. Did you- where on earth is my underwear?”
Torse lifts it with a clawed foot, passes it to Max, who tugs it on, waistband creating a tantalising indent in soft flesh. He is so at odds with Torse, in some ways. The perfect counterpoint.
“I- If you will have me, I will stay,” he says. “I fear I may have already torn the mattress.”
“Your side of the bed,” Max says, face half turned into the pillow, looking at Torse. “Do you- sleep? Disanimate?”
“I can enter a sort of low power mode,” Torse says. “If you would prefer.” He is a timeless robot. He can watch Maxwell sleep for eight hours. He could also allow himself to doze. But - he knows what he would prefer.
“Whatever's best,” says Max, and he tugs Torse's hand around his chest, places it over his heart, and sleeps. Torse lays next to him for eight hours, and counts his breaths until morning.
-
The next morning, at breakfast, they arrive together, though not touching. Maxwell watches, shocked, as Marya gives Olethra a bag of jingling coins, that are hardly useful in Zood but that the young girl still looks happy to have.
“I thought it would take you longer,” Marya says, a grin almost touching her face. “Olethra did not. There was a bet.”
Maxwell hides his face in Torse's chest. Cat's out of the damn bag. He doesn't really care, though, not when Torse presses his face to the top of Max's head.
“Max,” Wealwell asks, shock entering his voice, “You're gay?!”