Maki felt slammed the moment he returned to base. Leaving Tatsumi, he was called in for debriefing by Quan who very much disliked the mess Maki had landed in his lap and that they’d have a member of the Imperial family poking around his base. Sympathising with the old alpha, Maki knew what would be coming once Ranchel did arrive. Chaos, disorder, new rumours, everyone walking on eggshells, Ranchel pissing everyone off… the list went on and on. Sent packing with a load of fresh paperwork on the Gong mines, the alpha had been talked at, not talked to, and had been unable to get a word in about taking the weekend off.

Returning to his office, Li and Tatsumi were both sorting papers. Tatsumi’s pile suspiciously larger than Li’s. Naturally Tatsumi would want to help and offer, but Li should have known better than to be handing documents out seeing his husband no longer had the clearance to look at them. With his own pile to sort, Maki decided not to bring the mood down further

“Stop making my husband work for you”

“It’s fine. When we came in they were in danger of falling over. Tatsumi made me find a NDA form and he signed it so now everything that happens in this office he can’t disclose. Molly’s bringing Francis in to help get it under control. Half this stuff so far isn’t even to do with us”

Yeah… but. His husband was under suspicion and Li having him sign an NDA would probably only add to it. His unease must have been showing as Tatsumi smiled

“It’s okay. I’m not actually reading anything, just turning it all the right way up for Li to sort. Hence no glasses”

Tatsumi could still see without his glasses, yet Maki believed him when he said he wasn’t reading anything 

“Let him do it. You’re supposed to be having the day off”

“It’s only until Molly and Francis get here then I’m going to go meet with Hizuru for a bit and talk about his mech mods and the paint job he wanted”

Seeing they’d already had one bump over the tracker chips, Maki gave in. There was too much to be sorted and he had to protect his his van from future allegations so couldn’t very well keep Tatsumi as his own personal assistant 

“It’s fine. Quan gave me a bunch of stuff on the Gong mine closures to look at”

“I don’t envy that work load. From the looks of it you two won’t be getting out of here until late”

“Yeah. I didn’t even get a chance to ask to go camping”

“Don’t worry about it. I remember the paperwork so well that I don’t particularly miss it”

Li sighed

“So if we hadn’t taken this cushy little job you mean we’d still be buried in paperwork?”

“When you’re a field commander you would be. And you’d be doing it while on deployment”

“What jobs don’t have paperwork?”

“General grunts. If the pay was better everyone would sit at Private and never advance. But being a field commander wasn’t all bad”

“I still can’t believe you ranked up so fast”

“Put me in a mech and I’d live in there for days if I could. We also did a bunch of extra training and survival competitions”

“Why don’t we get to do the fun things?”

“Because you stepped off the path to piloting?”

“I want to go back”

“If you really want to, I’ll support you. I told you this morning you’re practically my little brother. If you want to go back, we’ll make it happen”

Li sniffled, grabbing Tatsumi and hugging him tightly 

“Don’t tease me!”

“I’m not. We’ll make it happen”

“But the money is so good!”

“You’re more important than money. You and Maki are my pride and joy. Every single physical thing can be replaced except for you two”

“Leave him and run away with me”

Tatsumi laughed as he pried Li off of him 

“And what would Molly do? Pull yourself together. A few papers won’t get the best of you”

“This is more than a few”

“You’ll get there. Think of dinner, a home cooked meal as a reward for all your hard work”

“You should definitely leave Maki and take care of me for the rest of your life”

Maki had had enough of Li openly try to “steal” his husband. Walking over to stand behind the couch, he hit his best friend over the head with all the paperwork in his hands

“Stop trying to seduce my husband. I have enough actual threats to deal with”

“It’s not my fault you scored the whole package with him”

“And you too could if you just threw away your dumb insecurities. She likes you back and I can tell them it has to be pretty fucking obvious. You know what, tomorrow we’re taking the day off. I’m going out with Tatsumi hiking and you’re taking Molly back to see our apartment”

“We can’t just take the day off”

“We’ve been off planet for two weeks, it’s natural things come up in that time that need sorting out. I’m making an executive decision”

“Quan won’t go for it”

“He can wait. Neither of us was offered the mandatory therapy for what happened, so the least we can do is take a day”

Li didn’t want to show his happiness, his friend making a face as if he were trying to take the shit of his life. Tatsumi laughing at the pair of them

“I wouldn’t argue with Maki if I were you, Li. There’s a ton of frozen food at home, so make sure you and Molly make the most of it. If you’re going to give yourself the day off, should I look up hiking routes?”

Leaning down, Maki kissed his husband’s hair

“Please, and somewhere we can take the bus to… and somewhere we can camp overnight”

“I think I have a place in mind where we’ll be totally alone”

“Sounds good. I don’t even want to take my comms. I want to be completely alone with you and not called in out of the blue”

“Mhmmm… this spot should be good for that. Are you sure you don’t want to borrow a car from base?”

“I was thinking we could do it like one of your adventures”

“I like the sound of that”

“Good, because I like the sound of it too”

***

Leaving Maki’s office once Molly and Francis had arrived, Tatsumi wandered his way around until he found Hizuru in the mech hangar. The fellow omega’s mech was still obnoxiously red, and Tatsumi could see no signs of new mods having been installed. Smiling he raised a hand

“Hey, Hizuru. How’s it been?”

Sighing at the world, Hizuru didn’t look away from his mech. Tatsumi had suggested meeting there away from everyone but the mech techs 

“I want to crush it”

“We’ll crush it with mods... That sounded far cooler in my head”

“It wasn’t very cool at all. I didn’t think you remembered your offer”

“I didn’t forget. My estrus came and took me out for a week, then there was work. My kids are so damn cool”

“Too cool for you?”

“Too cool for a man in his 30’s. Can I take a proper look?”

“Yeah, go ahead”

Walking up to the red mech, Tatsumi ran his fingers over the metal casing of the left leg

“This wasn’t for an Erebus originally, was it?”

“Nope. Calip Model Six”

Calip was a brand with a complicated history. They’d never gone big in production and were more for personal mechs than battle

“Let’s change it. Huma developed armour that heals itself. It hasn’t been rolled out yet, but it’s an option. Though I would have gone with standard plating”

“Then why suggest it?”

“Battle and the nature of battle changes by the day. My time in active service was ridiculously short, so I’m used to how things were. You guys are the future. Do you have problem with peripheral movement?”

“A bit…”

Crouching down, Tatsumi examined the ankle joint, then rose to look at the knee

“The exterior seems fine. There’s enough room for play in the joints…”

Walking around the mech, he did the same for the right side

“Both sides are even. The feeting is good for all combat terrains. That’s good. It means we can keep them as is”

“But…”

“I suspect it’s more your internal struggle with piloting this particular mech. I see you’ve got mods on for sand and ice”

“Yeah… my brother goes all kinds of places”

“It’s a very practical mod to have. Fingers?”

“Upgraded”

“Do they feel bulky?”

“A bit?”

Taking the mech’s right hand, Tatsumi felt along them

“They’re 5 mills thicker than standard. We’ll swap them out. When you pilot they need to feel an extension of your own body, not like lumps of sausage shoved on. You don’t need your fingers modded. It’s handy, but you need the dexterity more. Do you use a chain pull?”

“Sometimes”

“Yeah, we’ll swap them out. Single core, Erebus plating on the torso, back mod…”

“It’s…”

“Lemme guess… propulsion, twin stabilisers, balancer, and seperate rear barrier, and tertiary barrier systems”

Hizuru raised an eyebrow. Tatsumi snorting

“Put me near a mech and this is what happens”

“I was wondering if I’m that transparent?”

“Not you, your brother. Starcallers let nothing through. You can plonk them down, set and near on forget to ever check your barriers. You don’t need to savage someone when they can’t touch you begin with”

Hizuru’s eyes went wide. Tatsumi nodding as he guessed Hizuru wasn’t used to people not worshipping the ground his brother walked on

“I’m not friends with your brother so why pull my punches? He made my damn job harder with his sitting there and proving Starcallers are lumps. You have no idea how many hours we put it into counter strats and methods against them”

“I can imagine”

“I tend to fixate. My best friend was an engineer and he had to put up with all my questions… and when I started learning how to fix my own mech… I just really love them. When you pilot your mech is the one thing that can’t lie to you. Your soldiers tell you all sorts of things, your bosses send you off with their idea of things, but a mech is part of your body and soul when you’re in one. You can spend all the money in the world making your mech into your dream, if you don’t have confidence in yourself you’ll never truly be happy with it. I hope you’re making a list of what needs to go”

“I don’t know… I don’t know if I shouldn’t just sell it off”

Tatsumi moved to the back of the mech, he couldn’t help smiling at the pilot ladder’s smooth inlay around the mods

“You can, or trade with someone you know. But all mech structures internally are the same. Whoever designed the back did a good job. It’s nearly seamless”

“I’m not sure”

“Ah, well. The past isn’t important. Have you chosen a paint colour?”

“Black?”

“Black is good. Wait here a moment”

Leaving Hizuru waiting, Tatsumi jogged over to the man manning the hangar desk. The conversation brief, only taking a few moments to conclude before he returned to Hizuru

“They’ll paint it now”

“What? I’m not… why?”

“Black is the most sure you’ve sounded on anything so far. It doesn’t need to stay black but erasing this red will help with your mental health. This mech will be your best friend if you let it”

“I don’t have many of those”

“Maki remembers you now. You can talk to him and Li. He still thinks he’s awful in social situations but he’s really not, unless you don’t let him have his coffee first. He seems to be able to talk to me then, then struggles with everyone else. I must struggle too, my class actually ditched today so I could spend the day with him”

“Then I’m keeping you from him?”

“No, he has things he can’t tell me because I’m no longer a pilot, and I did feel bad. I get pushy over mechs and I basically ramrodded this down your throat… like I just did with the paint”

“You’re trying to help”

“Mmm, and I get caught up so easily. Your mech is beautiful…”

“Do you want to try booting?”

If his eyesight wasn’t what it was, Tatsumi would have loved to. He’d be able to make so many changes once he’d felt how the unit moved, yet even a few minutes could shave off the amount of time left he had to enjoy seeing his husband’s face. With a bitter smile, Tatsumi shook his head and crossed his arms

“I can’t. For the sake of my future with Maki I can’t”

“That’s a shame”

“When you find your person you’ll understand. Maki is my person and I’m his. We want to start a family soon and I’m not going to do anything to jeopardise that. I worked hard to be able to so that’s my focus. I know we were going to talk more about your mech, but as they’re going to paint it now, do you want to go get a coffee instead?”

“If you’re alright with it, then yeah”

“I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t”

“And… Maki won’t get mad?”

“Nope. He wants me to make more friends… which is rich coming from him”

“Okay, let’s go”