thecircus | Music prompt meme!

"I--" The girl started but stopped, sighing deeply. "... yes. Alright. But this really-- You both should know that this is completely against procedure--"

"I haven't survived this long to get this close and stop," Maximus told her, bluntly, turning his back to her.

"Our rooms," he murmured to Wyatt in reply.

"You'd want the same, if it were you an' yers," Wyatt told her, unfazed by her exasperation. Almost daring her to deny it.

He reached for Max, an arm wrapping firmly around the man's waist. Support, to appease the docs; touch, to appease himself.

(Still there. Still real.)

"Come on, Max," he said, looking back, blue meeting blue. "Yer almost home."

Maximus only nodded, easily following Wyatt's lead as they left the infirmary and the worried nurse behind them. He did not complain about the suIpporting touch - even leaned into it. He had come so far, for so long, and only now was he really beginning to feel the bone-deep weariness.

It felt strange, taking this long familiar path back. He'd dreamed about returning many times - it had been all that had kept him going - and even now, it felt like a dream.

But not one he was going to destroy by doubting.

Wyatt felt Max's weight increasing by fractions as they journeyed back to their room, but his support never wavered. His grip only tightening, shifting only closer as Max leaned on him.

He'd missed the moment, there on the battlefield. He hadn't been able convince 13 to keep looking when they'd debated the search.

He wasn't going to fail Max again.

The room was as it was the day Max had left. As if he'd merely been gone for moments, rather than months. His sparse belongings still mixed with Wyatt's upon the small shelf. His little alter untouched.

Even the bed looked unslept in.

Wyatt helped him ease down on it and reached for him. Squeezing his shoulder firmly before drawing reluctantly back just far enough to left the nurse slip between them.

The nurse worked quickly - the IV was rolled in beside the bed, and Maximus seemed much more inclined to follow instructions now that he had sunk back into his own - their own - bed. He didn't notice that nothing had changed. (It had been just the same in his dreams, after all.)

The nurse puttered around, sticking the IV in his arm (a torture he had gotten used to, after being in the future so long), instructing Wyatt how to use it and how to change the bag, as well as giving instructions on what to feed Maximus and when, and how to make sure he didn't over feed him. After she was completely satisfied, she left, and Maximus let out a long sigh, looking at the tube coming out of his arm.

"Is this really necessary? I haven't lost a limb--"

This time.

Though Wyatt found all the instructions a little funny - Max wasn't some pet that needed minding - he still intended to follow them to the letter. He wasn't going to risk it.

It might all be a dream, but he wasn't going to let it end if he had any say.

"Humor 'em," Wyatt murmured, moving back to sit on the edge of the bed beside Max. Looking down at him, gaze fixed on his face. Drinking in the sight of him. "They'll let ya alone faster."

"Can't say that particular part of this place is what I was looking forward to finding again," He admitted quietly, reaching out to take Wyatt's hand in his and squeeze it - causing the IV to shake ever so gently.

"... I was half afraid you had left, in the meantime. Retired to a farm it would take me months again to find."

"Without you?" His fingers found the space between Max's and an answering emptiness behind his ribs closed. Long open wound finally stitching. "I couldn't do it without ya."

He'd only ever begun of it as home because Max would be there. Without him... it wouldn't be anything but dirt and walls.

A tomb, bigger than this one, but no less haunted.

He swallowed thickly, the small twitch of his mouth only half-humor.

"I don't know a damned thing about wheat."

Maximus chuckled, completely oblivious to the ghosts in Wyatt's words, squeezing his hand fondly again. "I'm sure you would have managed," He told him, smiling.

"Or someone would be able to rustle up some cattle, for you. Regardless - I am glad you are here. It makes this journey considerably shorter."

"Maybe," he allowed quietly. "But they wouldn't'a been you."

He'd meant it, all that time ago, when he'd said this was it for him. That Max - that they - were it. His heart - his soul had spoken - and Wyatt Earp wasn't one for going back on his word.

"...They told us you were gone."

"Hardly the first time my death has been celebrated," Maximus said wryly. "I woke among the dead, so I am hardly surprised that I was counted among them."

He ran his thumb over the back of Wyatt's hand lazily. "But fate did not see fit to take me. Not yet."

"Celebrated ain't quite the word I'd use," Wyatt replied, a touch wry.

It had been months, but he could feel it as if had been only days ago. Had been living with it, under it, every moment since.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there, Max. I still ain't sure what really happened. We were there,... an' then we weren't." He'd been told after that he'd been hit, but he didn't remember it. The faint scar like someone else's.

Maximus shook his head slowly.

"I of all men know the chaos of the heat of battle," He said in a low voice, a rumble over the stones in his throat. "I do not blame you, Wyatt - I couldn't. It is enough - it is more than enough - that you lived to return."

"An' you."

One of his hands twitched, hesitated, and then settled gently on Max's chest - carefully, as if he expected the man to up and disappear, to drift away like smoke from under his palm.

"I'll admit, I ain't sure this ain't all a dream. I've had it, a few times."

His fingers splayed, a warm weight over the steady drum of Max's heart.

He raised his own hand to press against Wyatt's - to hold it firmly against his chest.

"And so have I," He murmured, "But I am no phantasm, Wyatt. Not this time. I assure you."

Wyatt felt no shame in how much comfort that simple movement brought him. How nice it felt.

"Better not be," he replied with a coughed sound that might have been a laugh, squeezed through the stones blocking up his throat. "Heaven er no, ya wouldn't like it much when I got there an' kicked yer ass for ya."

Maximus kept his hand there, pressing firmly but gently, the warm smile sliding across his lips.

"I'm not sure if that is meant as a threat," He said, "As I would very much like to see you try." His mind could quickly conjure up images of what would really happen if they would wrestle. Or what would have happened, months ago. It didn't seem like much had changed, but that was still a good deal of time.

He did laugh then, loose stones tumbling around somewhere in his chest, and his fingers flexed under Max's, curled in the thin fabric and held on.

"Big talk for a man flat on his back," he smiled down at Max, eyes moving over his face again. (It had to be real. He wouldn't survive it again.) "Remind me when you're feelin' better, I'll be happy to offer all the demonstration ya want."

"I will hold you to it," he said, smiling warmly, before taking a long, deep breath, and in a low voice murmured:

"Kiss me, Wyatt."

There was enough time for his heart to thump - a hard beat on a surge of relief and love and hope and a bone deep ache - and then he was leaning down to find Max's mouth with his own.

A kiss months in the making, a kiss Wyatt hadn't believed he'd ever be able to give. It was gentle to start, an almost chaste touch of lips, but firmed quickly. Deepened, as Wyatt's grip tightened on him.

"I love you," he whispered roughly, when his lungs forced him to pull back enough to breathe. "I love you, Max."

His eyes closed, his lips parted against the kiss, a low groan almost rumbling at the back of his throat as Wyatt leaned against him to take it, as Maximus arched his neck to return it - as firmly as he was able to muster.

God, but he had missed him. More than anything.

"As I love you, Wyatt," he rumbled breathlessly, before arching up to take another kiss. "Gods, but I do."

"Good thing," Wyatt murmured, the words slipping in between kisses. "'Cause I meant... what I said."

He reached up with a free hand, quickly swept off his hat and tossed it toward the beside table where it settled on the black, totalitarian lamp, hanging drunkenly.

"I ain't goin' anywhere."

He shifted, pulling back enough to slip over Max and onto the bed beside Max. Turning onto his side as his hand sought the other man's.

"Not without ya."

He missed the weight, when it was gone, and turned onto his side as well, linking their fingers together as he met the man's eyes. "Then you will have to wait," He said, the smile twinkling in his eyes.

"For it is not our time. Not yet."

Wyatt had said once that Max was it for him. It had been some time - what felt like years - but it was just as true in that moment, as it had been in that one.

His thumb stroked over Max's knuckles and moved in to seal it with another kiss.

And then another, simply because he could.

"Always," he promised, lips curling against Max's. "We're gunna be old an' grey, an' I'm still gunna be right there. The biggest pain in yer ass."

Music prompt meme!

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