When Worlds Collide (MxM)?

The portal whirled down as Kade waited for the engineers to confirm their readings. Xavier was inches behind him, looking rather nervous.

Kade got an idea of what he'd been up to this whole time. While Xavier was promised job security in exchange for getting Kade to fix the wormholes, he would still lose his position if Kade was unable to deliver results.

"Well?" Xavier asked, trying to hide the shrill in his voice.

After a long drawn-out pause, the far left engineer turned. "Nothing detected."

Xavier let out a sigh, and the team started patting each other's backs as though they were the ones who fixed the code. Meanwhile, Kade chewed his lip.

"Looks like you prayed hard enough." Xavier quipped. "Now you get to take a break."

"A break?"

His guard for the day, another brawny army jock, got uncomfortably close behind him.

Xavier scratched his chin. "Yeah. Now that we know it works, we don't need you on this project anymore. We'll run a few more tests before deciding what to do with you at least."

Kade was shoved out of the viewing room and back to his apartment. His limbs buzzed with fear, knowing that he should have expected this.

They had no reason to keep him alive now. They'll probably spin a story to his mother and brother, saying he died in yet another 'freak accident'. The only comforting thought he had was knowing that Xavier was going to get the axe too. Now that they knew that he had nothing to do with containing the explosion before, they had no reason to keep an incompetent engineer on the team.

Back at the apartment, he waited to hear from his family. He tried to act nonchalant about it so that the people monitoring him didn't suspect a thing.

He blindly picked up a book, then another, and another. He started stacking them on a table, then got his phone and some smaller gadgets like a flashlight and matches.

A knock at his door drew his attention and he was greeted by Jim.

"Dumb ass," Jim said, pushing past him and standing in the small living room.

He scanned the area, with the flat-screen TV, glass coffee table, shelf of books, and marbled bar counter. "So this is where you've been hiding."

"Not by choice."

Jim was the same height as Kade, with short black hair, brown eyes, and high cheekbones like their mother. He was only three years older but took his job as an elder sibling seriously.

And by 'seriously', that meant he'd insult and tease Kade every chance he got.

"The fuck is wrong with your hair?" Jim eyed Kade's long locks. He had refused to cut it after returning to Earth. "You look like a girl."

"Better than looking like a dumbass."

"This dumbass makes a six-figure salary," Jim remarked and picked at the objects on the bar. "Unlike you. Got yourself reduced back to an unpaid intern. You should have asked for a raise. At least then you'd have gotten something out of this."

"And what would I spend the money on?" Kade asked, head tilted. "I can't even reach Amazon on my phone."

"To give it to me."

Kade rolled his eyes. They were both being monitored and thus couldn't say what they really wanted to out loud. But this was nice too. It'd been a while since the two of them had just had a conversation.

If Jim had come sooner, then the facility may have become suspicious. So these last moments together were more precious than ever.

"Are you going to be working on the project still?" Kade wondered.