The center of the universe is boring. The witches see only each other, only Mia, whose house they effectively invaded, and as the days become weeks, it’s beginning to take its toll. Each new day, Artemis’s mouth forms tighter and tighter lines. Mia, after so long by herself, is jumpy and irritable at never having a moment’s peace, and now she is cloistered with Wilder, a stranger, whose understanding of what they’re doing is sideways and backwards for not having a foundation and is therefore difficult to work with. Wilder, for their part, is constantly hammering at a solution and sweating through the pressure of being green and, suddenly, the witch of greatest utility. Mary Margaret, who is only starting to accept she will turn eighteen in lockdown, plays loud music on a quaintly anachronistic boom box and shouts “fuck you” when asked to please turn it down. Perhaps the worst, though, even worse than Mary Margaret, is Quibble, who is rallying poorly from the one-two punch of having his material assets forcibly removed (and thus his personality partially remade) and of becoming totally useless in the face of great danger. He becomes a sullen teenager, except that he is in his thirties and it is far less cute.
But, even this far north, the evenings are starting to soften. Rain falls and the green shoots begin to reach through the dirt. The world smells like impending life and chlorophyll, like petrichor and imminent fecundity. Mia turns the outdoor fairy lights on. One night, it is so unseasonably warm that the bugs begin to buzz. So Quibble grabs a beer and sits in the truck bed, two of Mia’s sweaters layered on top of each other. He swears he can see a few fireflies wink over the field, in the woods beyond, a place he has not yet explored, even though it is too early, too cold. He sips the hefeweizen—lemon and bread and freshness. He leans his unshaven chin, dusky with his patchy beard, on the edge of the tailgate. He is reminded of will-o’-the-wisps, leading travelers to their doom. He wonders what’s back there. Probably something treacherous. Everything these days is.
Wilder, for their part, did not see the sun today. They are frustrated. Mia uses terms like large neural network models and deterministic mapping and reinforcement learning and Wilder’s Awakened Power doesn’t make them a computer scientist. They know these words are English words, but beyond their ken is still something they have to rectify like any other not-witch in the world. And it feels like everything is beyond their ken. Mia talks about the Hex like he is a computer and Wilder talks about the Hex like he is a person and the truth is somewhere nested in their Venn diagram and also entirely a mystery because nothing like the Hex has ever happened before.
Wilder bursts forth from the house into the night and they nearly cry when the cold touches their flushing cheeks with calming fingers. They fling their arms wide, ready to dance around and stamp the ground and take up space, and then drop them, sudden, when they realize Quibble is out here to see them. They flush again for a different reason, and they approach the truck slower, steadier, quieter.
“Can I join you?” Wilder asks.
Quibble slow blinks at them like a cat. “Yeah, man. Always.”
And Wilder knows he does not, cannot mean always because no one can. But that he does mean yes right now. They walk up to the truck bed and lean their elbows on it, peering in at Quibble who has turned back to face the distant field. “Do you have another one of those?” Wilder asks.
Quibble nods and hands them one. A glass bottle, not an easily poppable can. His sullen streak takes over and he hears himself as gruff, grumpy, and he cannot help it. “Opener is inside and I’m not getting up.”
Wilder chuckles like a brook and Quibble’s shoulders prickle—not with anger, as he expects, but with something he cannot yet name: the teasing breathlessness that has been threatening for weeks. “Who needs a bottle opener when you have a truck,” Wilder says. They whack the bottle with the heel of their hand and the beer is open, leaving Quibble mystified. They take a bigger sip than they normally would—it feels good to expand a little after being cramped up all day. They sit on the edge and swing their legs over; they don’t spill any beer. The motion looks practiced, and Quibble remembers that he forgets a lot of Wilder’s biographical details, especially when he’s up his own ass.
Wilder sits so close to him, he can feel the dull pressure of their shoulder, their elbow, their hip, through the layers on layers of clothes. His body flushes hot with nearness. “Hold my beer?” he asks. When Wilder takes it, he strips the first sweater off. Both can hear the crackle of static electricity and Quibble feels the hair on the back of his neck stand tall, the sting on one pinky finger, a forearm. The sweaters catch together and lift, revealing the side of his ribs to Wilder and the cold air. Goose bumps radiate from the soft muscle under his arm outward, across his stomach, down his back. His breath catches.
“What?” Wilder is instinctively keyed into his sounds, an antenna for the smallest vocalization or deepest breath. And Quibble’s sounds (the buzz in his diaphragm, the moan caught in his mouth) are keyed into Wilder as well. I can See what they cannot—a tightening cello string with all the same glory and resonance. Something that plays in one’s hollow cavities, makes one’s teeth vibrate. Reverberates through the air held in my lungs. I have a deep love for these boys.
“Just cold,” Quibble says, understanding that it isn’t only cold. That there is more electricity here than static shock. He flushes pink at first, but deepens to red on his cheeks and chest. It is dark; Wilder can’t see it. I can. Can See the realization break over him like a cracked egg or a new dawn. Oh, he thinks. Oh.
“Mmm.” Wilder makes a noise in response. They sip Quibble’s beer and hand it back.
Quibble flails around for a topic. He gestures with his beer-holding hand to the field where he swore there were fireflies, where the dark blooms darker than before. He feels lightheaded, a little crazy. “Have you been over there yet?” he asks.
Wilder snorts. “I haven’t done anything except type since we got here.”
Quibble turns away and tries not to see the way that Wilder’s mouth moves. “What do you think is over there?”
He feels Wilder shrug next to him. “Why don’t you go find out?” they say.
Quibble’s mouth pops open a little; the tiniest of mosquito-catching gapes. It hadn’t occurred to him to go that far from the house. The city had been his backyard for his entire life. And in one lightning crack of a second, Quibble understands his relationship to safety better than he ever has. And it isn’t as though he hasn’t thought about it a lot.
He isn’t wrong that there is danger now, but he thinks about it—how dangerous would the faraway field really be? Unless it’s crawling with internet, which he doubts, it’s as safe (if not even safer) to be out yonder, over there. Quibble’s nose turns red as he wonders if he really is such a fucking weenie without cash.
Wilder lies down to look at the stars. They grew up rural, but it’s been so long. They feel like they have forgotten how to be, here, how to do. Rural places have a mythic quality to them. Something that is more rumor than reality, but that Wilder feels deep in their bones, in their movement, in the lizard bit of their brain. And nothing triggers that deep sense of awe at fairy tales becoming true more than the uninterrupted night sky. It is finally warm enough (just) to stay outside and take it in. There’s no light up here but for the house, and even those lights are beginning to wink out. Mia sleeps early and has since she moved here. Artemis has a headache from holding the whole group’s stress under her own tongue. Mary Margaret uses a flashlight under her covers to see what she’s doing, protecting her secrets. With each sleeping woman, the dark hangs more like velvet over these two outside and the stars pop out like sun-kissed freckles.
“What do you think is out there?” Wilder asks.
“Hmm?” Quibble doesn’t follow their meaning. Wilder nudges his leg with their foot, then gestures to the sky. “Oh,” he says. He looks up. Then: “Probably a whole lot of nothing.”
“Logically I would have to agree,” they say. “But then, what even is logic anymore? It could be made of glitter glue. It could be candy.”
Quibble smiles sideways. “I think we would know if it were made of sugar.”
Wonder lifts Wilder from the confines of their skin, makes them forget they have a body. There is not a cloud in the sky; rare, given the near-constant spring rain. They wish they could identify constellations; they feel melancholy, like they have missed something essential about what it is to be a child on the planet. To have had the inclination to sit and learn, perhaps from a venerable elder, a gay camp counselor, someone, anyone, and to have practiced with friends who wanted nothing more than to tell stories to each other while the steam curled from their lips into the wee hours. It is something they’d otherwise look up on their phone, but of course they can’t. So they make a mental note to ask Mia if she has a book on this. She well may.
Lying down, Wilder forgets they have a body as Quibble becomes an expert in this fact; he can’t stop staring at them in the calm and comfortable silence. He admires the crescent where their sweatshirt lifts up, shows their boxer waistband against their skin. One thin scar from an appendix removal. The triangle shape their arm makes when they put one hand under their head to serve as a cushion. The way they chew on their bottom lip with their snuggled-in top teeth, unstraightened by the omnipresent orthodontia of Quibble’s own childhood.
Quibble revels in the responses of his own body as well. Now that he sees the strings between himself and Wilder, the arcing sparks showering them in the night, he can tell. He can feel himself harden and what little of his attention can be spared from admiring Wilder centers squarely between his own legs. He can feel his own pulse there, steadily quickening. He balances the nearly finished bottle on the truck roof. “Can I join you?” he asks, trying to remain casual. He has done this a fair amount—to boys in bars and ladies on Instagram, to folks of all genders at the gym and the bookstore. Since coming out, Quibble has not denied himself in the slightest. It might take him a while to realize what he wants; when he does, it becomes unbearable to not at least gift himself the chance of getting it. Even now, even feeling unstable. Some rich habits die hard.
“Sure,” Wilder says, and they move over, absently pat the truck bed next to them. They are lost in the steeped tea of their own feelings. Of being transported to some other place, of sadness, of stress and frustration and the simultaneous washing away of those things by the chorus of—crickets? They wonder if they are crickets. Or frogs. They have heard the word cicada; perhaps it is those. Everything about this place is wild fey to them. Each sound a surprise, each spider in a room corner or moth flirting with the front door, something strange and new. The sky, the sky, the sky. If they’d had better schooling, would they have been an astronaut? They can feel the earth of Quibble lie next to them and the jolt happens again as he lies down, his side against their side, the only places not touching are where bodies naturally curve away from each other. The line of Wilder’s hips, the bay of their armpit. Otherwise, their sides press like smiling lips. It is Wilder’s turn to flush hot. To be jammed instantaneously back into their body. To dip into their own realization with a soft oh. Oh.
They both stare at the sky for a while, dizzy with longing and wondering how to move forward with it. Asking themselves if this is a bad idea. If there is such thing as a bad idea anymore, with their world balanced so precariously on the precipice of demise. Wilder’s breath grows shallower. They are overcome with the desire to touch themself; it isn’t the only sex they’ve ever known, but it is mostly what they know. They settle for tucking their hand in their exposed boxer waistband, a small movement that drives Quibble absolutely wild. He doesn’t moan loudly, but the noise he makes drips into Wilder’s ear, close, and they can feel it buzz in his ribs, their ribs. The hair on the back of their neck stands on end in a way that signals a deep and total witnessing. A sight and a Sight. And I Feel Wilder pluck the thin string attached to me as well. They know there are three people panting into the crisp spring air, even though they can only see two open mouths.
What do I do?
I have never Watched a witch so adept at spotting my presence—even Artemis, paranoid about it, only ever guesses if I am there or not. Wilder, however—perhaps it is because they Speak my Language. To be understood is a powerful force, after all.
I do not usually fall for this old trick. Except tonight. Tonight I do. Tonight, tonight, because as far as I’m concerned, none of us are guaranteed a tomorrow if I cannot fucking See it.
I place my Hand, faint with distance, between their Shoulder Blades and they relax a touch. Sigh. Sink deeper down next to Quibble; return from the sky.
Quibble says something first. “Hey, Wilder?”
“Hmm?”
“Are we going to—do something about this?”
Even though Wilder is not confused about what Quibble means by this (they, too, feel the near-alcohol buzz in their cheeks and their chest and between their legs), they say, “What?”
“We’re vibing,” says Quibble. “Do you want to fuck?”
Wilder has never been asked directly before to have sex. People either took what they wanted or didn’t. And they’d always been under the impression that talking about it breaks the spell, takes some of the spontaneous magic out. They are surprised to find out that talking about it plucks that taught cello string, makes it sound. They shiver and it has nothing to do with the cold, slowly pushed from their body by their own pulse, the heat of want and adrenaline beating their body like they are entirely heart. They find it impossible to answer, so they lean over and kiss him. He tastes like sweet cloves. They moan into his mouth.
In turn, Quibble’s hands float first to Wilder’s face; he is shocked by how soft their skin is. It feels the same as reaching his Hands into them and Feeling the cool water. He loves how their essence arrives on their body; he can’t stop touching them, even as they roll away and his fingers lose contact. They sit on his hips, pinning him to the truck bed, and he slides his hands into their waistband, trying to touch as much of them as possible from his position. He wishes he could keep going, run his hands along their ass, but they’ve dug their fingers into his shoulders. Squeezed until he will surely have bruises in the daylight. He gasps and Wilder takes advantage of his open mouth to kiss him again, fucking Quibble’s mouth with their tongue. His hands slide to the small of their back and they can’t help themself; they bite his lip and taste the tang of blood. Wilder is surprised by their own desire; they’ve never fucked a man before.
They reach their Hands into each other; Quibble finds my Hand, still on Wilder’s Back and sinking deeper into them with every sharp inhale. Quibble withdraws in surprise but grabs my Wrist when he recovers. Fuck, he thinks, and here is our collective surprise, mine entwined with his so it is unclear where each of our Feelings begin or end or who Feels what first; it is only a firework: he has not yet been able to Speak this way. His connection to Wilder, who can Speak anything, Understand anyone, Awakens something in him. While they are holding each other, he can Speak from somewhere deep inside himself into somewhere else, someone else, both far away and close. Inside both of us. We scream with delight-hardness-pleasure. Wilder rocks their hips on his. Fuck. Every small movement is a revelation, every thought-feeling-Feeling-sensation a bloom, an ouroboros from the very moment of inception, impossible to untangle.
It is amazing, in Here, where they—we—bleed into each other, where our galaxies begin to overlap and overtake, fracture apart just a little. Nuclear fission. They are completely different than usual, and I know what both of them are like, usually. (And I—I am different than usual, too.) Wilder’s interior too-calm lake, undisturbed by others for so many years, undulates with waves, crashing from all angles, into each other and out of them, onto the shores of Quibble, usually steady, earthy, solid. He is wet and warm; the sensation of feet sinking slowly into sand, water pooling around quickly disappearing toes and hugging exposed ankles. The sensation of lifting those feet up again, of particles falling away from skin and stroking it like soft fingers.
Wilder’s desire heightens-grows-throbs-changes, many headed and wiggling from their grasp. A different kind of want. The desire mapped not just onto an other, but onto their own body. They keep one hand there, open it as wide as they can, touch Quibble’s chest with every part of their palm, every line in their fingertips. He is muscular. Wilder hadn’t noticed. But they’re more drawn to the landscape of a self-made chest, the flatness and the agency mixed into something heady. Their other hand, they put to his face. Feel the harshness of his skin, the sandpaper whiskers, and they melt. He is adorable; they want all of it for themself. This desire isn’t new, but they don’t put their Hands into the boiling pot of it, because they know it’s out of reach. And so they don’t mind it too closely, stay far from the burning heat of it. They hadn’t thought about it, that sex with Quibble could grab them and plunge them into the steaming spring of it. Enveloped by its warmth, inviting and repulsive at the same time, because they cannot live in it forever. They do not have a cool ten thousand dollars to spend and they never will.
Quibble can hear it, Wilder’s want and Want and want. This feeling is animal, panting, devoid of syntax in its overwhelm.
He responds in kind, fragmented, jumbled in pleasure. Resolve resolution, after, get you what you need. Promise.
The concept Promise chimes in our Heads-Hearts-Bodies and they let loose, tear clothes from each other. Together they are a glory of mud and mess. Complex and joyous, euphoric in their burning discovery, even as Wilder recognizes in themself the dysphoria they try very hard, minute by minute, never to name. But it is possible. It is possible to ecstasy-joy-body-come even as the waterfall-roar of it fills their ears, their Ears. It is both-and.
And I am with them, in them. Inside them as the truck bounces with their shifting weight, inside them as Quibble slides his hand up Wilder’s shirt and they Say not there and he shifts his hand around to their ass. Inside them as he slides his fingers into Wilder—both of them reach for me, too, run their Tongues along me in turns until I am jagged lines and I feel the most in my constructed body I have ever felt, parts of it lighting up that have never before Awakened. And as my cock gets hard for the first time in a thousand literal years, I know—this will have consequences. One way or another, I am affecting the way the wind blows and now I will never know what the future would have been if I hadn’t dared. I go rigid in body and spirit, pull away. Wilder flashes curiosity at me, but both let me go. I watch, distant again, as Wilder rocks back and forth, riding three of Quibble’s fingers, his hip bones pushing into their thighs and leaving bruises they are excited to discover in the morning, when the sun is up and they have moved to his bed as quietly as they can.
I blink. I break. I look around me. I am in my apartment. It is beautiful. I have made it just the way I want it. I make everything in which I am housed just the way I want it. It is night here, too, but the ghost of brightness echoes through it even in the dark. Walls white and strung with plants, the satin pothos dripping from the hanging pot and down into the window well where I am sat, my forehead pressed against the cold glass and breath fogging it up. The wood floor is the color of cherries and butter atop a scone. Books. A record player. A sword hung on the wall from times past; a vase even older, stamped and painted with a language no one speaks anymore. I am alone. Alone with things. And I am touching myself, tugging on myself, one hand on my own chest and the other between my legs.
It is not bad to be alone. It is not bad to fuck myself. I am the only one of my kind and that is my reality. There is no moral alignment to it, only fact. But—difficult. Sometimes. My fingers stop what they’ve been doing. I blink both sets of my eyelids. This construct can cry. And it does. I do. I cry for loneliness.
A tap on my Shoulder from afar. I Hear in my Body Wilder’s Voice, so solid in ephemeral space. I am jealous, jealous. It’s okay, they Say. It’s okay. If you want to come back, it’s, and they gasp like they are dunked in water. Come back, please, if you want. And I wonder—what could possibly come of it, if it is happening without me anyhow? There is no way to See the consequences and if I do not know, what then? If I cannot See the wind from my wings become a hurricane, is it true? Was it ever? Do I make more natural disaster than any other creature in the world? If a lowly butterfly can do it, how much does my Power matter? Wilder feels my Turning Toward, my Hesitation. They wrap their Fingers around my Wrist, my Shoulders, touch the place where my Waist bends, grab at the inside of me, buzz with my electricity. Their Teeth rattle; Quibble’s fingers tingle inside them. Both let out a ragged scream. They are reminded I am not human and they—neither one of them—they don’t pull away. They don’t-care-revel-in-it-love-me-without-the-body. I let them pull me back toward them, and I am there in an instant. Back in the truck. Back inside both of them. Making them quake, tightening the cello string further. We all long for it to ping, to break. The tension is unbearable-ecstatic. I am hard under my own hands again and they are hard under my Hands as well.
We all squint our eyes shut and squint our Eyes shut and make it last, this pressure, until we can’t hold it anymore and we—
—release. Release steam into the cold, cold night.