Chapter 30: Gathering the Party

Cthulhu had elected to stay in Baltimore for the fortnight before the trip, but he visited Aix’s dreams every night, and they were slowly mending their rough patch, spending what felt like hours talking, Aix using the Dreamscape to show Cthulhu all manner of things—biomes, history, animation, concepts, spaces…. Aix’s imagination was better than books; because, though written language was fascinating, it didn’t compare to the clarity of having someone who was really good at imagining things.

It was also somewhat dangerous for Cthulhu to travel at all, but he didn’t mind—not when he got to travel with Aix every night, to places that did and didn’t exist. Now that Cthulhu had worked with Morpheus to create a Dreaming limited to just Cthulhu and Aix, Aix could use it as a ‘sandbox’, and was free to show Cthulhu anything he wanted, to push at his skill with the dream magic safely.

Cthulhu had told Aix that he was not nearly as good at teaching as Aix was, whenever Aix had asked in return if Cthulhu wanted to show him anything. That had only led to Aix asking if it were possible to talk to others of Cthulhu’s fellows, perhaps Azathoth. Cthulhu had… hesitated.

Aix had registered shock, then fear, then had faced down that fear and said only, ‘Shob seems to like her kids well enough, and they’re all gentle and innocent. If she interacts with them enough for them to trust calling on her, she must have gentleness in her.’

Perhaps. I don’t know. The way you extrapolate behaviours and personalities like that is a magic I don’t understand yet.

Aix liked that Cthulhu was starting to incorporate words like ‘magic’, to practise with it as a word for the unknown. It was, also, a bit startling to have someone say Aix was good at social things. But… that had been happening a lot lately, and not just from Cthulhu, and also… Aix was starting to notice it. Notice his ability to observe people, notice how much he did know about social mores as he was explaining them to Cthulhu.

It was startling, to constantly feel like a stumbling child, and then to look up and realise how much you absolutely were nothing of the sort.

Because they were travelling in the small black plane that had brought Aix to New York and back in the first place, that meant there was once again no humiliating security regulations, and no fees, and not having to walk miles across the airport worrying about the plane being on time, and certainly no trials such as having to gate-check your wheelchair and use the too-narrow one that fit the too-narrow plane aisles so you could fit into the too-narrow seats where you might end up next to someone without a mask, and… well, flying while disabled and slightly tall was something Aix had hated doing even when he’d been able to afford first-class, he’d fight anyone that gave Victoria trouble for having her own plane so she could travel without harming herself.

The plane even had a suitably gothic (and slightly tongue-in-cheek) name: The Úlairi, the outside befittingly painted with a wraith riding a black and fiery horse; but the black also had a practical purpose: disguising the solar cells on the outside, that couldn’t power the flight, but could gather enough power to run the peripheral electrics that ran things like the small microwave and fridge on board (which were essential for long flights like the one to Bucharest).

Aix was glad for his new epicurean friends, that helped him assemble enough food for the trip. Food was always what made Aix the most anxious about leaving the house, really. Not now, though—he had friends who travelled—more than one, even—and they helped him learn how to actually pack (something he’d never been taught), even helped him realise that yes, the rolling backpack he’d gotten while homeless was not, actually, all that roomy on the inside, even though the wheels were sturdy, and that had been more important.¹ He hadn’t had much to pack in it for the road trip, but that meant he’d been able to use it to store all his sewing things.

Now, he filled it up with all the new clothes and shoes everyone from Eglenor insisted on giving him when people noticed he didn’t have a lot of clothes, and Aix was… starting to get used to what felt like overwhelming generosity, but which his best friend and Auntie, both from large communities, assured him was just how being part of a community worked.

But Aix and the Blackstones weren’t the only ones travelling—the plane would be at capacity this time, not just them but also Cthulhu and René, plus Michaela, and Hext, who was the werewolf representative. Aix hadn’t met Hext yet, but from the stories and the fact that he purportedly owned The Oldest Continuously-Operating Permanent Freakshow In The World, on Coney Island (of course), Aix was very keen to meet him. René was also bringing along Cameron, though Michaela was frustrated to not know why, exactly (and René wasn’t going to tell her).

Aix was starting to get the idea that Michaela did not much like René, and that René liked needling her a bit.

Aix was also starting to get the impression that René might share Aix’s problem with authority. That sort of fit, for a pirate, didn’t it? Aix was very hesitant to draw conclusions about people, even from observing them, but it felt like his relationship with both of these people was still too new for him to ask René directly, even if they had been talking almost every night on the chat server.

Aix had finally started talking to his old and established friends too, finally catching his Auntie and his best friends up on as much as he was allowed. He told Velquin a little of the secret stuff, because Velquin was a werewolf all but literally. Aix had taken great care to ask several people about that, and was pretty sure Hext was the one to have said it was okay, even though he and Aix had never directly spoken. Velquin reported that someone had contacted them about taking the change, and was very excited, and Aix was buoyed by the happiness of that too much to be anxious about the trip.

It was all very exciting, and Aix was glad to also be able to do most of the prep without leaving his building, because that meant he didn’t have to leave Pippin or Baby² alone with a sitter. Pippin was very excited in the goings on, and ‘Tata Vee’ even found a pretty rainbow baby dress and modified it to be extra fancy for her, in case she wanted to dress up. Pippin was extremely excited about the ruffled sleeves Victoria added, and the rows of matching ruffles that made up the skirt. She was upset that there wasn’t time before they left to show all the drag queens, though Pinky Focks was often enough in the Tower that Pippin’s upset was slightly mollified by him making much of her, and taking photos, and showing her while Aix explained they were showing all the other drag queens even though they were far away.

Nobody had ever explained a camera or the additional functions of what Pippin referred to as A Hello-phone to her; once it was, Pippin was constantly asking to be photographed, and to see pictures of her friends. She couldn’t read, but Aix showed her emojis, and she communicated with them, much to the delight of Lorenzo, Tristan, and even Zizo, Lorenzo’s elderly Auntie, who was also femminiello and had an old columbina that had been with their family since the 1700s, who took a great interest in Pippin.

The kitten was turning into quite the little adventurer; Aix was worried he’d be distressed by all the activity, but on the contrary, he seemed to want to be involved with anything Aix and Pippin were up to, smart as a whip, and all the moreso because Aix could actually communicate with him, tell him complicated things. He was very friendly, beeping happily at anyone new and sitting on Aix’s shoulder, or in a sling, or in his pink harness. He still hissed at the dogs, but to their credit the dogs were fairly used to cats by now, and didn’t have the doofy-but-alarming pushiness that usually made cats and other animals upset, and understood what hissing meant. He was very excitable, not nearly so smart as Pippin, but Aix and Pippin got him to understand they were going Big Outside, and there would be lots and lots of New Friends who would Pet him, and that was quite enough.

On the day of their leaving, Pippin and the kitten went early to the airport with Victoria and Dmitri, who knew exactly what to say and where to go to smuggle Pippin onto the plane (though ‘smuggle’ was a bit of a strong word—it was an easy lie to say New York was only the airport you were flying out of, and that you’d just come from Rhode Island, or Massachusetts, or Vermont—states where clowns were perfectly legal.³ So, Aix was alone when he met René at the BUR station’s Central Park terminal, which was, like all the BUR stations, not nearly so grand and busy as its human counterparts. The really big station, Aix had learnt while sitting and talking with people also waiting for René’s train, was Swansea, in Wales, where more of the BUR lay directly parallel to the old human stations (they even had a necropolis train station beneath the now-defunct one in London, something Aix found very exciting).

The train arrived exactly on time, and while there were more people in Central Park Station, and not many had much interest in Aix, they were still courteous and aware of Aix in a way humans never were. Nobody bumped into him, or tried to grab and move his chair, so he could wait safely on the comfortable bench for the train to slow all the way down to a stop, and the doors to slide smoothly open. It was nice to not have the train screech alarmingly, Aix wondered again at how the Knockers did that; but first…

Aix tackled René as soon as he got off the train. René caught him with only a slight rock back, more of surprise than anything.

‘Quel accueil!’ René laughed, holding him tightly. He was surprised at how much Aix seemed to have missed him; even though, for the past fortnight apart, they had been talking via Aix’s preferred chat program, deepening their friendship. Aix had made an entire multi-section server just for the two of them, which René had needed Cameron to teach him to use, but it wasn’t difficult after he had learned. Aix, like many modern people, was champion at finding a cute video of a kitten, and then a moment later angrily ranting about the state of legislation on censorship, then talking earnestly about his feelings, and then… any other dozen tone changes. The sections helped Aix’s thoughts—and their mutual conversation—stay organised under the onslaught of modern overstimulation. It was a sort of outward mechanism for the organisation Aix’s mind lacked. Despite Cameron’s point of view about it being overwhelming, René had found it marvellously organised and yet more of a look into how Aix’s interesting mind worked.

‘I missed you,’ Aix said simply, and kissed him. René had said he liked when boys took initiative on kisses, and even though Aix was terrified of doing it without asking three times to make sure, he knew that was anxiety talking. René kissed back, kissed properly, slow and soft and not at all eager to pull away. It felt somewhat thrilling again, René thought, kissing in public; because of the plague making masks so necessary, seeing someone’s face was now somewhat scandalous, let alone kissing.

But Aix had taken off his mask at some point before René had arrived, and his beautiful face was close, and he kissed with all the reluctance to stop of a vampire at the bite, mouth soft and hungry, but not rushed. Never rushed. René was going to start needing these kisses… he gently dipped his tongue inside Aix’s mouth, delighting at the instant submission this garnered, and stroked Aix’s tongue with his, burying one hand in Aix’s soft curls, humming low and soft into the kiss, feeling Aix melt against him, slowly starting to dip Aix, thinking he might appreciate the romance of it. The steadiness of his arms calmed the initial tension in Aix’s back, and the trust was as intoxicating as the kiss itself.

‘Ah, mon cher sorcier,’ René murmured, squeezing Aix gently. ‘It is so good to see you again. You look well.’ And it was true—Aix had gotten some new clothes since René had seen him last, and looked far more boyish, stylish in a way that said he knew how to cobble together an outfit—a talent that René respected more than someone simply having a tailor to design everything bespoke. The trousers were a warm brown corduroy, the waistcoat a complimenting brown and gold pattern, with a shirt of peacock blue that made his eyes glow.

And new shoes—thank God, new shoes, René thought. They were just as pointed as the old battered ones, but of better, softer leather, and had the characteristic narrow and antique look of fae-made shoes.

Aix noticed him looking, and smiled. ‘You like my new shoes?’ he said, pulling up his trouser leg a bit to show them off. There was brasswork on the arch and back half of the boot, swirling and beautiful around Aix’s heel and up his ankle—René suspected it wasn’t just for the look of it, either, given what he knew about Aix. ‘I told Mrs Brogan about my thoughts on an exoskeleton, and she used bugs as a design inspiration for this! Isn’t it cool?!’

‘It is very cool,’ Cameron said, as he came up, his shoulder bag full of patches over his chest. Holding his hand was a tall and slender figure in a long black coat with a black leather plague doctor mask. Aix turned his chair to look, eyes wide and smile beaming.

‘That’s very good, I like that,’ Aix said, gesturing to Cthulhu’s whole ensemble.

Thank you. Cthulhu said, and Aix felt his pleasure at the praise. I am excited to meet the kitten at last.

Getting to the airport required two subway trains and the air train—on the human subway, which was much louder and dirtier and would have been way less pleasant—except that being with friends, chatting the whole way, made the whole affair much more fun. It was also late enough at night that the trains were fairly empty, and Aix always enjoyed the slight horror feeling of a mostly-empty train station. It reminded him of his favourite scary scene in The Wiz.

Oh, Cthulhu said when they reached the airport. Oh this is… lots of people.

New York is the most populous city in the whole country, it’s over nine million people in this little pair of islands.

Cameron hung back with them as René expertly found, snagged, and spoke with a staff member.

‘Right?’ Cameron agreed. ‘He just finds the person he wants, and they just know what he needs them to know. I think it’s powers.’

But René was coming back, with a uniformed staff member. ‘Come, we will follow Madame Jessica to the private terminal.’

‘Are you aware there’s usually some long delays to get out of here?’ Jessica asked, as they were walking.

‘Oui, madame,’ René said, ‘we are meeting some friends I have not seen in a very long time, I do not think the time will seem so much.’

‘Strange of you to fly outta here, is all,’ she said. ‘But it’s so late… I guess there’s advantage to flying red-eye.’

Aix just marvelled silently that, somehow, René was actually just conversing with a stranger. In New York City, where that didn’t happen. Aix would know, he’d not understood City Manners when he’d lived here before, and had gotten a lot of rejection for what he thought was just trying to be friendly.

René is psionic, unusually so for a human. I’m told it is more usual for a vampire human.

Ah. I… asked about that. He was very pleased and surprised you liked it. Should I not have told him? Cthulhu asked, feeling Aix’s fear in response, and his upset.

Usually you do not tell other people what someone else’s sexual preferences are, that’s rude; but it’s okay in this instance because you are my lover and René is, also, my lover. The intimacy between him and me and you and me is the same, that’s what makes it okay.

Aix’s attention was taken up after that because there was a man in a colourful outfit in the big lounge area, juggling. He was dressed in a fine suit that was vivid and had a patterned trousers, waistcoat, tie, and shirt—and none of them were the same pattern, yet they all worked together because of being the same colours of violet and gold. His brown skin shimmered with gold highlight and glitter, and his smile was wide and seemed somewhat mischievous. A good, Harlequin sort of smile, Aix thought.

Scattered around the luxe-but-featureless black sofas were people Aix mostly recognised: Michaela was in a dark red sweat suit and sitting closest to the juggler; Victoria was in her fancy wheelchair, the one she couldn’t push herself but that was extremely comfortable, wearing a simple twill travelling suit in her usual black and purple, crocheting something blue; Dmitri was by the darkened window, in a turtleneck sweater with his casual suit, chatting with someone entirely in shadow, which didn’t seem possible; but now that Aix knew vampires did have Powers, he chalked it up to shadow manipulation.

And Pippin was actually out and visible, dressed in a crocheted sweater dress of colourful yarn and throwing one of the juggling balls back and forth with the juggler, beeping delightedly. The kitten was on Michaela’s lap, and wearing his leash, which she had looped around her wrist.

‘Duckie!’ Pippin said, running over with the ball in her hands, arcing wide around the juggler. ‘Duckie enna en dottie wuff!’ Lookit! There’s a Dottie and he’s playing with me!

She threw the ball to Aix, who caught it expertly—he’d always been good at catching, despite what everyone assumed from his glasses. Her chatter, Aix could understand from the images that went with it—she was excited to meet another human-clown, and he’d been playing with her.

‘Ee!’ she said, throwing her arms up in a ‘yay’ pose after Aix caught the ball. You caught it!

‘I did catch it, yes, I can do that,’ Aix said, chuckling, and waving at the juggler with the ball as he turned, pushing the brakes down on his chair and standing. ‘You want it back?’

‘Sure, toss it on over, friend,’ the juggler said, in a big voice you could only describe as both ‘booming’ and ‘jovial’. Aix did, lightly, and the juggler’s pierced brows went up behind his small dark spectacles as he incorporated the blue ball into the other four he was playing with. ‘Nice aim.’

‘Thanks,’ Aix said, deciding he wanted to sit between Victoria and Michaela, the latter of whom gave him the kitten’s leash immediately. Kitten mewed, lurching over to his lap immediately, tail up and shaking. ‘Aw hi, beebee!’ he said, his heart melting as he pet the baby’s face, feeling the bit purrs, the little kneading starting up immediately.

‘This is Hext,’ Michaela said, of the juggler, who caught all five balls and bowed theatrically.

‘Cunobelinus Anaxagoras Maximillian Hexborne, owner of the The Oldest Continuously-Operating Permanent Freakshow In The Known World!’ he said in that booming growl.

Aix lit up, grinning, a delighted scream of laughter escaping without his permission, trembling with excitement.

‘And you,’ Hext said, delighting in the instant excitement, ‘are very special, so I hear.’

‘I, um, maybe,’ Aix said, though he wanted to say yes, but ‘yes’ was extremely difficult for him to ever say to anything.

He is. Aix remains unique no matter how many other humans I meet, there are none quite like him. Cthulhu volunteered.

Aix could not hide his face in his hands, because his hands were full of kitten and he was not acclimated enough to put his face in a kitten without having a full-blown allergy attack; this left him in something of a prone position, though he was fairly sure he didn’t blush. He just looked at the kitten and started petting, but Pippin turned pink and her Flash went all red.

‘Joe is correct; Duckie is very lovable,’ Victoria said supportively. Hext, surprised, laughed heartily, which didn’t feel as terrible as Aix had imagined.

‘Joe?’ he said, sitting down nearby to address Pippin as she came over, lifting her onto his knee. ‘I know he’s dressed like Dottore, but you must know he’s not one of you, little one.’

‘Oh that’s right!’ Aix said, remembering and looking up at Cthulhu. ‘Dottore was traditionally a human’s role in the Commedia dell’Arte.’

Cthulhu laughed, actually using his new voice, and Aix shivered—but he wasn’t the only one.

‘Ooooh,’ Hext said, visibly shivering. Michaela fanned herself with a hand, and Victoria looked up at Cthulhu thoughtfully.

‘You should practise with it then, my dear,’ Victoria said, in that tone that Aix mentally referred to as her Mistress Voice. He wondered what Cthulhu would make of it.

Cameron came over to their little group from where he’d been with the other vampires, looking a little pale and sitting down as soon as possible. ‘Hey,’ he said, faintly. ‘Aix. Um. You still plan on sleeping with René, right?’

‘I’ll sleep in the same bed with René, yeah. I would prefer that,’ Aix said, as always vaguely annoyed that ‘sleeping with’ was such a metaphor for fucking, when sometimes you just wanted to sleep with someone because co-sleeping was nice. ‘Why?’

‘Ah. Yeah he’s uh, I think he said someone introduced him to horror anime a few months ago.’

‘Oh neat, like Junji Ito and stuff?’ Aix said. ‘Oh, but, he’s not all… uh, I’m tryptophobic.’

‘No this is more scopophobia, which is why René and Dmitri are over there,’ Cameron said. Aix narrowed his eyes.

‘Oh!’ Aix said. ‘Oh, oh right. Oh okay, lemme uh, lemme go over there and advocate for myself. It’s nice of them but I’m not like, Generic Autism Needs Number Seven, especially since I’m a monster-fucker…’ Too late, Aix realised he’d been trying to avoid saying that phrase, because when there were real monsters it was probably objectifying and rude, and he froze. ‘Uh.’

‘Yeah no, you’re good hon,’ Michaela said. ‘We’re all monster-fuckers here. G’wan, don’t let those boys decide what you need.’

Aix went over on foot, holding the kitten against his shoulder and petting him. ‘Hey,’ he said, as he got close. ‘Cammie says the doctor’s covered in eyes.’

‘I didn’t know you was one of the types that hated ‘em more than usual.’

The thick Brooklyn accent threw Aix, for a moment, but he recovered. ‘Well, I like human-shaped eyes when there’s lots of them. Cthulhu’s got lots of eyes, that’s okay. It’s not the eyes that bugs me, it’s the expectation behind a human gaze in some cultures, about how you have to meet eyes or you’re Being Disrespectful, when meeting eyes, to me, is a sign of aggression or challenge. I’ve got a thing about clustered holes and rot, though.’

‘I do too,’ came the reply from the shadowy figure, and Aix heard a grin. ‘Growin’ up durin’ onna the plagues will do that to a guy.’

‘So, uh, Cammie says you’ve seen some horror anime, have you seen Helsing?’ Aix asked. ‘I’m guessing that, plus him saying you’re into eyes, means you like the Alucard design from there? You know, I’ve always wanted like, a tattoo sleeve of all the eyes and mouths from that monster design, it’s so cool.’

‘Yeah, onna my clients mentioned it to me, a real anime nut, that one. Recommended all kindsa things, but I said hey, kiddo, I don’t watch tv all day like you do. Got things to remove, stitches to make. Leave my girl with a list, I’ll get through it in the next few years.’

‘So you gonna show me, what?’ Aix said, and Scarpa laughed, and the shadows moved, and slowly revealed something that still pretty clearly had a human torso and probably human femurs and arms, but the hands had extra thumbs on the other side, and the face was… there were three extra eyes across his forehead, big and black, making a semi-circle with the positioning of his original eye sockets, which had matching big black eyes, just a bit too large and strange to be human; and more eyes going down one arm—that must be the off arm, Aix thought—all of them red-irised, just like in the animation. There weren’t mouths, but the eyes were all working, from the way they were focussing on Aix.

‘Wow,’ Aix said, really taking the time to take it all in. There was a lot more going on—horns, twisting from his head, and a tail, and who knew what was happening under the carefully tailored suit that bared all the eyes. ‘So mapping the neurons must be a helluva thing, the thoracic outlet isn’t exactly well-designed.’

‘I didn’t know,’ René said, reasonably. ‘He’s a vast sea of things, cher ami, I have only known him a fortnight.’

‘Most disabled people end up medical encyclopaedias, but I got kind of a head start,’ Aix said, shrugging. ‘Grandpa and his brothers went to medical school. Family dinners were a helluva thing,’ he added, grinning.

‘Come sit down, dear!’ Victoria sang across the lounge, not looking up. Aix turned, seeing Pippin already coming over determinedly. Aix couldn’t help but smile, at that—he was still getting used to not being able to stand anymore, and was so used to ignoring the pain—but he had Victoria helping him. He glanced at the three vampires.

‘Of course,’ Dmitri said, putting a hand on Aix’s shoulder gently. ‘Come along, dear, Victoria’s right.’

Aix noticed Dmitri wasn’t really coming with them, as he started back, ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘where are you going?’ He felt a little disappointed, after that little touch and endearment, at the idea that Dmitri wasn’t going to come sit and catch up.

‘I have to talk to the tower about take-off, I’ll be back in a moment, darling.’ Dmitri said, and actually leaned over and kissed him, and Aix didn’t have a chance to really register it before Dmitri was gone. Aix’s lips were tingling with the memory, and he felt pleasantly stunned, and a little floaty as he went back to sit on the sofa.

And then René gently touched him. ‘Chou-chou,’ he said softly, and when Aix turned, he slid his fingers into Aix’s hair and kissed him—deeper, longer, pulling him close, and Aix understood after the first few moments what he was doing, and… did not mind at all. If Dmitri and René were going to fight over him like this, he didn’t mind.

Boys had never ever fought over him before. He understood the appeal of the love triangle in that respect. He gave René a mischievous smile after René finished reclaiming his mouth.

‘I knew vampires were territorial,’ he teased, and René had the grace to laugh at himself, caressing Aix’s cheek.

‘No, no—well,’ Aix said, thinking about it. ‘I mean, as long as we keep talking about it, and as long as it remains a game—because like, I’m poly, you know that right? You can both have me, there’s not gonna be a—’ Aix put on a voice. ‘ “you have to choose, Princess, which one of us?” because,’ Aix laughed. ‘because that’s not happening. My choice is always “why not both?”.’

‘If you can get both of them to fuck you at the same time, you’ll be a legend,’ Hext said, and Cameron swatted him on the arm. ‘What? He’s laughing.’

Aix was laughing, sitting down next to Cameron, letting the kitten jump down and play with Pippin, who had come over to do just that.

‘You’ll do great if that’s the effect ya have on people,’ Scarpa said, settling down and drawing the shadows over himself again. ‘Can I ask you somethin’ personal? Only René mentioned you was a transman, and I do plastics for trans folks.’

Aix canted his head, engaged. ‘You wanna see my scar? It’s fuckin awesome.’

‘Yeah, I had her just go all the way across, because of…’ Aix trailed off, gesticulating. ‘You know, what she had to work with. She was so cool! Dr Sheppard, you know her?’

‘No I—I was living there at the time. With my ex husband. He went to her too. He was a bastard, though. Barely let my stitches dissolve before he was yellow wallpapering me onto the street.’ Did that work? Aix thought. Did that land, as a joke?

Why did he workshop everything he told people like it was a stand-up performance?

‘Not too bright, either, from the sound of it,’ Scarpa said, so far the most unflappable response Aix had ever gotten. ‘You need anything done, you come to me now, capice? I’ll do you up good.’

‘Oh wow, thank you,’ Aix said, meaning it, and curious, ‘Do you have like, fleshcrafting powers?’

Scarpa laughed. ‘Fleshcrafting, he says! What are you, some kinda writer or somethin?’

‘I’m a writer, yes,’ Aix said, beaming with pride, but before they could go on, Dmitri came back, looking a bit windswept, despite the braids his hair was pulled into.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘we’re finally clear for take-off, but as always, the window is small, so do let’s get going.’ Even as he spoke, Victoria was already tucking away her crochet and pulling the brakes up, and Aix joined Michaela in getting Pippin and the kitten into the carrier again. It was roomier than the one Aix had used last time, for which he was grateful.

Okay, Pip, tell little brother we’re going now, and he has to stay there with you until we’re all settled in the Ship, so he doesn’t get hurt or lost. Aix had been working on a vocabulary, simplifying down objects into one-word concepts like ‘ship’ and ‘outside’.

‘Push you, Aix?’ Cameron asked, and Aix nodded as Michaela walked off with the pet carrier in one hand, a red backpack slung over her other shoulder.

Aix didn’t really know what to expect, as the party made their way from the lounge down a little corridor and—for him, Victoria, René (who was pushing Victoria), and Cameron, the elevator. It was, thankfully, a freight elevator, so they all fit with room to spare.

‘I’m guessing Dmitri is not pushing you because he has to talk to the officials or something.’

A joke actually occurred to Aix, which was rare. ‘Call that… an air wolf,’ he said, and Cameron stepped back from his chair to lean against the wall of the elevator, muffling laughter. René chuckled softer, and Victoria said, severely,

‘You should tell Hext that one,’ René advised, as the elevator opened, letting them into a semi-sheltered but concrete-floored hallway. Aix started to feel excited as he felt the balmy warmth of the summer night, and Cameron pushed him to the plane, lit by the hangar lights. He loved liminal spaces, and starting on journeys, and without all the stress of Did I Remember Everything and Am I Waiting In The Right Place, he could just… be excited to be Going Somewhere.

But in this case, there was an extra layer—he had a passport now, he was leaving the country for the first time. And to go to Bucharest!!

① Victoria had, when she’d first come to visit Aix, immediately sat him down and had him pick out a trunk from a restoration company she knew the owner of, and while Aix had been overwhelmed, Victoria’s irascible Jewish love had bustled him into letting her be kind to him, which Aix was grateful for.

② The kitten still had no name, but Aix was southern enough, and gay enough, for that not to matter much. He was Babbyponkin, and Precious, and Beeble, and Little Man, and all manner of other things.

③ It was, of course, completely out of the question to claim they had come from somewhere like New Jersey.

Chapter 30

Gathering the Party

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