by Morgan James
Ash didn’t need to ask who.
“Should have gotten his number.”
He glared at her.
“What? He totally wanted to give it. You could do much worse than a cutie who shares your passion for cheesy sci-fi.”
“You watch that cheese with me,” Ash grumbled, hoping to change the subject. She didn’t often bring up such topics in public. Nervous, his hand rose to touch the coin hung between his pecs and behind his shirt. He glanced round, but no one was about.
Etta snorted. “Yes, because I’ve forgotten how to be discreet after all this time,” she snapped.
Ash grunted softly but stopped looking about and settled his hand—an apology of sorts.
He’d got cast on Restraint at twenty-two, long before he’d figured himself out. By the time he realized he was gay, he’d already become famous in certain circles. He shuddered at the memory of what happened to queers who were found out in Hollywood. It was easier to hide.
“You know I only want you to be happy, right?” Etta sighed. “And like I’m going to ever tell you off for not dating.”
She was a confirmed singleton, and only Ash ever heard her use words like asexual and aromantic.
He bumped their shoulders together, another apology. He’d be lost without her.
Etta rolled her eyes but pressed back. “All right, you eejit. Let’s get back inside. We’ve got a schedule to keep.”
Chapter Two
SATURDAY and Sunday played out like Friday, with more photos and autographs. He took more funny shots—no one else asked him to be their companion, though he did arm wrestle a Klingon on the head of R2D2—signed more pictures of his face, and answered more questions. He rebuffed a couple of attempts to make him admit to dating the costar who played Zvi’s love. Ash and Adele were no more involved than he was a werewolf. Ash never understood why anyone would dedicate a website to him and Adele. She thought it hilarious.
Sunday after lunch Ash had his panel—an interview onstage, in front of fans. At least he got to keep his personal bubble intact, but he wished Adele were there. She loved fielding the really embarrassing questions. She’d once given a lengthy answer about Moira and Zvi’s sex life. Ash had insisted he’d never given it much thought, other than that Zvi was “gun-shy,” much to Adele’s laughing amusement.
Fortunately, that Sunday, most of the questions were tame if somewhat repetitive. They asked about his favorite episode and guest star, about his last guest spot, asked if he could tell any stories about his time on Metropolis, and what he’d do next. Ash knew those answers.
Ash smiled and thanked a fan—a younger, chubbier Moira—for her question, turned to the mic on the other side of the auditorium, and saw a familiar coat.
“Hello,” said Remy.
“Hi,” Ash said, mouth dry. He swallowed and tried to remember the script.
“I’m Remy,” he said cheerily. “Good to see you again.”
“Hi, Remy. I’m Ash,” he said by rote. He thought about saying “I remember you,” but a few hundred eyes stilled his tongue. “What did you want to ask?” Ash put down his mic, uncapped his water bottle, and took a sip.
“If you were stranded on a desert island, what three things would you want with you?”
He wanted Ash’s desert-island picks? After a pause during which his mind scrambled, he brought the mic up to ask, deadpan, “What kind of desert island are we talking about? Gilligan’s, Castaway, or Lost?”
The audience chuckled, but Remy’s laugh rang loudest through the sound system. “Well, I’m assuming you won’t have a coconut radio, a volleyball, or be in purgatory….”
“Well, in that case.” Ash scratched his nose, thinking desperately. “I’d want some type of knife or blade, for survival reasons. And, um, well, what about a coconut generator? Can I have one of those? Because I’d want an e-reader—I’d go crazy without a library for so long.”
“Sure,” Remy snickered. “Coconut generator just for you.”
“Thanks. Uh, and one more?” He thought about it, then huffed a laugh. “What about people? Can I bring my bodyguard with me?”
“I’m not sure she’d be happy to be dragged along,” Remy pointed out.
“She definitely would no’. But she’d increase my odds of survival by a whole lot.” That got him some laughter, a few cheers. “She’s tougher than I.” Beat. “She’s the one who disposes of spiders.” The crowd loved that.
So did Remy, judging from the wide grin. “I guess you better take her with you, then.”
“Thanks. Just, er, don’t tell her that.” Ash winked.
“Our secret.” He mimed locking his lips. “Thanks.” Then he ducked out of the way.
“Hi, Ash!” the next fan said, pulling Ash’s attention away from Remy. “I wanted to ask about the most difficult scene you ever filmed. For Restraint.”
Back on familiar territory. Ash stifled a sigh of relief.
The remainder of the panel was routine, like the rest of the day, at least until he and Etta were back in the hotel room by seven, with no plans to check out. Usually once a con ended, they caught a red-eye home, but he needn’t hurry back to Vancouver this time. They had decided to stay on a couple of days to see some of the city. Ash had only ever been to Toronto for promotional or convention work and usually saw nowt but the airport and a hotel.
In the room at last, Ash peeled out of his skinny jeans, put on joggers, grabbed his latest book, and sprawled on the couch. His phone buzzed, cutting short his sigh of relief.
Nice look for you! read his brother’s text.
??? What?
The reply came quick. Pic of you as Donna. Belter. It ended with a string of thumbs-up emojis.
Ash groaned. “Etta! Tell me you didn’t send Langston the picture?”
Etta slunk into the room, dressed in a hoodie and yoga trousers. She settled onto the couch. “I love hotel suites. Want room service?”
“Etta!” Ash glared. “Picture?”
She shrugged. “Sure. It was pretty cute. You in a wig, snuggled up to your Doctor.”
Ash continued to glare.
“I wasn’t going to send it, but then after today, how could I not?”
He grumbled. “What does that mean?”
“You blushed. The moment you saw him, you turned red. You were like a ten-year-old with a crush. It was adorable.”
Etta is a shit, Ash typed to his brother, scowling at his phone and avoiding her eyes.
Aye but a useful one! Always sends the best blackmail. After a short pause, he added, You shag him?
Ash nearly yelped out loud. No!!! He’s a FAN!
He blushed furiously. His brother should know him well enough to know he would never. Had never ever, point in fact. Not that Langston knew those details.
Aye. Handsome fan dressed as your Doctor crush. Shoulda shagged him.
Bugger off. Go to bed.
Groan. Its not even 12 and am knackered. Weans are tiring.
Numpty. Go to sleep.
Ash shoved his phone under his thigh and opened his book. Etta flicked on the TV and settled on ice hockey. Ash would never understand the Canadian obsession. Etta didn’t even like most team sports, but she had a weird soft spot for this one.
Ash eyed her over the top of the page, then tried to concentrate on Young Stalin.
“So,” she said over the sounds of skates on ice, “room service?”
WHEN it came to entertaining himself in a new city, Ash ran from tourist traps. He was willing to visit historical sites, but he wasn’t keen on climbing the CN Tower, seeing a Jays’ ball game, or stopping by the ROM. Well, he might go to the Royal Ontario Museum if it had a historical retrospective of television sci-fi.
Given it was a Monday morning in early June and halfway through the exhibition’s run, Ash figured it’d be quiet. So he gave Etta a reprieve—she and museums didnae mix—and told her to take the day off. She smiled, a lioness circling an antelope, as she found a local kickboxing gym and b
ooked time at a spa.
By ten, Ash, wearing his incognito toque once again, had his museum ticket and was headed through the doors.
The exhibit was all he’d hoped for: a chronological display of sci-fi shows, from early cinema serials to the present day, which also focused on analyzing popular themes and the various philosophical discussions the genre had weighed in on over time. In other words, geek heaven.
He was stood in front of the STAR TREK’S INFLUENCES ON TV AND SOCIETY display when a newly familiar voice said, “I do love this part. It’s important to give Spock his dues.”
Ash turned. Beside him, Remy had fixed his eyes on the display. Gone was the Doctor Who–chic. Today he wore skinny jeans, a thin long-sleeve tee with the arms pushed up, and a bright cotton scarf.
He turned to Ash, grinning. Then his eyes widened, and he inhaled sharply. Guess he hadn’t realized who he spoke to. But he rallied quickly and said smoothly, “I’ve been here before, obviously. You enjoying it?”
Ash swallowed hard. That smile disarmed. “Aye.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve been enjoying myself. It’s good.”
Remy nodded too and took a half step in reverse. “Well. I’ll let you get on with it,” he said politely. He kept backing away, probably figured a fan would be unwelcome. He probably thought Ash didn’t remember him.
“I thought,” Ash blurted and Remy paused, “I saw something about Doctor Who this way.” He waved a hand. “It’s my favorite.” Remy nodded. Ash took a fortifying breath. “And I’m guessing yours too. Spaceman, yeah?”
Remy’s smile turned blinding. “You remember.”
Ash blushed. “Your entrance was very memorable.”
Remy laughed and placed a hand over his eyes with a dramatic flourish. “God.” He chuckled and dropped the hand. “I really am sorry about that. Have I mentioned?”
“Aye. I ken it wisnae on purpose.” Ash gave an awkward shrug.
“Good. I would like you to also know that I’m not a crazy stalker. I didn’t follow you here. Honest. I just like the exhibit. The con made me want to see it again.”
Logical. Ash often wanted to laze about with a sci-fi show the day after a con, and not only because they wiped him out.
“Anyway. You definitely have to see the Who display. Over fifty years of stuff—oh and the companions thing.” Remy ushered him toward the relevant corner. Ash moved without thinking. It wasn’t until they were reading about the cultural influences of British sci-fi that Ash realized Remy had invited himself along on his tour.
“Favorite Doctor?” Remy asked.
“My brother is a huge Tom Baker fan.” Ash shrugged. Ten. “But all the new Doctors have been good. You?”
“Ten, as you might have guessed.” Remy flashed a cheeky smile. “Doesn’t help that I had a massive crush on him at sixteen.”
Ash barked a surprised awkward laugh. Remy looked calm and unbothered despite having come out to a stranger. Who did that? Ash couldn’t keep standing there like a dunderheid, staring. “N-no, I guess it wouldn’t,” he finally stuttered.
Remy winked and then pointed to a picture and started monologuing, but Ash couldn’t focus on his words. He was too busy watching and wondering. Remy was confident and bubbly, his hands waving about with animation. Not hesitant or worried.
“Oh, have you seen the gender and sexuality section yet?” Remy’s eyes danced. Ash shook his head. “You have to see it.” He grabbed Ash’s wrist and pulled him from Doctor Who and round the corner.
Ash followed blindly. His heart thumped. Remy’s hand was warm and strong. His long fingers curled all the way round his wrist.
“It’s awesome. It plots the changes in depictions of both. There’s even a blurb about kink positivity, which really, there are whole sections of the internet geared towards sci-fi kink. Pon farr anyone?”
Ash snorted. He opened his mouth—to say what, he didn’t know—but Remy pulled him into a new room, distracting him. Like the others, this room housed panels with text and pictures, display cases, and monitors for film clips.
The only way to do museums was to start at the beginning, so Ash turned left. Remy bounded after him.
“What are you so excited about?” Ash narrowed his eyes.
Remy hummed. “You’ll see.”
Like the other rooms, this one displayed chronologically. One of the first pieces was, of course, all about Star Trek.
“The future”—Ash waved at the pictures—“where racism doesnae exist, but sexism does.”
“Yeah.” Remy smiled crookedly. “Nisha, my BFF, hates it for that. She rants at it all the time.”
They moved on, and Remy kept talking. He chatted throughout the X-Files and Buffy displays but went suspiciously quiet when Ash moved along.
Then he saw it: RESTRAINT—GENDER, SEX, MOIRA RAVENSCRAFT, AND ZVI GREY. Ash stared at the picture of himself dressed as a werewolf slave. In it, his hands were bound and he wore the collar Ash had developed a love-hate relationship with. It was a great tool to tap into Zvi’s character but was also hot and itchy. The picture wasn’t terribly revealing in terms of skin, but Zvi wore an injured, vulnerable expression. Ash felt raw and uncomfortable. He turned away.
The panels talked about several aspects of the show, including Adele’s heroine—three-dimensional and all woman—and Kliah’s portrayal of an incubus, but at the end it talked about Zvi—former sex slave and graysexual. Ash always liked that Zvi wasn’t a perpetually horny male cliché, but it was bizarre to see it written out in a museum exhibit, to see it mention the episode where Zvi struggled to figure out what it meant to be male and uninterested in sex. Ash had been thrilled when he read that script.
“I’m pretty proud of that episode. A few people griped, but… I thought we did good.”
“You did,” Remy agreed. “From what I saw, the complainers either thought asexuals were a myth or they wanted Zvi to stay asexual.”
“Yeah.” Some argued the episode made asexuality look like a thing needing to be cured. Ash wondered if they heard any of the conversation Zvi had with a young asexual man, which gave Zvi peace and allowed him to take the time to settle in his skin before he worried about relationships.
“Which,” Remy said, “ignores the point of the conversation—that any sexuality is valid. Also, Zvi is all about recovery, regaining a sense of self after loss and moving on.”
Ash blinked. That was what he always wanted to say with the character and why he thought him inspiring. Over six series, Zvi grew from broken slave into independent man.
Ash cleared his throat. “Pretty much what I always thought. Learning to want again wasn’t a bad thing.”
“Yeah,” Remy murmured and nodded.
They fell silent.
Ash looked at the picture of Zvi and his asexual friend, Basil, who’d made several repeat appearances. Zvi looked so lost but so hopeful that Ash had to turn away.
“Damn. I thought showing you this would be a kick. Sorry, I didn’t—”
Ash waved a hand. “It’s fine. Good. Just odd to, to see myself like tha’ when I know it’s no’ me.”
Remy made an adorable face. “Well, I’m a dumbass. Let’s get out of here. We’ll go look at the picture room.”
“Picture room?”
“Yup.” He popped the p obnoxiously.
The picture room turned out to be an open space with a green screen that faced a large TV mounted under a camera.
“Now you too can be part of a sci-fi show or movie. Pick a scene, make a pose, and snap a pic,” Remy said in a bad movie-guy voice and with a wave of his hand.
Ten-year-old Ash would have lost his mind. Twenty-eight-year-old Ash cleared his throat and asked, “How does it work?”
A second monitor, with step-by-step instructions, hung next to the first: pick a franchise, a background, and picture or film.
“Which format?” Remy asked.
Improv was never Ash’s strength, so probably no films. And he kind of wanted a picture to keep.
<
br /> Remy must have noticed his hesitation, because he hurried to say, “You can keep any photos. I’ve done this before, I don’t need ’em.”
Huh. For once, the potential for fan-leaked photos hadn’t occurred to Ash.
He shook his head to clear the thoughts. “Right. Photo’s good.”
For some reason beyond comprehension, he suspected Remy would keep this experience between them. Which was definitely idiotic.
“Awesome.” Remy clicked the camera icon. “Now we take our places and pose when it tells us to.”
The large flat-screen showed a video feed of them on the Falcon.
“I get to be Harrison Ford.” Remy grinned, winked, and struck a Han Solo pose, hands together, holding an imaginary gun. “Wanna be my Leia?” He batted his eyelashes.
Caught off guard, Ash clumsily tried to come up with a suitably Leia-like pose.
A countdown started on the TV—three… two… one.
A shutter snapped, and after a moment, the picture appeared. In it, Ash stood stiffly and his hands hung awkwardly at his sides.
Save or try again? the screen prompted.
“Aren’t you supposed to be an actor?” Remy laughed. “Come on, thespian boy, act.”
Ash wrinkled his nose. He hated improv—he thought too much and acted too little.
“Come on. You are Leia Organa. Feel the emotion,” Remy said dramatically and gripped Ash’s shoulders in a parody of a pep talk. A smile tugged at Ash’s lips. “Feel the angst. Stuck doing all the work like a badass while your brother gets all the credit.”
“Ouch.” Ash shook himself. “Right. Princess, general, badass.” He clasped his hands together as though psyching himself up. It was mostly for show.
He grabbed his own imaginary gun.
The second picture was better. Ash didn’t really look like Leia—together they looked like two-thirds of Charlie’s Angels—but at least he didn’t look like a cardboard cutout with a stick up his ass.
The screen asked if Ash wanted to email it to himself. Remy stepped away. Ash sent it and then was asked if the museum could save and use the photo for publication. He stabbed hard at the No button, even if he felt a slight pang of disappointment over deleting the original.