More than a decade earlier, K and their brother Rakhim had moved to the planet that Vic had lived on for his entire life. K had one human mother and one Polychrome mother, and their parenting style was quite unconventional for humans and quite conventional for Polychromes. Modern humans didn’t do communal child-raising as often as their ancestors once had, but Polychromes did, and when K and Rakhim’s mothers had been offered exciting new positions on a starship, they had sent their fourteen-year-old children to come to maturity in the welcoming arms of their mutual partners and friends in Vic’s neighborhood.
K, who had chosen their name in the style of their Polychrome mother, was adopted and looked like neither of their parents. Rakhim, who had chosen his name in the style of his human mother, was a gene-splice baby who looked like them both, with his human mother’s prominent nose, and his Polychrome mother’s downy feathers on his head and multicolored patterns on his dark human skin. Their new household was a mix of species and cultures — a joyful, friendly clash.
They weren’t bitter about their new arrangement. Especially not K, who took to it like a new adventure, comfortable in the knowledge that their mothers would never send them to people they didn’t love and trust. They had hologram calls whenever their parents were within range, and gallivanted from place to place without asking permission in a way Vic couldn’t fathom happening in a human-only family. All of this combined made them like no one else he had ever met.
Vic only had one mother, and when she had left him for a starship ticket, she had done so without looking back or leaving a forwarding address. She had left him alone with a father who never understood him and barely seemed to know he existed, a man he had already learned to avoid. And he was bitter, then and perhaps always. He was so bitter that when he first met K it had driven him crazy trying to understand how they managed not to be. They had both come a long way since then, but Vic still wondered if it would ever be far enough.
* * *
When the last post-nightmare tremors had subsided, and an offer to talk about it had been declined, Vic and K lay together in the newly dawning light that had only barely begun to creep past K’s curtains. It was silent now, but K was shifting in a way that meant it wouldn’t be for long, and Vic wanted it over with.
“What?” he asked. He was ready for something he’d heard before after episodes like this one; K murmuring Move in with me in low tones, an invitation too tempting for Vic to truly consider accepting, something they’d fought about before. Some of the worst fights they’d ever had were centered on that question, and on an answer K never understood.
Vic had never really helped them understand — the two of them had just gone back and forth until the soles of their words wore down from overuse. But Vic would rather have a temporary oasis than ask for too much and shatter it, leaving him with none at all.
K cleared their throat and turned to press their shoulder to Vic’s so they were lying side-by-side, staring at the slowly lightening ceiling.
“I’m going to ask a question I don’t think you’ve ever really answered before,” K said, glancing at Vic from the corner of their eye. Vic’s heart immediately ticked up. But when K reached for his hand, he let them take it. They had somehow repositioned enough that K was now grasping his synthetic fingers — the buzzy electric feeling he got from it was a nice counterpoint to the tension of the discussion. “But you have to not get mad.”
Vic swallowed, waited.
K waited, too, but when he didn’t say anything, they tightened their grip on his fingers and continued. “Why don’t you want to move in with me?” They gave a lopsided shrug with the arm not connected to Vic, like they knew they were retreading old ground, but forged forward nonetheless. “I know we’ve sort of talked about it before. I’ve asked. But you never seem to actually answer. I don’t think you’ve ever told me why. I know you don’t like living with your dad.”
Vic’s throat was dry, again. He swallowed once more, trying to clear it.
“I don’t like living with my dad,” he admitted.
“I know,” K repeated. “So why don’t you live with me? You like being here. I know you do. You keep half your stuff here. I just don’t understand why you insist on keeping the rest there and having to go back for it over and over. You’ve never told me.”
The following silence was long and slow, as Vic considered what words were too much.
“I don’t think you’ll get it,” he said, finally.
“Try me,” K responded. There was steel in their voice. “Really. I’m not — I’m not letting you get away with slipping out of the conversation again. You’ve known me for years, Vic — don’t you trust me?”
“Of course I do,” Vic said, painfully earnest to his own ears. “You know how much I trust you.”
“But you won’t tell me why. You don’t have to live with me, if you don’t want to. But you won’t tell me why.”
Vic closed his eyes because even the weak light in the room was too much, and he didn’t want to see K’s face as he bared a bit more of his shrinking soul to the person that already knew most of it. He was never sure what part of it would be too unlikable to look at.
“It takes money,” he began.
“I’m already paying for it,” K interjected.
“No, you have to let me finish. If I’m doing this, you have to let me finish.” He waited, and when K did nothing but squeeze his synth hand again, Vic continued. “You live in a one-bedroom apartment. I do odd jobs. I haven’t figured out a single solid ambition yet, I pay for body mods and shows and I don’t think about anything beyond it. You won’t have your own space anymore, if I’m always here. You won’t get to bring anyone home. I can’t contribute. You’ll get —” This one stuck in his throat, almost too much to scrape from his tongue, just another secret like the ones he had screamed last night among the music and the movement. It was silent now, with no crowd to swallow it unheard. Just K, just the room quiet and still, and the knowledge that if he got out of this now, they’d try to pry it from him again, and eventually they would succeed, because he had no real justification for keeping it from them. Vic’s eyes stung, shut tight against any hint of sight. “You’ll get tired of me, K.”
The silence, again, this time worse.
“Never,” K said when they found their voice, fierce. “Never, what are you even talking about? So what if I can’t take people home? For one, if someone can’t host me, I can and will bang in a bathroom stall —” Vic laughed despite himself, which he knew was exactly what K had intended. “And two,” K continued, still ferocious as a burning warp core, sharp as a tiger. “Do you really think that’s more important to me than you are? I’m not hearing anything about not wanting to live with me. I’m just hearing that my favorite person in the galaxy thinks he’s a burden.”
Vic’s chest tightened, the word burden hitting like a shot somewhere deep and bloody. He could hear K falter, hear their voice crack, and their next words came out more quietly. “I just… I don’t think you know what you mean to me.”
“Half my heart,” Vic countered. “I’d have to be an idiot to not know what I mean to you.”
He cracked open one of his eyes just in time to see K give a weak little smile. “I guess that’s fair,” they said. “Just — you act like I don’t know what wakes you up at night feeling like you’ve been buried alive. You act like if you ask too much I’ll leave. I don’t know if the elective heart surgery was enough of a hint, but in case it wasn’t, I’m in this for the long haul, Vic. What do I have to do to prove it?”
“It’s not about you,” Vic said, urgently. They needed to know that much, at least. “It’s not about anything you’ve done wrong. It’s about me. It’s about how I’m —”
“What?” K asked. “You’re what, Vic? I’ve known you our entire adult lives. I’ve never known anyone better, or anyone I’ve loved more. We’re at least as defective as each other. We’ve traded tattoos and war stories. You know where my cracks are.
Why would I mind yours if you don’t mind mine?”
Vic’s throat felt rough as sandpaper. He truly didn’t want to cry, but he wasn’t sure his body would cooperate.
“I don’t mind,” he said, and it came out hoarse.
“I fucking know you don’t, asshole,” K said, an eye roll in their tone. “Do you think I’d love you this much if I thought you were judging me for it all the time?”
“I guess not,” Vic admitted.
“Then can you trust me?”
“I do trust you.”
“Vic, can you trust me not to leave? Can you trust me to tell you if there’s a problem? Can you trust us to work on it?”
It felt like too much, but also something like cleaning a cut, or like poking at a bruise that you didn’t want to fade. It felt like leaving his scars unhealed.
“Yes,” Vic gritted out. It didn’t come easy, or right away, because first he had to make sure he meant it. He couldn’t say it if he didn’t mean it. K’s relief sighed out of them in a way that Vic could feel. Their fingers knotted more tightly between them on K’s bed.
“Then… you don’t have to decide right away, and it doesn’t have to be here if you want more space, but, as something to work for, as something to trust, as a goal we are well and truly fucking aiming for —” K turned on their side to face him properly, matching his eyes without fear. “Vic. Move in with me?”
Vic pitched forward and pressed his face messily into the crook of K’s neck, aware that his cheeks were hot and his breath was fast and his voice was going to crack. He still tried to sound nonchalant when he spoke, just because this had all been too heavy to end on, and he wanted to make K snort.
“Yeah. Okay.”
K didn’t snort, but they did nudge him a little bit. “You’re a jerk,” they replied, reaching up to cup his cheek. “Okay, jerk, let’s make a home.”
Vic’s breath left him in a rush, but light remained, filling his ribs like liquid gold in their joined hearts.
Home.
Rafi Kleiman is a queer, Jewish, nonbinary author of speculative sci-fi and fantasy. They know firsthand the value of being able to see yourself reflected in the media you consume, and believe it’s vitally important that people of all types, especially those who have been historically underserved, are thoughtfully represented in fiction. They love modern fantasy, bad puns, mythical creatures of all kinds, and live punk shows. They believe thoroughly in the power of hope, community, and friendship, but also believe that necromancy is pretty cool and maybe not that big of a deal. They are occasionally on Twitter @mothmanlives.
Content notes can be found at the end of the book.
Venti Mochaccino, No Whip, Double Shot of Magic
by Aimee Ogden
Coffee at Cardinal Cups always comes with an off-menu bonus.
One of Jojo’s regulars pulls up to the drive-thru with his Wednesday morning office order: three frappes, two lattes, one soy mocha. He always leaves a good tip, and he always pays with a credit card. Credit card users are great for customer service witches like Jojo, who need a full name to do their best work. “Have a good one, D!” she says, handing him the carrier tray, and she knows he will because his coffee comes with a nice cantrip that’ll help him send all his emails for the next week with zero typos and exactly the right number of exclamation marks.
The next guy, however, who throws his frappe (he wanted salted caramel, not just caramel-caramel!) at the drive-thru window? He paid in cash, so no credit card receipt to get his details from. The plastic cup has his first name Sharpie’d on it, though, so she sends a little hex after him. Nothing much: an ingrown hair, or maybe a mean hangnail. An hourly-wage sort of satisfaction. The owners don’t know why or how Jojo keeps the right customers coming back and sends most of the wrong ones packing, but they sense she’s got something to do with it. A little operant conditioning, in her opinion, could really do a person good. And in most of these cases, that person is Jojo.
On Thursday morning Jojo’s favorite and most frustrating regular arrives at the counter for her traditional order of a muffin and a cinnamon spice latte. “And can I put a name on that?” Jojo asks, a reluctant smile already pulling at her mouth.
The regular smiles back. It wrinkles her nose and the corner of her eyes, making new constellations out of her freckles. Jojo wants to map out every line of the corresponding star chart. “Hermione Granger,” she says. And blushes? Maybe? Jojo studiously avoids looking too closely.
“Hermione Granger it is.” She scribbles in black marker as the regular drops a dollar into the tip jar. She always pays in cash, too. No real name means spellwork is silk-slippery, impossible to make stick.
Harold comes in on Friday mornings for Senior Dollar Coffee Day. Jojo pulls up a chair so he can sit close to the counter (the stools are too tippy for him) and show Jojo pictures of his granddaughter at her latest piano recital. She only has a first name — he always pays in dimes, with a quarter for the tip jar — but she does what she can and sometimes when he leaves his hand is gripping his cane a little tighter.
Later that day Mrs. Cynthia “I WANT TO SEE YOUR MANAGER” Nielsen stops by after her yoga class. Jojo has to make her drinks an average of three times before they’re “right.” Once Cynthia had the gall to tip from the Take a Penny dish; this time she signs a 0.00 with a flourish on the credit card receipt. Jojo is a little disappointed to think she’ll never get to hear the story of Cynthia ripping the world’s most noxious fart in the middle of the yoga studio next Friday.
The regular is back on Saturday morning, a pile of study books under her arm. When Jojo asks for a name, she says “Eleanor Roosevelt,” which goes with the history textbook in the crook of her elbow. When Jojo calls for Ms. Roosevelt’s order, it doesn’t get as many giggles from the shop as the pop culture references do. But the regular smiles, and that’s plenty good enough.
“Enjoy the coffee,” Jojo says, through the heat in her cheeks.
“You, too,” says Eleanor Roosevelt, then cringes as she realizes.
Jojo opens her mouth to say she’s heard the same thing a thousand times. But then — she peeps a name penned onto the top of a notebook page. Susannah R. — she feels a secret, wicked thrill that she’s never felt before for a bit of magic so benign. A wish, something small, already on its way to coming true and given the last tipping point into reality: a lost bus pass suddenly found, maybe, or a half-grade better on a final exam. Finally. She grins stupidly, and Eleanor-slash-Susannah offers back a curious smile, and then the pause zips past awkward into mortifying so Jojo retreats back to the espresso machine.
A mom comes in with a pair of toddling twins. They split a raspberry Danish and the mom slams a redeye before crawling on all fours to collect the crumbs. On the credit card receipt, she scribbles “25% sorry math.” Jojo sends her off with a doggy bag for the leftover Danish and, though she doesn’t know it yet, the best and deepest night’s sleep she’s had in three years.
The gross guy who keeps asking if she has a boyfriend comes in between four and five, when the shop is mostly empty. He pays in cash; “Josh” isn’t much to go on so she hasn’t yet conditioned him to associate Cardinal Cups with canker sores. “What are you doing after you get off tonight?” he says, leaning on her display of artisanal truffles. “Because you could be getting off.”
“She’s got plans.” It’s none other than Susannah R., punctuated by the door chime. Josh says something unpleasant about a threesome but Jojo barely hears him because Susannah R. is standing in the shop for the second time that day and stammering, “I mean, if she wants to.”
She does. “I love it when wishes come true,” Jojo says. This time, Susannah’s nose-wrinkling smile does a little magic of its own on her knees.
This story was originally published in Daily Science Fiction (2019).
Aimee Ogden is a former science teacher and software tester; now she writes stories about sad astronauts and angry princesses. Her first novellas, “Sun-Dau
ghters, Sea-Daughters” and “Local Star” debuted in 2021 from Tor.com and Interstellar Flight Press respectively. Her short fiction has appeared in magazines such as Clarkesworld, Analog, Fireside, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Aimee is a graduate of the Viable Paradise workshop, and she also co-edits Translunar Travelers Lounge, a magazine of fun and optimistic speculative fiction. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with her spouse, twin children, and a dog named Commander Riker.
Content notes can be found at the end of the book.
since we’re here tonight
by Xu Ran
Their first night on the train in space, Ren turns to Asa and says, “I think I have an ear infection.”
Asa doesn’t even look up from the mirror, his lips downturned as he holds one shirt and then another up to his front. “Levi’ll have something for that,” he says, and so Ren goes to find Levi.
Levi’s compartment is the one next to Ren and Asa’s, on the opposite end of the train from Song Jian and Elliot’s first-class compartment. The three of them had chosen their roommates by drawing straws when they’d first gotten on the train, and Levi had ended up with one to himself. Ren had offered to switch, but Levi and Asa had exchanged a look and told them it was fine. We’ve spent more than enough time sleeping in the same room already, Levi had said, and Asa had nodded and begun complaining at length about all the bruises he’d accrued from climbing into Levi’s window on the second floor.
Ostensibly, Levi is only a few steps away, but since it’s past ten, the gravity fields outside have been lowered for the night. Ren grimly tightens the drawstrings of their uniform pants and grips the ledge of the sliding compartment door; when they feel the shields release and contract around them as they carefully inch out into the hallway, they swing onto the guardrails that run along the ceiling for this purpose.
“Shut the door after yourself!” Asa hollers. Ren glances back, but the compartment door is already sliding closed automatically.
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