It Gets Even Better

by Isabela Oliveira

  “What about you?” Burhan asks again.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you — ?”

  “I’m sure.” It comes out sharper than I mean it to be, but it stops the questions. I push myself up, biting down a hiss of pain at the movement. “Let’s go.”

  “That might be a problem.” Burhan points down the steep slope, where rocks bubble up through the grass.

  “Last gasps of the roil,” I assure her.

  “More than a gasp.” Siddhi’s palm shines a spotlight down to the base of the slope. A moss-covered boulder has the rover hoisted off its wheels on the left side. I’m ready to point out the rover’s wriggled off more precarious perches before when I catch the tangerine whiff of its biofuel.

  Burhan bounds her way down first to confirm: “Farabine’s intact, but a rock spar’s lanced the fuel line.”

  “And Dorofei has all the bents to fix it and synthesize fuel on their team,” Siddhi signs.

  “That makes it three problems instead of two we solve when we get there.” Romy’s soothing confidence washes over our concerns.

  “How do we manage that without the rover?” I ask.

  “Last time you looked for pathways that could fit the rover. Now we just need one that’s wide enough for a set of shoulders. More chances. Give it a go.”

  Options slither across the back of my eyelids, shape and reshape themselves as I roll forward from now to when our feet would hit them. I open my eyes to dismiss the tangle. “More paths, yes, but nothing gets us there in less than a week on foot.”

  “I don’t think the toxin’s going to give us that long,” Burhan signs.

  “We’ve got a stopgap,” Romy signs.

  Burhan shakes her head. “The effort’s going to slow you down, or me if I’m spelling you, and it’ll wear us both down sooner rather than later.”

  Siddhi signs, “And you both have to sleep.”

  “Won’t be a week if we go straight there.” Romy pins me with her eyes. They flare dark almost-purple blue as she channels me. I frown and close my eyes to focus. There. A cave system that isn’t formed yet: arrow-straight between us and Dorofei. And under the crushing weight of the mountain.

  I shake loose the chaotic fractals. “It’ll be another week before it opens, Romy. We don’t have time to wait.”

  “Which is why we aren’t waiting for it.”

  “I don’t —”

  “You’re going to open it. Now.”

  “You can do that?” Burhan raises an eyebrow. She and Siddhi both leak surprise over the wisp.

  “No. I can’t. I sense the shifts, pattern-match fast enough that it looks like I’m making the ground do things.”

  “That’s exactly what you can do.” Romy signs.

  Cold radiates along my spine, which makes the throbbing worse. “I’d know if I —”

  “You grok that stalagmite?” Romy points to a fairy ring of iridescent mushrooms.

  “What stalagmite?” Burhan asks. The ground beneath the mushrooms is flat, but I can’t miss the building tension.

  “Ianto?”

  Runnels of topography drip past my lashes, itch the back of my throat. The ground is flat now, but when I roll the map forward, there it comes, loam-covered rock stabbing upward.

  “It’ll grow in… an hour, maybe?” I sign.

  Romy nods. “Or…” Her eyes flare. The mushrooms skitter and split as the shaft of earth rises. Now. Early.

  The others fade to the background as I cross to the shimmering fungal caps, moved by instinct to a new array on the spike. This shouldn’t be here, but sure enough, it jibes with my internal map. I reach out, but as my fingers brush the mossy surface, it sinks back toward flat earth.

  “No.” I catch it. Not with my hands. With my will. The map around me closes in until it’s this singular piece crackling along my cheekbones, but I hold the ground, force it to keep its shape.

  “Romy!” Burhan’s voice breaks my concentration. The stalagmite finishes falling, the mushrooms once again a flat ring. I turn to Burhan and Siddhi easing Romy to the ground. Romy’s eyes wash red and her breathing suddenly steadies.

  “And that’s why you have to do it,” Romy signs. “The ground on this world’s already elastic. Unlike flesh or light, if you move it with will, it’s got no problem snapping back when you let go. Poison’s not quite the same, but it’s got no problem laying waste to the same pieces of me every time I take a break from fortifying myself.”

  Busy fighting off the encroaching smog of blame and regret and helplessness, I forget myself crossing to Romy. I don’t favor my stride right, hissing as pain jolts from the bottom of my spine.

  Siddhi’s sculpted eyebrows dive for the bridge of her nose. “Liar,” she signs. “You are hurt.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Siddhi swipes the back of her hand under her chin, calling me a liar again.

  “Siddhi and I can check the farabine tank and put together field packs from the rover,” Romy signs. She amends at Siddhi’s frown. “Fine. I will rest, Siddhi will prep. Let Burhan take care of you.”

  * * *

  I spit out the last of the sod and clear my throat until I find my voice. “I’m an idiot.”

  “You’re not an idiot,” Burhan says, surveying the med tent. The supply bin’s contents got jostled around, and we needed to right the exam bench, but otherwise the tent fared far better than the rover.

  “I’m the only one who knew what the ground was going to do, and I’m the only one who fell. What else is that?”

  “Balance, which has nothing to do with your bent.”

  “Bent.” I snort. “I’m… dented at best. Closer to the warp in a wet tabletop. You lot are bent. Hell, Siddhi expanded into infrared back there like it was nothing.”

  “Siddhi’s a show-off.” Burhan’s smile does a horrible job of selling the critique.

  “Like you don’t find it attractive.”

  “I find plenty attractive.” Burhan winks. Siddhi’s not the only show-off.

  “If Romy had channeled me and left me behind to find the farabine tap —”

  “She’d have had a weaker sense channeling from a distance. Besides, you’re both alive because she was standing watch, which she couldn’t do if she was busy concentrating on the ground. If you’re done with the worst would you rather game ever, turn around and let me get a better feel for the problem.” Burhan slides a hand down my back. “Vertebrae intact, no torn muscles. Ah. Yeah, that’s a broken tailbone. Hang on.” Warmth spreads from where she grazes me. I taste aluminum. There’s a sharp moment of increased pain I hiss through, then relief as Burhan’s bent notches everything back into place.

  There’s another sensation, this time through the wisp. Burhan’s gender shifts again, and I’m acutely aware of the cup of his hand at the crest of my ass. The warmth rising in my cheeks has nothing to do with his bent and everything to do with him.

  “So, now we’ve dealt with the proximate trouble, I think you need a release to help you re-focus, yeah?” Burhan circles in front again. His bright eyes trap me.

  “You don’t have to,” I mutter.

  He raises an eyebrow. “I don’t have to do much of anything. I want to.”

  “Still, you —”

  Burhan pulls his gloves on, the tight black leather ones that tell me he’s settled and here and ready. That same sense comes through the wisp, but our link is adjacent to the mapping part of my mind. My map-brain slips and surges and reshapes itself so often, it’s exhausting to find my way through it. The gloves are a concrete symbol that anchors the world.

  I nod, suppressing a shiver as Burhan puts up a privacy wall in the wisp.

  Without context, Burhan’s gaze sliding up and down my body, the crooked twist of his full lips, would read as sinister. I suppose it reads as sinister with context, but context says this is sinister I want.

  “Shirt off.” Burhan stands an arm’s length away. He could take it off himself if that’s all he wanted.<
br />
  I cross my hands at my waist and pull the shirt up and over in a rush. He snags it before I free my wrists. I tug. He twists the fabric taut and I stay bound in it. He’s gained half a foot and bulked out while my shirt blocked my view.

  Burhan takes his time circling behind me. He has the same forced lack of urgency when he pulls the shirt free of my hands. I keep them raised, let him trail his fingers down my forearms. He cups my elbows, then inverts his grip at my flabby biceps and swings my arms behind me. A brief pressure on my hands demands I keep them together.

  My breath shudders at the warmth on the back of my neck, the tease of whiskers. If they want, the others can press through the mental border we’ve built in the wisp. Fear twists into the knot building below my stomach.

  “Always with the worry.” Burhan parses the wisp better than me. If he were distracted, I might be able to hide something from him, but not here, bound up in his will.

  “Romy’s so close,” I quiver. Burhan’s better than me, but the wisp belongs to Romy.

  “Shh.” Burhan slides a gloved hand over my mouth. He follows through his tease with the rough scratch of his beard as he kisses my neck. Trying to hold back my moan turns it into a whimper as his free hand brushes my nipple. He licks the edge of my ear. “Now that’s what I want to hear.”

  My own hands hold their place, a breath away from his thick thighs, as his hand slides down my stomach. I whimper-groan again.

  “No?” He’s playing with me. My knees buckle. He grabs me around my waist as I recover, and his defined torso presses into my back.

  He loosens the hand over my mouth enough for my yes, Sir to be clear.

  “Pants,” he says. My hands, freed by the command, fumble to tap the release. I shove to pop my erection out from the waistband. Burhan wraps a glove around it and I don’t bother to drop my pants any further. Leather means his bent works on the gloves, makes them as frictionless as any lube. He muffles me again, because we can cordon off the wisp, but we can’t keep Romy from hearing when I let loose.

  He starts slow, but I’m already worked up enough that it doesn’t take much time for the rhythm to rise. Whether it’s wisp or bent or mundane instinct, he feels the tension spread along me before I do.

  “Not until I say.”

  I mumble and nod under his hand. I breathe, short and rapid, holding off as he edges me, as the world stops sliding and shifting around me and becomes a single, building, ever more focused point. I don’t know how loud I am, whether Burhan’s hand tightens over my mouth to muffle me or stimulate me and holy fucking god I don’t care. He pinches my nose closed, licks his way up my neck, and breathes his permission in my ear.

  My fingers dig into thin air and the ground reaches up to meet them. Rock tears through the floor of the tent. Granite pylons twist and curve with the arch of my spine, then splay outward and melt with my release. My mind races along the path under the mountain. I could wrench it open in the burning center of this moment — but it’s already gone. One final, desperate gasp, and I collapse.

  I’m on the ground again rather than inside it, catching my breath collapsed back against Burhan’s soft but firm body.

  “That was new,” he chuckles, a tremor on my spine. I blush.

  “What about you?” I play my fingers along his forearm.

  His voice is soft now that we’re past the need for firm. “No, I’m good.”

  Of course he is. He enjoys it. The wisp confirms that much. Doesn’t stop me wishing this weren’t yet another case of getting better than I can give.

  * * *

  I said before that my tell isn’t tears to me. This time, though: yeah. Tears. And sweat.

  I catch myself before my knees slam into the ground. I don’t need another medical intervention, thanks.

  “Try again,” Romy signs.

  “I. Can’t. Do. This.” I have to wrestle my exhausted brain to recall each sign, but at least no one hears the choked-back sobs I couldn’t hide if I spoke aloud. I’ve been at this for an hour, and all I’ve managed is pushing the rock face enough to eke in a handful of steps if we walked nearly on top of each other. When I try to tunnel further, the entry snaps shut behind the bubble of my attention.

  Siddhi stoops into view. “You have to.”

  “Relax and find your focus.” Burhan circles behind me, but when his bare hands rub my shoulders, they just tighten the knots.

  Romy pushes off the rock she’s been resting against. “You can —”

  “I can’t!” My raw voice joins my signs unbidden, cheeks and neck hot. You don’t yell at Romy, but I need them all to stop.

  “Tell me.” Romy isn’t angry, but she’s not letting me slide. Her eyes pulse red from another internal sweep to clear ongoing damage from the toxin. The interval between sweeps is shrinking.

  It can’t be worse knowing than not, can it? So ask and lose one more distraction, Ianto. “Why did you pick me? I understand Siddhi and Burhan, but I’m no more useful than the sensors on the rover. I’m not bent enough to —”

  “Bent is bent,” Romy signs. I ignore her pain slipping through the wisp. “It’s who we are as much as what we do. I spent the better part of three decades fighting everyone from my family to old school military brass to stop them misgendering and deadnaming me. Believe me when I say I know what it is not to be seen, Ianto. To feel you’re not enough.” She lets it show in a pinched smile and a deep breath, the fight we can’t win with swords or magic, the poison that threatens without a single bite. “And believe me when I say: I see you. You’re the one who can do this. Cut the path. I promise to lead us through.”

  “It’s a mountain.” The crush of granite in my mind makes the sign feel heavy.

  “And it will move if you ask.” Romy’s smile is patient. “I’m not saying it’s easy, but for you, it’s not impossible. It’s all right to feel overwhelmed. Remember, you don’t have to reshape the world. Stay small. Concrete. Make enough space for us to fit through together.”

  “We’d be sealed off. In the dark with just the air we —”

  “I can shore up our lungs.” Burhan’s touch converts my barest gasp into a supercharge.

  “I’ll bring the light.” Siddhi raises her arm, fingers flattened against her thumb. She opens her fingers, and the sign fills with an actual bright white glow.

  Romy’s eyes shift from crimson to indigo long enough for her to find the right spot in the rock face.

  I close my eyes. I don’t need the breadth of it all. Just one, searing focal point, like the one Burhan helped me find in the tent.

  The rock recedes ahead, along the natural cave path that will be here next week. I let Romy take my hand and lead me forward. Not the world, I tell myself. I can’t see where we’re going, but Romy can. She shares her insight, I make the space.

  We make our way under the mountain, and Romy is going to live. We’re all going to live, because together we’ll bend the world we need.

  Jaxton Kimble is a bubble of anxiety who wafted from Michigan to Florida shortly after having his wisdom teeth removed. He’s still weirded out by the lack of basements. Luckily, his husband is the one in charge of decorating — thus their steampunk wedding. He has far too many 80’s-era cartoon/action figure franchises stored in his brain. His work has appeared previously (as Jason) or is forthcoming (as Jaxton) in Cast of Wonders, Diabolical Plots, and Escape Pod. You can find more about him at jaxtonkimble.com, or by following @jkasonetc on Twitter.

  Content Notes

  The Ghosts of Liberty Street: mention of transphobia, perceived mortal peril, description of hypothetical bomb shelter use/death

  Custom Options Available: sex, references to past indentured service, earthquake, mortal peril, implied offscreen mass casualties

  The Invisible Bisexual: sex, brief casual transphobia/queerphobia

  Frequently Asked Questions About the Portals at Frank’s Late-Night Starlite Drive-In: references to animal harm, references to death, references to alcohol, bullying,
allegorical queerphobia and queer erasure

  The Perseverance of Angela’s Past Life: queerphobia, internalized fatphobia, alcohol

  Sea Glass at Dawn: injury

  unchartered territories: queerphobia, mention of parental abuse

  Midnight Confetti: childbirth, smoking, alcohol, mention of motorcycle crash

  black is a flower: parental death, animal harm, major character death with reincarnation

  Sphexa, Start Dinosaur: brief reference to past racist/transphobic bullying

  The Frequency of Compassion: transphobia, injury, mortal peril, parental death, nonconsensual telepathy

  What Pucks Love: sex, allegorical racism, parental death

  Gold Medal, Scrap Metal: car crash, harassment, implied fatphobia

  Half My Heart: PTSD episode, reference to parental neglect

  Venti Mochaccino, No Whip, Double Shot of Magic: sexual harassment

  since we’re here tonight: chronic illness, reference to long-term hospitalization, reference to parental neglect, vomit

  I’ll Have You Know: alcohol, mind control

  The Cafe Under the Hill: brief reference to physical abuse

  (don’t you) love a singer: injuries, mortal peril/references to death

  The After Party: death, references to past drug addiction/emotional abuse/child neglect

  The Mountain Will Move If You Ask: sex, injuries, mortal peril, animal harm, internalized negative body image

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  — Michael Haynes

  Keep going, everyone. There’s a future waiting for all of us, and it’s as beautiful as we can imagine it to be. From an agender queer who never would have even known to dream my current wonderful life as a teen, there’s so much to keep hoping and fighting for.