Ship It

by Britta Lundin

  I find Tess in the audience again. She’s got her hand on her cheek, but she’s smiling at me, and I think there might be tears in her eyes. I don’t want her to cry. This is good. This is a good moment. I want to wipe the tears off her cheeks and tell her I screwed up and please, yes, let’s try again.

  I think about kissing Tess, and how it feels better than any fic feels. I want to kiss her again more than I want Smokey to kiss Heart, and that’s a lot. I don’t know exactly what that makes me, but I know where to start.

  And just like that, it’s clear to me. Maybe this is it, the moment I figured it out. Standing on a stage at Comic-Con. Or maybe I’ve been figuring it out slowly and I just now understood it. Or maybe I knew all along and I was just scared to admit it. But I really, really like her. And I missed her. And all I want to do is tell her how I feel, and I don’t care who else hears me. And I don’t care what label they want to give me. I just need to tell her.

  “I met someone recently who helped me realize that my connection to fanfiction is more personal than I thought,” I say. “She’s one of the most important people in my life, and I wouldn’t have met her if it weren’t for Demon Heart fandom. And she helped me realize something super important.”

  Okay, deep breath, here we go.

  “And that’s that… I’m queer.”

  And Tess’s whole face changes as she laughs in surprise and looks completely full to the brim.

  “And maybe some of you are, too, and maybe that’s something you knew all along, but I only recently started figuring it out. And I don’t know if I’m lesbian or bi or, like, homoromantic pansexual or what, but I know I wouldn’t have gotten this far in understanding myself if it hadn’t been for fanfiction and the people I’ve met through writing and reading it.”

  And here it crosses my mind to look for my parents in the audience. They’re easy to spot because Mom is waving her hands at me and Dad is throwing me big A-OK signals. Dorks. Dad’s probably going to write a poem about this on the way home.

  And for once, I’m not second-guessing myself. It feels right.

  “If you know my work, you know that in my fanfic, I write Smokey and Heart as bisexual. They’re not out on the show, but imagine if they were. Imagine what that would mean for all the people like me out there, who might be watching and waiting and hoping to see a bit of themselves on-screen.”

  I don’t look at Jamie, or Rico, or Forest, not yet. “And while I’m at it, I’m not just talking queer representation. Look at the show, look how white it is, how male. Where are the women, the people of color, aside from one? Where is any of the diversity that makes our world fascinating, and unique, and special? Demon Heart tells great stories, but in the end, all I see is Heart, Smokey, and a lot of straight white guys in rubber masks.”

  I adjust my glasses and get back on track. “Here’s what I’ve come to accept. The show is never going to go canon with the SmokeHeart relationship. Smokey is dead; it’s over. If seeing a SmokeHeart kiss on the show would have been important to you, you’re out of luck. You’ll have to rely on reading it in fic, because the real thing isn’t going to happen. Whether you want to stay in this fandom and continue to make works that redefine Demon Heart in the way you want to see it—that’s a personal decision you have to make for yourself. These guys have all talked on this subject before, and I’m not going to ask them to talk about it again today. I think they’ve made their positions pretty clear.”

  There, I managed to talk about it without asking Forest about it. I hope that’s good enough. I hope that didn’t hurt him too much.

  There’s silence in the hall. I can’t tell if any of that was inspiring or disappointing or what, but it was honest, at least. All I really have left is my honesty.

  “I think we should move on to the next question,” I say.

  “Claire, wait.”

  RICO HAS BEEN making damn faces at me this entire time. Very practiced, neutral faces that don’t betray anything to anyone who might be filming or photographing him, but I can tell from the extremely slight way he narrows his eyes and bores them into me that he wants me to do something. But what can I do? What the hell can I do?

  When Claire starts talking about her own experiences, I feel my heart split open. After seeing her with these high walls for so long, watching her tear them down and open herself up to a room full of people and cameras and reporters and who knows what all? It takes a lot of bravery to do that.

  There’s a little boy in the front row who is here with his mom. I just keep looking at his face, watching as his eyes grow bigger and bigger until they’re like baseballs bulging out of his head. When Claire comes out as queer, he grips two hands to his chest and his mom puts her arm over his shoulders as big, fat tears run down his face. I don’t know if Claire sees him, but I have to tell her about it after. This moment is touching people. Her words are touching people.

  And then, after all that, she says she’s not going to even ask us about it. After all that, she’s still protecting me, making sure I don’t have to answer the question or put my career on the line. That’s when Rico’s knee connects hard with mine under the table.

  He’s not wrong.

  I have to do something.

  I look at him, and for a moment, I see what Claire sees. A warm, gentle, thoughtful, obnoxious, fun-loving weirdo who wants to make sure everyone feels heard and has a good time. If there’s anything he’s taught me, it’s that I should take more risks, worry less. Stop thinking so much.

  I reach my hand toward Rico discreetly, thankful that there’s a tablecloth between us and the crowd, blocking their view. I take his hand and he looks at me with a little half smile. I squeeze his hand and raise my eyebrows at him. A question: Do you want to do this? Rico squeezes back, and I see his eye crinkles go into full effect. Yes, I do. Damn I love those eye crinkles.

  I hear Claire ask for the next question from the audience and I drop Rico’s hand and say, “Claire, wait.”

  She looks at me with this stunned expression that makes me laugh as I push my seat back and stand up. I’m nervous, and I’m worried I’ll knock my chair over or do something clumsy as I stand, but I don’t. I wriggle my microphone out of its holder. It’s game time. Take the shot, Reed.

  I say, “There are a lot of people who don’t want me to talk about this today. And, to be honest, I wasn’t going to.”

  I cross to Claire, who’s shaking her head a little and whispering, “You don’t have to say anything.”

  “Yes, I do,” I whisper back. I open my arms for a hug, and she looks at me a moment, and then accepts it. I wrap my arms around her and whisper into her ear, “I’m so proud of you,” and as I do, my voice hitches. Because I am. So damn proud of her. I wouldn’t be doing this if she hadn’t shown me it was possible.

  Over Claire’s head, I can see Jon Reynolds standing in the wings, giving me a finger across the throat: Cut it out. I give Claire a pat on the back and turn away from him. Let him find out what I’m going to say along with the rest of the room. And if Red Zone wants to be dicks about the deal after that, well, that’s out of my control.

  I grip the microphone tight and forge ahead. “A few months ago, I didn’t know anything about fandom or shipping or any of this stuff. But then I started meeting y’all, and I kept hearing the same thing over and over…” I walk to the edge of the stage. I can feel a spotlight struggling to follow me. Let’s make that spotlight operator work for his money, shall we? I hop off the stage and the audience cheers. They have no idea what’s coming. I have, well, just an inkling, and it scares the hell out of me.

  I’m white-knuckling the mic, as I start walking into the audience. I take a breath. Relax, Reed. Breathe. Don’t think so much.

  I look into the bright spotlight, and I feel the eyes of thousands of fans on me. “I keep hearing that Smokey and Heart are in love.” There’s scattered whoops and hollers for that.

  I shade my eyes against the spotlight, peering at people until I find
what I’m looking for. There. In the eighth row, a twentysomething girl who looks to be about Rico’s size, cosplaying as Heart.

  “Do you mind if I borrow this?” I ask. She nods at me, dazed and exhilarated, and shrugs out of her yellow workman’s jacket and hands it to me. “I’ll give it back,” I whisper as I take it from her.

  I walk back up toward the front, and Rico, seeing me coming, hops out of his chair and meets me at the edge of the stage. I toss the jacket up to him. He grins at me, looking pretty excited to be taking part in whatever it is I’m planning.

  “For a long time, I didn’t want to hear it. I thought the same thing the whole world thinks when teenage girls open their mouths: ‘You’re emotional. You’re delusional. You’re hysterical.’” I turn around to make eye contact with Claire. “I was wrong.”

  I lean against the front of the stage and rub my sweaty palm on my jeans. “Look, I mean, I admit I didn’t really get it at first. It took a while, you know, for me to get my head out of my ass.”

  “I love your ass, Forest!” someone shouts from the audience, and there are titters all around.

  “I love his ass, too,” Rico says, low, his mouth right on the microphone. The crowd erupts in laughter, and I have to will my cheeks not to turn pink. Rico laughs with them, enjoying making me squirm.

  “Thank you. Both of you.” I push off the edge of the stage and head back into the audience. “The point is,” I say, getting this back on track. “Everything you saw on-screen, that was real. That really happened, and it’s really part of the show. No one can take that away from you, not me, not Rico, not Jamie.” I jerk my thumb at Jamie, who looks permanently indignant, like people keep stealing his parking spot at Whole Foods and there’s not a damn thing he can do about it.

  “All the feelings you feel when you watch the show? Those are just as real as anyone else’s. What you think about Demon Heart is just as important as what Jamie thinks, or what some critic thinks, or what I think.” I stop at the boy in the front row, who’s clutching his arms across his chest. “You’re not hysterical. You’re not delusional. Your opinions are valid,” I say, and he nods at me with big, teary eyes.

  I relax my grip on the mic. The plan is falling into place. I spot a girl wearing a leather jacket like Smokey’s and I head toward her. When I gesture, she immediately slips it off and tosses it to me with a big thumbs-up. She’s on board. I notice that the strap is broken on the shoulder, just like mine, and just like that other girl I met a few cons back. I have come to love meticulous cosplayers.

  “If you see Demon Heart as a love story, then it’s a love story,” I say. That gets a cheer, too. The energy in the room is building.

  Someone from the back hollers, “Hell yes it is!” and there’s another cheer.

  I hear someone under their breath say, “What a chode,” as I pass. I shoot him a look. He’s one of the gamers who asked me a question before. I choose to ignore him. He came to a Demon Heart panel. He’s gonna get demons and a whole lotta heart. As I pass, I hear him get to his feet and walk out. I see a few other people around walking out, too. Let ’em.

  “Okay, Forest, I think that’s enough,” Jamie says. Oh, look, he lives! After basically sleeping and scowling through this entire panel, and indeed, every single media event so far, Jamie Davies is showing a little life.

  “Sorry?” I say, then I put the microphone down on the edge of the stage so I can slip into the Smokey jacket.

  “You don’t get to dictate what should or should not happen. It’s not your show,” Jamie says.

  I pick up the mic again. God, this jacket fits well. And it smells a bit like perfume, which is kind of nice. I’ll have to tell that girl later when I give it back that her jacket smells great. “Yo, Jamie, due respect, but it’s not your show, either. Once we make it and put it out there, it’s not ours to say how people see it.”

  “Fine, but none of you get to decide what happens next. I do. And my writers. That’s how this whole thing works.”

  Here’s where Claire butts in. “You get to decide what’s canon, but you know what? Canon can be wrong.”

  I climb back onto the stage. Rico’s smiling at me like a maniac. I feel like I’m finally being someone he can be proud of. I feel like I’m finally listening to myself instead of reacting out of fear.

  It feels good.

  “This is ridiculous,” Jamie says. And then he straight-up walks offstage. That’s okay, I’m not doing this for him. In fact, he’d rather kill my character off than see this happen, so I don’t have a lot of sympathy at the moment.

  I turn back out to the crowd. The cheering is growing steadily, as people start to anticipate what’s coming. The energy right now is incredible.

  “I didn’t get that at first, Claire, but you helped me get there.”

  Claire’s watching me intensely, her hands gripping the sides of the podium.

  “Get what?” she asks.

  “That you as a viewer get to pick what your own personal canon is. That yours doesn’t have to be the same as mine, or Jamie’s, or anyone else’s.”

  “Yeah, I think that’s true.”

  “But sometimes, I get the sense that you’re disappointed that your specific canon might not ever make it to the screen.”

  “Definitely,” she says. Her face freezes in this stunned half smile, like she’s trying to figure out what I’m up to. Just wait.

  “Okay, well, maybe just in case, some people might want to film this?”

  There are already about fifty phones pointed at us, but I see a dozen more fly into the air. My heart is in my throat. I can feel every single eye in the room on us.

  “Okay?” I whisper to Rico, and he turns to face me with a nod.

  “Okay,” he says.

  I watch him do a little shoulder shrug, neck stretch that I recognize from the moments on set just before action. He’s getting into character. I close my eyes and find the part of my brain that always knows how Smokey will react next.

  It takes a moment, because my heart is racing and my adrenaline is pumping, but I take a few long breaths, and slowly, the crowd fades away.

  As Smokey, I open my eyes and look at Heart.

  How long have Heart and I been fighting? Thinking that because of our nature, we had to be enemies, when all along we wanted the same things: peace, justice, freedom from hell. I spent so much time thinking he was my enemy that I never considered that that tightness I felt in my chest at the sight of him wasn’t fear or anger. My obsession with him, the way I couldn’t take my eyes off him when he was in the room, the way his name made my stomach curl up and my knees loosen—I had never known what it was before because I’d never felt it with anyone else.

  It’s simple, really. I just never let myself think about it.

  I’m in love with Heart.

  I tell him this with my eyes, and I feel it coming right back, his lips pulling up into a smile, his face wide open and welcoming. The warmth of knowing washes over me. Heart loves me, too. What happens next isn’t even a risk anymore, because I know exactly what he’ll do.

  Standing on the edge of that stage with him, I’ve never felt so connected before. I raise the microphone to my mouth so everyone can feel what I’m feeling.

  “Heart.” I pause to wait for the cheers to die down. “I’m with you…”

  I hand the microphone to him. Without breaking eye contact, he speaks directly to me. “’Til the dirt hits my chest.”

  I’m aware, then, of another cheer. Happy for the familiarity of the line, exhilarated about what might come next, just like me.

  He puts the mic on the table and the cheer dies down. We’re enveloped in utter silence as I hold his gaze for…

  An…

  Eternity.

  Then I step forward, and he steps forward, and my breath and every other breath in the room catches in our throats.

  And I allow myself to admire the sharp corners of his jaw, the smooth brown of his skin, the lines in his face from y
ears of experience and living and laughing, and his deep warm eyes, which are looking at me like I’m the only person in the room.

  And then I drop my gaze to his lips, which are curling upward in anticipation, and I know he’s waiting for me to move first.

  So I lean in, and I close my eyes, and his mouth meets mine.

  And we kiss.

  My hands move up to cup his cheeks, and I can feel him slipping an arm around my back and pulling me a little closer.

  His mouth is warm on mine, and I can feel him holding back a smile. His hands move up my back, strong, yet gentle, letting me know he’s got me, it’s okay, I’m okay, this is okay.

  I run my hand around his neck and up into his hair, and I’m astonished by a feeling in my gut that says, This is hot.

  This is hot. Before, I might have been afraid of that feeling, but today I don’t run away from it, I just let myself feel everything I’m feeling.

  And then he slips his mouth open and my tongue dips in, and the kiss deepens until I can feel it everywhere. His whiskers scratch my cheeks, and there is a tightness in my chest and I’m a little afraid I might cry, but I don’t, I just let the feeling wash over me and fill me up.

  I don’t know for sure that this is what Smokey wanted; I can’t promise that he was in love with Heart, but I have to admit, it does feel right.

  Gradually, I begin to hear the screaming of the crowd, which can’t be ignored anymore because it’s truly deafening. A thousand flashes of a thousand phones are firing at once, and I slowly, slowly become aware of reality.

  We finally pull apart, and I open my eyes and find him right there looking back at me, cheeks flushed, smiling.

  I bring my hand up to rest it tenderly on his cheek. His hair is a mess from where my fingers ran through it. I realize this might be my only chance to do something I’ve always wanted to do. I touch his eye crinkles, which only makes them crinkle harder. His hand lingers on my back, like he’s not ready to let this moment go, not yet. Neither am I.