Mr. March Names the Stars

by Rivka Aaron-Hughes

  "I don't have—" Wes started, only to find the same finger covering his lips.

  "Shush," Ivy said imperiously. "Nobody believes that. Least of all you." Xe looked around their prime tent spot; four other tents had been placed in near enough proximity that anyone inside them could hear their conversation if it got heated. "I don't care what the neighbors think of us," Ivy said, "but I know you do, so you might want to go into the tent before you start attracting an audience." Xe leaned down and kissed Wes' temple. "I love you," xe murmured in Wes' ear. "Be happy." Ivy straightened and looked at Nash again. "I don't give shovel talks. I find them patronizing and ridiculous. Wes is a grownup; he doesn't need me threatening people on his behalf. If you hurt him, he can get his revenge on his own."

  Nash nodded. "I know he can."

  "That said," Ivy continued, "in case he asks for help making you suffer, know that I am skilled in many arts involving either extreme heat or corrosive chemicals, and that I serve several fire deities who would appreciate a burnt offering."

  Nash gulped. "I understand."

  Ivy nodded, tucked the bedding more securely under xyr arm, and headed out, away from the tent.

  Wes caught xyr hand. "Where are you going?" he asked. Ivy would understand that he meant Where will I find you after everything goes wrong? When everything with Nash blew up—and Wes didn't kid himself that it could end any other way—he was going to need a lot of hugs from Ivy.

  But Ivy got a strangely faraway look in xyr gray eyes and said, "To take my own advice, I think." Xe smiled. "Good night, boys." Then xe was gone, disappearing into the night with that grace Wes envied.

  "Fuck," Wes said wearily. He rubbed his face with his hand. "I suppose you want to go inside the tent," he said, and the venom in his voice surprised him.

  "I'll go wherever you want," Nash said quietly. "As long as you'll listen, I'll do whatever you want."

  "Except what I asked you to do!" The words exploded out of Wes. Three sparrows in a nearby tree startled up in a flurry of feathers and accusing squawks. Chastened, he turned toward Nash—not enough to actually look at his face—and gestured toward the tent. "Let's take this inside." Nash didn't reply, but Wes again felt that shift of air that meant that Nash was following him.

  Wes laid out his camping mattress and sleeping bag. With Ivy's bedding gone, that made the only comfortable place to sit. Wes settled onto it and glared at Nash, who took the spot opposite him, on the bare, lumpy ground, without protest.

  Wes let the silence stretch while he grounded himself. In the dim glow of the camp lantern Ivy had left on, Nash looked drawn and weary. His sky-blue button-down and black dress slacks were limp and wilted, and he had finally done as Wes had been telling him all summer and was wearing a pair of brown hiking boots that looked well-loved. He looked like a world-weary businessman coming off a long flight. Wes sat up, startled. "Shit, you must've jumped on the first flight out here."

  Nash looked away, but it didn't hide his rueful smile. "I did go home to change my shoes and ask my neighbor to watch the cats."

  Wes shook his head. Against his will, the coiled mass of anger in his gut started to unknot. It didn't fix anything, but the fact that Nash had dropped everything on the strength of one angry voicemail from Wes so they could try to work things out gave him hope that they could. "Are you in trouble at work?"

  Nash shrugged. "I said I had a disgruntled former employee to deal with. I doubt anyone believed me, but it bought me time."

  Wes raised a skeptical eyebrow. "I thought I was, at best, a disgruntled former contractor."

  "Which may have been why no one believed me."

  It came roaring back to Wes, why Nash was here, why he'd had to mislead his coworkers and fly halfway across the country. The blood turned to ice in his veins as he snapped, "They shouldn't believe you. You lied to them. They're probably used to it."

  "Wes—"

  "You're a liar, Nash! It's what you do."

  "No, it's not—"

  "Was there going to be a corrected calendar? Were you going to stop selling the old ones? No. Of course not. Because you're a liar. Do you even work for Silver Grove?"

  "What?" Nash inhaled sharply, and his eyes widened. "What, I—yes, of course I do. Wes, how can you—"

  "Why should I believe you?"

  Nash pressed his lips together and looked away. "Tomorrow morning, have whoever's working our booth call the main number. You can ask the receptionist if I work there. Will that ease your mind?"

  "Unless it's a conspiracy," Wes said sullenly.

  "Yeah," Nash said, and he sounded like he was trying not to cry or laugh. "Unless it's a conspiracy."

  Wes sighed loudly and rubbed his palms over his cut-offs. "Was anything you said true?"

  Nash spread his hands wide. "Wes," he said softly, "I am a low-level contracts attorney at a large publishing company. I barely have any authority in my own department. I sure as hell don't have any say in what other departments do. I couldn't order Editorial to whip up a new copy of the March page, or Production to make it, or Sales to take the old ones out of circulation."

  "I didn't know that," Wes said. "I'm not dumb, but I don't know how big companies run. I only had your word, and you lied." Gods, what a hot, sour feeling that stirred up in Wes' gut. He knew he might be overreacting, but he'd already had more than enough lies to last a lifetime.

  "I... I hoped. I hoped that if I presented a compelling argument, the other departments would want to do those things. And I asked. Every day. Multiple times a day. I have contacts in each department, and they've stopped answering my calls because I bugged them so much. I did fight for you, Wes, I swear. I just couldn't win this particular fight. So, no, it wasn't a lie of malicious intent, but it was a promise that wasn't mine to make, and for that, I'm more sorry than I can express."

  Wes' thoughts and emotions churned. Part of him wanted to forgive Nash, to accept that he had made an unwise choice, rather than an evil one, and move on. Another part of him—still the bigger part, for now—wanted to cradle his grudge and nurse it like a baby bird until it grew wings large enough for anger to block out hurt.

  One word floated into his mind, and he latched onto it: "Why?"

  Nash ducked his head toward the ground, and it was still adorable, damn it. "I felt something for you from the moment you started yelling at me about not judging you. You intrigued me. I don't often feel pulled toward other people that quickly. I couldn't let that go."

  Wes' eyes widened. "You lied to me because you liked me? This isn't elementary school. This is my life. I told you about what happened when our parents died. You know why I need people to be honest with me. And at any point—in any of your letters, you could've told me the truth. You could've fixed it."

  "I know!" Nash raised his face; he looked desperate and imploring. Now it was Wes' turn to look away, unwilling to be softened by that anguish. "I thought... I thought that if I could fix the problem with the calendar, I could impress you." Wes snorted, and Nash plowed on, "And as long as we're being honest, you be honest with me: if I'd told you at Other Realms that I couldn't do anything for you, would you have given me your contact information? Would you have sent me those amazing, soul-baring, life-changing letters?"

  "Yes!" Wes shouted. His memories flashed to that day, how distraught he'd been over the prospect of Nash walking out of his life with nothing but a firm handshake. "You intrigued me, too. With your pissy indignation, and your stupid, inappropriate loafers, and your willingness to listen to me explain what was wrong—yes, Nash, I would have sent those letters, even if you hadn't been able to promise me anything."

  Nash's face froze. Then his shoulders sagged and his spine slumped. He looked far less man than rock. A sad, defeated rock. "Wes," he said, voice hitching, "I'm so sorry."

  "So," Wes said, before he could start empathizing with Nash's pain, "what can you actually promise me?"

  With great effort, Nash dragged himself upright and looked Wes in the eyes. "W
hat I offered initially. Production and Editorial did approve the corrected bio and have updated the production file. If the original run sells out and we go to a second printing, it'll have the correct information."

  "And pulling the ones that are out there?"

  Nash shook his head and looked rueful. "I'm sorry, Wes. My contacts in Sales and Distribution have been clear about how much that isn't going to happen."

  Wes' stomach clenched, but he forced it to relax. It wasn't bad, what Nash was offering. It was better than nothing. But it mocked every promise Nash had made him and destabilized every foundation they'd built. Wes stared at the ground and said weakly, "What about everything else you told me? Your letters, Black Rabbit—how much of that was a lie?"

  "None of it," Nash said instantly, with such firmness of conviction that Wes looked up to gauge his sincerity. His sincerity turned out to be cranked to eleven. "Wes, I know I have no right to ask you to believe me, but everything I told you about myself is true."

  "Tell me again," Wes said, and his voice sounded scratchy.

  Nash didn't hesitate. "My name is Nash Larsen. I live in Minnesota with my two cats; I work for Silver Grove Publishing and practice Blue Star Wicca. I'm asexual and trans. I gave myself the name Nash because I grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin, former home of Nash Motors, and my favorite childhood memories are of going to the Wisconsin Automotive Museum with my father and brothers, because they treated me like one of the boys even then. I keep workaholic hours. I eat too many unhealthy foods and try to justify it by biking everywhere. I make terrible decisions to get people I'm interested in to be interested back and get flustered when kind, open-hearted, beautiful guys tell me we're on a date." Nash took a deep breath and continued, with the look of a man going before a firing squad, "And I think I'm falling in love with you."

  The bottom fell out of Wes' stomach. Out of his world. He shut his eyes and shoved the heels of his hands hard against them. "No, you can't—gods, Nash, don't say that. Not now. It isn't fair."

  "Why?" Nash asked, chin jutting defiantly. "You wanted me to tell you true things. That's one of them."

  "But I don't—When someone says that to me, it's supposed to be a happy moment. Something that can make me smile for years to come. Now it's… now it's one more thing out of your mouth that I'm not sure I can trust."

  "Wes," Nash said. He paused, and Wes could practically see the thoughts floating around his head as he tried to pick his words. "I lied about one thing. Out of all the things I told you. Does that make me completely untrustworthy?"

  "Yes!" Wes shouted. "Because our entire relationship was built on that one thing. It's the reason we met in the first place. If a foundation's rotten, nothing you build on top of it is stable."

  "That wasn't our only foundation," Nash protested. "I was excited to meet another ace Pagan. Weren't you?"

  Wes blew out a sharp breath. "Yeah," he admitted. "I really was."

  "Isn't that part of our foundation, too?"

  Wes gave a small, grudging smile. "I guess it is."

  Nash considered this and then said tentatively, "So what do you do? If you realize part of your foundation's rotten?"

  Wes shook his head. "Nothing to do but tear everything down, rip up the foundation, and start over."

  However angry Wes was, he could still appreciate Nash's quiet deliberation; Nash didn't jump into anything without thinking it through. Well, except the once. Some distant part of Wes' brain felt grudgingly flattered that he'd so captivated Nash that Nash had gone against his principles to get to know him better. That part was small and quickly silenced.

  "All right," Nash said, nodding once. "Then we'll do that."

  "What we'll—Nash, it's a metaphor. You can't apply it to people like that!"

  "Why not?"

  "Because people don't heal. Not entirely. If I tear down a building, all the way to the foundation, I can build something new in its place and hide all traces of what was there before, or I can leave that hole, and eventually, Nature will reclaim it. People aren't like that."

  "People are exactly like that," Nash insisted. "We can start this relationship over, and maybe in time it'll cover the damage I've done. Or we can say goodbye here and never see each other again, and eventually the space each of us leaves behind in the other's life will be filled. Other friends, other experiences, plain old time passing. Might not even take long."

  "But it won't be the same." Wes tugged his hair in frustration. Why were they having this argument? Wes didn't want a new relationship with Nash. Nash had lied, and Wes couldn't trust him. Ivy kept telling him that a lie wasn't the end of the world, that not everything was like what had happened to their parents, but clearly that was a lie, too.

  Only… when he tried to imagine life without Nash in it at all, tried to imagine time and experience and other people filling the Nash-shaped hole he would leave, that felt cold and uncomfortable and wrong.

  "It's not the same when you're talking about a building, either," Nash said. Wes sighed and leaned his cheek on his hand. Nash was dogged. He was going to say his piece or die trying, and nothing Wes could say, short of kicking him out of the tent and out of his life, would stop him. "If you tear down the building, whether you build something new in its place or not, that space will never be the same. The effort it took to put the building up in the first place disturbed the land. Ecosystems disturbed, bones dug up, airflow patterns altered. Sure, Nature may reclaim the space once the building's gone, but it's not the same as before. If you know how to look, you can always find traces of the damage that's been done, and the healing that's taken place. Just by existing, we change the world, and our actions change it more. The only way to maintain the original conditions is to never do anything." He frowned. "And that's where the metaphor falls apart, because while I generally think that's a good idea environmentally, I don't recommend it for human beings."

  Wes laughed wetly and dragged a hand across his face. "So what do you suggest?" he asked. He stretched his arms back until his hands hit the ground and then rested his weight on them. "Are we ripping up our relationship? Putting something in its place?"

  "I don't know," Nash admitted, spreading his hands. "I can say we're starting over, but I can't erase the way I feel about you."

  "No," Wes conceded, "but maybe you can dial down the romantic declarations, and maybe I can forgive and forget and start to rebuild my trust in you."

  A shy smile curved Nash's lips. "I'd like that."

  Wes levered himself up and stuck out his hand. "Hi. I'm Wes Piedmont. I'm asexual and Reclaiming, and I live out of a tent and a truck for half the year." Third time's the charm, right?

  Nash took Wes' hand. He didn't shake; he just held it, as if it were something precious. "Hi, Wes," he said. "My name is Nash Larsen. I'm a very low-level employee in a very tiny department of Silver Grove Publishing, so whatever you're thinking of asking from me, you shouldn't. I'm not very good with people."

  Wes laughed despite himself. "You do okay."

  And as if that simple act really had set the reset button on their relationship, or torn up the rotten foundation, or whatever metaphor they were using now, Wes' anger started to drain away. He couldn't absolve Nash for what he'd done, but he'd eventually be able to forgive him. Maybe someday soon he'd even be able to acknowledge his own culpability in insisting that the incorrect calendars be pulled from sales. All Nash had offered, right from the start, was a correction to the second print run, if there was one. Wes himself had been the one to suggest—demand, really—that the first run be pulled. And, yeah, Nash should've said he couldn't promise that, but he'd done it at Wes' behest. He'd done it because, even when they'd barely known each other, he hadn't wanted Wes to suffer.

  Maintaining anger at a guy willing to do that for a stranger was hard.

  Wes looked around the tent. He was buzzing under his skin, too flooded with energy and emotion to sleep. Things were going on elsewhere on the grounds—a festival like this never really slept
—but he also felt raw and exposed, and he couldn't handle people right now. He looked at Nash. "You need to go home now, don't you? Or, I guess, your hotel."

  Nash shook his head. "I came straight here from the airport."

  There was something gratifying about the idea that someone as methodical as Nash would come to him with nothing but the clothes on his back and a half-formed hope for forgiveness. Wes pursed his lips. Eventually, they would have to figure out a place for Nash to sleep. He shouldn't be driving at this hour, and Wes wouldn't feel safe letting him try his luck with the motels in this area at any time, let alone after midnight. With Ivy—and, more importantly, Ivy's bedding—gone, Nash's options were sleeping on the damp, lumpy ground or sharing with Wes. Wes wasn't ready to deal with the implications of either option right now.

  Wes pushed to his feet, patting Nash's shoulder as he went. "Come on," he said. "Let's go sit on the dock."

  Nash checked his watch. "It's past midnight."

  Wes grinned. "Perfect."

  They picked their way toward the lake. Wes had made the trek often enough that he could do it easily, even barefoot and in the dark, but Nash moved cautiously, his phone's flashlight bobbing shakily across the ground in front of them. They didn't speak as they walked; Wes wanted to say a thousand things to Nash, but Nash seemed to need all his concentration for navigating the uneven terrain.

  People were scattered along the shore, on the dock, and in the water, but they found space on the dock, next to one of the pilings. Wes folded himself down and dangled his feet in the water. After a moment's hesitation, Nash removed his shoes and socks and did the same, sliding between Wes and the pile. For a minute it was enough, sitting side-by-side, breathing in the clean lake scents. The silence felt like it was waiting for something.

  Wes wasn't sure what the silence was waiting for, but as he considered Nash's profile in the faint light of the waning crescent moon, he realized that he was waiting for Nash's arms around him, strong and sure like they'd been the first time they'd hugged. He reached over and grabbed Nash's wrist, lifting his arm and draping it around his own shoulders.