How to Repair a Mechanical Heart

CastieCon #4

Long Beach, California





Chapter Sixteen


“Fellow fans and devoted followers,” Abel says to the camera, “welcome to Room 809 of the Long Beach Monarch Inn. Where right now, right in front of your very eyes, Brandon and I will perform an act of unprecedented intimacy.”

“I found the mascara,” I say.

“Perfect. Sit down, love. So tonight, obviously: the Castaway Ball. Which will change our lives forever, since the ballroom stage eight floors below us is now prepped and ready for two very very special guests‌—‌Sim and Cadmus themselves, David Darras and Ed Ransome. Bran‌…‌you okay?”

I’m fanning myself. “Whew. Just feeling faint.”

“You and every Cadsim shipper in this freakin’-damn hotel. So anyway, a sad and little-known fact about me and my friend here is that both of us missed our respective proms: Brandon tells me he was huddled miserably in his room, listening to Season 2 commentary tracks and nursing a pint of Cherry Garcia, while I on the other side of town was swearing oaths of eternal devotion in the blacklit basement of my ex-boyfriend, who in retrospect was so not worth it. So tonight we both get a do-over. And to make our evening an extra-large slice of teen-geek heaven, we’ve decided to give each other a little gift.”

“Yep. So stay tuned, to this space‌…‌”

“‌…‌because in less than a half-hour we’ll post again, and you’ll see exactly what happens when two ordinary queer boys from central PA become each other’s‌…‌” He swoops close to the camera. “‌…‌ultimate fantasy.”

I say, “You first, Tin Man.”

He says, “It will be my honor. Captain.”

***


This is how you turn a boy into an android.

First, on the long road from San Antonio to Long Beach, you read a half-dozen fics about this exact moment: when you’re in your hotel room and the Castaway Ball is a half-hour away and you’re standing in front of his black leather swivel chair, a confusion of dollar-store makeup pots and brushes spread out on the table. You act out details from the best stories. The way you dip the largest brush in the silvery powder and smooth it across his cheeks, and then lean in just a little to blow stray flecks off his nose. The way you gloss the comb with Amp-U Electric Blue gel, just enough to streak his white hair Sim-blue. You’re so gentle with the comb, it makes him think of when he was five and his mom would detangle his wet head while she told him his favorite bedtime story.

Then it’s your turn.

He’s faster with the hairspray and makeup brushes, just like the fics predicted. He makes your face a screenshot of Cadmus from the season finale’s last scene: bloodied and triumphant, right before he collapses from the crystal spider bite. Red lipstick blends with brown mascara for authentic blood spatters; he tousles and soft-spikes your hair to perfection and mists it with a spray that smells like apples. Then he swoops in close to draw the spider bite on your neck with an eyebrow pencil, like he does in this week’s installment of “How to Repair a Mechanical Heart,” except in the fic he’s also shirtless and his pecs are like a love poem engraved on his torso. Your heart whirs faster anyway.

Time to get dressed.

You both turn your backs, though you’ve spent the whole week fine-tuning these details together while you drove and cleaned the RV water tank and cooked franks and beans over an Arizona campfire. How many strategic rips to make in your tight black Cadmus t-shirt (four), how to make a Sim collar for his shirt (a strip from a white plastic butter tub and two silver buttons), how to flip his six-dollar Goodwill wingtips from black to white (five coats of spray paint and a Hail Mary). You draw a breath and put on Cadmus. You shrug on Abel’s snakeskin jacket and buckle on the big fake-leather replica boots he bought at the Cleveland con, hoping he can’t hear the rustle of the newspaper you had to stuff in the toes. You listen to him curse his floppy collar and hum a Goldfrapp song while he yanks on his pants, and you think there’s no way he’ll transform his huge undeniable self into the trim elegant machine who makes your blood buzz in your veins.

Then he turns you around, and wow.

It’s perfect. The slicked blue hair. The shiny shoes. The fitted white pants and slim jacket he paid too much for at that fancy mall in Tucson. All of it = perfect.

He. Is. Sim.

And I’m in trouble.

Abel looks at my boots‌—‌his boots‌—‌and scratches the back of his neck. “You, uh, look great,” he murmurs.

“You too.”

“Nah.”

“No, I mean, the costume is‌—‌” Flawless. Revelatory. “Actually not too bad.”

“Just put on my corsage,” he says. “Okay?”

He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a small pod of white frosted plastic. He flips a tiny switch on the side, and a cool blue light glows off and on inside it.

I brush my fingers across the plastic. “You bought a mechanical heart?”

“At the Cleveland con. I was going to give it to you, but‌…‌”

This is better.

He hesitates a second, and then he quickly undoes a few of his shirt buttons. Now he’s staring past me, at the framed ocean painting on the wall behind us.

“Just hook it to the undershirt.” He blinks fast. “Actually, it’s tricky. If you can’t get it I can‌…‌”

“I got it.” I catch the little metal hooks into Abel’s shirt and button him back up, which is the exact opposite of what I want to do with those buttons right now and oh God why did I suggest this?

Stupid Augie Manners and his stupid Spaceman Straws.

We can’t go through with this. We can’t fake-kiss on the dance floor tonight like we planned all week. He’ll feel me melt into his embrace and hungrily devour his lips like in fic, and when we break apart under the swirls of disco starlight he’ll know it’s not fic for me, not anymore. And everything will be ruined. He’ll tilt his Sim head with lighthearted pity and I’ll get one of those sweet and mortifying speeches about how someday, I’ll find a guy who really appreciates me and how I’m such a great friend, let’s just keep it that way‌…‌

He’s already gearing up for it. I can tell. He can’t even look me in the eye.

“Brandon?”

Bec’s voice, muffled behind our door. Her room is down the hall. I lunge for the doorknob, relieved for something neutral to do. Abel retreats to the bathroom and turns the water on, full blast.

Bec is dressed in a way my parents would fully approve of (on this trip, anyway): hair twisted up, siren-seductive in the slinky black ‘70s number she picked up on Wednesday at a vintage shop in Phoenix. “This says I dance with gay boys, and possibly try to convert them,” Abel had grinned, holding the dress up to her chest as I admired his profile in the shop’s dim Tiffany lamplight. He picked great: I’ve never seen her look so comfortable in a dress. It’s nothing like that night at my house, when she stopped by post-prom in that stiff pink thing her mom had bought her and we ate Ben & Jerry’s and bitched about boys until two a.m.

“Wow.” She appraises my Cadmus transformation. The wow sounds complex.

“Look, I don’t need a lecture because nothing’s going to‌—‌”

“I don’t lecture. Since when do I lecture?”

“Never. But I know you think‌—‌”

“I’m the sidekick.” She fiddles with a pin in her hair. “Doesn’t matter what I think.”

“You’re not.”

“It’s okay. I just came to give you something.” She pulls me out in the hall with her and digs in her black sequined bag. Her eyelids are brushed with silvery shadow. I’m thinking a mini Sim bobblehead from the souvenir stand, or a funny haiku like the ones we used to make up together during study hall.

Instead, she pulls out a little foil packet.

“What’s this?” I back up.

“It’s a lubricated, extra-large, glow-in-the-dark‌—‌”

“I know what it is.”

“Just in case.”

“No. There’s no way.”

She slips the condom in my jacket pocket and gives it a pat.

“If your heart gets broken tonight,” she says, “I’m just down the hall.”

“Won’t you be‌…‌busy?”

“Oh no. As I found out today in the autograph line for the Henchmen, Dave is saving himself for marriage.”

“Really?”

She points a gun-finger at her head and blams. “I’m finally hundreds of miles from Mom and it’s like she picked him out.”

“Sorry.”

“He’s still adorable. Ugh!”

Our talk is all wry and surfacey and I kind of want to grab her by the shoulders, dare her to tell me what she thinks will happen tonight if I go through with the plan and kiss Abel on the dance floor.

But I don’t want her answer. Not really.

Dave comes loping around the corner. He’s got on a fashionably small brown suit and a Where the Wild Things Are t-shirt, and he’s crunching on cheddar popcorn. Bec elbows him playfully and grabs a handful. They look good together, friendly and fun and equal. Not like her parents; they’d make you tense, like a grizzly bear glowering at a crow that won’t stop cawing. I like Dave better now that I know he won’t be having sex with Bec tonight while I brood alone in the hotel room we splurged on, Abel snoring obliviously one bed over.

“Great costume, man,” Dave says. “You look intense.”

“Wait till you see Abel,” Bec tells him. She lands a soft punch on my shoulder. “Go get him.”