How to Repair a Mechanical Heart

Chapter Nineteen


We lay together in the wrecked white bed, sprawled side by side like action figures someone just got done playing with. Except I’d never mistake myself for plastic, not now. It’s like Sim said in Episode 2-15, after he first got the chip: I was never fully aware of my body before. Now every part of me is alive. Electrified. Am I wrong to feel joyful, Captain? Is it foolish not to fear pain yet?

I feel Abel still awake, fiddling with the sheets beside me. We’re on the same page, I guess, trying to sidestep morning-after awkwardness by not sleeping at all. I wish he’d talk first. I don’t know how to break the seal. I have some sincerely stupid questions‌—‌like, I’m not sure what we did tonight actually counted as losing my virginity‌—‌but that’s kind of a question for Dan Savage and not really sexy afterglow talk, which I still have no clue about even after a hundred Cadsim and Abandon fics and really all I want to do is pull a guitar out of thin air and serenade him with “Here, There, and Everywhere,” like I do in Chapter 18 of “How to Repair a Mechanical Heart.”

Abel taps my cheek. “Hey‌…‌?”

I turn my head, smile. “Hey.”

His eyes flick down to the space between us. I look down and see what he’s done.

Plastic Sim and Plastic Cadmus: tucked snugly under the sheet together. Spooning.

I crack up laughing.

“So?” Abel says.

“So.”

He cringes cutely. “How‌…‌was it?”

I would write horrible fanfic. The mechanics blur; the last thing we did blasted my mind inside-out and left me clear and calm and goofy-dreamy.

“Great,” I tell him.

“Well‌…‌mostly great. Right?”

I hide my face in the pillow. “Sorry I couldn’t do everything. I just‌—‌”

“No no! Oh God, that’s not what I meant.” He knocks on the back of my head. “I meant that one part where I freaked you out. I just didn’t know you hated feet so much.”

“Neither did I.”

“That’s what’s so fun, though. Figuring all that stuff out.” He walks his fingers under the covers. “On the other hand, I discovered your inner thigh is especially‌—‌”

“Ooh! Stop.”

“What? It’s cool. Next time I’ll bring some feathers and we can‌—‌”

I kiss him to shut him up. We are both imperfect in so many ways right now‌—‌his hair sticking up like angry-rooster hackles, the fuzzy morning taste in my mouth‌—‌but I don’t care. We smile when we break apart.

“So be honest: what’s going on in your head right now?” He crooks Plastic Cadmus’s arm tighter around Sim. “Good stuff? Bad stuff?”

“Good. All good.”

He cocks his head.

“I mean it.” I lean over the action figures and kiss him again. And again.

“Okay, ‘cause if you’re going to cry or drop to your knees and pray or whatever, do it now so I can‌—‌”

“Did he do that?”

“Who?”

I roll my eyes. “Him. Jonathan.”

Abel picks at his thumbnail. “There was definite weirdness. Yeah.”

“Well, I am completely fine.”

“Really? Hundred percent?” He reaches over and hooks my pinky with his. “I’ll also accept ninety-five. Or ninety‌…‌”

I consider my answer. Bad thoughts still creep around in my subconscious; I’m not dumb enough to think one night with Abel’s blasted them away. But for now I’m too happy to let them get close. I’ve got a force field around me made of Abel’s kisses and hey_mamacita’s evangelical ranting and the steady blue thrum of my mechanical heart.

Thank you, I venture. Thank you thank you thank you. I send it out to the universe, to Abel’s loving creative higher power that wants everyone to be happy. Right now that seems so incredibly possible.

“Okay, you’re pausing way too long,” says Abel.

“Well. I do have one confession,” I tell him.

“Sure. Sure, get it out.” He unhooks our pinkies and shifts under the sheet, bracing for full-on Catholic-boy freakout.

“It’s about Cadmus and Sim.”

“Oh!”

“I might sort of‌…‌” Say it. Get it over with. “‌…‌thinkit’salittlebithotnow. Just a little!”

I bite my knuckle, awaiting judgment.

Abel lets out a deep relieved laugh. He pulls a pillow over his face and crosses his arms over it.

“You too?” I tug the pillow.

“Uggggghhhh,” he moans.

“Since when?”

“Dunno. I guess since the coffee shop marathon?” He shoves the pillow away and props himself up on one elbow. “The stupid cave scene felt different. I like, watched you watching it. Watching him. And I started‌…‌” He sighs.

“Feeling things?”

“To my horror. Yes.”

“There were twinges?”

“Definite twinges. Oh my God, Brandon.” He shakes his head at our spooning action figures. “Are we turning into‌…‌Cadsim shippers?”

“It’s possible.”

“What about the dumb bet?”

I shrug. “Call it off.”

“Just like that?” He does a low whistle. “Miss Maxima would‌—‌”

“Who cares?” I twist Plastic Sim’s waist and tweak his legs so he can cuddle Cadmus with maximum efficiency. “Why waste time feuding with the Cadsim girls? I’d much rather hang in the Church of Abandon.”

Abel studies me. A grin sneaks across his face.

“What,” I say.

“What? Nothing.”

“You’re plotting.”

“Is it that obvious?”

I shove at him with my foot. He rolls off the bed and goes for his big black bag, humming that Blondie song about hearts of glass. I pull on my boxers from last night.

“Don’t look,” he says. “Close your eyes.”

I hear the contents of the bag shift and clink; he’s got enough souvenirs and truck-stop junk and retro shirts in there to fill a Goodwill. A plastic pop: a marker uncapping? I wait till I feel light cotton whap my face, and then I pull it off and unfold it.

A white v-neck undershirt, ABANDON Sharpied across it. He’s got one to match.

“What are these for?”

“We’re making a vlog post.”

“Here?”

“Yes sir.”

“What for?”

He whispers in my ear, even though no one else is in the room.

“Oh no. No no. We can’t.”

“It’ll be epic.”

“They’ll die.”

He slips the shirt over my head and kisses my nose.

“In a good way,” he says. “Trust me.”

***


He turns the camera on.

“’Morning, Casties. It is now‌…‌five a.m., Pacific time, and Brandon and I can’t sleep. We have a very important announcement that will be of great interest to quite a few‌…‌”

He keeps talking. I barely hear a word; I’m just watching his lips move, mystified that I kissed them and can do it again whenever I want.

“‌…‌so first of all, to Miss Maxie and the rest of the Cadsim girls: We’d like to call a truce with you. It deeply, deeply pains us to admit this, especially since we’ve seen better writers in the 7th Heaven archive on fanfic.net, but whatever: Cadsim is kiiiind of hot. Okay? We said it. So I guess we’re all playing on the same team now. Miss Max, we know you’re going to be at the next con in Salt Lake City, so we’d like to invite you to ask the cave scene question at the Della Wolfe-Williams Q&A, presuming you still want to know the answer. And in the interest of burying the hatchet, we’d like to invite you to lunch with us after.”

He elbows me.

“Definitely,” I say.

“Long as you don’t expect us to rec your fanfic or anything. Which brings us to our second purpose‌—‌right, Brandon?”

“Uh‌…‌I guess.”

“Don’t chicken out. Look right into the camera and say hi to the Church of Abandon‌—‌oh, right, ladies. We know about you. We have for a few weeks, and we’d like to inform you that you’re living every real-person-shipper’s dream: your fanfic totally brought us together last night.”

He’s spreading it on so thick. I pull the sheet over my head.

“It’s true!” Abel pokes me. “As of 9:48 this evening, Brandon and I are officially Doing It. Ladies, our love lives were ready to stall out, but you inspired us to unprecedented heights of passion with all your wackadoodle sex melodramas and extraneous adjectives.” He yanks the sheet off me and he looks so adorable with his mussy sex hair that I have to laugh. “Bran. What do you say to our freako fairy godmothers out there?

I shut my eyes. “Thanks guys.”

Abel tugs off his ABANDON shirt. “We’re going back to bed now.”

He switches off the camera and tackles me, laughing, and I can’t believe we said that and did that and there’s no way in hell we’re posting it on Screw Your Sensors. But then he leaves a trail of soft electric kisses down my chest and slips my boxers down again, and by the time he’s done I wouldn’t care if Xaarg himself poofed into the room and challenged us to a life-or-death game of WordWhap.

I lay there sweaty under the sheet, trying to catch my breath. Abel crawls over to the laptop and uploads the vid. He rubs his hands together and grins, which is supposed to be cute but gives me a sinister chill.

Twenty minutes later, while we’re molding Plastic Cadmus and Plastic Sim into X-rated positions and crafting an impromptu photo essay, we get a direct message from our former enemy at the Cadsim fanjournal: Miss Maxima: laughing so hard I legit peed a little. YES. I will meet up with you lovebirds for lunch in Salt Lake. I’ll even buy. See you then, boys.

You have no idea how much I’m looking forward to it.