Stardust

     Paperwork was a torturous invention that should have been banned by the Geneva Convention, but July had to admit, its results were pleasant.

     After the long and miserable slog of filling out forms—featuring halting and awkward conversations with Ophelia that included statements like “I don’t remember my birthday” and “How do I pick a bedspread?”—July found herself provided with almost everything she asked for before curfew that night. A silent, short Dusty with a blue crest left several boxes at her door, which contained clothes and shoes, a thick red comforter, and—her breath caught in her chest at this one, having fully expected she wouldn’t get it—a CD player and a stack of shiny jewel cases.

     She went to bed confused and giddy, a Bruce Springsteen album playing over static-ridden speakers in the background, and woke up the next morning to someone knocking loudly on her door.

     Blearily, July rolled over and rubbed grit out of the corners of her eyes, struggling to climb out of the cozy black fog clouding her mind. The knocking stopped; she closed her eyes briefly, letting her mind drift, warmth suffusing her limbs like a steamy bath—then the knocking started again, rhythmic and insistent.

     July yelled something that hopefully amounted to “Hang on!” and dragged herself out of bed, blood rushing from her head as she suddenly stood up. She smacked her lips a few times, wincing at the taste of sleep thick on her tongue, stumbled over to the door, and cracked it open.

     It was Sage.

     “Hey.” Sage's hands were shoved awkwardly in the pockets of an ostentatiously lacy and ruffled pair of pants, and she sported a clumsy grin. “I’m, uh… I’m Sage. Ophelia suggested I help you get settled.”

     July, sleep-muddled and devoid of any filter, gaped helplessly at the woman. She was even taller than July remembered, somehow—she had to tilt her head back just to make eye contact—and her gaudy appearance was just as arresting as it had been back in New York. Maybe even more so, with the feminine ruffles and lace adorning her brightly-colored clothes, and the way her t-shirt clung to the solid curves of her shoulders and upper arms. Her hair, as startlingly neon-pink as ever, was styled slightly differently than it had been in New York—the sides of her undercut were freshly shaved with thin, curly designs, and the long top was pulled into loose twists that spilled over the right side of her head and framed her square face cutely.

     Two synapses finally fired. July managed to connect her ears to her brain and remember to participate in the conversation. “Settled?”

     Sage’s grin dropped abruptly as she nibbled at her bottom lip. “Ophelia said you and Cas had an… argument, yesterday.”

     July’s ears went hot. She suddenly became aware of the fact that she was wearing nothing but a massive t-shirt and underwear, and pulled nervously at the hem of her shirt.

     “I’m not judging you,” Sage said hastily. “We talked and I volunteered to help you adjust, make sure you’re prepared to live here with everyone. It wasn’t fair to throw you into that situation with no warning.”

     That was an understatement. July stepped back from the door and gestured wordlessly for Sage to come in. She obliged, standing awkwardly in the middle of July’s mostly-empty room, hands still in her pockets.

     Once the door had swung shut, July realized she had no idea what she was supposed to be doing. On instinct, she pulled one of the drawers of her dresser open and began rummaging through her new clothes. Only half-paying-attention to her search, she said “So, what else do I need to be warned about?”

     “Well,” Sage said, “Axel is here.”

     She froze with a bra in her hand, staring at the lacy pink piece of lingerie as if it contained the answers to all her problems. Some sort of faint noise of acknowledgment fell from her lips without conscious input. Then, more brain cells progressively getting back up to full speed, she turned around to face Sage and, tone a bit more accusatory than she intended, said “You know about my shit with Axel?”

     “You did have an explosive fistfight in a kitchen ten feet away from me,” Sage said dryly. July’s face felt extremely hot again; she swung back around to busy herself with the clothes. Behind her, Sage cleared her throat. “And, well. We’ve been living together for the last year, the four of us. And Teid, of course. They’ve… told me a lot about you.”

     There was a very large, painful lump in July’s throat. She had to swallow several times before she could say “Turn around.”

     “Pardon?”

     July yanked a couple more pieces of clothing out of the dresser and slammed the drawers shut. “I’m changing. Turn around.”

     As she pulled on her outfit—cargo pants and a cropped hoodie—July made a weak attempt at untangling the mess of emotions building in her chest. They swirled in messy circles around the sucking hole that had replaced her heart; she swallowed the lump in her throat down again and again, gritting her teeth til they scraped against one another painfully.

     It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. Cas was an angry, distant stranger, and the last time she’d seen Axel was when she’d dumped him and punched him in the face, and Teiddan was letting an alien call him nicknames, and it wasn’t fair.

     July finished buttoning her pants and grabbed her hairbrush off the dresser. As she yanked it through her tangles, she said “Done. You can look now.”

     Sage turned back around to face her. “You look nice.”

     She snorted, wincing slightly as her brush tore through a nasty snarl. “Is Teiddan here?”

     “No. Just the four of us, and another girl from the station. You don't know her.”

     July finished her aggravated brushing and tossed the hairbrush back to the dresser, where it clattered loudly against the wood. She squared her shoulders and lifted her jaw to make direct eye contact with Sage—meeting her golden eyes was still jarring, still sent shivers down July’s spine, sent fragments of dreams running through her head, reminded her that only boundary-crossing freaks dreamed so often and so intensely about total strangers—but she resolutely maintained eye contact anyway.

     “Alright,” July said. “Let’s face the music.”

###

     The proverbial music turned out to be a disappointment. No-one else was in the common room when they arrived.

     July took the opportunity to poke around the kitchen, an open-floor-plan space just off the main room—it contained a fridge larger than any July had previously encountered in her life, featuring shiny metal double-doors, the refrigeration and freezer sections divided vertically and equal in volume. It also had not one, but two stoves, a wide variety of other appliances and tools July couldn’t make heads or tails of, an entirely separate room full of shelves of canned and dry food, and a wooden circular table and matching chairs in the middle of the room.

     Overwhelmed and mildly confused by the sheer breadth of options, July dug around in a cabinet over the sink until she found a chipped ceramic bowl, poured herself a bowl of cereal, and ate it while slumped over the kitchen table directly across from Sage.

     Halfway through her Cheerios, June wandered into the room, perched on the table beside July, and patted the top of her head condescendingly before leaning down to whisper in her ear, breath hot on July’s skin.

     “Don’t react. Nobody else can see me.” That was a stupidly obvious statement. July didn’t appreciate how self-referential her hallucinations had gotten lately.

     June leaned back, a cool smirk on her lips, and pressed the pad of her thumb to July’s nose. She was still wearing that pair of mirrored sunglasses, the lenses reflecting a dim, doubled vision of July eating her cereal.

     There was a small beep from the other room, followed by a handful of voices chattering and overlapping; July looked through the kitchen archway to see four people filing into the common area—Cas and Jasper, holding hands, a girl July didn’t recognize, and, oh fuck, Axel. The group quieted as they saw her—except for the unfamiliar girl, who bounded across the room with enthusiastic, long-legged strides and practically threw herself in the chair next to Sage. She leaned over the table and stuck her hand out toward July, a wide grin splitting her face.

     “Hey! I’m Mels,” she said. “July, yeah? I’ve heard a lot about you!”

     July stalled out. After a second, she gingerly returned Mels’ handshake; it was firm, dry, and pumped up-and-down so vigorously it left her wrist exhausted. “Not great things, I’m guessing.”

     Mels laughed, husky and melodic. “Nah, they made you sound really cool, actually.”

     July took another bite of cereal, giving Mels a once-over. The girl was energetic, constantly moving and shifting in her seat, and every time she moved, her thick cloud of black curls bounced around her shoulders weightily. There were deep laugh lines around her eyes and cheeks; her limbs looked a bit too long for her skinny frame and she moved around in an ungainly, puppet-like fashion that reminded July of Lake. She couldn’t figure out if this was endearing or distressing.

     There wasn’t much time to consider that; as everyone else filed into the kitchen, Jasper said “I’m making omelets,” prompting several people to accost him at once, talking over each other in loud but friendly tones. While this unfolded, June hopped off the table and came around behind July, draping her arms over July’s shoulders and propping her chin on top of her head.

     Eventually, the clamor died down. Axel and Cas sat at one end of the table, diagonal to Sage, while Jasper bustled around the kitchen in the background, providing a constant background noise of dishes clinking and pans clattering.

     July, at a complete loss for what to do, gave a small, awkward wave to Axel and Cas.

     To her eternal surprise, Axel waved back.

     She felt very lightheaded. June snorted.

     “So, July,” Mels said loudly, leaning back so far in her chair she tilted two of its legs off the ground, “everyone’s been wondering since yesterday—how’d you get here?”

     “You don’t have to answer that,” Sage cut in.

     Mels waved dismissively, as if to say Yeah, sure; simultaneously, June whispered “Tell them you got lost on your way to the bathroom” in July’s ear, prompting her to choke back a sudden giggle.

     July shoved another bite of cereal in her mouth to mask her indiscretion. After she’d collected herself and swallowed, she said “How do you mean?”

     Mels reached behind herself—tilting her chair so far back, July began to worry she'd send herself crashing to the floor—and tapped Jasper on the arm as he passed. “Jas? A little help?”

     “Most people show up here after being hospitalized.” Jasper gave Mels a firm pat on the back. She dropped her chair legs back onto the floor with a clunk. He turned back to the counter and picked up a whisk. “My first time, I was in a bad car crash, got taken to the hospital, woke up here a couple days later.”

     “Huh.” July looked down at the slowly-disintegrating soggy rings in her bowl. June’s fingers pressed against her collarbones, slowly digging her nails into July’s skin—she fought back a wince. “I don’t know. I was living with L—with my friend, and then a bunch of Dusties showed up in my backyard. I got knocked out, woke up here.”

     “They wanted you specifically.” Sage's tone was strangely satisfied. June’s nails dragged painfully over July’s chest; she pressed her lips together firmly, refusing to react.

     “Talk about something else,” June hissed, but Sage was talking again and July wasn’t about to interrupt her.

     “They wanted all of us specifically.” Sage leaned over the table, palms pressed to its pale brown surface, eyes flashing intently. “See, we weren’t taken from a hospital, either—we were in New York, getting…” She trailed off, her eyes drifting over toward Axel, then abruptly flicking back to July.

     “It’s fine,” Axel said. He had his hands clasped behind his head; as he spoke, he raised them up and stretched from one side to the other, giving off an utterly casual air. “We were on a weekend trip to get my blood tests. You know, Jules—the clinic Teid got me in with?”

     Twice a year, every year since she’d met him, Teiddan took Axel aboveground for off-the-books blood tests. He’d get six-month supplies of hormones on every trip, which he stored in a heavy canvas bag under his bunk. July didn’t like needles, so she always made herself scarce when he pulled the bag out.

     Her mouth felt very dry. She realized she was taking an uncomfortably long time to respond; with a flick of her tongue out to wet her cracked lips, she said “Yeah.”

     “It was my fault, really,” Sage said. Mels opened her mouth like she was about to say something, but Sage cut her off. “I insisted on coming along—not for any good reason, I just wanted a change of pace. Someone must have recognized me and tipped off the police.”

     “Aw, fuck off,” Axel said, with more than a hint of affection in his voice. July swallowed heavily. “Might as well say it’s my fault for refusing to switch doctors, at that point.”

     “Talk about something else,” June said. One of her hands left July’s torso, only to immediately wind itself into her hair at the base of her scalp, painfully tight. She peeled her weight away from July to stand up straight, only connected by the hand gripping July’s hair. July, with effort, kept her face very still and her shoulders very straight.

     Sage didn't seem to be leaving the topic anytime soon. “They sent cops after us, just like they did to you—they showed up at our hotel while Axel was at the clinic.”

     “There were cops at the clinic, too,” Axel supplied helpfully.

     “It stands to reason they know what we all have in common—we were all at the Wh—”

     Without warning, the hand in July's hair yanked, jerking her head back painfully, and June slapped her across the face.

     Entirely unprepared for this, July yelped in shock as a burst of stinging pain flushed over her skin—she flung her arms up instinctively over her face, but no more blows followed.

     A sudden, ringing silence fell over the table.

     “July,” Cas said. It was the first time they had spoken since they arrived at the table, and their voice was quiet and tense. It sent another hot rush of shame over July’s body, as if she didn’t feel bad enough already. “Are you seeing things right now?”

     July dropped her arms from her face, cheek and ears on fire. She stared mutely at Cas, as if she could psychically project her thoughts—don’t say that shit in front of everyone, what's wrong with you?—across the table and into their skull.

     Cas seemed to get the idea. “It’s alright. Everyone here knows about your affliction.”

     “Affliction?” June hissed in July’s ear, at the same time that Mels said “It’s not a big deal, I have—”

     “Gee, Cas, is there anyone you haven’t told?” July’s voice came out louder than she’d intended. Little black dots swam at the corners of her vision; somewhere at the very back of the room, something started to crackle. She ignored it, just like she ignored June.

     “I don’t think that’s very fair,” Cas said. Their face was set in a careful, neutral expression, but July caught their bottom lip trembling, just a tiny bit. “I thought you were dead.”

     “Right,” July said, nasty and heated. “So when you're dead, I'll go ahead and put all your secrets in the goddamn paper!”

     Enunciating very clearly, as if they were spelling something out for a child, Cas looked her dead in the eyes. “I told my friends—the people I lived with—about my relationship with my dead friend. I did not ‘put it in the goddamn paper.’” They made air-quotes around the phrase; July fantasized, momentarily, about reaching over the table and snapping their skinny fingers in half. “Your hallucinations were—”

     “They aren’t yours to say anything about!” July slammed her palms on the table in frustration; a bit of milk splashed out of her bowl. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes again—she ground her teeth, trying fruitlessly to force them down. She hated being a crybaby. She hated how little she’d been able to control herself ever since she'd woken up on this fucking Dusty ship, how often she found herself crying or shaking or snapping over the stupidest things—the smell of smoke started to creep into her nose, and she nearly sobbed.

     “I’m sorry.”

     July’s head snapped up to stare at Cas again. They didn’t look like they were joking. Their eyebrows were drawn in a look of concern, their head tilted to one side ever-so-slightly. As she sat there, wide-eyed, they started to fiddle with their fingers, tapping their nails on the table in cascading clicks, still not breaking eye contact. Beside them, Axel looked impatient, prodding their arm repeatedly as if he wanted to interject something, but they ignored him.

     “I am being… defensive, once again.” Their mouth twisted as if they tasted something awful. “My judgment is compromised by my emotions. You are confused, overwhelmed, in pain—you have been alone since your arrival, whereas I have had help adjusting—I should not harangue you like this. I’m sorry.”

     Before July (or Axel) could say anything, Jasper popped up over Cas’s shoulder, bearing a plate. “That’s the spirit,” he said cheerfully, putting the plate and its large portion of omelet in front of Cas on the table. “Everyone be on your best behavior in front of the kids,” he added in an undertone, then bustled back over to the counter and picked his spatula back up.

     “Kids?” July said, still trying to fight back dregs of tears. She hastily wiped at her eyes, hoping no-one noticed; when she looked over toward the common room, there were two more people making their way over to the kitchen, hand-in-hand.

     They were a boy and a girl, both in the awkward, gangly stage where they’d only just started growing out of their baby fat; as they came closer, July saw they were nearly identical, from their small brown faces and dark eyes, right down to the mole both of them had at the corners of their mouths. The girl had long, shiny black hair pulled into a tight ponytail, its loose end bouncing in thick, tangled waves; the boy had shaggy, equally-shiny hair that drooped around his face in greasy waves, thick bangs falling into his eyes. They both looked startled when they saw July and paused in the archway, clinging closer to each other.

     “Nina, Baz,” Jasper said loudly, making a beeline around the table to where the pair was anxiously hovering, still holding his spatula, “This is July. July,” he whipped around, pointing to her with the spatula, then back at the kids, “this is Weeb and Weebier.”

     “Oh my Goooooood,” Nina said, rolling her eyes with truly impressive disdain, right as Baz shrieked “Jasper!” and began pummeling the larger man with his fists, prompting a brief, friendly tussle.

     July sat back in her seat. The smell of smoke was thick in her nose, but the arrival of the kids drew everyone’s attention away from her, and that made it easier to deal with. She couldn’t see or hear June anymore, and that was a blessing, too.

     Fractured, cheerful conversations began to break out around her as Jasper portioned out servings of omelet. To her surprise, he offered her a piece—she wasn’t very hungry, but she accepted anyway and pushed the remainder of her extremely soggy cereal aside.

     It was pretty good omelet. Jasper was a good cook.

     She let the flow of parallel conversations unfold around her without participating, or really even listening. The crackle of flames faded gently into the background. It was almost… nice. At least, if she didn’t look too hard at anyone around her.