i have come to talk about cartoons

“Are you sayin’ you can help us?” he asks.

The Nomad “field scientist” – a questionable title at best – nods their head rapidly and gestures wildly towards the array of crystal pieces spread out on the table in front of them.

“The subject could communicate with his emotional core at a rate much more efficient than previously thought possible! Theoretically this would seem near-instantaneous! By synching the frequency of the crystals as ‘way points,’ if you will, the subject could set up a daisy-chain communications rig!”

“I’m right here,” Hater says. “Why is it calling me a subject? I’m nobody’s subject.”

“I’m telling you they’re spouting gibberish,” Sylvia says. “Wander, you know this kid?”

“Not as such, but we got to talkin’ last night. Trek was born on the same planet as me.” This, above all, is what had impressed him: Nomad home planets are numerous, with plenty of space between.

“Great,” Hater says, throwing up his hands (when Wander nearly falls from his shoulder, he steadies him). “Just what I need in my life. Another crackpot Nomad.”

“But maybe they’re right,” Wander says. “Maybe, even if we can’t put your heart back, we can make the distance shorter.”

“I don’t have the resources myself,” Trek says shyly, tugging at the visor of their helmet. “Or the technical know-how. I just collect stuff. Information.”

“Maybe one day,” Wander says, and grins real wide.

Hater doesn’t know how he is feeling (which is, perhaps, a sign).

-

A possible future:

 “Stop this,” Hater tells him, surrounded in a dreaming miasma, crushing Wander’s hands. Wander does not listen.

“Stop this,” Hater tells him in the aftermath of a conquest; Hater would have succeeded, if Wander had not showed up and taught the planet’s population to dance. Wander does not listen.

“Stop this,” Hater tells him, looking at reports of a far-off planet powered by a crystalline heart; the weather anomalies and increasingly dangerous atmospheric turbulence the people face. He has never seen the planet itself (avoided it like the plague), but it’s hard to pretend he doesn’t know. Wander does not listen.

 “Stop this,” Hater tells him, as the dream begins to darken, as crystals push their way through his skull and form cracks that run the length of his glowing eyes. Wander does not listen, but he does hold Hater’s hand.

“Stop this,” Hater tells him as he lies alone in the dark of his bedroom, whispering into the emptiness and clutching at Captain Tim’s soothingly rough bristles. Wander is not there to hear, so of course he does not listen.

“Stop this,” he tells him when they meet on Sheer, on Risa, on every planet in between, and he begins to learn that Wander’s appearances can be timed and calculated: a few weeks after each sighting, Hater feels warmth spreading out from his center. Wander does not listen.

 “Stop this,” Hater tells him when Wander appears one night, sitting at the end of Hater’s bed, eager to share stories, grinning real wide.

“Stop this,” Hater tells him when Wander asks to see the crystals, in real life this time.

“Stop this,” Hater tells him when he falls asleep before Wander leaves, the room disintegrating into dreams. Wander stays past the darkening, even when the crystals are so bright that neither of them can see, holding his hand and whispering, ready to speak and to sing.

“Stop this,” Hater tells him when he appears the next night, eagerness to help tinged with a mania Hater’s never seen before, prepared to strum Hater to sleep if he has to (he doesn’t have to – Hater sleeps deeply, even when he doesn't like it).

“Stop this,” Hater tells Wander when he comes back night after night, strange apologies on his lips and promises of “soon, I’ll help you soon” and the constant warm threat of holding Hater’s hand.

“Stop this,” Hater commands when Wander’s grin turns strained.

“Stop this,” Hater demands when one night, Wander doesn’t come.

(And the night after.)

(And the night after.)

(And the night–)

“Stop this,” he pleads when Wander beings to appear only in the dream’s dark spaces, eyes dripping pearls and glass, grinning real wide.

“Stop this,” he shouts into the vastness of space when Wander stops showing up in his head entirely.

“Stop this,” he chokes when there is suddenly a presence in his chest where there never was before, tearing at his bones and pushing the crystals towards shattering, making room in a place that had stood empty for millennia, like an invader and a soldier come home.

“Stop this,” he tells himself, cocooned in his room away from a world where every action provokes an immediate emotional reaction – a world where there is a piece of rock in his chest that beats in time to the rest of him, pushing at his ribcage and eating at his air.

“Stop this,” he says when Sylvia shows up just to hurl abuse at him – how dare he how dare he, Wander’s chest is rooted to the ground in some bare-bones too-bright cave, spindly trails of crystal tying him there, and he will not wake up.

“Stop this.”

Hater knows what Wander’s gift was, because it tears into him with every vicious pulse.

(And he will not wake up.)

-

A possible future:

Wander shuffles his feet, a thin box under his arm.

“Hater,” he says to the firmly-closed bedroom door. “You comin’ out of there any time soon?”

“No!” comes the snappish reply, muffled by walls and blankets.

“Aw, jeez,” Wander says, running a hand down his face. “I’m sorry, Hater, I didn’t mean to set everything off again.”

“Well you weren’t very careful about it, were you? You march in here with chocolates, flarping chocolates from Cocoatl, and expect me to just shake that off?”

“I thought you’d like ‘em! You said they were your favorite–”

“Exactly!”  There is a sound like a pillow being flung against the door, followed rapidly by what could have been a guitar. “Completely unannounced! No anniversary, no birthday, nothing! I didn’t have time to prepare!”

Wander thinks about this.

“Oh…well darn, I can see how that’d be hard to deal with. I, uh. I’ll just leave these here.” He tries very hard not to sound disappointed – even if he has made Hater upset without meaning to.

Something in his tone must have given him away (or everything in his tone – Wander’s no good at hiding things) because a moment later, Hater’s wrenched the door open, scowling down at him.

“How dare you,” he says.

“I know, I shouldn’t’ve–”

“I didn’t give you permission to leave.”

“I thought you’d want some privacy!”

Hater growls and pulls Wander into the room, slamming the door behind them. “I’m not used to this,” he cries, depositing Wander onto the pile of pillows and blankets that have been dragged into a nest on the floor. “It used to take a long time for anything to make an impact. How am I supposed to deal with every little thing you do causing a – a reaction?”

Wander stares at him for a moment, trying not to smile. “Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, Hater.”

“Whatever,” Hater says through a mouthful of chocolates. He sits down heavily next to Wander, pulling a blanket up over their shoulders.

Wander crosses his legs. Rests his head against Hater's arm and grins real wide.

-

A possible future:

Wander has counted every piece of jagged crystal that rises up inside Hater’s ribcage. He knows the shape of them, and why they form.

It makes a high pinging noise, like if light running through glass had a sound. He feels it resonating through his skull in ways he doubts Wander can sense. It’s like someone’s suddenly turned up the volume in the parts of his mind that are aware of magic (ley lines and radiation and how it all gets tangled. He’s never understood it very well, even when it was running electric through his own hands.).

Wander cocks his head to one side like a curious pet. “But…this is your dream we're standin' in, right? Can’t you just move ‘em around so they’re not in the way?”

“It’s not like that,” Hater says, and then adds, “Listen up.”

The lines of Wander’s body are beginning to blur into his surroundings – like a glob of paint dropped in water, wisp-ing out to join the whole.

“I don’t know how you keep showing up here, but you need to stop.”

“I’m not doin’ it on purpose.”

“Maybe not,” Hater growls, watching Wander’s face lose definition (the effect is startling, if he lets himself notice – like a surrealist portrait losing its eyes). “But you know why it’s happening. You keep – you keep meddling in things that don’t concern you.”

“But Hater,” Wander says, “I just wanna help.”

“Well, you’re not. It’s screwing everything up. Do you know how” – how strange my dreams have been, how sudden and complete these random attacks of sentiment have become, how hard it is to stay focused, how hard everything is, how hard you’re making it –

“…how annoying you’re being? I’ve been dealing with this ‘heart’ thing for a long, long time. You don’t know anything about anything.”

“But–”

“No buts!”

Hater watches the lines of Wander’s fingers meld together. In the logic of dreams he grabs for them – maybe this way he can stop what is coming.

This is how it always works: he falls asleep and sees the crystals, then everything gets dark and wrong.

Lately Wander is there too. Just at the start.

“We’ve got maybe three seconds,” he barks, crushing Wander’s fingers. “I’m telling you to stop.”

Wander is giving him a look that he can only describe as mushy. It takes Hater a moment to realize that this is because they are, technically, holding hands.

He flushes and pushes back in disgust. Wander’s thin arms fly backwards, followed by the rest of him. His body disperses, snow into rain.

Hater is alone with the crystals, which shine bright and lovely as ever. The cheery little bubbles interspersed between them begin to look like heat haze - a pastel potion, boiling.

“Here we go.” He touches his face, waiting.

For one wild moment, he wishes he wasn't alone.

(Once Wander had stayed past the dream's darkening, except it couldn't have been Wander anymore, because its eyes were green and glowing and it was clutching its crystal-studded chest like stoppering a wound.)

His eyes hurt. His skin (skin?) is rubbed raw by the light. Bleached like bone.