#hyaw

Sage lets out a low, trembling sigh, and clutches her jacket closer to her body.

Were, she reminds herself, maybe "were my family" is the better phrase to use here. Would still be, if she hadn't opened her big mouth on a visit to DC last week. While Kim stood outside her door, frozen in stunned silence.

The memory is humiliating enough now to make Sage train her eyes with unusual focus outside the car window. She doesn't want to see the worry in Basil's eyes, or the pleas to talk to her in Sloane's.

She isn't sure what she'll see in Kim's, because it's been hard maintaining eye contact with her ever since that moment in the doorway - but she knows for sure whatever warmth she'd seen there before must be long gone.

On the face of it, everything seems the same. After that awkward first day, Kim seemed eager to steer things back to normal. So normal, in fact, that it began to freak Sage out.

It wouldn't be the first time someone tried to talk like everything was okay, while their stares and body language said something else altogether. Damien's wariness. Khaan's clinical interest. Winona's transparent-as-glass attempts to look away from her shoulder. The brief flash of pain in President Thompson's eyes every time she saw Sage. And while there's been enough press releases and outreach designed to change public opinion on sentient andriods....the path to real transformation is slow. And hard. And sometimes downright exhausting.

Sage is tired. She doesn't want to have to go through conversations like that again. And to have Kim - the woman she considered mom even before they met - be the person she had that talk with...would practically break her.

Better to keep off that eventuality for as long as she possibly can.

"Sage, baby," Kim says, distractedly, eyes on the road. "Which song next? Come Fly With Me, Fly Me to The Moon or The Girl from Ipenama?"

Nervous, Sage bites her lip. Kim has never had this much trouble choosing Sinatra songs on a road trip before. Still, maybe guessing why Kim would want these tunes in particular would distract her. The first one probably for the travel vibes. The second fits the theme of their trip and Sage suspects Kim would put the third one on just to get her to translate the Spanish verses again.

"Come Fly With Me for now," she says, "I don't care if it's about going on a plane and reminds me how sick and tired we all got of airplane peanuts last year - it's still a travel song."

Kim's laughter is light like a summer breeze, as she fiddles with the radio. Sloane joins her, her voice so like her mother's that they sound like double echoes. Sage can see the swing of her new earrings as Sloane turns to look at them. Bright yellow hoops that contrast so perfectly with her purple blazer, the spiral-like curls at the edges intricate and made entirely of paper.

Sage feels a glow of pride, looking at the immaculate detailing. Kim had taken up quilling as a hobby only early this year, and already her craftwork could rival any seasoned professional.

"Wonder how Dipper's doing," Sloane murmurs, suddenly rummaging inside her bag for her phone, "maybe I should give Nadia and Steve a call?"

"In the lap of luxury, for sure," Basil says, smiling.

"That dog is so spoiled," Sage lets out an unladylike snort.

Kim looks too preoccupied with the road to say anything, but no more than two minutes later the song on the car radio changes. To a song that Sage is pretty damn sure isn't a regular one on their playlist. Mama Will Bark. With its humourous whimsy, terrible dog puns and periodic howling. Sage almost chokes on her own laugh.

Her eyes meet Kim's in the front view mirror for less than a second; so belief that she's convinced she has to have imagined that Kim winked at her.

--

Basil and Sloane give Sage her birthday gift at the Campgrounds, just before sunset. She gasps at the beauty she's just unwrapped - A GoPro Hero 35 Black camera kit; the Creator Edition Bundle, the kind that comes with a chest mount, a head mount, a tripod - the works. It's the kind of camera that would work like magic any time, any terrain, any weather. An adventure lover's dream.

"Wow..." she breathes, her chest tight, "Fucking wow."

Behind them, Kim clears her throat. Very audibly.

Spying from beneath her lashes, Sage spots a slight smile. "Oops," she says, not feeling very sorry at all. Secret jokester that she is, Kim likes to front like she cares about the group's collective tendency to cuss at the drop of a hat, but does such a poor job of it that it's become an inside joke among them all now.

Kim chuckles. "What say we all take a small walk after half an hour?"

The three of them nod, and stuff the wrapping paper and used tapes into a bag they've reserved just for garbage, to be thrown at the sanitary dump area before they leave the premises. Basil looks around the near-empty expanse of greenery, "We could go now if you want, Kim."

A small huff of laughter. "Not yet. The moon will be out any minute now. Go put that camera to good use and...moongaze, I guess...I'll just take care of a few things in the tent."

Soon enough, the harvest moon does come out - more swollen, more rounded, more golden than the full moon they're all used to. Its colouring takes on an almost ombre tone - a light gold at the top, melting into an almost red-orange hue towards the bottom. It feels so close you could be tempted to reach out and touch it.

It wasn't like they didn't know what to expect. Sloane told them. Showed them videos, pictures, all peppered with jargon they could barely understand. Explained the science so that by the time they came here they knew that, technically, this was an optical illusion caused by the moon's elliptical orbit. They knew what a perigee was. Enough documentary nights have passed between the three of them to make the moon sound like less of an object of magic and whimsy, and more a funny little rock that orbits the earth every 28 days.

But...but seeing it up there like this, up in a sky unmarred by smog and bright lights, where on any other night the Milky Way would be laid out across the sky like a carpet of stars. And so close, that you could make out - ever so faintly - the lattice work of the craters and the fine lines that connect them. Sage wonders at the sheer intimacy of this experience; of being here, watching this, with the two people who mean the world to her.

"Yknow what," she murmurs, rummaging through boxes and protective cases and quickly setting up the GoPro, "now would be a good time to try this baby out. Like, it is my birthday."

Basil grins. "I'm game," he says looking at Sloane, "have any ideas, babe?"

Sloane looks up, nose scrunched in deep thought. "Would silhouettes take too much time? The moon could shift position too soon if we don't time it right."

"Leave that to me," Sage says, smirking. "I'm the photographer here, remember?"

Sloane rolls her eyes in a way that reminds them eerily of Alana. "I built you from scratch a year ago, remember?"

"Touché," Sage chuckles as she gets to work. The setup isn't easy, and the fact that the moon could shift position anytime makes Sage's movements almost frenetic, but just as she is about to signal to Basil and Sloane to move together for a silhouette shot perfectly set up on the backdrop of a Harvest Moon, she sees Sloane approach her.

"You're the birthday girl," she says, panting, "You should get first dibs on a shot."

Sage giggles. "Trust you to spoil me as much as you do Dipper." She makes a few final adjustments, then turns to Sloane. "You know how to work this?"

"Sure I do. I looked up at least 8 - no, 9 - tutorials!"

She lets out a belly laugh, playfully punching Sloane in the shoulder. "Show off."

Sloane has only one instruction to Basil and Sage when they finally position themselves to her satisfaction. They're already in each other's arms; Sage winding hers behind his neck and fiddling idly with the mess of curls there, Basil flattening his palms against her waist, nuzzling her nose with his.

"Kiss already!" Sloane yells.

Basil grins. "As the lady wishes," Sage barely hears the words over the rush of sensation flooding her, as his mouth descends on her top lip. She smiles into the kiss, her hands already moving to fist themselves in his shirt.

Almost a year since they first met, since that first life-altering kiss outside his apartment door. So much has happened to them since then...but still. Her pulses still race like it's the first time all over again.

Sage takes a deep, shaky breath when their lips part, her forehead touching his, not fully ready to break contact yet. She caresses his back slowly as she lets go, and she knows that the biggest, goofiest, sappiest grin must be showing on her face right now.

She calls out to Sloane as she makes her way to where she's standing. "Your turn, space princess!"

Sage lines up her shot and stands back, noting with satisfaction that the moon looks suitably large - overwhelmingly so - and still very close to the horizon. Basil and Sloane's silhouettes stand out perfectly against the backdrop; Sloane cups his face with both hands as she usually does, her shoulders folding in on themselves as she allows herself to settle into their kiss. Sage knows it's always been this way between them; sharing physical space isn't easy for Sloane, and she needs a partner who will ease her in rather than rush her.

Sage doesn't know what that feels like - she needs an element of surprise, the thrill of brief, needy kisses in hidden hallways. She's always been the more tactile one - for her, touch is comfort. And somehow, inexplicably, Basil seems to understand both their ways of loving, and enjoy it. Love it, even.

Stop being sappy, Sage shakes her head, laughing, you're gonna take the best damn pictures of them they've ever seen, just wait.

The camera captures everything - Sloane standing on tiptoe to kiss Basil, one of his hands tenderly cradling the back of her neck and the other wrapped around her, the shape of their parted lips so heart-stoppingly close as they move away. Sage has taken so many that it will probably be harder to pick the best one from the lot.

They take more pictures by the moon (Kim pops by shortly after Sage's last shots of Basil and Sloane, telling them she'll take fifteen more minutes before joining them for their walk). Sloane and Sage forming the cheesiest-ever heart shapes with their arms, making Basil laugh so much they're sure his photos will come out a blurry, incoherent mess. Spotting a nightjar on a low branch, lining the shot up so its silhouette is caught in sharp contrast to the supermoon too.

Sage wants to take other, simpler pictures: just them sitting and talking, the moonlight casting a golden glow over their faces...but she can't. She won't. Without Kim, pictures like that would feel incomplete. No matter what problems they may have among themselves, no matter what Kim would think of her...Kim matters too much to be excluded from her most personal, most vulnerable photos of this night.

Almost as though summoned by Sage's thoughts, Kim appears. Her smile seems a little tired, and her right hand seems to curl loosely into itself. A fist, but not quite. She carries a flashlight with a red filter on her right hand, the ones they all bought two weeks ago to preserve their night vision. For the first time Sage looks back at her, and when she looks at Basil and Sloane a few seconds later there is something strange about their smiles that she can't exactly place.

They're ten minutes into their walk when Sage realizes that Basil and Sloane are far behind her and Kim, seeming to take their own sweet time to catch up.

Panicking, she turns to Kim, searching her face for a mirror of the confusion she feels. She finds none. Kim is instead taking deep breaths, putting her hands in her pockets and soaking in the fragrance of the dark cherry trees nearby. Like she isn't in any real hurry either.

An invisible fist seems to close around the center of her chest. Sage can hardly breathe.

"Sit with me for a bit, Sage." Kim's voice is warm, gentle, like the handmade quilt she'd made Sloane one Christmas, that now covers the three of them in their own bed. For the first time she doesn't trust the emotion she reads into it.

Sage doesn't give much thought these days to the inner workings of her own body. Whether she has heartbeats, what causes the fizzing sensation beneath her skin whenever she gets too nervous, how her blushing (which not many notice) isn't a result of too much blood rushing to a singular place but a mechanism set in motion by commands and code. But it's times like these - when her body feels too much, all at once - that she wishes she understood better how it all worked. That she wonders why the magnitude of what she's experiencing alone doesn't cause her body to shut down.

Right now, it's just one emotion - fear - and there's too much of it firing every synapse in this manmade (womanmade? Sloane created her, after all) body.

She feels Kim's eyes boring into her as they settle on the grass.

"Sage, honey. Did I do something wrong?"

For the first time in a week, Sage looks up at Kim and actually holds her gaze this time. Those weren't the words she was expecting to hear, nor is this soft, worrying look in her eyes the one she was expecting to see. She lets out a deep, shuddering breath.

"Thought you hated me," she presses her lips together, hating the way tears form a film over her eyes and blur her vision, hating her inability nowadays to pretend she was strong when she most needed it, "For lying. For not being human enough."

The force of Kim's sudden embrace feels as powerful as a gut punch. Sage gasps at how strong Kim's arms feel, wrapped around her shoulders, engulfing her so that Sage's face is buried in the space between neck and shoulder. She breathes in Kim's distinctive fragrance - fresh herbs and warm tea - and is hit by the sudden sharp memory of the phantom figure she rarely thinks about now. The mother who hugged her just like this when her first crush rejected her in front of the whole school. The mother Sloane programmed her to remember.

"Oh, honey," Kim whispers, hands rubbing down her back in a rhythm that Sage always associated with soft blankets and lullabies. "No. No. No. Never." Her voice is soft and hoarse, almost like she's trying to hold back tears. "I could never hate you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I ever allowed you to think that."

Sage turns her head in the opposite direction towards the moonlit horizon, cheek still pressed against Kim's shoulder. It isn't Kim's fault, not really. She was trying to tell her nothing had changed. It was...it was just hard for her to believe.

She takes a few deep breaths, tries hard not to let her tears fall. They fall anyway.

When Kim speaks again, her voice is still soft, barely louder than a whisper. "I...I think I know where I got it wrong. That first day, wasn't it? Because I barely said anything."

Sage doesn't answer. There's too much she wants to say; none of it feels right for this conversation. Kim pauses for a beat, then speaks again.

"I think I wanted to take time to process. All those times I saw you crying about your mother, all those times the three of you would look at me...like there was something you needed to hide from me."

"Sorry," Sage says, giving Kim's arm an apologetic squeeze. "We were going to tell you at some point, I swear. I guess we just keep putting it off."

Kim places her hands on either side of Sage's face, raising it as if she wants to take a good look at her. Her eyes are moist too, and the pain she feels at making Kim sad twists inside her stomach like a knife. "Sloane told me you had no clue who you were until you saved Basil from a taser."

Sage nods. "I had all these memories. Huddling under a table with my mom during a storm. Getting jealous when my friends were hogging her attention," Kim chuckles a little at that one. Sage looks down before she whispers, "road trips with Sinatra on the radio..."

Kim's hands come to her shoulders now, as she shakes her head. "Sloane told me about that. All I could think of was what my poor Sage had been through. I felt like I needed to fully reevaluate everything I thought I knew about you with all that in mind. And when the time came to talk...I guess I didn't know how to actually talk about it."

Sage nods and looks away, finally understanding. Her brain is too much on overdrive to immediately respond, the words she doesn't hate me, she doesn't hate me, forming a tattoo in her head.

Kim speaks again. "I wanted to show you that it didn't matter to me...that's why I started speaking to you like before. Except...that backfired, didn't it?"

Sage sighs. Kim doesn't know about all the people who tried to pretend and then screwed up anyway, and Sage doesn't want her to know. "Maybe. But I don't know if I was ready to talk either," she says slowly, "And I can't blame you for taking a day to think."

Kim seems to search Sage's face for... something - Sage can't figure out what - before she moves away, raising her knees in front of her and winding her arms around them. There is a small, tight smile on her lips. "I guess you could say I was...processing."

For a few moments, Sage can do nothing but blink. Several times.

"Oh my God, Kim," once Sage gets it, she can't stop laughing, "that joke was terrible!"

The smile widens. "Sorry my load time took most of the day."

"No! Worse!"

Kim stares at her, all placid innocence. "Kim.exe has stopped working."

"Stop! Stop!" Sage almost punches her arm in her attempts to stop laughing, just like she did at Kim's jokes several weeks ago, and every golden, sunlit, wonderful week before that. "You're killing me here!"

Kim and Sage fall over each other, finding themselves in loop after loop of giggle fits. So much so that they forget what they were actually laughing about - they only have to look at each other before they start again.

When they're done clutching their stomachs and wiping tears from their eyes, Sage keeps her head on Kim's shoulder. Kim keeps her arm around Sage's. All the laughter is gone from Kim's voice now; it is low and measured, as if she's been practicing the words.

"It isn't fair."

Sage tenses. "What isn't?"

"That anyone would make you believe...that how you were built, should make you any less of a person."

Sage smiles wanly. It's as if all the stress and all the pain, all the fear of having to face hostility again, has leaked out of her - leaving her in a weird mix of exhaustion and bliss. She winds her arms around Kim's midsection, closing her eyes against the faint memory of doing this as a child, to a figure who feels more phantom than mother.

"I have my people," she says, "and before you ask - yes, you're one of them. I was just afraid I'd lose you."

Their arms tighten around each other. "Never," Kim says it like a vow, then tilts her head to where Basil and Sloane stand, holding hands and gazing at the harvest moon.

Sage grins, briefly dislodging herself from Momma Kim's embrace and calling out to them.

"Get here, you two! Stop pretending to moongaze or whatever. Kim and I patched up!"

"About time you did!" Basil calls back as they both make their way towards Kim and Sage.

Sage pretends to look annoyed. "We spent, like, a whopping ten minutes yapping here. The least you could've done was sneak in a good makeout sesh."

"Sage!" Sloane says, grinning and hiding her face in Basil's arm. "Not in front of mom!"

Kim laughs. "You two expect me to believe that? I've seen more than my fair share, Trudy!"

Seeing the four of them laugh together in a way they haven't all week, Sage's chest feels so full she can hardly bear it. They all stand together, switching between giggly banter about the rest of the group and gazing up at the golden moon again. They know it's the last time they'll see a supermoon this year.

Kim stops Sage just as they're all about to return to their tents, ready to settle for the night. Basil and Sage look at each other, smile, and go inside.

"C'mere," she says, taking something out of her pocket. Whatever it is, it's small enough to nestle in the palm of her hand. "In the middle of all that yapping I forgot to give you your birthday present, darling."

Sage lets out a soft gasp. In the brief but intense rollercoaster that was today she almost forgot she had a birthday to celebrate.

Kim opens her palm to reveal two large, gorgeous, teardrop shaped earrings - the quilling pattern on them so intricate it reminds Sage of arabesque designs. Even in the dark the colours dazzle: electric blue on the outside, sunset orange on the inside. The double-toned hues remind Sage so much of a fiery sunset, sinking into a deep blue sea.

"Happy birthday, honey," Kim whispers.

This work of art. One that must have taken blood, sweat, tears, paper strips, glue, tools. One that must have taken Momma Kim hours to get right.

Sage tries to swallow a lump in her throat, cursing herself for the fresh onset of tears. "For me?"

Kim lets out a laugh that borders on watery. "Anything for my girls." She steals a glance at their tent, "and boy, of course. Basil's getting a pendant. Don't tell."

She giggles; another implanted memory emerges as she holds out her little finger. This time it doesn't appear with the wave of bitterness that usually follows...this time, she holds that memory to her chest, with joy. And love.

She links her pinky with Kim's, laughing again as the older woman's eyes brighten. "Pinky promise."

--

They'd asked for a two-night stay when they'd made the bookings. Cherry Springs is an internationally-acclaimed Dark Sky Park, Sloane had explained back then, before slipping into what they all dub her personal "Guide to Understanding Astronomy Jargon for My Very Confused Boyfriend and Best Friend", That means a place that restricts artificial light so you can experience true darkness. The stars can never be clearer in the night sky than in a place like that! You just won't see as much of it when you have a big bright supermoon on the horizon.

Which is how they end up staying another night at Cherry Springs, soaking in the brilliance of the stars against a slowly waning moon, shrunk to its usual size. The three of them are huddled together beneath a quilt that Kim had knitted for Sloane, long before she had ever met Basil and Sage.

Kim herself has turned in for the night, early sleeper that she is. She'd kissed them all goodnight before leaving, and Sage couldn't resist tightening her arms around her so she could hold on to her warmth a minute more.

Sage marvels at how comfortably the three of them fit against each other right now: her head on Basil's shoulder, Sloane's lying sideways against his chest, her fingers idly playing with the smaller curls above Sage's neck, taking full advantage of the fact that she feels ticklish there. Sage squirms and buries her hushed laughter in Basil's arm.

Dangly, beautiful, handmade earrings - yellow and blue-orange - swing joyously against Sloane's and Sage's necks. Hugging the quilt tighter to herself, Sage begins to play with Sloane's lovely yellow hoops. Sloane returns the gesture, grinning cheekily, and Basil lets out a small huff of laughter.

They'll head home tomorrow - wind in their hair, the sun on their skin, singing New York, New York. Just as they did before they came here...but not at all the same. They will probably return louder. Happier. More one with each other than ever before.

She looks around at the two people with her, and the woman already sleeping in a tent inside. When she releases a breath, it comes out in a happy sigh.

My people, Sage thinks dreamily, as her eyes follow the long, winding, heaven-bound path of the Milky Way. My family.

--

Harvest moons refer to the final supermoon of the year, which usually shows up towards the end of September. It's called so because it coincides with the harvest season. This year it actually did happen on 29th Sept. Learn more about harvest moons here, and different kinds of supermoons here.

References for the quilled earrings Kim made for the girls:

I HC that Sloane likes hoops, and this is the first design Kim masters. So the one on the left is Sloane's, and the blue-orange one on the right is Hayden's birthday present.

Currently the latest GoPro in the market is the Hero 12, but since this is set in the future I've given it a different number.

Faceclaims:

Sage Young - Lupita Nyong'o

Basil Park - Eric Mun

Sloane Washington - Nelly Muse

Kim Washington - Aunjanue Ellis

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Tagging @choicesficwriterscreations for FoTW and (possibly) Bisexual Awareness Week

Tagging @choicesseptemberchallenge2023 for Day 4 - Moonlight, Moon (pls ignore if the entry is too late)

Tagging @choicesprompts for Flufftober, "Birthday Surprise".