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Matt crossed the threshold from one world into another, the sudden Connecticut chill sending a shiver through his body. It was more temperate in the Demon Realm this time of year, but he had come prepared with a light jacket on his person and Gus’ favorite beanie snug over his ears. He worried it would stop smelling like him if he wore it too much, but this was the most reliable way to disguise his ears. And besides, he liked feeling close to Gus in whatever way he could.
He had even dressed up (by his standards) in an outfit that his boyfriend liked—a crisp T-shirt and green-toned plaid—treating this like a date without looking too hard at it.
They had always planned to do this together. It would have been Matt’s first time and Gus’ second. It’s not that they put it off, exactly. They were busy and, in a funny way, the Human Realm was right there now. They should have had all the time in the world.
Matt checked for the written instructions folded in his pants pocket. He had done his research, visiting Gravesfield one afternoon and getting his own library card so he could scour the internet, figuring out the logistics for his trip: the cost, the route, the best time to go. He was sure Luz or Vee would have been happy to help him navigate it all, but he didn’t want them to know about this.
It was a secret between him and Gus, and somehow, anyone catching wind of it would’ve dampened his resolve.
It didn’t matter how they smiled. He would see the pity underneath.
Matt scanned his hand-drawn map for how to get to the bus station from the Noceda’s and started walking. It was still early, with clouds crowding the sky, pushing down against the rising sun. The town was gray and muted, but comfortable for all its sleepiness.
Matt recognized the surrounding neighborhood from the times he'd visited with Gus, but before long, he was in uncharted territory.
A donut shop in a small shopping center caught his eye, ‘COFFEE’ written in the window in large white letters. He stepped inside and ordered one to go, only fumbling with the cash a little—a passable tired young human. The man behind the counter had friendly eyes and a thick accent that Matt couldn’t quite discern. He wondered if Gus would have known it.
With a styrofoam cup now warming his hands, Matt continued his trek, marveling at all the peculiar human oddities along the way. So much of their urban planning revolved around cars: you needed parking meters, gas stations, parking lots, signs, stop lights, drive-throughs… There wasn’t really an equivalent on the Boiling Isles, even for staffs. He wondered if humans noticed how obsessive they seemed.
And for that rare human without a car, there was public transportation.
The bus station felt like its own deserted island that time abandoned. Birds pecked at litter dotting the walkways. Weeds broke through the concrete. Rust flaked at the paint.
Some of the people waiting appeared to have all their earthly possessions with them, surrounded by suitcases and backpacks. One woman even had a shopping cart piled high with treasures, a patchwork blanket draped over her shoulders.
He found the kiosk and got his roundtrip ticket, verifying with the employee his destination and how long it would take.
Matt had never seen as much of the Human Realm as he did on that two hour bus ride. His eyes were glued to the window, watching the scenery whip by like his life depended on it. Everything was so different, but familiar in a strange way, too.
Occasionally, the suburbs would be left behind in favor of open country, the asphalt abruptly giving way to meadows and fields. The color palette was cooler here than back home: more greens and blues. It was so calming. He didn’t understand why humans paved over so much of it.
He could practically feel Gus’ hand on his shoulder. He would have leaned in to gaze past him out the window, excited commentary prattled in his ear. He was still getting used to the quiet.
Finally the bus reached his stop. Matt disembarked onto the street, but it was another half mile walk to get to his final destination. The weather was the same down here, cool and cloudy, but there were a lot more people milling around. This was a bigger town than Gravesfield—a city, in truth. The buildings were taller, the streets an endless grid. All of the activity seemed to vibrate on his skin. It was intoxicating.
There was no doubt he had come to the right place. He recognized the broad building from the website, and even if he didn’t, the name of the planetarium was displayed over the doors in crisp, bold text. He climbed the steps which led him right to the ticket booth. The man behind the plexiglass seemed chipper for the early hour.
“A fine morning for learning, isn’t it?” he asked, his decisiveness backed with an interesting drawl.
“I guess so,” Matt answered, a little bemused. He slid him a twenty dollar bill.
“You’ll practically have the place to yourself,” the man informed Matt, giving him a ticket with his change. “We don’t see a lot of traffic on Wednesdays.”
“Works for me,” Matt said with a polite smile, even if the singular ‘you’ felt like a prick to his heart.
“Oh, and be sure to check out the Space Theater while you’re here. We play our movie, Worlds Beyond Earth, every half hour.”
Matt saluted him with the ticket and made for the doors.
He secretly loved the way human buildings smelled inside. They had this very distinct, sterile scent, the air cool and dry. He wasn’t sure what made them like that. He would have to ask Luz.
He should have had Gus there to tug at his elbow and drag him to his favorite exhibits, but instead he was left to leisurely stroll to the first display to catch his eye. There was a man in the atrium with his teenage daughter, but otherwise, the employee was right. It was very quiet.
Matt read about a world called Pluto, which had originally been classified as one of the solar system’s nine planets, but was later reclassified as a ‘dwarf planet.’ Apparently this move came with a lot of backlash in the human zeitgeist.
Matt figured if the Demon Realm decided the Titan was no longer a land mass, but simply a corpse, but that would be pretty jarring, too.
He made his way around the exhibit hall, trying to read every description, every caption in Gus’ place. Knowing his boyfriend had read these same words in this same foreign land made it seem like he could glance over and find him nearby, absorbed in thought, his lips pressed in a firm line as he read about the Big Bang. Of course, he’d been younger then: no glasses balanced on his nose, his hair not yet curled into locs. The fact that Matt had been denied even those few months with his favorite witch suddenly clawed at his throat. He had to blink furiously and take a deep breath to steady himself.
In the back of the atrium were doors leading to a display dubbed The Grand Orrery. Matt gasped; he knew that name. Whatever was inside was the main reason Gus had wanted to revisit.
He pushed through the double doors. This room was much darker, the only sources of light shining over the exits, illuminating the descriptions, and emanating from the planets themselves, which appeared to hover in midair before him. The largest one in the middle was clearly the sun. Its surface glowed and roiled in constant motion—some human magic that Matt couldn’t name. The planets spread out from the fiery center, rotating counter-clockwise and spinning slowly on their axes. Matt could tell that the planets were supported by clear rods, but the lighting rendered them practically invisible.
He smiled.
He knew how Gus had admired humans’ ingenuity with such things. A witch could have generated all of this with an illusion, but there was something so charming about a display that was real to the touch, in constant, physical motion.
Matt watched the planets in their slow dance and tried to see how many he could name from memory. There was Earth, of course, third from the Sun. Mars. Jupiter. Saturn had all the rings. …Well, that was half.
He let himself imagine Gus leaning against the rail next to him, arms folded on the cool metal, a comfortable silence hanging between them. Out of the corner of his eye he could picture how the soft glow would have traced his skin, there and gone as the planets shifted. How the color of his eyes would be lost in the shadows, but their joy would still shine through when he turned to nudge him shoulder to shoulder, saying, “Pretty cool, huh?”
“Yeah,” Matt allowed himself to breathe into the dark.
When someone else stepped into the orrery, Matt took that as his cue to leave.
He ventured into the theater next and wondered if it was ever full; there must have been hundreds of seats. Being only one of two people inside, Matt went for a middle seat towards the back, reclining and stretching out his legs. The lights soon dimmed, and the movie opened with a baritone voice accompanying images of various planets and astronomical phenomena.
As much as humans were fascinated by space, Matt was fascinated by their fascination. After all, witches knew the cosmos held more than just their sun and moon, but they weren’t nearly as concerned with knowing the celestial bodies firsthand. Even when the Collector skipped off to space, no one seemed in a rush to join them.
Perhaps that would change one day, if Gus’ passion for all things Cosmic Frontier was any indication.
Matt tried to focus on the facts being presented by the soothing voice, but he found his attention drifting, taking him back to when he and Gus had gone to a movie theater much like this. They had seen some action flick featuring a good ratio of chiseled abs to explosions. Gus kept leaning in, explaining the pop culture references he understood (or thought he understood), or commenting on the plot twists, asking rhetorical questions… Eventually someone had seen fit to shush them, to which Gus squeaked an apology. The boys had giggled about it and silenced themselves afterward with way too much popcorn.
He wished his boyfriend were here now, so he could kiss him during the Mars rover scenes and delight in his crooked smile and half-hearted objections.
After the movie, he visited the gift shop, checking how much money he had left before purchasing a book on the Apollo missions. He figured that was kind of like Cosmic Frontier, but for real. Maybe it would help him understand what all the fuss was about. (No offense, Augustus.)
Things had warmed up while he was inside. The sun was peeking through the cloud cover now, heating the ubiquitous asphalt. He took off his jacket, tying it around his waist, and paused when the scent of frying meat caught his attention. His stomach rumbled at the reminder he hadn’t eaten since early that morning.
Matt followed his nose down the block to a brightly painted vehicle parked on the curb. It had a long window and counter on one side, seeming to double as a food stand. He didn’t recognize anything on the menu except for ‘tacos,’ and even those he hadn’t tried for himself yet. Gus had been a fan, though.
The person in front of him stepped away from the truck with food wrapped in silver foil. Matt eyed it curiously, then approached the counter.
“Hi. Um. Good morning,” he greeted. “Can I get three tacos, please?”
"Meat?” the man asked, readying his pencil over a notepad.
It didn’t seem like a complete question. “Umm. Yes?”
The man in the food truck gave him a flat stare. “What kind?” he clarified. “We have chicken, beef, pork.”
“Oh.” He didn’t really care, and only barely knew what those were. “Chicken, I guess.”
“Everything on it?”
Crap, what was ‘everything’? “Sure.”
His order was written down and money exchanged. Matt was down to fifteen dollars, but he already had his return ticket for Gravesfield. That should last him.
When his order was called, Matt retrieved the paper plate with his food, a cup of water, and found a bench to sit on. It turned out tacos were a little tricky to eat, but he only lost a quarter of its contents to gravity. Titan, they were good, though. He would have to figure out what condiments humans used for these. It was flavorful and tangy without being overpowering.
A couple were making their way down the sidewalk, snatches of conversation reaching his ears, and Matt found his attention falling on them as he chewed. They were two men, which wasn’t noteworthy, but one had hair that reminded him of Gus. Matt was too stunned to realize he might be staring. He watched as one smiled, passingly and sincere at the other. A small, everyday thing.
Matt’s chest heaved and he almost choked on the food in his mouth. He coughed without decorum, realizing with horror that tears were already filling his eyes, and not from a blocked windpipe.
When the coughing fit passed, he surreptitiously wiped his eyes and took a long drink of water. His mouth still felt dry.
He finished his tacos, not really tasting them as much now, but remembered to return to the vendor with his question afterwards.
He waited for the person ahead of him to finish their order, then stepped up to the window, going, “Um, excuse me.”
“Yes?”
“Could you tell me what was in the tacos?”
The man blinked at him, cocking his head slightly. “What was in them?” he repeated.
“Yeah, like—” He hated feeling so awkward. Apparently this was a strange request. “Besides the chicken?”
The man seemed somewhat bewildered by the question, but he had no reason not to answer. He counted the ingredients off on one hand for him. “Onions, cilantro, lime, salsa verde.”
Matt tried to repeat it to himself. Failed. “Could you maybe write that down for me?”
A curious expression crossed the man’s face, but apparently Matt had thrown him off so much that he circled around to amusement. He huffed a laugh and said, “Sure, kid.” He tore a page off his notepad, wrote down the ingredients, and passed it over.
Why stop now? Matt scanned the list then asked, “Do you know where I could find all this?”
The man was unfazed this time. He pointed east, up the street. “Go down three blocks to Continental. Take a right. There’s a grocery store on the left a little ways down. They’ll have what you need.”
Matt broke out in a smile. Humans were pretty cool. “Thank you!”
The man was right—it was pretty easy to find the grocery store, but now Matt had to figure out what the items on his list even were. He wandered the produce section until he stumbled upon onions and limes, labeled in their bins, but he wound up having to ask an employee where the cilantro and salsa verde were.
He loved how three of the four foods were green. Maybe humans liked to color coordinate their meals.
He placed his book in its paper bag inside the grocery store’s plastic one and started making his way back to the bus stop. At this rate, he’d get home in the late afternoon and have some time to wind down before bed.
The bus was more crowded this time around, but he still managed to get two seats to himself and sidled up to the window, placing his bag next to him. This trip seemed to take longer, too, between the traffic and the fact he was more awake for it.
The metro had been nicer—but maybe that was just because he had ridden it with Gus. They had lost track of time trying to beat the high score on an arcade game (he wondered if their names still made the top ten) and had hopped on the metro close to midnight. The late hour and a caffeine crash had knocked Gus out. He had slumped against Matt’s side, head heavy on his shoulder. This was before they were officially dating.
Matt had stayed so still, not wanting Gus to topple sideways into his lap. It hadn’t been exactly comfortable, keeping him balanced like that, but some part of him was disappointed when they reached their stop and Gus had stirred awake, taking his warmth with him.
He could feel the ghost of him. How his arm had tingled from falling asleep.
But Matt safely tucked those thoughts away. He had fresh ingredients he needed to put to use soon. He had been eating out too much, not wanting to stand in the kitchen and cook and get stuck in his head. Maybe he could make tacos and invite some people over.
Everyone had been kind—more than kind—lately, but it was an awkward dance as friends and family didn’t know how much to reach out, versus how much space to give him. Right now most were leaving the ball in his court, respecting his self-isolation. He didn’t want to push them away with his distant eyes and dark moods. It was time to reach out again. Even if he wasn’t ready, Gus would tell him it was the right thing to do. He needed to live life for both of them now.
He figured homemade tacos were as good a start as any.