“This is probably going to hurt,” Aria said, crouching next to Devin, a syringe and a computer tablet in her hands. She poked at the screen on the tablet a few times, then uncapped the syringe and aimed it at the meat of Devin’s shoulder. “Stay still.”
Flix’s stomach turned. The needle was really big. He didn’t like shots at all, and the thought of those little robots, the nanotech, swimming around inside Devin’s body added to his queasiness. He looked away.
“Fuck!” Devin shouted.
“Sack up, Devin,” Aria said. “It’ll be over soon and you can sleep.”
Almost by reflex, Flix slid his fingers into Devin’s hair. Soothe. Comfort. Except Joe’s fingers were already there.
“Done.” Aria tapped again on the tablet. “The instructions say he’ll be out the whole time the nanobots do their thing. They’ll tell us what’s wrong, fix it if they can. But no guarantees.”
“I understand,” Joe said. “How long will it take?”
“I’ve never done this before. Hours, probably. Get some rest.”
Joe bent over and kissed Devin’s forehead. “Rest well, sweet prince.” His hands shook as he traced them over Devin’s face, thumbing his eyebrows, nose, and lips; over his neck, his chest, his stomach. Shoulders. Arms. He bent for another kiss.
“Fuck off,” Devin grumbled right before he began to snore.
Joe snickered and pressed his cheek to Devin’s chest.
“Maul him later,” Aria said. “Get out of my space so I can keep an eye on him.” She paused. “You did good.”
Joe patted Flix’s thigh. “Come outside with me for a few minutes.”
That was the last thing Flix wanted. He wanted to stay with Devin, to watch him get well; to see Joe, maybe not on his lap, but in the same room; he even wanted to watch Peter, who had already curled up in a ball in the corner and fallen asleep.
But he’d never been able to say no to Joe. Flix followed him outside and into a little cemetery surrounded by a wrought iron fence. The graves were old, the kind with hard stone markers that told who had been buried there.
Flix sat on a stone bench against the fence, but when Joe sat next to him, he hopped up and sat across from him on one of the grave markers.
“Get off that,” Joe said.
Flix peered down at the stone. “Vera’s been dead for seventy years. Her soul in heaven doesn’t care if I sit here.”
“I care.”
Flix considered refusing. That deep worry he’d been feeling when Joe was gone had almost all crumbled away, and in its place was the same irritation he’d become so accustomed to. He walked back to the bench and sat as far from Joe as he could. “What do you want?”
Flix waited, but Joe didn’t speak. The silence stretched long enough that Flix couldn’t stand it. He started to rise, but Joe caught his arm.
“My mother died when I was five or six. I don’t remember her. But I remember visiting her grave. The last time I went there with my dad, some vandals, kids or something, had knocked over her tombstone.” Joe shook his head. “We tried to lift it back up, but it was just the two of us. It’s so much easier to destroy than it is to build. Or to fix.”
“I’m sorry.”
Joe turned and met Flix’s eyes. “The point is, I have reasons for the way I feel, for what I ask you to do; I’m not trying to make your life harder or to cause you harm.”
“I never said you were.” But Flix had thought it. So many times. He’d been so angry that he hadn’t known about the chip, that Joe had let him and Marcus come north and never told them there was nothing there for them. He’d blamed Joe for those things when all Joe had really done was the best he could. Once Flix had left Flights of Fantasy, there had been no going back, and what was Joe supposed to do? Leave three fifteen-year-olds to fend for themselves? Flix had tied Joe’s hands. The end point hadn’t mattered back then. All that had mattered was surviving one more day. And one more day after that.
“I’m sorry I didn’t keep Marcus safe,” Joe said. “I know that’s not what you want to hear, but I am sorry. I tried, and I failed, and it hurts me because he was a good boy who deserved so much better.”
Flix’s throat closed. He couldn’t answer.
“You and I,” Joe said, “we’re going to butt heads because you’re smart and strong and capable, in ways I never considered back when we were at Flights of Fantasy. I’m proud of who you turned out to be.”
No one had ever told Flix that they were proud of him. Only Joe had ever called him strong, the night of the explosion in Purcell, when Joe had said they were warrior brothers, when they made a pinky promise that maybe they’d both broken.
Joe slapped the bench lightly. “I’m going to go check on Devin.”
He’d reached the cemetery gate before Flix worked up the nerve. Or the humility.
“Joe?”
Joe met his gaze with those chocolate eyes, so deep and knowing, and then he waited.
Flix cleared his throat. He wanted to make his voice as powerful as his conviction. “You are still my warrior brother.”
Joe’s expression softened, and Flix caught a glimpse of something like grace. “Thank you, Flix.”
Joe went inside, and Flix leaned back against the posts of the fence. He watched the shadow of an old willow tree on the other side of the cemetery shorten and then lengthen until it touched his face. Then he made his way back inside, to the family he had left.
***
Devin woke gradually, some brightness past his eyelids dawning strange but familiar. He stretched his arms over his head and felt a heavy
