The entire afternoon passed in a hazy blur. The only memory that Lucas took with him to sleep was the absolute bliss of finally sinking his exhausted body into bed, weighed down by warm noodle soup in his round belly. He then completely passed out, his body finally following his conscience into the soft shadows of dreams, for the rest of the day. It must have been some ten or so hours later before his brain finally felt recharged enough to surface.

“Alicia.”

Vaguely, beyond the grey fuzz still lingering over his senses, Lucas heard a voice call out.

“Play a song to wake up Sleeping Beauty.”

And then, the familiar soothing voice of Alicia’s AI, replying bluntly. “Okay. Playing a song from ‘Wake up Lucas.’”

By then, Lucas began to feel some tingle of alarm creep into his awareness. But it wasn’t until the blast of trumpet fanfare actually erupted into the room that he regained enough consciousness to groggily slur. “Arghhh... Alicia, stop...!”

Right at the high-pitched peak of the fanfare, the horns stopped. Ears ringing in the sudden silence, Lucas groaned and grudgingly pushed himself up.

It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the lights. Grabbing his pillow and leaning over it for support, Lucas blinked blearily at their shared room. It was small, but generous, as far as university dorms went. He and Avery each had their own bed, and the closet had been clearly sectioned into two. A long table built into the far wall gave them enough space to comfortably work side-by-side, and beside that was a tiny kitchen with all the necessary utilities for setting things on fire. Around the corner, in the small foyer of their humble room, was the door to their very own bathroom. Compared to the ancient building that he and Avery had lived in last year, where he’d had to beg Avery to bring a towel down to the shared showers numerous times, this place was a palace.

Speaking of Avery, that devil... Lucas rubbed his eyes and glanced over at the desk, where his roommate was sitting in an oversized blue sweater and boxers. He had thick, colourful headphones planted firmly over his ears – figuring that Avery wouldn’t hear him if he simply spoke, Lucas closed his eyes and sent an internal message.

<Did your shift start already?>

In the simplest of terms, it was telepathy. Lucas didn’t have the greatest understanding of the inner workings of their part-mechanical brains, but he at least knew the basics. In the same way that they could remotely tap into a phone to send a message and receive it, they could also do so with a communication center built into each other’s heads. It required certain permissions from both parties, but once set up, it allowed them to communicate – sorta like sending voice messages, but using only their minds.

<Yup.> Avery’s attention didn’t waver from his computer monitor at all. He also didn’t seem bothered by the fact that his fanfare blast earlier had probably disturbed the entire floor. <Started two hours ago. There was a lurker detected in the company’s outer security network, I was asked to sign on early and look into it.>

<Oooh.> Yawning, Lucas checked his watch and saw that it was well past 9 PM... his own shift would be starting soon. Throwing his pillow back against his headboards, he resignedly slid over to the edge of bed and got to his feet. <Is it bad...?>

<Nah.> Avery’s voice scoffed in his head. <Just some small fry who doesn’t know what the heck they’re getting into.>

<Oh. Good...> Stretching, Lucas yawned again and then gazed listlessly around the room for a moment. Figuring that he ought to get ready, he sighed and shuffled over to the closet.

He and Avery had moved in last week, and some of their belongings were still left in boxes on the floor of the closet – well, mostly Avery’s. He had already organized his own clothes – the left section consisting of black hoodies and trousers, aka his work clothes. On the right hung a few posh knits and brand-name jeans that he’d ended up buying throughout last year. Grabbing a random set of dark clothing from the left, Lucas threw them on Avery’s bed – it was closer – and then proceeded to kick his shorts off.

As he was hopping unsteadily out of his pants, he heard Avery sigh, and glanced over to see the boy pull his headphones off.

“Done?”

Leaning back in his chair, Avery glanced over, honey-amber eyes lingering impassively on Lucas’s pale thighs. “Pretty much.” He huffed breathily and tousled his hair with both hands, but – as always – the thin, sleek strands of his straight hair settled neatly back on his head. Lucas eyed him jealously – Avery would never understand the effort that he had to put in every morning to get his own hair in a presentable state... “I’m just doing a sweep of the server. Making sure they didn’t leave any shit lying around in our stack.”

“Oh...”

Avery sighed musingly. “Don’t try to understand, just get ready for your own shift.”

“Wow, hey. I understood a bit.” Being a second-year computing student, Lucas knew what server and stack meant, but beyond that he didn’t really comprehend – not that he would ever admit it to such a gloating look.

“It’s our field of study, you should understand more than a bit.” Avery scoffed breathily, leaning back in his chair and throwing his hands behind his head in a stretch. In response, Lucas dragged his shirt off and hurled it impactfully into Avery’s bed with an indignant huff. But as he opened his mouth to retort, Avery interrupted him solemnly. “Your wound... do you think it’s going to scar?”

Caught off guard by the sudden change in subject, Lucas blinked blankly at his roommate for a moment before realizing what he meant. Glancing down, he scratched the edges of a healing gash on his chest, stretching across the bottom half of his right ribs. It smelled strongly of minty ointment. “I don’t think so... been applying stuff to it every day.”

“Oh... that's good.” Avery sighed heavily, looked at his monitor in hesitation, and then glanced back again warily. “Does it still hurt...?”

“Uh... not really.” It stung, of course, but Lucas wasn’t particularly perceptive to this kind of pain.

Looking unconvinced, Avery’s brows furrowed into a frown, and he turned away with a mutter. “I don’t understand how you can still go out there so nonchalantly after that happened.”

“After what...? Oh, this?” Lucas glanced down at his wound again and shrugged. “I dunno, it wasn’t that scary. It’s just a cut. It’s not like I was going to die.”

Avery’s eyes narrowed in exasperation. “You could learn some caution, mate. What happened last week with Rose could still land you in some big trouble...”

“Aha...” Unable to deny that one, Lucas ruffled his hair sheepishly and averted his gaze. “She promised to keep it a secret, though... Rose is a good person, you know that, don’t you? She keeps her promises.”

“Yeah, but she’s also human...” Avery muttered, turning away and frowning deeply at his computer screen.

Giving his wound one last scratch, Lucas changed into a black t-shirt and pulled a dark hoodie over his shoulders. As he was pulling up the zipper, he heard Avery speak again.

“That guy this morning, the one you said was Rose’s friend, he seemed into you.”

“Huh?” Lucas jerked his head up in surprise, blinking rapidly as he suddenly remembered the sight of Hanael’s ice blue eyes shimmering over his gushing smile. “Uhh...” As his brain hung numbly on the memory, Avery’s eyes narrowed in exasperation.

“Let me guess, he invited you to coffee and asked you to be friends or something?” Lifting his hands, Avery curled one hand into a loose fist and thrusted the index finger of his other hand into it. “I don’t think he’s aiming to be just your friend, mate.”

It took a few iterations of Avery’s lewd hand motions before Lucas realized what the boy was getting at. “Ohhh, yeah... don’t worry, I know.” He stuck his hands in his sweater pockets and straightened with a light-hearted chortle. “I saw him yesterday night at like 3 AM, sending a girl back to her dorm here. Then he met up with another girl in the same lobby right after! And he was with a different girl today, too.” Lucas shook his head and shrugged. “Going around flirting with strangers for a day is probably just a weird hobby of his. Besides...” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, but was unable to hide the trace of bitterness creeping into his voice. “I’m done with relationships. I’m going to focus entirely on work for the rest of my life.”

“... Hmm, kay...” Avery eyed him dubiously for a while, but eventually threw his hands behind his head again and leaned back with a hefty sigh. “Well, on that note, Kairo came by earlier when you were sleeping.”

Lucas’s lips immediately twisted into a scowl, but Avery continued anyway.

“I told him you were out. He said he’s been trying to contact you all summer.”

Glaring at the grey carpet, Lucas growled brusquely, “I cut off contact with everyone all summer, why’s he taking it personally?”

Avery tilted his head and said wryly, “I didn’t say anything about him taking it personally. He seemed pretty chill actually.”

Chagrined, Lucas huffed irritably and fell silent.

Avery was quiet for a moment too, spinning around in his chair with his eyes lifted to the ceiling. It took a few minutes of gloomy silence before he finally stopped and turned back to Lucas. “You’re going to have to see him at the retreat tomorrow, you know.”

Lucas glanced over and met Avery’s nonchalant gaze with a frown. “So?”

Avery’s eyebrow twitched upwards. “Are you seriously going to ghost him forever?”

Huffing again, Lucas sat down on his roommate’s bed and turned away. He had been expecting it, but he couldn’t come up with something to stop Avery’s lecture quickly enough.

“Kairo is the only other Sentinel who works in this jurisdiction with us. Not only that, he’s a senior Dispatch Sentinel.” Avery’s voice tended to be matter-of-fact at all times, but Lucas had known him long enough to detect the traces of pity in his speech. “If anything goes wrong, he’s our only backup. We gotta trust him, whether we like it or not – at least with some things.”

“I know, okay.” A throb appeared in his head and seemed to echo in his chest. Grimacing, Lucas ran a hand agitatedly through his hair. “I’m not going to let it interfere with work. But I’m not just going to act like nothing happened.”

He could feel Avery’s gaze burning on the side on the side of his face for a little longer before the boy turned back to his monitor with a loud, exaggerated sigh.

“If I knew it was going to end like this, I would have stopped you from dating him.”

Lips pressing tightly together, Lucas glared silently at the ceiling.

Avery tossed him a last airy comment as he reached for his headphones. “You have bad taste in partners, Lucas.”

He wouldn’t be heard through the headphones, but still, Lucas muttered bitterly to himself.

“... Shut up. I know...”