Lu only got through two bites before he thought of Adon, how the vanilla and sugar smells would stick in his hair as Lu squished into him, waiting for the moment Adon looked up from his screen of worksheets, textbooks, and tutor tests, the victory of Adon’s annoyed attention turned warmly to him, not a hint of anger, no matter how Lu poked or tickled. 

He pushed the cupcake away, pulling up his anonymous Platform account and scrolling through the hundreds of versions of his only heart. Lu reached the end of his posts, all the way back to the first doodle he’d uploaded on his first lonely night in the Mids, bruised and free and imagining Adon a dozen layers above him in the fields at the very top of Caldera. 

Lu shuffled the rest of the way home, pausing for a drink, briefly considering becoming an alcoholic while he scribbled on a bar coaster: a graduating Adon standing in a crowd of others in that emerald green Agriculture uniform. He scrolled through all the agro hashtags and swiped through celebratory class photos, looking for smiling Adons in backgrounds, for a Certification Announcement article about a particularly commendable Grounder, but all the Adonis Calderas were printed in the same meaningless font, with no photo or bio to tell one apart from another. 

He answered his phone, swiping away the 23 previously missed comms, and reassured Phaios, who’d apparently caught the tail end of the fight and run up just in time to see the uncles dragging Lu into the rail car, that he was fine.

“You escaped?” Photos panted, only at Lu’s laugh did he stop running, “how?”

Lu clenched bruised fists with a chuckle, “Arez always said I was decent.”

“Not better than me,” Phaios growled, annoyed and catching his breath, “don’t you dare believe anything that silver—” Lu cackled and Phaios stopped in his tracks, “are you drunk?”

Lu swayed, uncertain how to answer, giggling as he tipped off a barstool, “not yet…” he caught himself on the bartop, laughing harder and pocketing the coaster with Adon’s face sketched over it, “well, maybe.”

Phaios sighed heavily into his headset, already back to his bike, cutting over the rails and back to the Mids as his mic tried to filter the noise of the wind whipping against his helmet. “Are you coming home?” 

“Sure,” Lu tripped out the door, sliding down an alley wall as his balance recalibrated to the unmoving platform, listening to the thunk of the mailbox on the other end as Phaios’ keys rattled, stomping up the stairs and swallowing all the words he wouldn't say. Lu heard it between the silence, the worry and hesitation, the Grounder instinct to love nothing because everything was taken and all their focus was to remain on the edge of the narrow life they’d been sentenced to walk. And Caldera wondered why the Grounders all became one kind of pirate or another, debating all the mysteries except for the obvious planks they used as bandages while their city rocked on stilts. 

Lu pushed himself back up the wall with a burp, “hey, can you read me my internship placement? It’s been driving me nuts?” Paper mail was rare, but Caldera liked to flex its tax dollars on the thick wood pulp for important documents. 

“You mean this half-ripped envelope thing?” Phaios pulled the folder out of their mailbox with the keys he always left in it on his way to the Ground, peeling it the rest of the way open as he let himself in their studio unit. 

Lu grunted, waiting for the news he’d left behind him, interrupted by uncles. Thinking about the feel of the paper, how rare it was, sent the image of Adon running toward him, waving his CAPT result portfolio, bursting through his mind. He sat in the memory, a tipsy smile across his face as he hobbled through skywalk corridors. He must be drunk then, if he was willingly thinking of Adon instead of shoving him into the broken part of his chest where a heart was supposed to be regrowing. 

Lu picked up a lit cigarette left on a passing Mid bench, waiting for Phaios to figure out which part of the report contract Lu was eager to hear. It smelled like Uncle’s hands and bruises left on his arms and he scowled, tossing it into a passing incinerator can. He’d left Pa’s lighter on his bed, a statement he knew they would ignore. He should have lit the bed first. 

“Says…” Phaios continued his dull scan, feeling stupider by the second as he pushed his sweaty hair back, “why’s it so complicated? Okay, here we go, says: Public Works, non-profit, one-year term, and then Accessibility Program Assistant… report to… what the fuck kind of name is that?”

“That’s good,” Lu smiled fondly, the image of Adon fading into questions about his new post, “I’ll get the details later.”

Phaios tossed the papers onto their counter, pulling a carton of milk from the fridge without a single thought of where it came from, “does that mean you have to volunteer for a whole year?”

“Yeah, but they cover room and board, I just don’t get paid excess salary yet.”

“Damn, should have been a mech.” Phaios laughed like the majority of his salary came from working the rails and not illegal races, gambling takes when he was feeling risky, and his entire youth spent hustling credits out of cocky Midders looking for an easy race. 

Lu snorted, “I also have to finish a studio class.”

Phaios chugged half the milk from the jar, wiping his mouth and placing it exactly where it was with practiced precision, as if Lu hadn’t heard or wouldn’t notice. 

“Get a cup!” Lu grumbled. 

☆

Phaios rolled his eyes, gesturing the papers and huffing into his comms mic as he paced along the couch, “so I work sixty hours a week on the rails and I barely qualify for any sort of respectable mech job in the Mids, but you assist someone for a year while they cover your expenses and then they’ll just hand you an entire business? No wonder Caldera’s collapsing. Infrastructure, and hard work, and —”

Lu sighed dramatically. He didn’t disagree, but he was also tired of explaining the nuances of his choices or the way the Mids worked, and he’d sat through the rant about meritocracy vs. mediocrity a dozen times already. He was tipsy but he didn’t want to be anymore, and his body was still processing the last glass he’d thrown back when he’d wanted to see more of Adon’s smiling face. He interrupted Phai’s rant, “yeah, well, you ran illegal rail races, got caught, remediated with the Flock on your record, and you demand time off for each race season, which they grant you, happily. I will complete this internship and then become a corporate drone for some museum or gallery with no compromises, no surprises, and the same human rights as AIE’s bots.”

“Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, boring,” Phaios grumbled to himself, “I should have taken the CAPT.”

“You can still. It hasn’t been that long, there are a million worksheets on my—” Lu cut himself off, thinking of the old tablet tucked in a drawer, full of sketches of Adon he hadn’t had the courage to look at or upload to his Platform account. Those were real Adons, they had no place among his hypothetical imaginings.

Phaios didn’t notice, “nah, I don’t need their dumb test. I’m happy running the races with Nika. Xeri helps a lot, when Nika has to be at the Charity House. Before you ask, I don’t know how her dad is, I don’t care. He’s a dick. Fuck him, he can rot there until his bones fill the cracks.”

“Wow,” Lu grimaced humorlessly, pausing to figure out which corridor would get him home. “Hey, are you and Nika together yet?” Lu only asked personal questions when he was drunk.

“Fuck you,” Phaios flopped onto the couch. He only answered personal questions when he was sleeping. 

Lu sighed, “I’ll be home soon.” He staggered home, realizing Phaios had already hung up on him with a bitter wrinkle of his nose. 

Lu limped up his hall and stared up at their lit window for a long moment, watching Phai’s silhouette move about the room, cleaning, and Lu’s chest tightened because for a brief, harrowing moment, banging his head to music Lu couldn’t hear, he could have been Adon.

Lu slapped his cheeks, hard, inhaling his whimper. Phaios looked nothing like Adon and it was an insult to Adon to even try and compare them. He pushed himself up the stairs and forced a smile as he entered to find Phaios dancing over the vacuum. He shucked his grav-suit and changed into indoor pants, tossing his clothes down the chute to keep the pollutants out. Mid residents had bathroom chutes that emptied into lockers in the basement. They got combinations and baskets that automated laundry on timers if they wanted it, nothing like Gideon’s maids scrubbing blood or Adon’s tiny bathroom hung with drying clothes. Lu smiled at the coaster he’d pulled from his pocket, tucking it into his sketchbook of new tattoo ideas for his back, reminding himself for the millionth time that Adon was not someone he knew anymore, four years was too many changes to assume they could still fit together somehow, too long to assume anything at all. 

Lu played Ultimate Ground Racer 7000 with Phaios until they fought about cheating and passed out on the couch. Lu was resigned to his simple life of regret, building a warm home closer to Adon, in case he ever came looking, so he wouldn’t have to go far. 

☆☆☆