[cont. from the previous chapter due to character limit]

“I thought you died.” Nikolai whispered, barely audible.

Robert looked up, surprised, and met his gaze. Nikolai didn’t look away.

“You disappeared under the trash, and I knew if you survived you wouldn’t have a lot of oxygen, so the longer I searched, the more I realised you could’ve suffocated, and then it felt impossibly long to have survived, and I couldn’t find you, and I called and called and heard nothing back…” He started crying again and his voice trembled. “And I didn’t know what I would do. I kept thinking about how I would go back and tell Auntie Golda you died because of me – because I wanted to see the plane; just like Ehud had to tell his mom about Isa, and Auntie Ofra still hates him, and she is his real mom, so Auntie Golda would hate me forever, and I would hate myself forever, and you would be dead and hate me forever after you get resurrected.”

As the silence fell between them once again, Robert almost laughed. The whole logic of this outburst sounded ridiculous. But. The words were not the most important thing. What mattered was that while Rob barely realised what happened to him, Nikolai got a scare of his life. Robert didn’t want to think about what he would feel if the roles were reversed.

“Was mom reading to you from her books again? Believe me, I will not be on the resurrection list if those stories are true.” He reached over to squeeze Nikolai’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, okay? I did something very stupid, and I should have prepared for a landslide to go so chaotic. And my mom would not have hated you if something happened to me. Just like aunt Ofra doesn’t hate Ehud.”

“She does.” Nikolai nodded. He stopped crying but still had an unhappy expression on his face. 

“Ehud exaggerates.”

“I heard her tell him so.”

Robert blinked. “His mom…told him she hates him? Because of what happened to his brother?”

“Yes.” Nikolai was back to staring at his shoddily bandaged hands. “Auntie Ofra drinks. And she shouts things when she drinks. One day I was hiding in Ehud’s room while he had to go downstairs, and I could hear her yelling at him about how he should’ve pushed himself under the cart with Isa, and it would have been better to have two dead kids instead of one and a half.”

“Dude.” Robert recoiled with a wince. “Don’t repeat such bullshit. People say stuff when they are drunk, stuff they don’t actually mean.” 

He struggled to wrap his brain around this new information. His mom, while easy to anger, would never say something so mean to him or his brothers. Then again, she never drank. Also, regularly hearing such words from his mother just didn’t mesh well with the constantly smirking, fidgeting, and joking Ehud Rob had to deal with on a daily basis.

Nikolai shrugged. “She drinks every day.”

“You should stop going to his place so often.”

“He doesn’t have many friends. Others are mean to him. You are mean to him.”

“Am not.” Robert pouted. He got up with a huff and started checking the tarp again. They needed to get moving soon.

“You are. You constantly exclude him from playing with the gang.”

“It’s not my fault Ace and Tzarif pick games that require two hands.”

“They would have listened to you or Gatien if you told them to pick something else. They don’t listen to Ehud.”

“Did he complain about all of this to you?!” Robert glared down at Nikolai, suddenly angry.

Nikolai’s face went blank and he stayed still for several moments before finally murmuring: “No?”

He was such a horrible liar, it was laughable. Rob rolled his eyes and climbed into the driving seat of the crawler. He opened the control panel to check on the battery levels and the engine temperature. Another half an hour, and they could go.

Having stopped crying, Nikolai got up and pushed himself into a seat next to Robert. The crawler wasn’t meant for two people, but the younger boy was small enough to fit on the side. He watched Rob flip through data for several moments before saying: “You should be nicer to Ehud.”

“I am nice enough.”

“You should stop saying mean things to him.”

“Dude, seriously?!” Robert turned to glare at the side of his head. “Ehud is the meanest motherfucker I know, he doesn’t know words that are not expletives.”

“He knows plenty.”

“You know what I mean! He curses at everyone, no matter how they talk back. It’s only fair that we return the favour.”

Nikolai shrugged slightly, his bony shoulder bumping into Robert’s arm. “If you were nice to him, he would stop. He never curses when it’s just the two of us.”

“He can go hang out with girls if he wants to be treated nicely.”

“Guys can also be nice.”

“Yeah, and that would make us girls.” Robert sighed heavily. “Listen, this is just how the world works. If you want to be treated all nice and soft and cuddly, you find yourself a girlfriend. With your male friends, you just shit talk and you kick each other’s asses and you laugh about it. And if he can’t stomach being called a single-limbed shiteater, then maybe he should stop eating all this shit where we can see.”

Nikolai stayed silent for a long moment before looking up and meeting Rob’s eyes. “Am I a girl then?”

Robert blinked, caught blind-sided by this question. “What?”

“I try being nice to everyone, does it mean I am a girl?”

“No, you are just…” He stopped, trying to find a better word. To Ace or Gatien or Pep he could say ‘brain-fucked’ but Kolya was…well…too childish not to take it poorly. “...weird.”

“Deviant.” Nikolai offered, focusing his gaze on the control panel once again. 

“Nah. You would be deviant if you really thought of yourself as a girl. But you’re just weird because of whatever place you grew up in.”

Nikolai didn’t answer. Robert sat next to him, feeling uneasy, for a couple more minutes then muttered: “And you shouldn’t call yourself deviant. It means a very specific thing.”

“I will get stamped when I turn 18, so.” Nikolai shrugged.

“Why the fuck will you?”

“Doctor Bernauer says so.”

“Seriously?!” Once again, anger shot itself into Rob’s temples and he could feel the blood rush to his face. “Is this what she really says or what you assume she says because you interpreted her words in the worst way possible? Does mom know she says that?!”

Nikolai shook his head and went quiet. Robert knew this was his usual reaction to others being angry in his vicinity. But he couldn’t help it! Doctors weren’t supposed to say shit like this to their patients, especially psychiatrists!

“You should tell mom about this. So she can complain and get you a new doctor.” Rob said as patiently as he could.

After a long stretch of silence, where it felt like the conversation was over, Nikolai finally whispered: “She is right though.”

“In which fucking world is she right?!”

“People with my diagnosis get stamped at 18.”

“And how is that right?!”

“It is written in the law. So that I won’t have children who would have the same thing.”

“Oh, suck my ass!” Robert pressed his palms to his face and dragged them down. “Just because it’s written in some stupid law of some stupid government we are all technically under doesn’t make it right!” 

He didn’t know why but he could feel the wrongness of it in his bones. Surely, deviants (the usual ones, the ones who had weird sex things going on, in both meanings) were gross and all, but kicking them out of the town just didn’t sit well with him. And not just the town. Nobody would hire them anywhere on Mesa, as far as he knew. And if you didn’t work, you didn’t have food, water, or a bed. Even with access to the first two, homeless people never lasted long in Port let alone the surrounding desert.

Nikolai stayed silent, so Rob tried again: “Do you even understand what it’s like to be stamped?”

“They won’t accept me into college.” Nikolai offered.

“And that’s your main worry? They won’t accept me into college, because my family can’t pay for it.”

“They would if you get a scholarship.”

“Uh-huh, which I would get only if I get recommended for one. By a professor. From college. All of whom are rich pricks.” It was a bit more complicated than that, and the closer Robert got to his 16, the more anxiety he had about this shit. College could mean not working in the mine like his brothers and his perished father. College could mean being like Gatien’s dad. “And that’s not the point right now! Not getting into college would be the least of your problems!”

Nikolai hugged his knees and pressed his nose to the inside of his elbow. He muttered: “They will send me to the bad mines.”

“Yeah, probably. And how long will you last?”

“I don’t want to work there-” “No shit!” “-I will refuse to work there.”

“And then what?”

Nikolai shrugged and sniffed. He was about to cry again. Robert felt like it was somehow his fault. So he rubbed his palms over his knees and tried for reassurance. “Listen, mom would never kick you out of her house, okay? Even if you refuse to work at the mines, she’ll still provide you with a roof and a meal for as long as she lives. And after that-” Fuck, he was about to make a promise he probably couldn’t keep, “-my brothers and I will do the same.”

“Moishe hates me. Hershel hates me.”

“Well, I am not them, am I?!”

“You hate me sometimes.”

That stang. Mostly, because it was true. Like, right now, Rob really hated the conversation they were having. He didn’t want to think about this. He had his own shit to worry about.

“Just because I am angry from time to time, doesn’t mean I hate you. And anyways, my point is – Doctor Bernauer is wrong. She has no right to tell you this stuff, and it’s not for her to decide.”

“She is literally a psychiatrist-”

“And you will get that scholarship and they will see how fucking genius you are at writing code and they will want you at college and they will ask the officials to not stamp you. Like, out of the whole neighbourhood, you have the highest chance to get out of this slum. Get a degree. Become a fucking professor in writing code. And you should not let some bitter doctor convince you otherwise!”

Nikolai was looking at Robert properly now, tears drawing wet stripes down his dusty cheeks. There was something vulnerable in his expression, something Rob wasn’t good at interpreting.

“I want you to go to college too.” He finally said and sniffed.

“Yeah, well, I can’t code for shit.”

“But you can build robots.” Nikolai smiled slightly and rubbed his nose dry.

“Robots can build robots too.”

“You can design robots.”

Robert shrugged. “We’ll see. Maybe if I get top grades at the engineering workshop this year.” He probably wouldn’t. He never won any competitive rushes. He was pretty sure part of the reason was how shabby anything he could build looked. Because it was made from scrap pulled out of the landfill. 

Speaking of which, they probably should start moving if they wanted to reach home before sunset.

“Did you calm down?” Robert wasn’t angry anymore and he mastered a strict face as he looked at the younger boy.

Nikolai sniffed loudly and rubbed at his face, spreading the now wet dust all over his cheeks and mouth. “Yes.”

“Go back under the tarp then.”

“But the plane is there…” His eyes went wide when realisation hit him.

Robert grinned widely, enjoying the moment. “Yep. So you’ll have to sit inside the cockpit.”