Lu looked at Adon from his internal prison, miles away then impossibly close, nodding until their lips met. It was a soft hello in a foreign language neither had spoken in years. All Lu’s habits of pleading and begging and yearning alone in guilty silence waited for Adon to slam a door in his face with a triumphant laugh, but he only laid patiently beside Lu, gently kissing whatever he could reach: cheek, jaw, ear, neck, collarbone, shoulder, palm, fingertips. Adon looked at Lu with the reverence of a dog waiting in an entryway, body still, tail twitching, waiting for the door to open after the keypad had already buzzed. 

Something loosened in Lu’s chest. Not forgiveness, but assurance, that the grief, the waiting, the suffering, it was all worth something. It was worth this. He could be another Lu tomorrow. He could figure out who the Lu who wasn’t waiting for Adon was tomorrow. Now… now he was just someone allowed to love Adon, permission granted. Lu didn’t worry about being too obsessed, too shameless, or too cowardly, he simply kissed Adon back until the medical blue mint didn’t taste strange, until his lips tingled, chin raw against the stubble of Adon’s didn’t-die-yesterday shadow. Lu was allowed to be hungry, to be warm, to cry, or run, or fight, or weep, and in the freedom of all the choices Adon had always offered, Lu found a spark of himself. 

Even if there was nothing else left, if he compromised or hid away every piece of himself, there was an indestructible truth bound to every reality, a place to plant and grow the rest of him, infallible to Gideon’s cane or the Mids’ hierarchies, too simple to be deconstructed into anything lesser: Lu loved Adon, and nothing else needed to matter yet. 

Adon pulled Lu as close as they could get until he elbowed his own injury with a gasp, laughing.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Lu jumped out of the bed, wide-eyed, face flushed, gaping at the beeping machines.

Adon laughed harder, pointing at the instructions flashing across the largest screen above his head: PLEASE CALM PATIENT. RETURN TO 100/90.

Lu hid his face in his hands with an embarrassed groan. 

Adon chugged two cups of water between deep breaths while Lu paced near the door, flushed scarlet. Adon focused on the door, then looked around at the screens, the tile floor, the cushy chair beside the bed, “Lu?” He croaked, “we’re in a Med-Pod?” He already knew the answer.

“No, hospital.” Lu had told him several times already, he assumed Adon just didn’t know what it was, refusing to call it the Charity House out loud. “It’s like several Med-Pods together in rooms, like a pod hotel, but with actual docto—”

“I know what a hospital is, how’d you get a room?” Adon rubbed his face, stalling his panic as all those bubbling thoughts flurried beneath him, his fluid drip bag empty, the tiny light on the magnetic tube in his hand glowing blue then green, then red as he popped it out, pulling censors off him with suctioning pops. 

“I used my ID, don’t worry,” Lu smiled, proud of himself for thinking of the details, and assuming he’d rightfully guessed Adon somehow didn’t have proper legal identification. His brow creased as he glanced around the bay for the source of the popping sounds.

“That’s worse!” Adon jumped up, faltering sideways and catching himself on the arm of the bed, wincing at the sting of the needle still taped in his hand as he shoved on his shoes by the door and glanced around instinctively for his coat that wasn’t there, pushing Lu urgently out beside him, hissing, “Gideon won’t protect you!” 

Adon pulled Lu behind him down the long tiled hall, practically sliding down the flights of stairs and jogging down the fogged corridors coated in sterility mists, then out into the bright greenway of a Mids park. Adon followed the river, zigzagging over the footbridges, following the looping network of botanical park paths, keeping tight hold of Lu’s hand until he was too breathless to continue. 

Lu was breathing just fine, equally protesting Adon’s flight and glancing around for whatever threat they were escaping, finally demanding an explanation, ripping his hand away, “what’s going on?”

Adon gripped his side and crawled onto a large boulder just off the path, pulling Lu up beside him, though Lu didn’t actually put any of his weight into Adon’s outstretched hand, only holding it as he pulled himself up with his other arm and kicked his feet like a slithering lizard. They sat and watched the sun lamps flicker along the canal as the trains and elevators rose up and down the same pit the water duct dumped into, a railcar rumbling loudly below them. Adon leaned into Lu, then straightened, “why are you so fidgety?”

“I really have to pee.” Lu grimaced.

Adon pointed below them at the thick brush and broad leaves lining the river, “no one can see you.”

“I’m not going to pee in a bush!” Lu flushed.

Adon shrugged, “then you should have peed in a bag before we left, like I did.”

“I didn’t know we were leaving!” Lu sputtered, realizing how ridiculous it was to be embarrassed by his body when Adon’s had been put on full display, every scar, every misaligned cell, questionable patch of tissue, a full diagnostics report like he was nothing but a refurbished rail bike, for sale by owner. Lu glared so Adon would know he knew exactly what he’d done, and that it had worked, then slid into the bushes with a sharp, “don’t look!”

Adon eased onto his back with a wincing chuckle, thinking of all the times he’d peed in snowy bushes on the ground, “at least your name’s easy to write.” Lu either didn’t hear him or, more likely, ignored him, horrified at the thought, which made Adon giggle harder to himself. They were safe enough, sitting in a Mids park, Adon in a flapping hospital shirt tied at the back, and Lu peeing in the bushes. Life really could take him anywhere.

Adon waited for Lu to climb up and get situated on the warm rock beside him, then lolled his head sideways with a sad smile, “tell me what happened… from the beginning. Please?” He should have waited, let Lu ask first when he was ready to face it, or offered his own story, but his past was easy to piece together: his mom screwed him over with a debt, his maybe boyfriend sold the debt to his evil father, and Gideon sent him to the Pits where he was filleted until he escaped with Y and spent the rest of the decade between them keeping Mess and Aphy quietly warm. It was Lu’s story that was made of illusions and dogs with their teeth still in him. 

Adon was tired, sick of fighting the ground to survive. He let Lu mull his answer, tilting his head toward the warmth of the sun lamp above them. He wanted peace, not Medo’s inheritance, not Y’s R&R between jobs, not the silence of the empty warehouse or the sound of ripening fruits, just… just peace. Warm sunlamps and wet dirt and flowers blooming slowly. He wanted peace and he was dangerously close to letting it come to him during a fight, when even he wouldn’t know whether it was on accident or purpose. He didn’t care anymore whose fault anything was, he didn’t hate his mom, he didn’t hate Aphy, he didn’t hate Lu, he didn’t even hate Sophia Silver that much, he didn’t hate anything (except maybe Gideon and the Conductor, but that was on principle). He just wanted to live in a body that wasn’t so determined not to be alive, and here was Lu, with a warm house, waiting for him to call it home, with those guilty eyes begging for forgiveness, terrified of what would happen if he got it. 

Adon snorted at how easy Lu was to read still, his face crumpled as he tried to find a way out of the question or how to start the answer. Adon sighed at the anguish and hope warring on Lu’s face, kneeing him gently, “just tell me. What did you save me from?”

“Can you tell me first?” Lu turned miserably to Adon, prepared for the stabbing truth, “what happened after graduation?”

Adon wrinkled his nose, too far from his old dreams to properly recall them, “I didn’t graduate.”

“What?” Lu stuttered, sitting up, “but you were going to—”

“I was gonna what?” Adon leaned his head on Lu’s shoulder, inhaling the humid air and tracking an electric blue dragonfly through the grass below them. He felt Lu stiffen beneath the weight of his head, coiled for the weight of Adon’s explanation, and laid back on the boulder with a dismissive sigh, “I don’t remember what I was going to do, Lu-Lu…. I only remembered to survive.”

They both eyed the tallies on Adon’s bare arm, Lu lingering over the scars. Adon smacked Lu’s shoulder lightly, “you go first, what made you think you were saving me? That’s the beginning.”

Lu sighed, uncertain how to say everything he meant with words. Selfishly, he wanted Adon’s understanding, if not his forgiveness. He wanted the validation of his suffering that only someone who knew him before could draw a line between. He wanted Adon to know he wasn’t thrown away or tricked, that it was a traumatized kid who thought he’d found a way out by sacrificing himself, but he’d only hidden away and been too ignorant to win Gideon’s games. Even now, Lu felt trapped in a play, a game paused, the pieces still set on the board of an abandoned room. But the sun lamps were warm, and the golden halo of light reflecting off the bubbling water made their place by the river feel like a secret, their own liminal space in the world of inbetweens. Besides, Adon looked much less intimidating without his coat, eyes closed, face almost smiling. 

Lu realized only then that the reason he hadn’t gotten the tattoo removed yet was probably to show Adon. An explanation, never an excuse. He unbuttoned his shirt slowly, pulling it off and folding it neatly on the warm rock, then folded forward over his knees and waited. 

He felt Adon sit up curiously, the silence soothing years of mocking nightmares: Benny tightening the creaking straps as Lu bucked and whined, Pa’s cane cracking over his head, the way his hearing had been distorted for days, the cold humiliation of the courtroom booth. He didn’t know where to start with words but he heard Adon’s shocked inhale, barely audible, felt soft fingers trace the eagle branding his back, and relaxed in the confirmation that it was as hideous and violating as he’d felt it was. 

Adon hovered on all fours, investigating the tattoo while Lu remained trapped in Gideon’s shadow where he’d once tried to hide in perfect silence. He was ashamed of his survival, and he’d borne it just so Adon could decide whether he was worth keeping or throwing away. Lu slumped, smoothing his hair and waiting for Adon’s dismissal. 

He flinched at Adon’s lips brushing the tip of the feathers rounding his left shoulder, up his neck.

“I heard birds can fly for hours,” Adon mused. He’d only ever seen the bouncing ground birds and fluttering pigeons hiding in the server stilts, the ashy shadows diving through the holes in old world scaffolding. “Most can go wherever they want. They don’t need a flock.”

Lu nodded, adding his own bird facts, “some of them mate for life.”

Adon snorted, holding Lu’s shirt out to him and buttoning it back up, “is that what you did?”

Lu nodded, memorizing the delicate details of Adon’s face, the new contouring scars, the temporary scabs, the complicated lines that used to be simple, symmetrical, enchanting. “Keep coming home, Adon,” Lu let his fear of their haunting past and uncertain future show on his face, “until it feels like home… you find it, I’ll keep it.” He waited for Adon to match his small nod, then let go of the sincerity, easing the tension with an attempted subject change, leaning back on his elbows, “I heard about Adon the Finder.” He nudged Adon lightly, “and that there’s also an Adon the Keeper,” he was going to make a dumb joke but stopped at the hatred folding over Adon’s face. 

Adon shook the look off his face, scratching his head with a sharp grimace, “he keeps the Pits, Lu-Lu. He’s the warden.”

Lu’s face went white, goosebumps erupting along the base of his hairline, stomach twisting. Phaios had said Gideon might… but he’d never really considered—the Pits? Adon had been in the Pit? Where people’s fingers went flying into a cheering audience and entrails got hung from sandy cages in grotesque victory? Those Pits? Those were the only Pits. He couldn’t think of another.

“When you can’t pay the Quartet…” Adon pursed his lips in a pout, “it doesn’t matter.” Adon smiled, waving at the memory, then turning Lu’s chin gently until their eyes met, “it doesn’t matter.”

But Lu was already lost to the ocean of guilt in his chest. He nodded anyway, choking back tears because Adon wanted it to be okay. They could talk about it later. He could forgive himself later. Now, he only wanted to make up for all the lost moments, for every time he’d ducked his head and hidden from the truth, pretended to be brave, looked for Adon anywhere but the ground or the grave. He ran a soft finger over the tallies of Adon’s arm, surprised by the warmth of his skin, pulling Adon tight to his chest, memorizing the new shape of him as Adon settled against him, fidgeting with the drawstring tie of his hospital pants, never still. Lu thought maybe there wasn’t anyone else in Adon’s life, remembering the empty emergency contact list, realizing he’d had Phaios and Nika and Arez and others who’d come and gone, and Adon had… no one. 

Lu dropped his head onto Adon’s shoulder so they were curled around each other, a ball of a universe on their own, a new star forming or collapsing, too early to tell.

Adon turned his head so he was facing Lu and kissed him with another one of those defeated sighs, pausing so he spoke the words directly into Lu’s mouth, as if he might swallow them, as if they might heal him from the inside, “you survived, Lu-Lu.”

Lu nodded, his voice raw, “we survived.”

Adon nodded back, their foreheads smacking lightly, “we did.” He thought maybe he would hesitate before jumping into fights now.

Lu kissed Adon back, like he might hypnotize the truth out of him, then leaned in with a soft peck of closure and sat back, observing what was left of his radiant boy, comparing all the memories to the man in front of him, new stories to hear, wondering how many different colors Adon’s hair had been. Lu let himself hope and it felt dangerous, like he was stepping out into the open, where the predators played, “You’ll come home? You’ll come home and let me love you?”

Adon clenched his tattooed fists then shrugged gallantly, showing off Y’s chicken scratch lettering, “till death.” He knocked his knuckles lightly against Lu’s jaw then sat back on his elbows, holding Lu’s gaze with an appraising nod, “I’ll come back until I can’t.”