Alfred dialled up a bubbler from the living room food dispenser with only one ear open. It was a self-defence measure.
"…thirty klicks from the bloody front lines, no outside safe-parks, net connection like a three-legged tortoise–"
"All right, all right," Alfred said, as the machine beeped, cutting off Arthur's stream of complaints. He sprawled on the sofa, sucking the drink from a straw, his head close to Arthur's leg but definitely, definitely not touching.
Arthur was sitting bolt upright on the edge of the seat as usual and glaring down at Alfred. Alfred tried to grin up at him, but they'd had this argument too many times, and it was the reason he couldn't do what he desperately wanted to do, which was rest his head on Arthur's knee and complain about homework. School. Normal things for a fifteen-year-old.
The glare wasn't letting up. Alfred offered a sip of his bubbler as a sacrifice to peace, but Arthur pushed it away. He had soft, sandy hair covering his forearm, and Alfred wondered what it would feel like to touch.
He couldn't, though, because it would complicate things. Alfred sighed. "Look, I know," he said. "You don't want me to take the West Twelve placement, okay, I get it. But I gotta. You don't understand. If I don't get warzone experience, my chances of getting on the military-medico branch are a big fat zero."
"I understand perfectly, you idiot," Arthur snapped. "Haven't you been listening to me?"
"Nope," Alfred said cheerfully. Usually Arthur would poke him in the ribs in exasperation. But this time Arthur just tightened one hand around his school reader and the other on his knee, and looked almost closed-off. Alfred pushed himself off the sofa cushion and sat up uneasily. "Tell me again."
Arthur turned his reader around and shoved it at Alfred. "Look at this," he said, "since there seems to be bubbler in your ears."
Alfred frowned down at it. "An acceptance certificate?" he said. "For tactics analyst training? You hate tactics!"
"It was the only program with spaces open," Arthur said shortly. "And my tactics marks are excellent. May I remind you I got 96% in standardised testing?"
"Yeah, and that was your lowest mark," Alfred said, elbowing aside the cushion so he could pore over the reader more closely. "Hey, this program is in Cidome West Twelve!"
"Congratulations," Arthur said. "You've demonstrated basic reading skills. If you'd worked on your bloody listening-to-what-your-best-friend is saying skills, you might have had that revelation five minutes ago."
Alfred barely heard. He was too busy staring in dismay. It was one thing that he might go to a cidome in the war zone, but the moment he thought of Arthur there too, his chest constricted. The Elite were merciless with the cidomes they took. He looked at Arthur, the tense curve of his arm as he gripped his knees, his face so set in its hostile lines that only Alfred could read the uncertainty underneath. In his mind he saw Arthur choking in paralyzing gas, grimly working at an interface while hull breach alarms sounded, thrown from a tunnel train – "No," he said.
Arthur took the reader back. "Too late," he said. "I'm on the program."
"You wanted to go into politics!" Alfred said.
"I don't bloody care," Arthur said. "Maybe you should have thought twice before leaving me behind and putting yourself in a warzone."
"You did this just to follow me," Alfred said slowly. Freezing dismay was creeping through him like a tide. It made sense. They'd been close and getting closer. Both of them had mutually stopped dating a year ago, spending every school day and evening together instead. Whenever they touched, one of them jumped away, as if the electric awareness of each other was crossing some unspoken line. It had been the hardest decision Alfred had made in years to take a placement away from Arthur, even if it was only for six months. He'd thought he would get his warzone experience, come home after the risky six months was up, and ask Arthur… ask Arthur… something.
"Don't get all puffed up over it," Arthur said. He sounded grouchy, but Alfred could hear the smugness under that. Usually it made Alfred roll his eyes affectionately. Right now it made him feel sick. He'd just screwed up Arthur's career plans and pulled him into a warzone. He hadn't even meant to.
"I'm coming back!" he said. "You don't have to do this. I'll be back in six months!"
"I don't care," Arthur snapped. "If something happened to you, and I wasn't there, I'd never forgive myself. You're—"
He broke off. Alfred's heart was pounding, and blood thumped in his ears in the space where the next words should have been.
It came on him like a flash, a solution so perfect and awful that he could feel his gorge rise. The bubbler taste in his mouth was turning to acid. He dropped the half-empty drink on the table.
"Is this all 'cause you think we're gonna date?" he made himself say.
Arthur froze. He wasn't attractive when he froze, pale in shock with eyebrows bristling, his arms awkwardly splayed in the act of putting his reader away. Alfred still wanted nothing so much as to kiss him and smooth the shock away, but he didn't. That would just make Arthur follow him into somewhere he might get killed. Alfred had already messed this up enough.
"I don't—" Arthur said, all words apparently deserting him. "I didn't–"
They Didn't Talk About Dating. It would be weird.
Well, this had just got past weird.
"We're not gonna," Alfred said. He tried to look Arthur in the eye, to add some conviction, but he couldn't meet his gaze. He had to jump up and pace in the tiny living room. "Look, I know we've been – sort of wondering, but this isn't gonna work. I don't want to just start dating the guy I knew from high school. There's a whole world out there. I've got options," he added, and then hated himself for it. His throat hurt. His heart hurt.
"I," Arthur said, and then swallowed. "I. You don't – I see."
"So there's no point," Alfred said. He seized his drink for something to do with his hands, felt too sick to drink it, and waved it in a half-baked dramatic gesture. "You should withdraw from that program."
"Withdraw," Arthur repeated. There was something off in his voice, something tiny but wrong, like a hangnail pulled until it bled.
"Yes!" Alfred said. "I don't—" He had to say it. Better Arthur never got hurt in the first place than he risked becoming one of the victims on Alfred's training vids. Maybe this was what it meant to be heroic. He had to take a breath, because it felt like he hadn't breathed in minutes. "I don't want you following me."
"Of course not," Arthur said colourlessly. He got to his feet slowly, like his skin had been sand-blasted and the touch of the air around him hurt. He gave Alfred a last, lost look and turned towards the door.
Alfred nearly grabbed his arm. His hand was an inch away from his side before he stopped himself.
Arthur programmed the door to let himself out. "You don't have to go," Alfred said.
"I have to get back," Arthur said, sliding his ID out his sleeve. He seemed engrossed in scanning it.
"Come on, we've still got a week." Alfred said helplessly. "We can still be in touch even when I'm gone."
"Very bloody likely," Arthur snarled. "When you'll be having dinner with all your options." He let the door shut behind him. The corridor elevator went with a clank.
()()()
Alfred called fifteen times that night. Arthur's terminal wasn't receiving.
()()()
He prepared for the move in a haze of misery, sorting his possessions for the meager twenty-kilo allowance they had. He called Arthur every day, then every two days, and then another eight times on the last day.
"Could you possibly use your headset?" Matty said, poking his head around the door. "That beeping—oh."
Alfred was slumped over the bed, his superhero figurines spread around the pillow. Introduction to Combat Medicine was playing on the wallscreen again, under the flashing Unanswered Call window.
Matty wrinkled his nose. "You've already watched that," he said.
"He's not picking up," Alfred said.
Matty didn't seem surprised. "You said you had an argument," he said, instead. He moved a heap of new cadet jackets and started folding them. "If you told me what it was about—"
Alfred pulled the cover around his shoulders defensively. "I said, don't bug me about it. It doesn't matter what it's about. It only matters that he's not talking to me the day before I go!" He picked up the remote and called again. It gave the "Unanswered" beep again. Alfred groaned and slumped back on the bed.
On the screen, the training vid lingered on a heat-seared stump that had once been a knee joint, sheered off by shrapnel from an Elite drone.
Matty turned his head away. "Why are you watching that?" he said. "You've seen it five times already."
"Gotta get myself psyched up," Alfred said. He pulled his cadet pants away before Matty could fold them too and stuffed them in his carryall. "Gotta go with the right attitude."
"You don't even have to go," Matty said softly. "That might fix the argument."
"We need heroes, right?" Alfred said. He pointed the remote at the screen and paused it on a cadet's face. "Keep everyone else safe back at home." Keep Arthur safe. Keep the fighting well away from him.
"Okay," Matty said, with the sort of calm that meant he was done with this conversation. "When you get through to Arthur, I'm sure spouting recruitment slogans at him is going to fix everything."
Alfred threw the pillow at him, but Matty was already out in the corridor.
"It's for the best," Alfred said stubbornly. "Sometimes heroes make sacrifices. It's all for the best."
The shut door didn't reply.
()()()
Three days later, the attack came. It wasn't where any of them were expecting.