The next time he wakes Valentine still doesn’t remember what happened. He most likely never will according to the doctor, who says he’s got a concussion and his brain is good and scrambled. He’s also cracked some ribs, broke his collarbone, torn ligaments in his shoulder, and scraped skin off half his face and palms.

He’s lectured repeatedly about how important the program is and how his rough play with the other kids is a waste of good resources and the future of humanity depends on him not being a complete dumbass, or something to that effect. He is on some very strong pain medication and even if he could concentrate for more than three seconds at a time he feels like he’s been wrapped up in infinite layers of cotton wool, making everything seem very distant and slightly fuzzy.

Time melts and stretches and it’s either been weeks or a few hours and he can’t get any straight answers on what happened to the kid that he only vaguely remembers was chasing him, only that he’s ‘no longer with the program’. Valentine doesn’t know who the adults think they’re fooling; everyone knows that’s what they say when someone’s dead.

The medical wing is mostly vacant thanks to a sharp decline in new “recruits”. Rumor has it that someone who actually has both influence and scruples finally noticed that the governments of the world were forcing children into the program. They got the ball rolling on an investigation which led to leaks which led to a general outcry. Anti Ark Program activists had been quick to proclaim that this proved their point that humanity wasn’t worth saving.

It’s nice having a double room all to himself until they cut off his pain meds and he becomes all too aware of the itch of healing skin on his face and hands and the deep, nagging aches of knitting bones.

Thankfully he does seem to have picked up the accelerated healing from all the genetic manipulation he’s undergone. Valentine should be out of the med wing and back in class soon but in the meantime he is in desperate need of a distraction before he starts scratching all his freshly scabbed skin off.

He manages to roll out of bed and stumble out the door before he realizes far, far too late that he has grossly overestimated his ability to do anything more strenuous than sitting up. He’s got a sling for his arm and his ribs are taped but each laborious step he takes is fresh agony as healing bones are jostled. His legs are weak and shaky and his knees keep buckling. A cold wash of fear hits him as he realizes he is in very real danger of going down hard with only one hand to catch himself. His heart is racing and he can feel a bead of sweat start to trickle down his temple as he leans against the wall to steady himself. He can’t quite catch his breath.

“Everyone’s saying you killed Roberto and like, cut him up into tiny pieces and fed him to the crows,” a disgustingly cheery voice says from behind him. Valentine startles in surprise, which in turn tweaks his ribs and collarbone and really fucking hurts. The pain is so overwhelming he can’t even think of a single curse so he just writhes silently, gasping as he waits for it to pass. Once his vision clears and the pain recedes enough to where he’s not in complete agony he very slowly, very carefully rotates his head to look over his shoulder.

“Hi!” chirps a boy that’s a good foot taller than Valentine and looks oddly cheery given he’s just accused someone of being a murderer. He gives a little wave as he smiles. “I’m Gee.” He waits expectantly for Valentine to respond.

“Don’t have a knife, ‘sides it’d be kinda mean to the crows,” Valentine says absently, still not sure what to think about the whole murder thing. What he is sure of is that with all that’s been done to alter the DEXO kids if crows tried to eat any of them they’d probably end up horribly mutated or dead.

This Gee kid is weird. He’s still smiling and he is way too friendly. He also looks like he could bench press Valentine which is…concerning given that it’s taking all his strength to keep from sliding down the wall onto the floor. Being in pain is exhausting.

Gee laughs, delighted. “Yeah guess none of us would taste very good,” Gee agrees happily. He cocks his head, gives Valentine a once-over and his expression changes from ‘just won the lottery’ to ‘mildly concerned’. “Need a hand?”

“I didn’t kill him,” Valentine insists. A small voice in the back of his head suggests that he should probably just accept the help but he has no idea who this guy is or why he’s decided to come bother him. “I don’t chop people up and I don’t need your help, I’m just resting.”

Unfortunately it’s right at this moment that Valentine’s knees buckle once more with an exhausted finality and he starts to slide down the wall. Goddamn it.

Gee reflexively reaches out to help support him but he yanks his hands back at the last second, realizing that there’s not really a good way of doing so that won’t aggravate Valentine’s injuries. So he just stands there, hands held out uselessly while Valentine continues his slow descent to the floor. He lands in a bit of a tangle. Everything hurts.

“Sorry!” Gee apologizes, face twisted with rueful concern. “Wasn’t sure where to grab you.”

“It’s…cool,” Valentine wheezes, hating everything as he starts the slow and painful process of sorting out his limbs. He somehow manages to twist around so his back’s up against the wall and his legs are more or less sprawled out in front of him. His body has failed him spectacularly and he’s pretty sure he’s going to be stuck here until the shift nurse comes to check on him.

Gee, in a disgusting display of physical prowess and dexterity, gracefully folds himself down until he’s sitting crosslegged right next to Valentine. Like, right next to him. He is uncomfortably close. Valentine can practically feel the heat radiating off his skin. “So how did you do it?” Gee asks.

“Huh?”

“You know,” Gee draws a finger across his neck dramatically.

Valentine shoots him a death glare but Gee just laughs and laughs, rocks back and forth and slaps his knees with unconstrained hilarity. “Kidding! Kidding!”

There’s an awkward silence while Valentine sulks and wonders how long it’ll be before the nurse comes to scrape his sorry ass off the floor. This Gee guy is a fucking weirdo, the other kid is most likely dead and he’s acting like it’s some sort of joke. Valentine’s pretty sure he doesn’t have it in him to actually kill anyone but he can’t help feeling the tiniest bit guilty—a person died.

Maybe Gee will just get bored and wander off. Valentine cuts his eyes to the side, trying to sneak a look at him without turning his head and their eyes meet. Gah.

Gee laughs and slides over the scant few inches between them, companionably bumping their shoulders together. “I’m just here to get my hand looked at.” He holds up the hand in question, encased in a soft vaguely skin toned brace. “Broke it a couple weeks ago and they want to see how it’s coming along.”

Gee’s sobered up now, a serious look on his face. “No one’s going to miss him, really. He was a dick and got exactly what he deserved. Just wanted to let you know.”

While Valentine’s sure that Gee means to be comforting this does nothing to assuage his fear that he might have been directly responsible for someone’s death. But it’s nothing he’s really eager to discuss, especially with someone he’s just met.

It’s hard to not be suspicious, no one’s ever nice to him. On a good day they’re indifferent. He can’t quite meet Gee’s eyes as he nods his thanks.

The throbbing in his shoulder isn’t getting any worse so much as it is getting harder to ignore, to say nothing of the deep ache of his ribs. His fingers spasm as he tries to resist scratching everything that itches. He closes his eyes and leans his head back against the wall. He starts to take a deep breath, remembers his ribs just in time, stops and sighs.

“They teach you meditation yet?” Gee asks. Valentine guesses it was too much to hope for just one quiet moment to sort himself out.

“No.” He’s learned a number of what he’s been told are essential skills. Things like how to classify type and subdue a number of supernatural creatures, determining the effects of charms and talismans and protective amulets, how to find missing people or missing things. Meditation has come up in his classes but only as a brief mention in a very long list of things he’ll eventually be expected to know.

“Ah, well, they taught us and it’s supposed to be good for all sorts of things?”

“Uh huh.”

“I just…it might help. With the pain. You take deep breaths and like, clear your mind.”

Valentine reluctantly opens his eyes and turns his head towards Gee who is just making this…face. Like all he wants is to do is one nice thing for Valentine. Valentine doesn’t trust it. Can’t trust it, not in this place. No one here is nice without an ulterior motive. “Ribs are broke. Breathing sucks.”

Gee’s face falls and Valentine feels the briefest stab of guilt. Seriously though who asked this guy to care. What is his deal.

Gee sits with him in an almost companionable silence until a nurse comes across them. She predictably gives Valentine a hard time but then Gee turns on the charm and distracts her. He gets her laughing and smiling and even blushing a little all while she’s helping Valentine up and back into his room, one painful shuffling step at a time.

Valentine gets tucked firmly back into bed and threatened with further bodily harm should he try getting up again, then the nurse turns to Gee, all smiles once more and tells him that they need to go take look at his hand. He agrees but then asks if when they’re done can he come sit with Valentine a bit. She gives him an odd look, then looks over at Valentine, confusion in the furrow of her brow, the downturned corners of her mouth.

“If it was me, I’d want some company,” Gee says, not even looking over at Valentine. He’s just continuing to dial up the charm, softening his gaze, gentling his smile. “Besides, I’ve got independent study for the rest of the day and it’s nice and quiet here.”

The nurse is utterly charmed, saying how thoughtful and of course he can do his homework here.

Ah, there it is, Valentine thinks. He’s just being nice to me to try and score some points with the nurse. He just huffs and shakes his head. He knew there had to be some sort of angle. Who would want to spend the afternoon with him, in a hospital room?

So he’s very surprised when not even fifteen minutes later the door to his room swings open and Gee comes barreling through. “Catch!”

Valentine raises his one good arm protectively across his face just in time to deflect something small and surprisingly light. “The fuck!” He looks down to see what it is. It’s a chocolate bar. And not the cheap ubiquitous kind that has no cocoa beans and tastes like a memory of a memory of chocolate. It’s the super expensive stuff that still isn’t quite like the chocolate of old (or so he’s heard anyway, cocoa beans haven’t been commercially farmed since long before he was born) but is the best approximation there is. He looks back up at Gee in astonishment.

“I know where the nurses hide the good stuff,” Gee shrugs and tries to play it off like it’s no big deal. “She said they just took you off pain meds and meditation’s no good so I thought maybe, you know. Chocolate.”

“They are going to murder you when they find out it’s missing,” Valentine warns him while carefully removing the paper sleeve. He gently snaps the bar and the foil covering it in half. He can’t remember the last time he ate anything that was even remotely sweet. He holds one of the halves out to Gee. “Might as well get something out of it.”

He’s managed to surprise the other boy. “You don’t—Really?”

Not only did Gee actually come back but he brought chocolate. Of course Valentine’s going to share. He draws his legs up so Gee can sit down on the end of the bed if wants. It’ll be a bit awkward sitting so close with someone he’s only just met but he doesn’t think Gee’s got a real good grasp on personal space anyway. Sure enough, the other boy takes his share of the chocolate and sits down next to him. Valentine very carefully breaks a small piece off the corner off his half and tucks it under his tongue to let it melt. It’s very dark and very rich.

Gee on the other hand takes a huge bite out of his and chews it. He gets through his half of the bar in relatively short order then notices that Valentine’s barely touched his. “You don’t like it?”

Valentine laughs and shakes his head. “No, no. It’s good.” He kind of wants to wrap the rest of his half back up and hide it somewhere for later, really make it last. Is that weird? Will Gee think it’s weird? He doesn’t like caring what other people think. “Thanks,” he remembers to say, face growing warm with embarrassment. No one’s ever given him a gift before and he’s not quite sure what to do. He wraps the chocolate back up and very deliberately avoids looking at Gee as he slides it under his pillow for safekeeping.

Gee, in a rare moment of tactfulness, says nothing but the corners of his mouth twitch up in a there and gone again smile. “I’ve got some reading I need to get done,” he says. “Thought I might do it here, if that’s okay with you?”

Valentine nods, even though he can’t quite shake the feeling that Gee must have some sort of ulterior motive. No one could just…be this nice.

Gee twists around to reach into the bag he’d set down behind him and fishes out his tablet. “If you want—I mean, well,” he laughs awkwardly and ducks his head in an odd moment of shyness. “We’re working through some epic poems in one of my classes right now and they’re actually pretty cool stories? Like, there’s things we’re supposed to be learning about but it’s mostly sword fights and stuff.”

“That does sound cool,” Valentine says.

“Yeah um, so. You wanna read along?”

Valentine nods then shuffles around a bit so they’re sitting side by side. Gee gives him a small grin and holds out the tablet so they can both see.

***

Valentine wakes just as the evening nurse comes in to check on him. He doesn’t remember falling asleep. He remembers the beginning of the poem he’d started with Gee but that’s pretty much it. It’s disappointing, realizing that he’s missed a rare opportunity to spend some time with someone who not only tolerates him but seems, against all odds, to actually enjoy his company.

The nurse pokes and prods and questions him and says he should be back to his regular schedule in the next day or two given how he’s healing. Valentine wonders if he’ll see Gee around or not. He wonders if he wants to. He wonders if Gee wants to.

He eats his dinner and catches up on his own reading which is a complete let down and so, so boring. The unit they’re currently on is funeral rites, organized by region and historical period and despite his usually excellent memory he’s having a hard time keeping it all straight. He’s not sure if that’s to do with the concussion or how dry the writing is. He’d initially been looking forward to the unit but it’s just been one big slog.

Gee returns the next day much to Valentine’s surprise. He bursts through the door, tablet in hand. He waves it at Valentine as he makes his way over to the bed, says he needs to finish his reading. Confused but pleased, Valentine draws his legs up and crosses them, making room for Gee to sit if he wants. He does.

“You fell asleep pretty fast there last time!” Gee gives Valentine a warm smile. He’s always smiling. Valentine thinks he should be getting used to it by now but it throws him off every time.

“Yeah,” Valentine agrees, embarrassed, looking down at the thin hospital blanket. He picks at a loose thread.

“I think you missed most of it, want me to catch you up?”

Valentine looks up sharply in surprise. “Really?”

“Of course! I told you it was good stuff, besides it’s gotta be boring in here.”

He summarizes the story so far, frequently interjecting with his own thoughts and opinions. When it gets to the sword fights he leaps off the bed and swings his arms around, pantomiming his favorite bits which is pretty much all of them.

There’s a lightness in Valentine’s chest and he thinks he’d be smiling if that was an expression his face was at all used to. He should be cautious, wary of the other shoe that’s due to drop any time now but all he can think is how do I get more of this.

He hasn’t realized until just this moment how lonely he’s been.

The nurse has to tell them to keep it down several times although her heart’s not really in it. The medical wing is still pretty empty so it’s not like they’re actually bothering anyone. She does finally get stricter about it once curfew draws near. Somehow Gee wheedles his way into spending the night because he’s got some sort of magic touch when it comes to getting the nurses to let him have his way. Valentine wonders if that’ll change once the absence of the chocolate bar is discovered.

Gee drags the empty second bed over so that it’s right next to Valentine’s and they can keep talking even though they’ve received dire warnings to keep it down if he doesn’t want to get kicked out.

Eventually they exhaust all their thoughts on Gee’s reading assignment. The sword fights had been awesome, and there was battle magic and demons and a surprise twist ending.

Valentine had thought for sure that the poem would end with the main character nobly sacrificing himself for the greater good. Instead it had ended with him throwing down his sword and giving a speech where he pretty much told everyone that he deeply regretted the waste of dedicating his life to helping a bunch of ungrateful shitheads and they could all go kick rocks.

Valentine didn’t think stories were allowed to end like that.

“Thanks,” he says, once they’ve run out of things to say to one another. The word falls incredibly short of what he feels right now, still coming down off the euphoria of spending most of the day with someone who by all appearances really enjoys spending time with him, but it’s all he’s got.

Gee laughs but doesn’t say anything else for a long time. Then he says quietly, “I hate this place.”

Valentine doesn’t know what to say. He hates it too? Does anyone like it here?

“There were so many of us to start with. And people just keep disappearing and we all pretend like they’ve gone somewhere else but everyone knows that they’re dead.” Gee sniffs once, twice, and Valentine doesn’t know whether or not he should speak or stay silent. “And it’s like, everyone’s just given up, going with the program because what else are they going to do?”

It’s nothing Valentine hasn’t thought to himself in the dark a thousand times over on the nights he can’t sleep. But it’s the first time he’s heard anyone else say it.

“And look at you, you shouldn’t even exist.”

And there it is, the other shoe dropped. Valentine’s stomach twists, going sour. “Fuck you,” he grinds out, face growing hot as tears start to gather. And fuck me for thinking I’d made a friend, he thinks bitterly. He’s got to get out of here. He fights his way free of the blankets and sheets and just as he’s about to swing his legs out of the bed and run for the door Gee’s hand snakes out and grabs his wrist.

“No, wait!”

Valentine tugs but Gee’s grip is firm.

“You don’t understand! Everyone here talks and they said— the doctors say that you should be dead but you’re not and they don’t understand why and maybe it’s just because you’re stubborn and they’re scared, so scared of how smart you are. How you pick up all the spiritualist stuff like it’s nothing. Better than the rest of us by a lot.”

Valentine stops struggling and just turns to look at Gee’s too earnest face, lit up by pale moonlight streaming through the window.

“And everyone else hates you and treats you like shit and it doesn’t even phase you, Roberto had like fifty pounds on you easy and you didn’t give him a fucking inch.”

“I don’t remember what happened,” Valentine says woodenly. He doesn’t need Gee to tell him what he already knows, that everyone hates him, that he’s potentially responsible for someone else’s death. And Gee doesn’t know what he’s talking about, Valentine’s not smart or brave. He’s just really good at running when someone is after him.

“You tricked him into chasing you across the roof. He slipped and fell, broke his neck.”

So definitely dead then. He’d guessed as much. It still doesn’t stop the rising horror and nausea and shock he feels at being responsible for someone else’s death, no matter how indirectly.

“And you,” Gee shakes his head and huffs, “got pulled down when you tried to save him. For such a smart guy you’re kind of an idiot.”

Valentine bristles instinctively at the insult but his brain’s still churning over all this new information. At least he’s not a cold blooded killer? He’s kind of pissed he half agrees with Gee though, that it was stupid to try and save someone that was that intent on beating the shit out of him.

But the one thing his brain gets stuck in a loop on is why is Gee here. What does he have to gain by telling Valentine all of this? Why is he still holding on to his wrist? Valentine tugs and this time Gee lets him go.

“Why,” Valentine whispers as loud as he thinks he can get away without drawing the nurses’ attention. “Why me, why are you telling me all of this?”

Gee’s eyes are large and liquid in the pale moonlight. “Everyone else has just given up, they just go along with whatever they’re told and they’ll all be good little soldiers by the time they get their placement. They’re excited. They wanna be special.” Gee scoffs in disgust, a dark look crossing over his face.

“But you, you’re just trying to survive. So am I. And I could really use a friend.”