We're Not Scared

“And that’s where I think the Crimson Knight came from!”

Fen had a funny variety of smiles. There was his “sap” smile, which was his most infuriatingly common one, sported whenever he was trying to turn his big brother into mush. Theo had overheard stupid grown-ups talk about “wearing your heart on your sleeve,” almost always in this sneering we-know-everything voice. Fen didn’t do that. No, Fen was more of a “rip his heart out and shove it in your face” kind of guy.

And then there was his “are you proud of me?” smile, which he was wearing now. And honestly, Theo would have rather take another attempt by Fen to turn him into mush over being expected to compliment Fen for making up a sob story about something most people, child or grown-up, considered a literal demon.

“Is there a bad guy you wouldn’t invent some tragic past for?” Theo sighed.

“Why not?” Fen asked, his eyes doing that ridiculous thing where they seemed to shimmer like something out of a cutesy drawing. His heart was probably a demon itself, luring the poor guy into feeling so much, to the point it made his eyes turn all pretty talking about evil incarnate. “People act mean because mean things happened to them.”

“Well, you had the orphanage you were in shut down and not a single one of your ‘roommates’ hesitated to leave you to fend for yourself.” Theo said, rolling over so his back was turned away from those eyes. They were still in their alley, their little fortress of cardboard, messy blankets, and pillows having grown a little from recent adventures, and he hadn’t really wanted Fen to tell him a story, either. He was hoping he’d fall asleep at some point, dreaming about putting grown-ups over a fire or something.

“Which meant I got to meet you!” Theo sometimes wondered if Fen wasn’t working properly. He wouldn’t say that to his face, ever. But he did wonder whether he was capable of feeling an anger that lasted, a hate that lasted.

Was Theo, of all people, really worth being so happy over?

“What I’m saying is,” Theo said, not turning over. “You had a very mean thing happen to you, and you’re not like the Crimson Knight. Whether you like it or not, people act mean because people suck, Fen.”

“So...you don’t like my story? It’s...okay if you don’t. I’m just guessing why the Knight’s like that, I could be wrong, so-”

“My story last night was better.” Theo snorted, feeling a grin coming on.

“No, it wasn’t!” Fen cried, and the moment Theo heard a little foot stomp, he had to turn back over. He would never get tired of this side of Fen. “You putting Crispy in Hell was horrible and scary!”

“Hey, it was tame for me, right?” Theo chuckled. “He was only there for a minute, and it was just to teach him a lesson.”

“Nope.” Fen folded his arms, spinning right on his heel and turning his back on Theo. “He’d gotten better. You just wanted to be nasty.”

“Grown-ups are nasty, not me.” Theo shut his eyes, still loving this, but really needing to sleep now. “Now, get some sleep. We got a big adventure tomorrow, little brother.”

“I’m not little!” Theo, eyes still shut, snickered through shaking teeth when he heard that. Fen always sounded like an explosive little mouse when he was this mad.

“Am too.” He said, grinning in full force. “Older than you by a month, so it counts.”

He felt himself starting to drift, but something warm and mushy pressed against his shoulder. “Can I sleep with you again?”

Totally unfair, how Fen’s words were making Theo’s arm move on its own to wrap around him.

“Obviously.”

When next afternoon came, they took a couple minutes longer than Theo had planned before leaving. Entirely Fen’s fault, because he woke up before Theo and that somehow gave him the right to act like Theo was nuzzling Fen’s hair like some dumb puppy in his sleep. Fen eventually said he believed Theo never did that, but his sap smile said otherwise.

Anyway, they were moving. Scurrying up pipes, running across roofs, Theo sometimes stopping to flick a pebble with a face drawn on it of someone pulling a raspberry through any open windows. That would show any grown-up in there what he thought of them! Fen had been finally convinced to join in with this thing a few days ago, but Theo should’ve known the only thing he’d send were heart-shaped letters with stars drawn on them. He did not answer Fen when he asked whether someone through one window would be “happy to know that stars love them.”

Besides, who cared about stars when fruit was primed and ready for them? That’s where they were headed: food. More specifically, Harbor 2B, right at the south-west corner of the city. After weeks of patrols, Theo had nailed it down, when grown-ups converged on the main attraction in 2B: a pirate ship covered in gold, anchored at the Harbor’s end. Only it wasn’t a real pirate ship. It was a prancing replica of one, made up by grown-ups because they wouldn’t go out there and steal an actual pirate ship from actual pirates. Sissies. Even the gold wasn’t real. It was paint with the color of gold. But once they reached the Harbor, there it was, surrounded by the same lying signs that said “LIVE THE LIFE OF A PIRATE!” Everything grown-ups said turned out to be a lie.

The one real thing on that ship was the food. From the high angle they were at, Theo could see crates being shoved into the ship’s back entrance. But the kind of grown-ups that ate on the ship were an especially stupid bunch, because as much as they scoffed everything they got their ugly fingers on, they left tons uneaten. Sometimes, whole crates didn’t have to be opened because there was that little need for them. Every Sunday from 12pm to 3pm, that was when the feast took place. And every time, Theo saw crates taken from the ship and dumped wherever about the Harbor. But one regular spot he’d noticed was a dusty-looking square big enough to drop a couple cars in. Something with faint traces of white and yellow lines, like it used to be some place kids would play games in. Something that could only be entered by climbing down from a roof, or snaking through the one alley connected to it. It was always a fruit crate that got dumped down here. And always some annoying jerks would run over to the crate before Theo could touch the ground.

Well, not today. Theo and his brother were going to be first to take everything inside. And it was more than close enough to 3pm now.

On their roof, Theo turned to Fen. “Now, show me what I taught you to do if anyone tries beating us to it.”

Fen lifted one foot up, stretched his arms above him like he wanted to hold the star, and said “The truth is a lemon meringue!”

“I should’ve never read you that book.” Theo sighed. “You’re supposed to say my brother will stab you.” He meant it. After all, he’d barely met any boys his age who didn’t have a knife on them. Unless they were dumb enough to live in grown-up houses.

“Why can’t we balance each other out?” Fen cried, not leaving that sun-catching stance yet. “You play mean, I play nice, see what happens?”

“Because you can’t afford that, Fen. The only way anyone learns not to mess with you is by shoving this in their face.” Theo demonstrated this point by shoving his knife in Fen’s face. Not literally. He wasn’t a believer in cutting off the faces of little brothers.

Fen went on some speech about making friends, and by now, Theo had learned to tune it out, fighting down some crazy bug inside of him that wanted to listen. Instead, he laid on his groaning belly, resting his chin in his hands until his hands wobbled and he just laid the head down completely, his eyes boring into the fake ship. Watching the sun slowly creep behind it, its real shine shattering every bit of the lies. How he wished it could come a little closer and burn them all up, burning everything up, leaving just him and his brother to make their own world. A world without voices like what he could hear from below him, grown-ups who, even though they were so much further from Theo than Fen was, carried words that crept all the way up to him and cut into his skin.

“To think my brother calls it sad that children have to earn their homes like everyone else! Thank goodness we did away with that poisonous idea.”

“Ever notice the Crimson Knight always goes after the people who hate our great city the most? The ones who fancy ridiculous fantasies of solving problems by holding hands? I wonder if the creature is truly so terrible.”

“Caught two of the vermin trying to eat out of my trash last night. And the staff leave leftovers for them after this? Little rats ought to have their jaws broken.”

It was what they said on their way to the ship. Theo could only guess what was said behind closed doors.

Once 3pm struck, Theo didn’t waste a second. He grabbed the black pipe, ignored the little cuts he got on his hands going down, waited for Fen to follow, looked around, saw that they were the only ones here. He hadn’t noticed before how much decay had seeped through the surrounding walls. If these used to be flats or something, barely a sign was left of it. They, like most buildings around Harbor 2B, were gray and riddled with cracks and holes, like half-eaten plants. The good news was, it left plenty of holes to jump through and dark places to hide in.

It didn’t take long for their bounty to come from above. This time, whoever was carrying the crate didn’t bother climbing down and gently putting the crate in place. He just tossed it over his shoulder and let the thing smash the ground, making a little cloud of dust and splinters. After a bit of coughing, Theo checked Fen over and saw no wooden chip had cut him. If a single one had, that man would’ve been getting a slit eye from Theo.

Miraculously, the crate itself only had a couple top hinges lose and had not spilled out its contents.

“Alright!” Theo walked over to it with Fen, rubbing his hands together then stopping that because ow, his hands still hurt from the pipe. “Let’s dig in.”

“NUH-UH!”

Fen squeaked and jumped up so high, Theo thought he’d gone above his head for a second. He drew his knife, hissing at himself to stop shaking, and then he set his eyes on three big, walking headaches.

They must have been cheating by hiding somewhere Theo couldn’t see, then crouching out to claim the crate from the opposite side of where Theo and Fen were facing. Seconds after one had given the shout and Theo had drawn the knife, they showed themselves, two of them leaning against either side of the crate, while the other, definitely the leader, climbed on top of it.

“These fruits are property of the Slasher Gang!” The leader grinned down with all teeth at Theo, his hands on his hips like some uptight grown-ups liked to do. What made it especially dumb of him to play grown-up was that he looked no older than Theo. Actually, none of them looked older.

“So get lost, shabby freaks!” The leader was an odd-looking boy. His black hair was shorter than anything Theo had seen, but he couldn’t have had it done by some professional. No, what thin streaks remained were riddled with uneven edges and a couple spikey outliers. His eyes held a manic red shine, which was more than enough to tell Theo he was going to be the biggest issue.

The second “gang” member was a girl, her arms folded and smiling in a pretty relaxed way despite Theo holding his knife and looking his scariest (was he looking scary? Theo showed off his own teeth at the leader to make sure). Her auburn hair was longer and bushier, yet somehow more organized than the leader’s. Her hands were gloved and one had...little spikes on them? That wasn’t fair – Theo wanted spike gloves!

The third was some boy who wouldn’t make eye contact with anyone. Theo chalked it up to his menacing presence, but after a few seconds, realized this was the kind of boy who wouldn’t say hi to a dying fly in case the fly took offense. His eyes were hidden beneath thick bangs of red, the only bright spots in an otherwise dark mess of hair. Still neater than the leader’s, though.

All of them looked as well as Theo expected from anyone with the kind of life he and Fen had. Colourless and hole-ridden shoes, jackets with a hundred stories of cold nights and fights written on them, and a couple marks of dirt or bruises across their pale faces.

“Shabby?” Theo scoffed. “That’s hilarious, coming from you, shitty hair.”

“Theo,” Fen whispered, and Theo fought to keep his knife-pointing posture intact when the idiot whispered close enough for his breath to tickle his ear. “We can’t swear like that!”

“Grown-ups do it all the time.” Theo whispered back, then focused on the leader, whose eyes were starting to pop. “Yeah, we’re not scared of you. That’s our crate and you’re gonna hand it over or lose a hand!”

“Okay, not a bad pun.” The girl said. Annoyingly, her posture hadn’t changed at all. “But we got here first, so take your fake knife somewhere else.”

Now Theo’s face was as red as his enemy’s eyes. “This is a real knife, idiot! I’ve cut people with it! See the blood marks?!”

“You probably painted on that thing with ketchup.” The leader snapped. “And even if it’s real, I don’t need a fancy knife to...what the hell is that weirdo behind you doing?”

The pose. Fen was doing the sun-catching stance and Theo couldn’t stop him from mentioning the damn lemon meringue either.

“The truth is,” The girl said with a frown. “That even if you’re kind of cute – you, not the fake knife guy – aren’t keeping my friends from eating.”

“Oh, don’t act like you’re not pocketing every apple you can find in there, Zeta.” The leader huffed.

“I leave plenty for you, Alex!” She cried.

“What did I say about giving away names to strangers?!”

“You did that just now!”

“She’s kind of right.” Fen said, thankfully coming out of the stance. “But it’s okay! We’re only strangers until we know each other’s names! I’m Fen!”

Theo shrugged. Might add more to their fear of him if they had a name to remember. “Theo.”

“Well, might as well tell you that guy’s named Meek.” Alex said, pointing to the boy who was now shrinking even further from the rest.

“Meek. Seriously?” Theo frowned. “That’s as dumb a name as the Slasher Gang.”

“It’s a badass name!” Alex yelled, stomping his right foot on the crate. “People are gonna remember that more than Theo.”

Theo was about to start swinging right now, but Fen stepped in front. “Wait! We don’t have to fight over this.”

“Course we do.” Alex said. “You live in the real world, right?”

“Uh-huh. So can we be friends instead?”

“Don’t tell me this idiot is with you.” Alex looked at Theo, starting to scowl.

Bad idea. Very, very bad. There was only one person in the universe allowed to call Fen an idiot, and mister slasher-wannabe was not him. “Fen’s my brother. What about it?”

“You don’t look that similar.” Zeta said.

“Adopted!”

“Oh, right.”

“I really mean it!” Fen cried, stepping closer, even with Theo gently tugging the back of his shirt collar. “There should be enough in there to split between us. You all look like you’ve done a lot of fighting, you must be tired, so can we all just sit down and be friends? I’ll try and make those bruises better if you want.”

Alex went almost limp, his eyes losing their intense spark as he stared at Fen, like he was having trouble accepting that this guy was real. Zeta had a second where her expression looked soft, nearly wounded, before hardening herself and blowing on her spiked knuckles. Meek lifted his head up, just enough for soft green eyes to peer through those bangs. His hands fidgeted with each other, his mouth opening but no words coming out.

“Okay.” Alex said, leaping off the crate and starting to advance on Fen. “The only reason you are still alive is because the one boy stupid enough to adopt you likes swinging fake knives around to scare people. You don’t earn shit in this city by holding out hands or hugs. You don’t even get a home unless you’ve proven you’re tough enough for some grown-up who thinks they can use you to go make them richer! We don’t need grown-ups and we don’t need you, either!”

“I’m sorry!” Fen kept trying, even after Theo had dragged him behind himself. “I didn’t mean to make you mad! I just think fighting makes things worse!”

“Acting like you makes things worse! Wanna see the scars my first ‘family’ gave me before I was kicked onto these damn streets? There’s no friends here!”

“But-but you’re friends with-”

“God, I almost feel sorry for the guy who’s letting you cling to him right-”

Slash.

It wasn’t fatal. But it was close enough to cut. Close enough to show he wasn’t kidding. Alex sprang back, hand over the left side of his chest, a thin but clear streak of red seeping through his clothes.

Meek ran behind the crate, letting only a sliver of himself peek from it. Some kind of quiet plea came from Fen, a voice that came out as nothing but a few muffles amongst ringing. The ringing had started seconds before Theo swung and it was roaring in his skull now. He screamed as he charged Alex, who charged right back with his own scream. Theo wanted to laugh. Alex was trying so hard to be scary. As if he wasn’t scrawnier and smaller than everyone else. He’d seen it from the start, the way Alex had smiled. All a big mask to make sure he didn’t have to say how scared he was.

It really made Theo laugh. Didn’t matter how vicious any other kid could be. He hadn’t met a single one who wasn’t scared. Scared of freezing. Of starving. Of dying. Of never being held. And they wanted to call him fake?

He forced all that fury into his strikes, along with the rage still burning from what Alex had dared to call Fen. He didn’t know who was winning and who was losing. Everything was a red, noisy blur that filled the world with livid, desperate growls. He was fighting Alex and Zeta at the same time, slashing in wild, fast motions that were already leaving his arm aching. He felt a fist collide with his chest, a foot stomping on his foot, a leathery hand strike him across the face with bits of...tinfoil?

The spikes on Zeta’s gloves were made of tinfoil. Again, they called him fake?!

His right arm used the knife, his left simply dolt out punch after punch to both his foes. Neither of them, or Theo himself, went down. The ringing started to clear and he felt teeth sink into his shoulder. He’d given Alex a couple bites when the guy had tried squeezing the wrist to make him drop the dripping knife. Or was that Zeta? He still couldn’t tell; the world was too fast.

Suddenly, he heard something clearly. A spitting snarl that he was bluffing, that he didn’t have the guts to kill anyone.

Oh, he did. And no matter how many nightmares and hidden tears told him otherwise, he would not regret it.

He could see again, breathe again. He was still. A noise had frozen him. A shriek violent and pained enough to turn the Harbor silent. Adrien was on the ground, clutching his right ankle, burying his face in his unhurt leg, Zeta right over him.

He looked at Fen, saw him standing further away than he was before. But unharmed. He was hugging himself, the way he did when the cold got particularly bad. He couldn’t look at any of them.

Theo shook himself, snapped back into it. He had a fight to win.

But Meek stepped in from beside him, hands outstretched, eyes big and pleading.

“Move.” He growled.

Meek’s hand went into his pocket, and before Theo could yell another warning, pulled out a coin.

“Meek, no!” Alex cried, and for the second time Theo was left frozen. Alex had let himself sound scared. Which was all the more reason to consider this coin, as unexpected a change it was. If this was worth the crate, and Meek was offering it in exchange, then...

Actually, no. Theo had never seen a more worthless-looking coin in his life. Both sides of it were dark and grimy, two little chips had been made in it, and had all the selling value of the stuff that came out of dog butts.

“You’ll give me this if I leave you alone?” Theo had to check. Once Meek nodded, Theo would have roared with laughter if he wasn’t so tired suddenly. And...aching everywhere. Why did everything ache so much?

“No wonder they gave you the worst name.” Theo chuckled breathlessly. “What the hell is that supposed to be worth?”

“It was his mom’s present, you jackass!” Zeta yelled. “It’s all he has left of her!”

Meek’s eyes hid beneath the bangs again. But Theo could see the way his lips moved, how real it was. Now he did laugh, his heart hammering.

“You’re kidding me. There’s no way your mom cared that much, to give you anything, let alone a piece of...”

He couldn’t finish. In one second, the cold changed. Enough for the air alone to hurt. And a sound came with the change. A sound so much like breathing, but so unlike it. The kind you’d get if a fresh corpse fused with steel and was forced to walk again. Deep and horrible enough to shake the frail walls around them. Theo did not need to have experienced it himself to know what it meant. Still, he had prayed, even in secret to a star, that it would never happen.

When he could make himself move again, he grabbed Fen with such force he might have hurt him and not cared, not if it meant he’d live. They ran through a hole in the walls, then deep into the dusty, crooked shadows, ducking beneath a heavy table and dragging discarded books to cover themselves while they peeked above to see Zeta and Meek still trying to get Alex up.

“Don’t bother with me! Don’t!” Alex was screaming, even as they got him on his feet, his bleeding ankle dragging limply against the stone.

“We can’t just let it get you!” Zeta cried. Meek seemed to agree, locking his arm tight around Alex’s shoulder.

“You won’t have enough time to...”

They stopped moving. Stopped struggling. And now Theo didn’t know if he could keep looking. When you have nightmares, sometimes they are so awful, you have a hard time believing you saw them, even if they were just in your head. You saw something that made you want to scream on the spot? That’s crazy.

Seeing one foot, clad in steel of the deepest black, with bloated veins of crimson covering it, made it impossible to deny. One quiet footstep had become more suffocating than all his nightmares combined.

The Crimson Knight slowly stalked towards the gang, smothering the sun in its shadow. It was so much bigger than any grown-up, with claws that could pick Fen up and rip him in two. Its veins, despite their unnatural size, were so lifelike, some people thought it was human. One look at the head was enough for them. The Crimson Knight did not have a face. It had a slender, blood-red line going straight from the top to the bottom. Was it an eye? Some kind of visor? Some mix of both, given the line twisted and curled and something bulged beneath it sometimes? Nobody knew.

Alex didn’t move. Nor Zeta, nor Meek. They didn’t dare turning around. As if thinking it couldn’t hurt them if they never saw it, as Theo used to think. The horrible breathing wouldn’t stop; it took five steps closer to the gang and Theo shut his eyes, squeezing Fen against his side and holding his breath.

Fen’s soft little gasp was the only thing that could make him look again. But the Knight hadn’t seen them. It had snatched Meek’s coin from his hand. He must’ve been so panicked, he forgot to put it away.

The Knight held the coin to its head, tilting as if curious. Then made the most slithering, guttural sound, like it was laughing. Then walked around the gang, finally making them face it, held the coin to Meek’s face, and crushed it between its fingers.

Then it left. It...left. Theo refused to believe it had at first. It was only when they could see the sun again and the cold had gotten gentler, that he could be sure.

He breathed, so relieved he could shake and cry and hold Fen tighter than ever, but Fen wasn’t relieved. Fen was staring at Meek, who was hunched over what were now surely specks of the coin.

Fen was one of the few people Theo had met who didn’t look very messy when he cried. There was only one day Theo had seen him outright bawl, and that was something he’d promised himself to make sure never happened again. Most of the time, Fen kept sniffling while tears flowed freely down his face and his whole form crumpled, curling into himself, wanting nothing but a hug while also looking scared he’d be a bother if he asked.

Not being very messy didn’t mean it wasn’t the most excruciating thing Theo ever had to see.

“Oh, Fen.” He whispered, holding his brother tight, his hand playing with his hair’s soft, sweet locks. “What is it?”

“He...” Fen swallowed, sniffled again. “He lost his coin.” Instead of burying his face in Theo’s shoulder, his hands reached up to rub his eyes, his little frame starting to shake in Theo’s hold. That was always the worst part of it. Fen always looked so small when this happened.

“Why did the Knight do that? Meek didn’t...do anything to it.”

Theo, deep down, was asking himself the same. The Crimson Knight killed. It chopped limbs off. It destroyed entire towns. Did it really, on some days, settle for taking a worthless coin from a child? Was Meek’s pain enough for it? Could it hear Fen crying right now? Were his tears enough for it? The thought made Theo imagine ripping the Knight’s head off with his bare hands.

He held Fen’s hand as they walked back to the crate. Told him, not for the first time, that he was not embarrassed to do it, that Fen needed this, and anyone who teased him for it was getting the knife.

Meek was crying, too. In a pretty similar way to Fen. There weren’t tiny specks of the coin left – there was nothing. And at the sight, every argument Theo had ready died. Whether or not his “mom” really did care, Meek’s feelings were real and he couldn’t stomp on them.

Alex and Zeta, their hands tenderly rubbing Meek’s back, looked at Theo. He knew what was going to happen now. Both of them would blame him for cutting Alex’s ankle. If he hadn’t done that, Alex would have been able to run. Now their friend lost his most precious treasure.

Theo didn’t want to give Fen another reason to cry, but he wasn’t going to take it. He was going to snap back, to shout, to not give an inch because that was how you survived. He’d say it was Alex’s own fault for insulting Fen and not surrendering the crate in the first place. Zeta’s fault for fighting him too and using fake spikes at that. Zeta and Meek’s fault for not doing the smart thing and ditching Alex, which is what he would have done to Fen, except he was scared he couldn’t make that sound convincing, that he’d leave Fen, leave the little brother squeezing his hand and crying and...

It was as if Fen could tell all of that was going to happen, because suddenly, he pulled himself out of Theo’s hand and walked straight to the three. He didn’t stop crying, didn’t stop shaking, just fumbled with his pockets until he pulled something out.

He held it to Meek, whose watery eyes met Fen’s own.

“I’m really sorry you...” Fen made a faint, shattering noise, like simply repeating the words was ripping him apart. Of course. Of course, he’d feel so stupidly strongly for someone he barely knew. “I’m really sorry you lost your coin, Meek. Do you want mine?”

Fen’s back was to Theo, but Theo didn’t need to see it to know what he was holding. It was a coin they’d found on the floor of a store they’d gotten into after it was closed. Something that glinted at Fen in the dark. It was the first time Fen had taken any kind of money without arguing with Theo over whether they should return it to its owner. The coin was a strong silver, no chips or even signs of wear when Fen first picked it up. Theo hadn’t seen anything like it before. On both faces, it bore some strange image of cracked hands, one coming from the sky, one coming from the land, reaching for each other. He didn’t think much of the coin when Fen found it that night. But the following day, when Fen rambled over how much he liked it, he’d never seen a coin shine so brightly as that one did in Fen’s hand.

Meek said nothing, instead staring at Fen, the eyes speaking a language only Theo’s little brother could understand.

“Yes, I mean it.” Fen sniffled. “I don’t have any other coins, but it’s okay.”

“But why?” Zeta said. “We’re not your friends. Why do you care so much?”

“I...” Fen kept his coin held out to Meek, his free hand rubbing his wet eyes. “When someone’s sad, I’m sad and I don’t like being sad, don’t like anyone being sad, and it’d be nice if nobody ever cried again.”

“Even when that someone isn’t very nice to you?” Alex mumbled, keeping his eyes on his injury. Theo was just close enough to hear.

Fen nodded. And right after, Meek slowly took the coin, stared at it, put it in his pocket, and broke into a smile almost as sappy as Fen’s regular one. Meek touched his chin, then pointed that hand in Fen’s direction.

Fen was no longer crying, thank the stars, but he was looking adorably confused. “I...sorry, I don’t know what that means.”

“It’s sign language for thank you.” Zeta explained, with a little smile of her own.

Theo could not believe he was about to say this. And he’d tickle Fen until he couldn’t breathe if Fen ever told anyone else that he’d said it. But the aching all over had not gotten better, the thought of seeing more blood was making him feel ill, and there was something else. Something pulling him towards following Fen’s lead that was too big and warm and scary to be given a name.

“I’m sorry.” He said to Alex, sheathing the knife. “For cutting you.”

“Do you want us to help with that?” Fen asked.

“Nah, I’ll be fine.” Alex said, before taking a step and needing to be kept by Zeta and Meek from falling flat on his face. “I’ll be fine after help with that. I’m sorry, too. For the fight and...for saying that stuff to you. Fern, right?”

“Fen.” Zeta chuckled. “Can’t believe you forgot such a cute name.”

Theo despised acting so loosely in front of people he’d brawled with, but how was he supposed to act when Fen started blushing like that? “Well, good thing you guys have a Fen of your own.” He laughed, pointing to Meek.

“Yeah, Meek is pretty cool.” Alex said. “He’s the one who did my hair. Even dyed his hair a little after me, cuz’ he likes me and all that dorky stuff.”

Theo was tempted to laugh even harder at that, but didn’t think it right to risk torpedoing whatever peace was coming out of this.

“How about we split between the five of us?” Fen said. “Since we’re friends?”

The trio looked among themselves, speaking in that thing that wasn’t sign language but didn’t require words, either. It wasn’t long until they were facing Theo and Fen again.

“As long as you help us keep Zeta from swiping all the apples,” Alex said. “We’re cool.”

The fruit was great, amazing even, but Theo had to keep himself from eating too fast. Fen had been sad enough today – he didn’t need to see his big brother hunched over and clutching his stomach while feeling like a giant spider was stabbing it from the inside.

They didn’t have much to treat a fresh slash wound; just worn bandages and some water to carefully drip over the cut. While Alex still had a limp, he claimed he’d had way worse. Zeta whispered otherwise.

“Hey.” She said to Theo during that particular conversation, mouth full of food. “Sorry for biting you.”

“That was you?” Theo laughed. “Thought it was Alex.”

“Actually, was probably both of us. I’m always first to bite in fights, though. Just letting you know.”

“Should’ve called yourselves the Vampire Gang.” Theo laughed, and she laughed – they laughed together, and that was what finally clued Theo in that he was getting too familiar. He stepped back, focusing on the half-eaten kiwi in his hand.

Zeta didn’t seem to notice and carried on eating. “Sorry for calling you fake, too. When, y’know...” She flicked her now spike-less glove.

“Can’t be helped.” Theo plastered a smirk on himself and shrugged. “Everyone tries so hard when up against the real deal.”

There was nothing but chewing for a while. And when Theo thought the conversation was over, she spoke again. “It’s okay to be scared.” She said it, out of nowhere, almost meekly, not looking at him anymore. “I think even a lot of grown-ups are scared.”

Theo pretended not to hear and that was the end of it. By the time they’d gathered up everything they could into their pockets and arms, Theo and Fen waved goodbye (Theo only waving because Fen had grabbed his wrist and held it up), the gang waved back, and that was hopefully the last either of them would see of the trio.

The Harbor itself was a crummy place to enjoy the sunset, so they went to the nearest beach, or rather a closed-off corner of it that grown-ups never set foot in. There they sat, inside a little cavern carved into a bridge, the endless blue meeting a painting of pink. Pink with a million little bits of fluff across it, the kind of soft, harmless thing Fen would fill the world with if he could. Fen, who hadn’t taken his head off Theo’s shoulder since they finally sat down.

Theo couldn’t tell how or why the conviction had come to him; it just did and he knew. He’d never be like Fen. Couldn’t be like Fen. But he’d never let anyone make Fen stop being Fen.