I Come Alive

The school was seemingly empty as gusts of wind blew against the bushes and trees outside. Clouds were moving in on the district like a cat on its haunches, waiting for the moment to strike and then move onto the next district. There was also a chance of rain that day, and possibly ice at night when the temperatures dropped. Monsoon season was approaching Abionmaton, which meant storms during the day, low temperatures at night and even worse humidity when the season passed. The weather never became too out of control other than the occasional tree branch snapping or rock rolling off the side of a mountain. Nobody had been hurt in years. The rain was nothing more than a season to many.

But Joshua viewed this season as a danger to Beau and his traveling. Unrealistic situations played out in his head, such as what would happen if the rain became to hard and the train derailed, or if the ice made the windows in the Capital shatter from the unusually low temperatures. Completely unrealistic, and yet they were the only thoughts in Joshua's mind. Not being at Beau's side made Joshua's mind play morbid tricks on himself.

Rowan called Beau in the morning and asked for him to come to the lab, by himself, to discuss the case as soon as possible. Beau reluctantly agreed, telling Joshua that the meeting probably wouldn't take longer than the time he was at school. Joshua had a spare key in case Beau wasn't home by the time school was out, and he had this gut feeling that Beau wouldn't be home in time. It seemed that when Beau made plans in the Capital, he would stay much longer than expected. Considering the fact that Joshua waited in the rain for a few hours the last time Beau went to the Capital without him, the visit would most likely be long.

"Bambi?" Ville said as he snapped his fingers in front of Joshua's eyes. "You okay? You look sick or somethin'."

"I don't like this weather much." Joshua lied with a meager shrug. "The wind worries me a lot."

"Really?" Ville prodded curiously, obviously not falling for Joshua's lame attempt to cover his troubles. "That's what's bothering you? The wind?"

"Well the wind... and the effects of it."

"All right." Ville sighed. "Where's Lover-boy?" He crossed his arms, keeping his pace with Joshua while they walked to third period.

"Who?"

"Lover-boy, the one who escaped the Capital, your boyfriend. Beau. Where is he?"

"How did you know?"

"You have been sighing all morning long." Ville replied. "I'd have to be really stupid not to notice that. So where is he?"

Joshua hesitated, chewing on his bottom lip as he debated whether or not he should tell Ville about Beau being in the Capital. If he did tell him, what would he tell him when he asked why? Surely Ville would ask why, he wasn't an idiot.

"He went to the Capital." Joshua said quietly. "To pick up some new medicine."

Ville took a minute to think about what Joshua had said, chewing on the inside of his lip. Joshua thought the lie was believable, but then again, he thought most of his lies were believable.

"Really?" Ville repeated his words from earlier.

"Yes, really." Joshua replied with a weak smile. "They wanted him to be there so they could x-ray his leg, and then they mentioned that there was a new test drug they wanted to start him on. He said it may get rid of his limp, but there were no guarantees."

"Oh." Ville said, obviously falling for Joshua's lie. Joshua inwardly smiled, but kept the lost expression upon his face to make sure Ville didn't become suspicious. "Then why the long face? He's going to be back anyways."

"It's just.... Well, theoretically, let's say this 'test drug' they're giving him isn't stable." Joshua said. "What if Beau has some weird reaction to it? I don't want him to be damaged from some medicine they thought would be 'good'." Joshua did air quotes to emphasize his distaste, though the lie had absolutely nothing to do with what was actually on his mind. But since he had came up with this fantastic lie, he played with the idea of Beau really taking faulty medicine. Perhaps the so-called 'miracle' the Capital came up with hadn't helped Beau but hurt him. Then again, Joshua thought, how would he even prove it?

"Hey, you wanna ditch?" Ville asked. Joshua glanced at him. "What?" His tone was a false kind of innocent. "I just thought because you're all weepy and I'm pretty bored, we could blow off this place."

"But it's only my second day." Joshua replied defensively. "I'm gonna ditch on my second day?"

"You don't have to...." Ville said over the ringing of the school bell. He turned his body and took backwards steps to the door, staring at Joshua with an innocent smirk on his pink lips. "But I'm leaving. Tell me what I miss in math, yeah?"

Joshua bit his lip, watching as Ville turned his back and quickly picked up his pace for the hall that lead to the emergency exit. Joshua looked down the hall where the door to the math classroom was slowly closing. And Joshua sprinted down the hall to Ville's side on a split second decision.

"Where are we going?"

"And Bambi makes a comeback." Ville smiled. "I dunno, I think I'm just gonna hit the square, maybe go home and pop open a fresh one." He said.

"You're gonna drink?" Joshua said under a hushed breath as they slipped past a cracked door and to the emergency exit. Ville nodded, looking the door up and down.

"On three we run."

"What?"

"One—"

"Why are we running?" Joshua said frantically, readying himself to run at a seconds notice. "Ville, wa—"

"Three!" Ville grabbed Joshua's arm, pushing their way through the emergency exit. The alarms sounded through the school as the door was only used for fire assemblies and lock downs. Few people were on the streets, so they glanced at the school but didn't notice the two figures sprinting down the sidewalk and into one of the alleys that led back to the square of District 3. Ville only glanced at Joshua every now and then, and only when he couldn't hear the school emergency bells did he bother to look at Joshua.

"Ville, what are we doing?"

"Whatever we feel like doing." Ville replied nonchalantly. "Haven't you ever done things for the hell of it?"

"Well... no." Joshua said under his breath. "Beau's always been real careful when it came to me."

Ville stared down at Joshua, using those deep blue eyes to keep him entranced. The corners of his lips tugged up into a warm, yet mischievous smirk that only made Joshua curious as to what he would say next. Ville brushes some of his red hair away from his face, revealing a sneaky twinkle in his eyes.

"Have you ever drank?" He asked. "As in alcohol."

Joshua's eyes widened at the thought of it, and his cheeks were tinged with rosy undertones of blush. He shook his head quickly, only remembering the time when Beau drank some alcohol in front of him. Beau was a mess, Joshua recalled. His hair was frazzled, and his pupils were completely dilated. He could hardly walk, or talk since he had one of the worst cases of the hiccups. They played some game Beau told Joshua about where they couldn't touch each other, but get as close as possible. Joshua hadn't thought of alcohol much after that night.

"Never?" Ville's tone of voice was utter shock and confusion. "How? Beau never even let you try it?"

"Ville, I never really cared much.... It's just some drink." Joshua said.

"It's more than just a drink." Ville retorted quickly. "Yeah, it's only a liquid, but what it gives you is just priceless. You don't have a care in the world. Everything is just about that moment. Besides the flavors are definitely... sweet." He emphasized. Joshua raised his brow, and he smiled.

"And you know this, how?"

Ville gave back a snort of laughter.

"Years of experience, Bambi."



"Beau, are you even listening to me?" Rowan asked. Beau rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"Rowan, I've been lost for the last 20 minutes. I lost you at, 'you're gonna be hacking with Ethylon to find traces of the bots,' or something."

Rowan sighed, breaking the silence that Beau so desperately wanted to run away from, to get away from the case entirely. He wished he could just drop the responsibility and run, but he knew he would feel guilty after doing it. So instead he sat with Rowan in the lab, staring down at a list of plans that would supposedly help them recover the missing bots.

"You're not making this easy, Beau."

"Well it's not like this case is the easiest thing either." He said. "You're asking me to hack into Capital official territory and find some missing IP addresses, serial numbers and busted circuitry."

"But you have the Capital's permission, so it's not like you're going to be caught while hacking."

"I'm not worried about getting caught." Beau said. "I'm worried about what I'm gonna find."

Rowan shook his head, his greasy brown locks of hair falling past his ears in small wisps. He pushed his glasses back on his nose.

"Then we won't make a plan." Rowan said. "Let's go at this case your way; head-on. Whatever we find, we'll tackle when we get it."

"I never said we couldn't learn a plan."

"No, I think this one will work better." Rowan brought his thumb to his mouth and began to bite the already chewed nail. He hissed in pain, and Beau watched intently as blood began to drip out of the tip of his nail and down his hand. The drop of blood drizzled down to his wrist, leaving a red walk of pain in its wake. "I mean, we have absolutely no idea what we'll find." Rowan continued, snapping Beau back into reality. "We could find more than we expected. Then we'd have to make last minute changes to any plan we had." Rowan began talking to himself now.

"And if we encounter the hacker, we can more than likely try and find where they are as long as we keep them online for a few minutes. Then we'd have them shutdown." Beau opened his mouth to offer something up, but Rowan hushed him without even trying. "Wait, we wouldn't want to shut them down, that wouldn't lead us any closer to the missing bots. Perhaps we'll find an estimate as to where the hacker is. Of course, we'd still have to hack them which would sort of tip them off."

Beau leaned his head in his hands as Rowan's rants continued from what it was like earlier. Beau had to stay there until Rowan was absolutely finished ranting and he dismissed Beau because if he didn't he may miss something important. Though Beau really was missing something important at the time, both figuratively and literally; Joshua.

But Beau told himself to suck it up and listen to Rowan ramble on about the chances of meeting the hacker, because if it meant getting finished with the case quickly, Beau would do anything Rowan asked. He would risk his safety even if it meant completing the case quickly.



Joshua giggled mindlessly at whatever he found within Ville's small house. A cat curled around his feet, pressing its cheek against Joshua's legs before purring loudly.

"He's— hic— really friendly." Joshua slurred quietly. Ville nodded, taking another swig from his own flask of vodka. The alcohol didn't have as great an effect on him as it did on Joshua, mostly because he had been drinking for a few years, and Joshua just had his first glass of whiskey ever.

The liquid was a golden brown color, and that turned Joshua off at first. He didn't want to drink something that had such an ugly color. But when Ville gulped some down, Joshua figured it wasn't that bad and took a sip of the brown substance. Immediately his throat went warm, and he grabbed at it, telling Ville what had happened. Ville told him that he would get used to it, and it was only the alcohol. That nothing bad was really happening, though Joshua thought his throat was closing up! Now he swallowed a gulp of the delicious liquid with weak pants of breath.

"I shouldn't be doing this." Joshua said under a hushed breath. He hiccuped again before laughing at the sounds he was making. "I shouldn't be doing this." Joshua said again, though a sudden drunken realization went through his mind. "Beau is— hic! He's gonna be so angry! H-he's probably expecting me to be home...." Joshua gave an exaggerated gasp and threw his hands up to his mouth. "What if he's already h-home!?"

"Do you want to check?" Ville said as though it were nothing. Joshua pondered for no more than a second before he nodded quickly.

"I have to get home."

Ville rolled his eyes, giving a sigh as he swallowed the last gulp of his vodka and put the flask on the counter.

"Always thinking of others, even when you're drunk." Ville said. "Well, c'mon. I'll walk you home."

As they started walking down the street with slow and unsteady strides, Joshua found it awfully hard to walk by himself. He would reach to his right and lean on Ville's shoulder, using his broad figure to balance himself. The alcohol had definitely taken its toll, and a fire was burning in his stomach that told him he really shouldn't have drank so much his first time.

They didn't bother speaking much, so even when they turned on Joshua's new street corner, not much was said. Joshua glanced around the neighborhood and he realized that all of the lights were turned off. Had he missed something? Something important?

"C'mon, Bambi. I bet Beau's gonna tear me a new one for keeping you this late."

"What time is it?" Joshua said. He smiled because his hiccups were finally gone, though his obviously slur was not.

"It's 7:30."

"How?!" Joshua yelled. Ville shut him up by throwing his finger over his own lips. "We left school, like, early in the day!"

"Drinking makes you lose your sense of time, I guess." Ville's voice steadied and whatever alcohol that was in his system was now wiped out. The vodka he drank wasn't the best quality either, so whatever effect it did have was weak. "It's my fault. I'll tell him that. He hates me anyways."

"No...." Joshua said. "It's not your fault. And he doesn't hate you."

"Yeah, okay." Ville said with sarcasm in his voice. "I don't know what world you live in, Joshua," Ville paused, "but if it's as oblivious to things as I think it is, I wanna live there."

Joshua faced forward now as they approached his house, and already he could see that even their house didn't have lights on. Was Beau even home? Maybe Ville wouldn't have to get in trouble!

The walk to the door seemed to be hours long, though the knocking seemed even longer. What would Beau say? What would he do? He couldn't be angry.... right? The alcohol he had didn't help much either as the thoughts rattled around in his head along with a new found side effect of the alcohol; a splitting headache. It was like somebody was pounding his head with a softball as hard as they possibly could.

"Does alcohol do this to everyone?" Joshua whispered. Ville shrugged.

"It depends on who's drinking it. Just act cool." Ville mumbled just as the door to the darkened house opened. But Beau was not waiting behind the door, but a tall, suited man with slicked hair. Joshua's eyes widened, and he latched onto Ville's arm, hiding away from the obviously taunting man. Ville cleared his throat awkwardly, though none of them said anything.

"Is Beau in there?" Ville finally spoke up. The man nodded. "All right. Go in, Joshua."

"Don't leave, Ville." Joshua whispered urgently. Ville scooted Joshua in the direction of the doorway. The man took a step aside as Joshua meagerly stepped down the hall. He turned to wave to Ville, but found comfort in only a slamming door and the suited man swiftly walking past Joshua.

From the living room came loud chatter between at least 20 different people, men and women. Somewhere in the pool of loud voices came Beau's with a shout of, "I can't fucking find him!" Joshua peeked his head around the corner of the hall to glance in the living room. There were six plastic tables with wires, laptops, bots, desktops and a large screen on the wall that Joshua had never seen before. An image of circuitry on the screen gave Joshua the instinct that they were looking at a bot's circuitry, but for what?

Beau spun around his chair to write something down on a long paper sliding through a machine that gave small readings upon it. He glanced up before catching the gaze of helpless and still drunk Joshua.

"What's going on?" Joshua said. Beau didn't answer, but continued to scribble things on his paper. Joshua rubbed his arm slowly, staring at an angry Beau among many detectives, along with Rowan who was anxiously searching for something on the large screen. None of the detectives gave Joshua an answer either, even when he moved in to study the papers they all carried.

"Joshua, you should get out of here." Rowan said. "Go to your bedroom with some flashlights."

"Flashlights? Why?"

"Joshua, just do it." Beau replied hastily. He looked at Joshua with tired eyes, eyes that said he had been looking for Joshua for hours. His eyes were puffy and red from crying, though he had obviously brushed it off for more important things.

Beau couldn't decide who he was more angry at; Joshua, Ville or himself. Joshua could have at least called Beau, just to tell him where he was, or better yet, he couldn't have ditched in the first place. He was obviously frustrated with Ville because he was supposedly this "great friend", when he only got Joshua in a bit of trouble. And yet, Beau couldn't help but this it was partially his fault. If he hadn't been so strict with Joshua, would he have been as angry as he was now? Beau could hardly think straight as the faults ran together, creating one giant mess within his own mind.

"What happened?" Joshua said quickly.

"The hacker, they infiltrated our systems when we were just looking at the circuitry of the missing bots." Rowan answered for Beau.

"Beau?" Joshua turned to him. "Is it true?"

"Yes, it's true!" Beau snapped. "And this fucking hacker is going to shut down the electricity in all of our districts if we don't stop him right now. That's why all the lights are out on this side of the town. Communication is missing from every district except for half of 3, 2 and 1, plus the Capital. We're trying to keep everything up and running, but we're running on fumes right now. We don't even know how the hacker got word on our tracking." Beau said. "So unless you want to go back out with your drunken friends again, please just leave."

Joshua, offended by the notion that only his friends were drunks, took a few steps away from Beau. He opened his mouth to say something, but Beau just shook his head.

"I just don't have time to talk to you right now." Beau sighed. Joshua let out a sigh of disappointment, mentally slapping himself for leaving with Ville. Seeing Beau so frantic and out of place didn't make Joshua feel any better, and he didn't blame Beau for being angry. Now that the buzz he had from the alcohol had been tamed, Joshua completely realized how much he had screwed up. He not only had been missing in action for seven hours, but he was also drinking, with Ville nonetheless.

So Joshua nodded, but took a meager step forward, pressing a soft kiss to Beau's cheek. Then he walked down the hall, opening one of the closets to grab a flashlight. He sighed quietly, regretting that he ever ditched classes. He had left his books in his locker, and now he had nothing to do but sit in his bedroom and stew in his own disappointment.