The sky was black as Frankie led Joel and Paelen into the small Fremont Street diner. The young hostess who seated them paid no lingering attention to Joel’s now-exposed metal arm or to Paelen’s blood-soaked head wound. Working the Fremont Street night shift had likely desensitized the restaurant’s employees to any strange occurrences, but this assumption did nothing to calm Joel’s paranoia. His eyes scanned the narrow establishment, sizing up its few patrons.
“Joel, what are you looking for?” Frankie searched in the direction of Joel’s gaze.
Joel passed around the menus. “Anything that could cause us any more trouble tonight.”
Frankie eagerly inspected the breakfast section of the menu.
“Pancakes?” Joel raised his eyebrows. “Frankie, it must be close to midnight.”
“They always make them for me when I can pay,” Frankie insisted. “Even when John and I can’t swing take-out food, they’ll sometimes give me leftovers anyways, too.”
Joel read the description of the triple chocolate pancakes Frankie was hailing. Honestly, he would’ve taken anything edible at this point.
Joel lifted his eyes across the booth to see that Paelen had not touched his menu. His friend stared out the window, but he didn’t appear to be looking at anything.
“What do you want to eat, Paelen?” Joel prodded.
“Hmm?” Paelen’s attention returned vaguely to Joel and Frankie. “Oh. I…I will have what you are having.”
Joel frowned.
“Can I start you folks off with something to drink?” A short, red-headed waitress asked.
“Actually, we’re ready to order.” Joel responded, gathering their menus. “We’ll have three orders of the triple chocolate chip pancakes. And three chocolate milkshakes.”
As the server took her leave, Joel continued to eye Paelen. Frankie’s eyes had lit up at Joel’s words. “John always just gets us water; he says we need to save money so we can buy a real house.”
Joel nodded sympathetically. “I would normally agree, but Paelen really needs sugar right now; it’ll help him heal.”
Frankie raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Aliens normally eat people, though. Or ingest the CO2 from the atmosphere, I heard.”
Paelen rolled his eyes, then winced at the action. “We are not aliens!”
“You said yourself you aren’t human,” Frankie insisted. “How can you be neither humans or aliens?”
“I am a human,” Joel insisted.
“I’ve never seen a prosthetic arm like that on a human,” Frankie reasoned. “And I’ve seen a woman at the Four Queens that’s got a fake leg.”
“You’re right,” Joel ceded. “The technology is alien, but I’m not. When I lost my arm, one of my…alien… friends created this arm for me.”
Paelen’s hand fell from where it supported his head. “Alien?”
“I knew it!” Frankie bounced in his seat.
“Frankie, shh, we don’t need any more attention!” Joel said, surveying the room. The two scattered diner customers were decidedly unfazed. “Paelen, if you have a better explanation, feel free to share it,” Joel said, pointedly.
Paelen sat back with a sigh. Joel wasn’t very keen on referring to Vulcan as an alien either, but revealing the truth likely wouldn’t do any good. They couldn’t be sure that Frankie had any knowledge of Roman mythology, so an accurate explanation may have confused him further.
“Alright. I guess I believe you, Joel,” Frankie yielded.
“Thanks.”
He turned his attention to Paelen. “How long do aliens live for?”
“Frankie, must you-“ Paelen gritted his teeth before he was cut off.
“I just want to know how old you are!" Frankie pouted.
Joel watched the interaction with a mixture of amusement and concern. Frankie’s extraterrestrial accusations had grated him, but he was no longer a target. Paelen was not from Earth, nor was he a human, which meant that by most definitions, he was an alien to Frankie. He was also, however, very pale at the moment.
“I do not know," Paelen frowned. “We do not celebrate birthdays on Oly- where I am from.”
Joel watched as he swayed slightly in his seat. It had already been some time since the Olympian had access to ambrosia and nectar, and Joel almost wanted to push some of the artificial sweetener packets adorning the table towards him. It couldn’t be too long until their food was out, Joel thought, thankfully.
“I will be right back,” Paelen muttered, sliding out of the booth.
Frankie and Joel watched as he disappeared into the diner’s men's restroom. “He’s still bleeding," Frankie gestured toward a smear of fresh blood left on the edge of the booth.
Joel glanced between Frankie and the blood. “I’m gonna go check on him. Just stay right here, okay?"
Frankie nodded. Ordinarily, Joel would not be keen on leaving a nine-year-old alone, but Frankie had proven himself to be extremely adept at survival, not unlike Joel himself as a child.
Joel slipped out of the booth, making his way through the desolate diner past the surprisingly bustling kitchen. Music echoed through the half-closed metal doors, and Joel was suddenly reminded that to these people, there was no other world to deal with. No clones, no shady government organization, and no trigger-happy Olympian leaders to deal with.
He pushed open the restroom door to find his friend’s pale form braced against the counter. His eyes were shut, and he did not appear to notice Joel’s entrance.
“Paelen?”
Light brown eyes snapped up, and Joel frowned. His friend’s usually vibrant eyes appeared fatigued and distant, slightly unfocused as they met his own. “Are you alright?”
Paelen smiled weakly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. A half-hearted approximation of his usual crooked grin did nothing to reassure Joel. “I will be fine, Joel.”
“Let me take a look," Joel gestured toward his head, tentatively stepping forward.
Paelen blinked, then tilted his head down, reluctantly offering his wound for Joel’s inspection.
There was no need—he was squarely a head shorter than Joel. Still, Joel made quick work of unwrapping the bled-through makeshift bandage barely secured around the olympian’s head.
The sight of the bare wound made him grimace. No human could have survived the gunshot. Although Joel knew his friend was far from human, Paelen’s appearance—his same age, younger even, wiry frame—sometimes made him forget how much more resilient he was than himself.
“Has it healed at all?” Paelen asked, and Joel realized he’d been staring dumbly for some time.
“Honestly? Not much, if any.” he admitted. “We really need Emily, or at least some ambrosia and nectar.” Paelen didn’t respond. “Let’s go eat our food; the sugar should help a little. Then we can go back and wait for Emily, Pegasus, and Alexis to return.”
Joel re-bandaged his wound and led him back to their booth. Frankie had already cleared half of his plate and was demolishing the other half with syrup.
Joel managed to focus on his inappropriately-timed breakfast food for a while, having given up on force-feeding his Olympian friend. Several attempts of pushing syrup, Stevia packets, and milkshakes towards him were left ignored, and Joel almost resorted to cutting up his food into small pieces and playing ‘Here comes the airplane.'
It wasn’t hard to imagine loss of appetite would be a side-effect of gunshot wounds, but Joel couldn’t understand why his friend wouldn’t force some sugar down when he knew it would help him.
Frankie had been loudly mmming and awwing to a cartoonish degree. While Joel had originally interpreted it as the child’s attempt to join in getting Paelen to eat, he was now convinced that it was the boy’s natural reaction to a pancake. It wasn’t unfathomable that Frankie didn’t have reliable meals, even Joel’s experiences in foster care had shown him that food wasn’t always a given, and Frankie’s situation was clearly worse than Joel’s had been, no matter how awful those foster parents were.
Paelen had grown gradually less responsive throughout the meal, to the point Joel was getting concerned at his lethargy, until he peered over to check on his friend and was met with almost frantic eyes. Joel startled. “What? What is it?”
Paelen’s eyes danced over him before returning to the window, scanning past their own reflection and into the Fremont Street night wildly. “He is out there. The clone.”
Joel frowned as he attempted to follow Paelen’s line of sight. “You said that earlier.” He pointed out.
“I mean he is closer. I think… I think he knows that I am close as well. Yes, he is searching for me.” Paelen mused, as if the concept shouldn’t horrify him.
“We’re leaving. Now.”
Joel dropped a large wad of cash on the table, more than enough to cover their bill. He more than expected Paelen to protest the excessive spending of his stolen gambling money, but his eyes were still pacing the window as if entering REM sleep.
“I wasn’t done yet!” Frankie protested. His plate was empty.
“Look at ourselves,” Joel gently but firmly grabbed Paelen’s bony arm, pulling him out of the booth and through the diner towards the exit. “We are in no condition to be meeting any more clones.” He hushed his voice at the mention, even though any clientele remaining in the diner at that hour were in no position to judge their issues. “We’re barely in any condition to be walking home.”
Nonetheless, they did so. Their pace was slow as Joel didn’t wish to aggravate Paelen’s wounds, and they were all exhausted. The growing distance between them and Fremont Street seemed to do well for Paelen’s headspace, and he appeared more aware of his surroundings once they’d neared the block of Frankie and John’s ‘apartment’.
None of them had spoken for the duration of their walk, and Joel had been so focused on their disembarkment that he only then realized he was still pulling Paelen down the sidewalk. He let go, slightly embarrassed, not that the other had seemed to mind.
It was probably nearing 4 AM, and as they got farther from the seemingly endless stretch of casinos, the number of people on the streets dwindled.
They passed a large camp of homeless people, and Joel pulled Frankie closer to him. Joel was nothing but sympathetic towards these individuals and their circumstances, but desperate people did reckless things, and they were carrying a lot of money.
“Hey, kid,” A voice called from a nearby tent.
Joel tensed. He kept walking, knowing the man would likely give up. “Joel,” He turned at Paelen’s anxious tone.
His friend found himself face-to-face with a tall man holding out a hat. He didn’t speak, but took slow steps towards the Olympian, backing him further towards the other side of the camp. Joel cursed.
“Listen, we don’t want any trouble,” He mediated.
The man didn’t respond, only shaking the hat in his hand with emphasis. There was no question what he was asking for.
Joel saw no way out of the situation, and he took a step forward. “Joel, don’t-” Frankie warned.
“Frankie, he needs it more than we do.” Joel didn’t know whether he was trying to convince Frankie or himself; or placate the man standing far too close to Paelen.
Joel reached into the pocket of his mismatched borrowed suit jacket. He deposited the first bill he’d pulled out, realizing regretfully that it had been a fifty.
The man seemed to inspect him, then Paelen, and then his eyes scrutinized their young companion. Joel took what he hoped was a subtle step between the man and Frankie.
The man’s gaze finally returned to his hat, and while Joel had expected satisfaction at his score, his expression was unreadable as he finally turned and walked slowly away.
Joel found himself once again grabbing Paelen’s arm, this time along with Frankie’s, as he pulled them out of the darkened street and towards the black building that was now in sight.
“Joel- Joel,” Frankie complained. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
Joel scowled. “What else was I supposed to do?”
“Now they know we’ve got money. And-” Frankie glanced behind him. “They’re gonna see where we live.”
Joel tensed. Frankie was right. He couldn’t repay the boy’s hospitality by letting his home be targeted by potentially malicious individuals.
“Alright, we’ll go around this block again, and if no one is following us we’ll assume we’re safe.” This was a tactic Joel had learned upon his move to New York, muggers being fairly common but usually unwilling to waste time when less savvy tourists were readily available. He hoped it functioned similarly on the west coast.
Joel frowned. He was still gripping his friends’ arms. He was reminded of the way he remembered his father behaving in large crowds, pulling Joel in one hand and his little brother in the other, something he once found annoying but now recognized as his dad only wanting to keep his family safe. Joel shook his head to clear the memory and released his companions’ arms.
Paelen swayed once before his knees buckled. Joel hadn’t realized as he had no feeling in his metal arm, but he must have been gripping the Olympian tightly enough to hold him upright. He and Frankie both shot forward, maneuvering their injured friend to the ground as he fell limply.
“Is he alright?” Frankie asked, and his wide eyes made Joel wish he could confidently respond that of course, he just needs another Stevia packet. Maybe two. He’ll be fine. Unfortunately, Joel was not an expert in Olympian medicine.
“Frankie, I need you to go upstairs and find Chrysaor. Tell him what happened, he can come carry us up.”
Joel was more than capable of lifting Paelen, he probably would be even without his enhanced arm. He knew, though, that Chrysaor’s help would jostle his injury the least, along with being much faster.
Frankie nodded and quickly made his way to do just that.
Joel looked towards the sky. They really needed Emily.