2. GUARDIAN
2
GUARDIAN
Hospital food sucked. By the time Blair was discharged, he would have sold his kid sister for a pork chop. He signed his release paperwork with an illegible scrawl of ink and took his crutches like a gold medal. They meant he was just a hobble away from freedom. Marie had dropped off a change of clothes for when he was released that were clean and, most importantly, didn’t have a .22 sized hole in the leg. A nurse insisted on showing him out, though it was probably less out of concern than because it was their job to make sure he had someone to drive him home.
The automatic doors gliding open was the best sound he’d heard in days. It wasn’t a peaceful summer day so much as just another humid Friday in Queens, but Blair’s crowded city was a welcome sight. The smell of fried confections hit his nose and his stomach growled to remind him of the doughnut shop right around the corner. Spencer was probably picking him up, and Blair hoped they could stop somewhere. He couldn’t fight a war on an empty stomach.
“Do try and stay out of trouble, Mr. Kennedy.”
He glanced over at the sound of the deep voice. “Thanks, Doc.”
Dr. Garrett was leaning against the high glass panes that made up the outer wall of the hospital. The nurse seemed content to leave him in the presence of a doctor, so Blair thanked her for walking him out before standing next to the tall man. It felt good to lean on something while he waited, anyway. He watched half a dozen people depart at the bus stop in front of the hospital, relaxing only when they went their separate ways without incident. To him, every person pulling their sleeve back to look at their watch was reaching for a gun. Every pair of eyes that fell on him was marking him as a target.
The bus pulled away and his heart slowed down. He sighed at his own irrationality. Maybe it wasn’t unreasonable to be paranoid after what happened, but he couldn’t watch everyone on the sidewalk at once and surely Phantom wasn’t stupid enough to hit him in broad daylight, on camera, standing right next to someone.
Despite knowing this, he jumped at the sound of rubber squealing on pavement. At the intersection, a sleek black car drifted around the corner and tore down the road in front of him. He had seen too many drive-bys to relax until it was past him with a roar of the engine. Sunlight flashed on Audi’s signature interlocking silver rings on the hood of the car.
“I see Wren has decided to grace us with his presence,” Dr. Garrett said.
“Somebody you work with?”
Dr. Garrett opened his mouth to answer but whatever he said was lost in the reverberating purr of another engine. Blair knew this one well, and the sound of it put an instant smile on his face. He stood up as straight as he could on his crutches. The car was loud and distinctive, and everyone in their neighborhood knew who it belonged to.
“Hey, Boss.”
The muscle car pulled up to the sidewalk with the top down, and Felix lifted a finger from the wheel in greeting. “You ready to get the fuck out of here?”
“Am I ever.” Blair turned, and though it took a little shifting on his crutches to be able to balance with one hand, he held out his other one to the doctor. “Thanks for everything. I know it’s your job or whatever but still.”
Dr. Garrett took the offered hand and smiled. Before he could speak he was interrupted, this time not by the car but the driver. “So you’re the one that dug that bullet out of Kennedy,” Felix said.
“Digging is something of an exaggeration, it came out with little hindrance.”
Felix reached over and pushed the door open for Blair, who slid his crutches behind him before sitting in the passenger seat. “You still got my thanks for taking care of the kid. If you ever find yourself in Flushing, you should stop by Harlowe’s. I owe you a drink.”
“I’ll be sure to remember that,” Dr. Garrett said.
Blair looked in the side mirror as they pulled away. He watched the wind stir a few of his own coppery locks, and beyond that, Dr. Garrett watching them go. He watched the doctor’s form shrink until it disappeared before he turned his attention back to the road. Felix was a daunting presence in his peripheral vision. As much as Blair wanted to be flattered by the boss coming to pick him up himself, he knew there was a good chance Felix was there to give him an ass chewing.
Felix shifted gears and Blair waited for the Mustang to quiet back down before he said, “Look, Boss, I’m—”
“Shot.”
Blair gaped for a moment at having his long, thought out apology silenced. Felix lit a cigarette and took a drag before he continued. “You hesitated and got shot. I ain’t gonna be able to teach you a better lesson than that. Besides, I’m a lot more interested in taking down those Phantom bastards than reading you the riot act. Take it from somebody who’s had a couple rounds put in them, that hole you got will keep you on your toes from now on.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Call me that again and I’ll put one in your other leg.”
Blair winced and rubbed his aching thigh. “Understood.”
They put Long Island City in the rearview and got back on their side of town. The closer they got to the bar, the more people took the time to watch the ’69 Mustang and its scarlet haired driver pass by. Felix didn’t fuck with people who didn’t fuck with him but he had a reputation. The nickel he’d done in Dannemora for second degree arson might have something to do with it.
Marie was standing in front of the bar when they pulled up and Blair didn’t even get the car door open before she was there. She pulled his crutches out of the back and helped him onto them with no regard for his embarrassed mumbling that she didn’t have to. He stared up at the brick facade of Harlowe’s for a moment before hobbling inside. The sight of it was as much of a relief as it was a catalyst to his anxiety—things were not the same as they’d been before that disaster of a warehouse run. They were at war, and the bar now looked more like a fortress than a happy home.
It was almost worse how normal everything seemed. Spencer was polishing glasses and Ricky was whistling loudly from the small kitchen where they made the limited selection of bar snacks on the menu. Adam, their “pharmaceuticals expert” was sitting at the bar with a foot hooked around the stool next to him, occupied by his partner Nolan. Felix immediately went to the leather couch against the wall, his throne if he ever had one. He dropped down onto the beaten thing and stretched his arms out along the back.
“Blair, welcome home!”
There was no bracing himself in his current condition, so Blair just hoped for the best when Julian came rushing toward him. He tried to return his fellow member’s embrace but it was difficult with his crutches so he ended up just letting Julian dote on him. Julian always seemed a little out of place among the rest of them, with his mocha eyes always full of compassion and his dislike of violence. Not that anyone ever dared mention that. He was Felix’s old friend just like Spencer and the boss was fiercely protective of them both. Julian was a smooth talker, though, and he could pick locks like a fiend.
Ricky brought out two plates of kabobs and they all gathered around to eat. Blair soaked up the sound of laughter of conversation as the kabobs were reduced to a mounting pile of empty wooden sticks. There was no telling when they would all get to relax together like this again.
Chink. Spencer’s lighter. The sound raised the hair on Blair’s arms, taking him back to the warehouse for a moment, but he heard it only once and then smoke began to waft through the bar. He took a deep breath and grounded himself in the present. Eventually, Marie sat next to him and reminded him to take his damn horse pill of an antibiotic, and to inform him that Spencer wanted to drive him home.
Blair reminded her that he lived close enough to walk, even on his crutches. She patted his hand on the table. “Spencer is going to take you home.”
“Ah.” Not a request, then.
They found Spencer outside, dragging on the last of his cigarette. Blair sighed and waved smoke out of his face. He was surprised that taking up smoking wasn’t part of the Incindious initiation. A good thing it wasn’t, though, since he dissolved into a coughing fit after one draw. Blair said his goodbyes with Marie before she left to meet her pint sized boyfriend for ramen across the street. Jake was a year older than her and kind of a brat, but for some reason Marie was nuts about him. Blair joined Spencer in watching her cross the street and they only made for Spencer’s car once she was safely in the restaurant.
The ride to his apartment was quiet. The Lexus canceled out most of the road noise and few words were exchanged between its occupants. Blair had plenty to say and no idea how to say it. Spencer’s expression was unreadable behind his tinted glasses, calm as ever but he had appeared that way even in the warehouse. Blair ran a finger along the plastic wristband he still wore from the hospital. If it had gone differently, one of them might not have been sitting there.
“Did Ben make good on his word and spare you the police interview?”
Blair looked up from his fiddling to find the car in park, idling in front of his building. “I never talked to any cops, just Doc and Sunshine.” Ben was their guy inside the police force, and while he couldn’t extend his reach too far without raising suspicion, sometimes he could clean up their smaller messes without them having to enact any extra violence and add to the local law enforcement’s hard-on to see Felix back behind bars.
Blair got a curious look for the nicknames but Spencer continued, “Good, Felix called in for him to take care of it. There should be some nice, legitimate paperwork floating around that says you told him you were shot when I mistakenly fired my gun while cleaning it.”
“Hey, about that.” Blair gripped the wristband, the hard plastic creating indentions in the pads of his fingers.
“I know, right, who would have thought? All my brains and I didn’t even check the safety.” He raised a hand to silence Blair when he opened his mouth. “We both messed up in there. Could we have done better? Yes, but Adrian is dead and we’re going to get the rest of them, too. We can apologize to each other until the sun goes down but it’s not going to put us any closer to exterminating Phantom.
“You might have gotten a laugh out of it if I was the one hobbling, though. Incindious would fall to pieces if I was out of commission. Felix can’t lace his damn boots without me.”
Blair laughed as a knot of worry unwound inside him. The strip of plastic around his wrist didn’t seem so heavy anymore. He could handle the coming fight against Phantom a whole lot better knowing Spencer still trusted him, and the boss wasn’t going to kick him out. Blair got out of the car, somewhat awkwardly thanks to his leg, and made his way to the driver’s side. He leaned on one crutch and held his hand out.
Spencer pressed Blair’s Beretta into it. Blair tucked it into his waistband and stepped back from the car. He didn’t have to look back to know the Lexus would still be there until he made it inside.
Blair took the elevator up to his floor. He tried to avoid the rickety thing that seemed like it could plunge to the basement at any moment, but his leg was starting to throb. At Spencer’s insistence, he had a security system in the apartment just like every other member of Incindious, but Phantom was known for their advanced technology and hacking abilities, so he readied his gun the best he could at the door. Just in case. He leaned his crutches on the door frame and gave the apartment a quick sweep, finding it empty. Then he punched in the code on the beeping security panel and cast the room into silence.
The apartment had an open floor plan but Blair kept the Beretta in hand until he checked the bathroom, the only room with a door since his bed was on the upper level that could be seen from below. No one was lurking behind the door to the shower that didn’t quite sit right on its tracks. He set the water running and undressed with a few stumbles and hops when putting weight on his bad leg sent sparks of pain through his whole body. After a struggle, he wore only his tattoo of the Incindious insignia under his collarbone and the bandages around his thigh.
Blood had dried on the gauze and it pulled on his stitches in a way that wasn’t quite painful, but definitely uncomfortable when he removed it. He pulled the handle for the shower and let the water beat down on him.
Just as he picked up the bar of soap, his phone blared from the sink. Of course.
He cracked open the shower door to look down at the counter, where the caller ID said “Mom.” Fuck . She only called when it was important. He made quick work of washing up, gave his hair a quick scrub, and thanked his lucky stars that he had a shower cubicle and didn’t have to step over the side of a bathtub to get out. His phone had stopped ringing by the time he wrapped a towel around his waist and dried his hands enough to use the touchscreen. It started ringing again as he picked it up. Impatient old broad.
“Blair, you need to come home right now, it’s an emergency!”
“Mom, what’s wrong? Is someone there?” Images of Isaac and Jinx flashed through Blair’s mind.
“It’s your brother, he’s sick.”
Fuck him sideways. “I’m comin’, give me half an hour.”
He mumbled every expletive he knew and a few he made up on the spot as he put fresh bandages on his leg. Damn hippie was at a loss whenever she couldn’t get one of the kids better with an herbal remedy and his step-dad’s solution was always to just let it run its course, whether it was the flu or a fractured arm. His dad had been the one to make sure they all got routine checkups but when he dipped and his mom remarried, it all went out the window in favor of vanilla basil tea or whatever the hell she was giving them now.
His bike wasn’t going to be an option so he begrudgingly hailed a cab. He tried to put his damp hair in some kind of order on the ride over but he just settled for pulling his beanie on. All too soon, he was at Aradia , the shop where his mom did palm readings and sold “water pipes.” He gave the cabbie all the singles he had stuffed in his wallet for a tip and went inside. Like the bar, there was an apartment above her shop, not that it was big enough for the four person family it housed.
An iguana peered at him from a tall terrarium when he walked in—his mother’s doing, no doubt. She was always getting more damn reptiles. Blair nudged the beaded curtain out of the way with one of his crutches, and found her sitting on the mat where she did readings, her hand against his little brother’s forehead. She looked up at Blair, her mane of red curls falling haphazardly around her face. “He feels hot.”
“Okay, kiddo, let’s see what’s up,” Blair said as Tristan pulled himself into a sitting position with visible effort. Even with the jewel-toned velvet curtains that blocked most of the light from outside, Blair could see his skin glisten.
“I don’t feel good,” Tristan mumbled around the thermometer.
It beeped soon after, and Blair’s eyes widened at the readout. “Holy shit, I bet you don’t. I’m taking him to the hospital.”
“Do you want me to go with you?” his mother asked, wringing her hands in her lap.
“No, Mom. I know you hate hospitals. I’ll let you know what they tell us.”
If Blair had never seen this damn hospital again it would have been too soon, but a cab ride later, there he was.
The automatic doors welcomed him like it was a much more pleasant place than it was. He checked them in and sat with Tristan in the pediatric waiting area, obnoxiously bright compared to the white and chrome of the main waiting room. Blair tilted his head back against the mural on the wall. He was pretty sure he was sitting against a giraffe. Tristan leaned against his arm and fell asleep almost immediately, stirring only when they were called back by the triage nurse.
They were moved to an actual room after she checked Tristan’s temperature. Tristan sat on the edge of the bed and pulled at his shirt where it stuck to him. Some of his red hair was curling at his temples with sweat. Blair wanted to help him, but his limited medical knowledge had been gathered from whatever he read on the back of pill bottles and what a couple drug dealers told him. He had considered taking Tristan to Nolan but with everything going on he didn’t think getting his little brother near Incindious was safe. Plus Nolan knew a lot about pharmaceuticals but maybe not so much about how to diagnose an illness.
On the bright side it was only another fifteen minutes before a doctor came in. Blair had started to doze in the plastic chair he occupied next to the bed when he heard the curtain being moved aside. He forced his eyes open and readied himself to answer all the same questions he did in triage. It turned out he was not ready in the least.
The doctor was young and tall, with just enough hair to be pulled back in a ponytail, though most of his bangs had fallen back out of it and hung to one side of his face. His expression was too serious for someone in Invader Zim scrubs but he couldn’t have been much older than Blair’s twenty-one. There was a blurry image floating around Blair’s mind, distorted by the stress and exhaustion of that time, but it was starting to resemble the man in front of him.
“Let’s get you taken care of, Mr. Kennedy,” he said.
That voice. It was the same person.
The man was talking to Tristan, but Blair still sputtered out, “Sunshine?”
The light caught three black rings pierced through the top of Sunshine’s right ear as he looked over at him. Blair tried not to stare at them. They hadn’t been visible when the other man’s hair was down. Why did he want to stare, anyway? It was just jewelry. It was just jewelry on a normal person, who looked like anyone else and definitely didn’t look a whole lot better without the constant haze that had surrounded everything for a while after Blair woke up in the hospital. Not that the guy’s appearance was a priority to him at the moment, but it was one hell of a difference from what he remembered.
Just like when Blair had called him out for his attitude before, Sunshine’s surprise was visible for an instant before his face became unreadable again. He clicked his tongue and walked over to the bed. “You again. Blair, I believe.”
“Kennedy,” Blair corrected him. He hated his first name. Only his siblings and Marie were allowed to call him that. It irritated him even more with how slowly the doctor enunciated it, like he was taunting him.
Sunshine put his stethoscope against Tristan’s back and asked him to take a deep breath. He did the same in a couple more spots before he hung the stethoscope back around his neck and said, “Well my patient here is a Kennedy, as well.”
Blair glared at him, and Sunshine seemed to take his silence as resignation.
“Blair it is, then,” Sunshine said with a smirk, then turned his attention back to his patient. He pressed lightly along Tristan’s throat. “Tell me if any of this hurts, okay?”
Blair watched with folded arms, ready to swoop in at the first sign of the doctor being as much of a dick to kids as he was everyone else. He grinned as he came to a realization. “Looks like I was right, Sunshine.”
He didn’t get an answer, just an inquisitive sound as the other man noted something on his clipboard.
“Told you we would see each other again,” Blair said smugly.
Sunshine didn’t look up from his clipboard. “Yes, thank goodness your little brother wound up in the hospital the same week you got shot in the leg. You must be ecstatic.”
“I bet you’re real fun at parties.”
“His name isn’t Sunshine,” Tristan said, who had apparently found a reserve of energy just for meeting a new person. “It’s...hold on.”
Blair cringed as Tristan squinted at the doctor’s badge. Well, he guessed Sunshine wasn’t a full fledged doctor yet, but he acted as one so it was weird to think of him as a student. Tristan mouthed soundlessly as he worked out the name. Tristan usually wore glasses and Blair hadn’t concerned himself with their absence when they left Aradia earlier.
“Max...Maxters. That sounds like our iguana’s name! His name is Baxter. He’s mean, though, I don’t like him. I like you better Mr. Maxters.”
Both of the doctor’s eyebrows went up over his glasses. Tristan kept big, hopeful eyes fixed on him until Sunshine finally sighed and said, “Thanks.”
Blair stifled a laugh into his fist and masked it as a cough. Whatever Sunshine’s name was, he didn’t think it was that. “So how is he looking?”
“I’m not qualified to diagnose him without the oversight of the attending doctor.”
“Mr. Maxters, where’s the bathroom?”
“Down the hall and to the right, I can take you if—” Sunshine started, but Tristan was already off the bed and running out into the hall. “...Okay.”
Blair wanted to follow his brother but he remembered how little he wanted to be babied at that age, so he decided to give Tristan a few minutes before he went to check on him.
“How is your leg?”
“Is Sunshine worried about me?” Blair asked, seizing the opportunity to make a nuisance of himself, if only to retaliate for Sunshine’s insistence on using his first name.
Sunshine clicked his tongue. “I’m just doing my job.”
It wasn’t fair for such an awful person to have such a nice voice.
“I see your people skills didn’t get any better,” Blair muttered. “There’s a hole in my leg, which is pretty weird, but other than that it’s okay. I’m glad it hurts some. Reminds me to be grateful I lived, y’know? It could have been a lot worse.”
“Maybe it should remind your friend to be more careful cleaning his firearm next time.”
Blair narrowed his eyes. “My friend has beat himself up enough, I’m sure.”
He checked the time on his phone. His protective instincts won out and he grabbed his crutches. High fevers were dangerous, so Tristan would just have to forgive him for the coddling. He shifted forward on to his good foot and pushed up.
“Here.”
He almost stumbled back when he found Sunshine suddenly in front of him, holding his crutches steady. Blair’s less than average height became glaringly obvious as he was forced to tilt his head back to look up at the doctor. Sunshine stared back with a raised eyebrow and Blair realized he probably looked like a deer in the headlights. He dropped his gaze back down and cleared his throat. It had to be the stress making him overreact to everything. As long as he didn’t see them as a threat, he usually didn’t care about people being in his space.
He studied the badge in front of him. “Wren.”
The doctor let go of his crutches and stepped back. “Yes. Should I trust I’ll no longer be Sunshine, now?”
“No promises.”
Blair didn’t make it all the way out of the room, as Tristan came back covered in more sweat than when he left. “I just got sick again,” Tristan said miserably.
“I’m going to get the doctor,” Wren said, and strode out of the room.
Wren’s urgency worried Blair but he focused on laying his brother on the bed and trying to make him comfortable. True to his word, Wren came back with a blond woman minutes later. Her stern expression sat on pretty, soft features like a blade on butterfly wings.
“Vomiting isn’t uncommon when a child has a fever,” she said to Wren.
“It’s how high the fever is that I find concerning.”
The questions she asked Tristan seemed standard— how many fingers am I holding up, have you left the country recently, does your throat hurt —and decided on taking a blood sample. Blair only went as far from the bed as he had to for her to work.
“We’re going to get someone from the lab to draw a little blood. They’ll be gentle so don’t worry,” she told Tristan.
He shrunk closer to Blair. “Can Mr. Maxters do it?”
The blond doctor’s smile softened into something more genuine at the name. She looked over at Wren. “You have your phlebotomy license.”
The statement, paired with the expectant raise of her eyebrows, sent Wren out of the room with a sigh.
Blair rubbed the top of Tristan’s head. Most of his hair was tacky from sweat and even through his thick locks Blair could feel the heat radiating off him. His mom had only just noticed something was wrong when she called Blair, probably because she had been downstairs working, but he wondered how long this had been going on. Tristan could only say a little while, he wasn’t sure. He had been alone in the apartment upstairs until their mom went to check on him and found him burning up.
“Wren is a fourth year medical student but he is licensed to draw blood and skilled at it, so rest assured your brother is in good hands,” the woman said.
Blair smoothed Tristan’s hair. “Whatever makes him comfortable. He hates needles, so if he’s okay with it this way then go for it.”
A few more locks of hair had fallen out of Wren’s ponytail by the time he got back and placed his equipment on a tray next to the bed. Tristan tensed under Blair’s hand watching Wren work, eyes bleary but focused on the sealed plastic pack that held the needle. Wren washed and dried his hands, and pulled gloves on before he continued his preparations. Blair took a little reassurance from the way Wren’s latex clad fingers sped through the process as though he had done it a hundred times.
Wren talked Tristan through the process with more patience than Blair would have expected, explaining everything he was doing, keeping Tristan distracted enough that when the needle went in, Blair was relieved to see that Tristan barely seemed to notice.
Blair had wanted to stay close to Tristan while he got his blood taken but his leg was protesting from how long he had been upright. He moved back to the hard plastic chair and leaned his crutches against the wall next to him.
“I’ll take these to the lab, Dr. Evans,” Wren said.
“Do that and call it a night. I’ll handle things from here, I believe it’s the end of your call.”
Wren disposed of his gloves and washed his hands again. Tristan reached out as though to say goodbye, but a panicked look crossed his face as soon as he moved. He jumped off the bed with his hands over his mouth and ran past Wren out of the room, calling out between his fingers that he would be right back. A crease appeared between Wren’s eyebrows as he watched him go.
Blair watched Wren gather the collection vials. “Aren’t you gonna at least wait and let him say goodbye?”
“Dr. Evans will discuss his care with you and a nurse will handle his discharge. More often than not, fevers dissipate before blood samples come back. A couple days of ibuprofen and fluids will probably have him back to normal.”
“Thanks a lot, Sunshine,” Blair mumbled to his back as he pushed the curtain aside. If Wren heard him, he didn’t acknowledge him.
Dr. Evans explained that the lab results wouldn’t be back for three to five days, but that she suspected Salmonella as the cause for Tristan’s illness. She echoed Wren’s suggestion of ibuprofen for the fever and keeping Tristan hydrated.
Tristan came back from the bathroom shortly after Dr. Evans left, looking pale and more than a little disappointed that Mr. Maxters wasn’t coming back, but he perked up at the mention of getting to leave soon. A nurse in Scooby Doo scrubs came to sign them out and send them on their way.
They walked outside together, Tristan moving sluggishly from weakness, and Blair limping next to him. What a sorry sight they must have made.
The glow of the EMERGENCY sign above them tinted Tristan red in the twilight. Blair watched the approaching cab with indecision. His mom wouldn’t resort to medicine until she’d tried every natural remedy in the book first, so taking Tristan home wasn’t going to do him any favors. He was hesitant to have his little brother around with the fight against Phantom looming close, but those master hackers could just as easily find out where his family lived and seek them out if Isaac wanted to target them. His place would be more secure than Aradia , anyway, and he could make sure Tristan got the care he needed.
“How about I call Mom and see if you can stay over for a couple days?”