Page 29 of Smart Ass

Defining sentience was fascinating shit, but not helpful when Ben just wanted to fucking know. Right now.

Ugh.

He thought of all the other sparks he knew, and they were just… people. They were normal people with quirks and interests and speech patterns and jobs and relationships and just… people stuff.

“Hey, Ben! Beeennnnn…”

Oops. Ben looked up. Evan was waving his arm in the air. The nurse bot was gone.

“Yeah?”

“Are you sure that Quincy’s alright?”

Ben pulled up a chair and took Evan’s hand. It was cool and dry, and he tried to ignore the IV dripping unknown fluids into his veins.

He repeated what he already knew, because he knew Evan by now, and he knew they’d be going through this a dozen more times.

It didn’t matter that Evan already knew the answers. He just needed to hear it a lot of times.

It would have pissed Ben off if someone kept telling him the same damn thing, but Evan was Evan, and Ben didn’t mind it.

“Yeah. He’s fine. He’s a spark. I’ll pick him up as soon as the police are done interviewing him. They just have to get the right people in, and then he can go.”

Evan narrowed his eyes. “You seem to know a lot of details about this.”

“Uh…”

Ben’s thoughts raced like trains running off their rails. How much should he say? He didn’t want to implicate Max, but Evan was also his best friend. The person he trusted more than anyone.

Evan held up his hand. “Never mind. Better I don’t know. Maybe the cops will give me an update when they come back tomorrow.”

Ben swallowed. That settled it.

The cops were coming back to interview him, so it was better if he didn’t know anything that he could report. Not to mention all of the stress Evan was already going through. His body needed to heal, and he’d be freaking out about Quincy until they could be reunited.

Ben couldn’t tell him about Max right now.

Realizing that was like a physical pain, deep in Ben’s chest. This was the first time in his life that he hadn’t shared something with Evan.

Well, he still hadn’t told Evan that he’d borrowed his favorite sweatshirt last year and thrown it away when he couldn’t get the ketchup stains out. Or that he’d given that drag queen a generous tip to make sure Evan was selected as the delightfully embarrassed “volunteer” for her show that one time.

But that was normal stuff that Evan should really expect.

This was big.

Ben hadn’t realized just how much he’d been counting on sharing his excitement and worries about Max until he suddenly wasn’t able to. He wanted to pump Evan for all of his experiences with Quincy, even though it wasn’t remotely the same situation. He wanted Evan’s advice.

He wanted Evan to grumble at him for being stupid and help him figure out what to do next.

“Quincy must be so scared,” Evan said.

Ben hated to think of Quincy alone for any period of time, after everything that had happened. He was soft and sweet and needed protection.

But Ben could pick him up soon and bring him home. Ben was more concerned about whether his maybe-sentient partner in crime might get, uh, convicted of an actual crime. Or just deleted.

What Ben said out loud was, “We’ll help him. Don’t worry.”

“And do you think… after all that, will he still want to live with me?”