“Hey, can you give me some relationship advice?”
Tron chokes on his sip of energy and coughs. “What?”
Beck looks at him. “I was wondering if you could give me some relationship advice.”
“Wh—okay?” Tron says, and sets the glass down for his own safety. “Did something terrible happen to everyone you know? Why are you asking me?”
“I—because,” Beck says, sounding a little sheepish, “I don’t really have a lot of people I can ask. Zed would probably make fun of me. Mara would just demand to know who they were. And I’m pretty sure Able would tell me to stop wasting time and get back to work or something.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Actually, now that I think about it, asking you probably won’t be any more productive.”
“No”—Tron huffs a sigh—“no, it’s fine, Beck. I still don’t see why you thought for even a second that I’d be a better option than your literal friends, though.”
“Well, you’re my mentor,” Beck says, “and I trust you to be impartial about things.”
“Sure—when it comes to fighting and leading a revolution against a totalitarian government.”
Beck’s heard the stories, though. “But you had a counterpart, right?”
Tron’s expression softens. “I did, yes,” he says.
But he hasn’t heard all of them. “Was it Flynn?”
“Fl—no. Oh my—no! No. We weren’t like that. No.”
“Oh.”
A pause. Tron’s composed enough now to take another sip of his energy, and when he looks at Beck again, his face is scrunched up like he’s in pain.
“I’m going to regret this,” he says, “but fine. What kind of relationship advice do you need?”