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"Ouch, ow, ********, that ******** hurts!" Complained the burning boy when his beau didn't hold him in precisely the correct configuration, or when Faustite bridged the gap between rooftops and stumbled on his landing. He would often ask for breaks, and when he got sick of asking, he would make up reasons for them to pause and watch the strange scenes of their ever stranger city unfold.

Then there were times when he grew too tired to keep on draining his own energy so the team wouldn't be forced to pick up his slack. Minutes at a time when he had to admit to his boy that he didn't think he could keep up, that he needed more than he gathered from scrounging up energy fifteen minutes ago. Or he needed food and had to send Albite to find something, even if it was an ancient, shriveled hot dog from that Twilight Zone version of a 7Eleven. While he was seldom picky before, he knew he couldn't afford to be now.

The pair came to a stop again atop a strip mall, with its expansive flat roof and various HVAC fixtures. Faustite knew that he could no better hide there than on any other rooftop, but without the energy to keep going, and with everpresent pain anchoring its hooks in him, Faustite came to a point where he simply had to stop. Had to stop and ask his husband, who had been painstakingly at his side, to find food.

Any food. Didn't matter how empty the calories or how far from being food it actually was. He would take a frozen TV dinner still in its tray, or a stick of butter, or leftovers that were left out on the counter of a pizza shop. Hell, there might even be a pizza shop open at that time of night. Whatever it was, he just needed calories.

After he sent his boy away, Faustite hauled himself up to settle against the parapet, slouched, where he could shut his eyes and pretend that the breaks and the bone bruises were just confirmations that he was surviving. As he laid there, bathed in his own dwindling firelight, he began to cough. He coughed and coughed, and he felt auras beginning to show in their vicinity. For as much as he hoped that Albite would find something worth eating for the both of them, he hoped the boy returned before another of the White Moon could find him.

Faustite immediately grew tense as soon as he felt an Eternal aura in his vicinity. All the worse that this one was transcended, for those were the zealots and the misguided do-gooders who would more than likely attack him on site. He didn't want to call Albite just yet, as that might give away his position, but an aura's ubiquitousness meant that he didn't know where they were as much as they didn't know where he was; he could only hope that they assumed he was in the mall itself.

That would make sense, after all. That was why they stopped here.

But they hadn't wandered inside, much to his chagrin. He summoned his tablet to hand, dropping it when another heat-weeping crack opened up on the palm of his hand, causing him to hiss. By the time he picked it up again, the resident aura was in line of sight.

Encke. That complicated matters. Even if he was an easy target now, it didn't seem like the epitome of static cling was coming over to finish him off. Not with the way he sounded a margin piteous. Much as Faustite hated being pitiable, it might be what kept him alive until Albite returned.

"Waiting for someone," he responded, sounding equal parts raspy and weary. He had lost weight, not that there was much weight to lose, despite eating as much as he always had. The energy helped, but he was still trying to find precisely how much he needed as a supplement to his diet. "Sent him off to get food," he explained, lapsing into half-assed coughs afterward. The tablet remained in its pen form, though he hadn't yet dismissed it.

Encke's question likewise implied why he was out at all, too. "Used to be fine with just food. Energy's not optional now."

Faustite found that it was astonishingly difficult to negotiate a situation like this. He knew that, if their tense conversation escalated, then he would likely have to fight, and lacked the energy and health to do so. Encke could kill him, just as Cybele could have. It didn't guarantee that he could get his tablet out of subspace and call his husband back to help him.And while his husband could make it back in mere seconds, what would he find?

For now, Encke was trying to help, not that Faustite understood why when he told the boy that he needed energy. Probably thought that, since food made energy for people, or perhaps because Faustite was hungry, then food would solve his problems. He knew this boy to have cotton between his ears, knew him to be so dedicated to his moralistic cause that he would do whatever was necessary to seem virtuous and right. Perhaps he didn't explain the I require energy as much as I require food clearly enough. Perhaps that concept was so foreign to a senshi that they simply did not grasp what that meant.

What complicated matters was that Faustite had his own snacks. Apart from his tablet, his subspace was crammed full of them. Jerkies, protein bars, MREs, soups, and other non-perishables that he could dump into himself in the case of an emergency.

But Encke was trying to help. Faustite loosed a smoky sigh through his nose.

"Protein bar." Other options might've been healthier, but they lacked in calories. "Surprised you're trying to help," he added, as a way of prompting the boy for answering why he wasn't trying to remove Faustite from existence. That was precisely the part of the conversation that didn't add up — the fact that it existed at all.

Faustite slouched further, tilted his head back to rest against the lip of the parapet, and was neither in a condition to go fetch the bar. He'd pushed himself too far, exhausted himself, and now his husband had quite a sight to which to return.

Albite was high on life, tripping fantastically over a moon labeled cloud nine. He could’ve gone the ******** on about it in his own head, decided he’d rather go the ******** on about it with Eion instead. Once he got back to him could tell him all about the cool dude with the piercings and the brown mop of hair, the fact that such a gas station existed with condiments stocked — after midnight — and yeah, the place was haunted as ******** (of this he’d bet his soul) and the guy behind the counter looked like he’d seen some things.

Just, really, seen far too many things. Poor Todd. Todd would go on a list, the best list in the world, the worlds safest most protective of lists!

That was the plan —

A plan which came crashing down sharply as paned glass windows from a four story roof. The plan just shattered all about his happy head. A loaded drink carrier in hand, a subspace fulla goodies. Albite nearly choked on his own tongue for the feel of auras butting up against his own; there was the expected dwindling prickle of warmth, that feel of a distant fire calling him home. Safe, tired, right where he'd left him. A fickle, trickle of firelight tucked into shadows of a concrete edge. Malls n museums always had the best ******** roofs.

Then there was the static on the air that made his teeth itch like he'd bitten into something wiry n metallic. It was copper, it was a scream. He didn't like the feel of that aura ********. Liked it even less, because by now? Well, by now he knew it, and the knowing made his heart race even as his steps slowed. He held his tongue, n held his breath, and felt still even as he was moving in like an obvious threat.

The most casual a** prowl up over a ledge, heel toing along the strong line of it; a child enjoying a balance beam at the playground. Seen and seeing and when he felt like he was close enough to interrupt without getting physical---

Then he opened his mouth.

“Sup electro-stim,” for all that he was very obviously smiling, there was no playfulness in his tone. Only an edge around a grin that was, for all of Albites love of the world. A very clear threat. The grin held though, kept and grew around his loud mouth as he got even louder with announcing himself. Like he needed a gag the size of a grapefruit to contain all his sounds. “Firebrand! You didn’t tell me we were having a picnic with your least favorite kink? I woulda brought more to share,” looking s**t over, gauging the scene, there were ground snacks -- bars -- candy? Faustite didn't look any worse or better than before. Not openly bleeding, not curled up n frothing in some dying light. There those two were! Just a pair of people on the roof - nothing the ******** to see here - no bad things going on.

Not that he trusted his eyes right then. Looks coulda been as much a lie as the words from his mouth felt. Cause the only things he would've brought to share would've been Borax's filthiest knives; not the ones he used for fun, the nice ones with clean lines n a special sharpness. Ohno, he woulda brought the mean kind. The kind he thought he would gift his precious baby girl Zuzube on the day of her inevitable glow-up, because any daughter of his deserved something ruthlessly sharp and some ******** pepper spray to go with it! N of course with the knife he woulda brought Jada's hatchet, or had Valjean do a hip drop with his enormous a** n break something important of Enckes...his skull? His skull would've done just fine!

"Might have something to share even, s'long as everyone's playing nice. Whatdya say Sir-taze-a-lot, are we playing nice tonight?" a question lofted between the pair, rapid glances from Encke where he stood, to Faustites carefully held form, back again, and there were those he wouldn't've had to ask with, but? He knew Encke didn't always play nice. Didn't do snowball fights or jovial jaunts with all the grayest of lines.

Sparky wasn’t afraid to whip out those powers--- or offer to save his husband in ways that felt, to Albite, so much like being stolen from.

Noble?

"Just trying to help you not die," returned Encke, as he felt the aura blossoming on the edge of his senses. It was rapidly getting closer, and it drew Encke's attention away from their conversation, onto the senshi prowling more like a predator. He was able to track it well enough, his eyes following where the corrupt toed along the edges until, suddenly, he was up and calling him electro-stim--

Neither he nor Basiluzzo had any interest in that thanks.

The lack of playfulness was an innate threat, and he knew it was. He also knew this guy--this was definitely Albite, everything from the description matched up--was the one who Nectaris was so interested in it caused her path to cross with Faustite's. And perhaps that was to some degree inevitable, but being tangled with Albite, Faustite's husband, arguably made that worse. And there was a reason why Albite was Faustite's husband.

... Ironically, he was now more concerned about Albite and his joyful chaotic violence than Faustite. Strange how situations changed.

Faustite actually came to his defense even if it was with the half-hearted for now at the end. He'd roll his eyes and take it for what it was. The fact that Faustite was defending him at all spoke to how exceptional this situation was. Faustite was actively dying. Encke was actively trying to get him out. Comparing where they came from to where they were now was by itself enough to make his head spin.

Still, right now he had to deal with the guy who was very insistently making sex jokes about his sphere and not just let Faustite field the whole conversation. "Hello bondage kink," Encke leveled Albite with a dry stare, "not here to play."

He turned toward Faustite.

"I assume he's got what you need. Want me to leave?" He didn't know if Faustite's husbands even knew what he was potentially entertaining just to get rid of that youma. If Faustite would defend him, Encke would provide the same by at least not ratting that out.

"He knows everything," Faustite explained to Encke. "Except that it came from you." He never named his White Moon contact because he never thought it necessary — he and Encke shared no love for nor commonalities with each other — and because his boys often didn't ask. He supposed that, ultimately, there was no need to attach a face to what was essentially a tool. They only needed 'Order' insofar as Faustite needed something that would excise the youma and make whole his body. Whoever could honor that need would suffice.

Even if that person was Encke, unfortunately. Faustite sighed, then sputtered into a cough.

And as he coughed, his boy was already breaking out his possibly ill-gotten gains. Once Faustite recovered enough that he could peer over at the boy, he flashed him a small, but earnest smile. Leave it to his boy to be so thoughtful and devoted. Even if he was dying, even if he could stave it off with energy and live some pain-ridden, twilit life, Faustite thought it would be worth it as long as he could still spend time with his boys.

That smile faltered when he saw the preposterous-looking blue slushie that Albite pulled out of nowhere for him. It looked like Albite was trying to recreate an ocean scene from one of his favorite kids' movies, then got distracted halfway through and went a different direction with it. He wasn't sure what store was letting a boy like Albite play with adding sugary bullshit to more sugary bullshit, but for the fact that it entertained Albite so? Faustite would try it. If nothing else, drinks like these were empty calories that might keep him awake and alive and able to move for a little longer. If it tasted like s**t, he could dump it in his grate. The rest of the nutrients would have to come from Encke's whey protein bars.

"You're sweet." Faustite accepted the drink, but it was said just as much for how Albite offered more sugary bullshit to the only person there who didn't have a positive relationship with Metallia. He sipped the drink, though his eyebrows faltered and he half-flinched for its sweetness. Going into the grate, that one.

"He's how I found out that the White Moon can only get rid of my youma half if I join them. Something like an entrance fee." Faustite paused to cough again, thin frame wracked with them, as if he could carry more burdens.

"What do you think, Albite?" He reached for an arm, a leg, an anything he could hold — "Worth losing my loyalty and memories?"

It did, to some degree, surface what he was: he had told at least his husband about this, about what he had said, about that it had come from Order and that had been, perhaps, all that was ever relevant. Encke was unsurprised that his position was unimportant and that who he was was also unimportant, but he bit back the temptation to roll his eyes under the good actor's sheen. Perhaps as much as he wanted to give Faustite the chance he had been given, it was important to remember that Faustite saw him as nothing more than a hammer to beat the problem to death until it was gone.

Or just a particularly bitchy plier.

He didn't know. Encke wasn't sure he cared, either; in the end, that wasn't the point. Faustite was asking Albite a question that was both honest and perhaps pointed at Encke's idea of a solution. And he wouldn't say it was really an ideal solution. For leaving the Negaverse, at least, there were a lot of things about purification that were utterly unfair. One was freed of chaos, but they immediately lost part if not all of their history since becoming powered in the first place, because chaos could never just let ******** go. It took, ate, and consumed, and even those who pulled free still lost for it.

But they pulled free.

Their minds were their own, their desires their own, their feelings their own, all unmarred by what Chaos wanted from them and would do to them in that pursuit. He didn't think the loyalty to that force in itself was worth it.

To the people he knew, to the memories in his mind? For Encke, the answer was yes; he would rather lose everything he was than serve Chaos again. But it would be hard to see that and make that decision from within Chaos, and everyone had a different perspective on it.

Encke ignored Albite's insult. After over thirteen years, whatever the Negaverse threw at him couldn't really affect him anymore.

Not the way that death had.

Now Albite was looking at him, and Encke sighed, shaking his shoulders out. "Not here to suggest memory loss is the ideal solution. Just your only one if you're looking to stay alive." And that was that. "For what it's worth, loyalties to people in those I've observed haven't really been lost." See his sister, for one, and those that purified for love. "Feelings are not necessarily the same as memories even if they come from them, and just because you don't carry those same memories anymore doesn't mean that others won't carry the other half of them."

His eyes slid toward Albite, specifically.

"And not here to be hostile, Albite." Stilted and standoffish? Yes. Hostile? Today, they hadn't presented him with a reason.

"M'not normally hostile, Encke. You ask around -- m'rarely K.O.S with any 'cept the few who've really explicitly asked it of me..." roughly sighed round a roll of eyes, though the annoyance didn't stay long on his face, because maybe there were a few who he'd chosen the 'punch first chat later' path with, but really? Even back then he'd been punching above his class weight, and they'd been entirely too obliging about it all. "Heh, like Cybbie? She's a ********' dream of a Senshi to face---" and with this he did smile and relent. Cause he could catch Encke's drift, knew that it was just him who was feeling rankled about all the upcoming possibilities. Him who didn't trust them, for all that they hadn't given him a reason not to. There were too many unknowns, variables, things he couldn't see them all coming back from whole, unscathed, n happy like they'd been before. He didn't get how people did it, willingly or otherwise -- corrupted -- purified -- whatever the name of it, there was always a sunken cost. Haru had seemed happier for it, though, hadn't he? Cybele had always belonged to and of the white moon -- shouldn'tve ever been theirs to begin with.

Nectaris, though -- and Albite did loudly slurp from his ridiculous slushy, nerds candies n all. Smacked his lips loudly for the hint of sour as he found a way to have Faustite half in his lap and easily cradled; open to letting his love take full advantage of his size. Quiet and playful touches he longed to hold onto, even if they were being hared with a very technical 'fren-enemy' of sorts.

"I appreciate you asking my emotionally ill-adjusted a** about my feelings on alluvthis---" his feelings on it were s**t, thank you, but even dreamy as he liked to be? Even with all his optimism? He lacked knowledge that would've shined light on any other option that kept Faustite outta the rift all permanent like -- that kept him alive -- cause even if he knew he wasn't 'dying' persay? It still kinda looked, n felt, n sounded like dying as every day grew longer and Faustite grew closer to flaming shadow than man.

He had his selfish desires where he wanted Faustite to stay; where he swore he'd love him best if he never left the Rift. Then of course there was the rest, the part where he didn't want his husband to hurt anymore -- where he needed to be fair to the others, senshi one and all, who maybe needed Faustite a little more human flesh and not on fire?

And then---

"S'all a bullshit hand, badly dealt n randomly drawn if you ask me," the words spoken between a crunch, because he absolutely needed salty chips to chase down all that mixed colorful sour with, his tongue was going to be the ugliest rainbow, but he'd be happy licking spice and ranch sprinkles from his fingers. "All those words -- alluvthis -- the parts that change n the parts that stay the same are up to 'luck', finding the cost of paying a toll to cross. The choosing though?" he thought the choice of it was what was most important, the thing one had control over in the end, when the body failed and the mind was empty, when there was no one left but 'you' in the aftermath. The choice had to carry some weight to it. "That's the controllable part, say you lose all your -- the stuff that you think makes you 'you' in a bet? It leaves your head, but m'sure your body remembers some. Keeps some scars, keeps the feelings of getting those scars. Maybe the reactions are totally different, maybe everything can be re-written better -- or recalled without the same hurt -- The part that ******** with me is how it does everyone different, n there's no constant or same to judge it from..." the conversation left him more sour than the drink n salt on his tongue, made him huff some rough bit of sound before nuzzling Faustite amicably.

"Whatever, you'll still be 'you' enough to 'me' that I won't care. Bet I could make you fall in love with me all over again too, huh Firebrand?" and he really didn't care if Encke was there -- let him listen to him whisper about how he'd steal the future Faustite away, under whatever name he'd fancy, and then take him back home to sit him in front of his family and give him a slew of new people who'd love him. "They wouldn't even know it was me -- the scandal!! Though--v'gotta ask, Encke? Why exactly are you all down for this. I mean, asides from the obvious stuff, yeah? Cause there's all the obvious reasons--n'then there's the rest. I don't care how on your knees a savior type you are, this isn't just anybody you're offering to help."

Albite wondered, maybe if he knew? Then he'd be feel less prickly cause it'd feel less like a very spiky trick layered in bubble wrap.