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"All you would have done is have two of you dead! What do you think he would have done the moment you were down and he had a chance to go back after the civilian?!" Viatrix started to back up toward Richard's parents as Ignacio's voice tore out of his throat. "Do you think I like making those kinds of decisions? My very mission as a senshi is to prevent more souls literally feeding Metallia but sometimes you have to evaluate the situation!"

His hands clenched in his hair.

"And sometimes that means leaving it alone! Or trying to get back up! Something!"

Some part of him knew that, some part of him knew that was why he fell in love with Richard, part of him knew that the damned dogged persistence of this starsdamned protective fool was exactly why Ignacio was even standing where he was at the moment, but the other, louder, stressed part wasn't sure it cared. He pulled harder on his hair.

He let go and shook his hands out, dropping a few strands on the floor.

"Stop! Just stop! Stop insisting you can handle these things on your own! Stop trying to bite off a literal general on fire before he decides to grill your starseed with a side of energy!" Viatrix stifled a snort he ignored. "What the ******** do you want me to do, Arra? Like hell are you going to tell me you'd just accept me doing that!"

The desperation spilled out as he couldn't help the, "Arra, that was my worst nightmare. For years I didn't tell you s**t because all I saw in my mind was you trying to get involved, biting off more than you could chew, and someone yanking your starseed and biting it as some kind of temporary energy deposit!"

"You could have ran away! Get out of sight! Go somewhere else and go back to your civilian guise and just blend back into society!" Ignacio was pacing, now, in part because staying still was making the stress worse and increasing the urges he felt to let all of his hair scatter on the ground and scratch his skin and--

"I'm not asking to be your ******** babysitter!"

He pinched the bridge of his nose, hissing out tears and breath before he started, again, "I'm just asking you to think a bit more! Don't jump into rash ******** situations! Call for some backup! Escape if you can! What use are you to anyone you're trying to protect if you just run in and die and power what's attacking them instead!"

Viatrix winced.

"You're the one who started saying s**t like nothing happened, which which we all know is a ******** lie!"

Ignacio wrapped his arms around himself as he paced, rubbed his body with them, dropped them and raked a hand through his hair again before turning toward Richard with something between agony and fire in his eyes, something between panic and dismay and anger and--

"I don't know, but I don't know how you expect me to just accept what happened and accept that it'll happen again because you never ******** would have!"

That lightning hurt more than his own and Ignacio winced and pulled back for a moment, scraping the nails of one hand against the arm of another. He breathed hard. He let go as he replied with a desperate, "Nearly dying, you were laying on the ground, his foot was on your neck, and if I came any closer or stayed where I was or anything it wouldn't have mattered if I had managed to get your starseed back or not because you would have been dead. There were no good moves and I had your life in my hands and I was also watching it slip away and--"

His voice sounded a bit less sharp, exhaustion seeping into his voice that was covered with a choked sob.

"All of this hit me the wrong way, I," he pinched the bridge of his nose, "********, it's like those times I'd come back home injured and you asked me what was wrong and I'd lie and deflect and run the ******** away and--"

He was pacing a hole into the floor, gaze averted to the ground instead of on anyone's face.

And it took all the wind out of Ignacio's sails with ******** panic and stress was still singing through his body, the upset and the fear and the nightmares were still haunting his mind, but all he had done was hurt his Richard and force him to flee -- a small part of him felt some relief that the instinct he had took him to his wonder, but it was a small part that couldn't even quite make it through the fog despite the fact that he would normally be joyous at such exploration.

Viatrix, warily, padded toward him. "Ignacio, are you--"

He didn't answer.

All he did was walk back to the door and slam it shut behind him.