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‘Funny —’

Though Cryolite wasn’t laughing as much as he was trying not to roll his eyes for the comment that dug at him so minorly. It shouldn’t have bothered him at all, in truth. This— what felt like a tactic made to throw them all off balance. He decided he wouldn’t let it deter him. Not from the wash of relief and shuddery sigh of an exhale, as he heard Nikki agreed she wouldn’t dare to break it off with them so easily, not even after all this time and how unfairly they’d treated her. The woman was a saint if ever he’d seen one. He thought maybe he’d tell her that someday, after all of this was settled and they had their bearings straight.

‘Baby-steps––baby-steps, baby-steps… ‘

She made it sound so simple though. So clean and easy that it left him wondering not for the first time if he’d massively overcomplicated this all by his presence alone? By his reticence – his hesitancy? Because Fulgurite had a family, yes, of course and they were unabashedly a part of this that needed sorting! But he also had *them*. Matt had him. Syrus realized he was no better than Fulgurite, for having tried to shove the man off to some greener pasture all those months before. As though the solution to everything was to simply pair the man up with Nectaris and wish them well on their way towards otherworldly, white-bodiced bliss! But he’d learned a lot since then, about Matt, about Nikki, and about himself if he was being completely honest.

Like how it should not have mattered if the Negaverse was after them or not – it shouldn't have taken that for them to make a move. That Syrus shouldn’t have felt like the one holding them both back in quiet stagnation.

It wasn’t like it all couldn’t be fixed. The solution was right in front of him.

“She’s right, you know? About all of this. But you have a point too. No one should need to power up. Least of all you, darling.” Nikki had made herself a bridge to a gap once more, Cryolite watched her, with wet edged eyes, with furious blinks and a deep breath meant to soothe himself and drown the nerves that every word from the pairs mouths had dragged to the surface in him. It was all so much. All of it. Her outstretched hand and how he wanted to take it, but not without Fulgurite! Not alone!

“I can’t imagine what it’s like, having to bear the burden of Fulgurite when you want to be anything but that.…” It would never be too much though, and he wouldn’t allow himself to be alone. He’d long since decided that he had some agency in all of this, some choice. He’d made his precious, starched sheets, and now? Now he intended to lay on them. For better or worse and all that etcetera.

He knew he’d made up his mind; with the same fervent sort of dedication he’d assured Matt that his love and devotion would remain even on all the following days after that first one. That self-assured ferocity that had made him outright *demand* a ring, and demand the power in his chest, and fight to carve out the life he wanted, even when he’d feared it would all only be a consolation prize of a memento to someday look back on fondly.

“So you won’t have to anymore. At least, not for my sake. For Nikki’s, maybe–” tremulous, and it was hard to look at Fulgurite like this, it was easier to stare at the sky, the floor – to note how cute Nikki’s shoes were, and how much lighter he felt without all that hair. If he focused instead on the fact that she was trying. Still soft, always. Strong for them, even like this. That made it just the tiniest bit easier to smile. “But just for a little while longer, because I’ve decided that wherever you’re going? I’m going with you.” And this was fine, it could all fall apart, he didn’t need any of it – he wouldn’t cry – but no part of himself could go on knowing Matt was hurting in silence, trying to send him away, to save him – from what? What ‘him’ could there possibly be without Matt and Nikki!

“Hah, and there’s really only one place left to go, love. Baby-steps and all. Talking— Oh, there’s going to be so much talking. I promise you both.”

How was Nectaris not mad at him?

That had been part of the point, hadn't it? If he kept his distance long enough, she would at first be frustrated with him, annoyed with him, angry with him, and then assume that he ghosted her and just forget about him. That was the goal. If he could separate himself from those elements in his life, it would be easier to retreat. But if she wasn't mad, it just made everything worse.

“Don't know what you think we can figure out. If I can't leave Fulgurite behind, can't exactly tell you who I am. Means my only option is to go back to powering up regularly. Bit of a catch-22, isn't it? I can't quite win that one.” Why couldn't he make himself take her hand? Why should he take her hand? Why was his brain a mess? Why was this messy? It felt like he was making it messier than he had to.

And of course, there was always the risk that he couldn't necessarily leave this identity behind anyway. The one advantage of becoming Eternal now was that he could not be dragged around and forced into Fulgurite against his will except by a general-sovereign, but that risk remained. His team was led by one of those. But perhaps if he stayed unpowered long enough, he would be forgotten by him, too.

Especially because he still hadn't done any of his assignments.

That brought back a sense of nausea to his stomach, but the words from his future husband's mouth distracted him.

There were a lot of things he had been trying to expect out of this conversation. The one thing he hadn't been expecting? Cryolite saying he was also going to leave. Part of their whole thing was that Fulgurite was going to be leaving on his own, originally. He was going to be leaving on his own, and that was why he would have to end up choosing. That was part of what had ended up sticking him. He still felt stuck, he was still losing too much, or at least he was going to be making people close to him lose too much, but the fact that Syrus would make the leap as well?

He couldn't tell if he was out of his mind, head over heels with a dream, or if Fulgurite fell more in love with him every time he opened his mouth.

“Dammit.”

That certainly made all of his arguments seem considerably sillier.

“You would leave for me?” Well, not just for him. Cryolite was holding Nectaris' hand, too. “For us?” Fulgurite's brows knit. “Are you sure? You have a lot you've worked for in your civilian life, and you have people who matter to you a lot in the Negaverse, unlike me. You have Albite, who recruited you in the first place,” as uncomfortable as that man made him, he was still important to Syrus, “Mira, people that you would be guaranteed to lose if you followed me.”

They wouldn't be leaving any of each other behind, Matt wouldn't be leaving his fiancé behind, but in a lot of ways they both would be leaving people behind anyway. Were they things they could leave behind?

Could he really break his father's heart, again?

“We wouldn't have to worry about choosing between each other, but we would be choosing each other over literally everyone else.”

They would be choosing a void of a life versus the stability that Syrus built his entire life around. Could they do that? Was that even a good idea? Chaos was cold, but it was comfortable. There was something to be said for comfort.

Fulgurite fidgeted with the skin on his hand.

There were things that Nectaris had been biting back, stuff about purification that she wanted to say but that she was worried would stir things up too much, would have people ghosting for real. Like, forever.

If Cryolite was being bold like that, though? If he was making plans? Like she’d been hoping, they’d kinda talked about stuff, but it hadn’t been like this. And he was being super brave not just to consider leaving but to be honest about it, so she was gonna be honest, too.

“I mean, yeah, the other option is to leave if you wanna see me but you don’t wanna have to be Fulgurite. And it wouldn’t have to be, like, something awful.”

She nodded at Cryolite, wanting him to know this stuff, too. She didn’t know much about his life, only recognized the name Albite out of what Fulg was saying, but this advice was for him, too.

“I’ve talked to some people since the last time we went over this. I’ve learned how people handle purifications when it’s not like, an impulsive thing like I guess mine was?” She didn’t regret it, but it had left her kind of stranded with a lot more holes in her life than most people had. “Like, you could tell your family. The worst case scenario is that they’re Chaos and you have to run away, which is pretty much where you’d be at anyway, right? But maybe they’re not, and you can work out a way to stay in touch afterwards.”

Maybe they’d be Order and be grumpy at you for like a year, like what had happened with Emain, but they’d worked that out and now he had his life back, almost totally.

She still tried to keep her voice steady, to be in her, like, serious mode and not start bouncing or giggling or do anything other than like, neutral. She was still squeezing Cryolite’s hand with one of hers, still reaching out to Fulgurite with the other.

She didn’t know why he wouldn’t take it. She didn’t know if he ever would. He said he didn’t want to leave but he was taking every excuse not to get closer, and that was hard to ignore even if Nectaris was trying hard to be done crying.

“And there’s, like, lots of support systems in Order. Like, ways to get jobs. Friends that aren’t Albite. I’m not saying that it wouldn’t be hard, or that you wouldn’t forget things, but it wouldn’t be just us against the world.”

She swallowed, eyes pleading at Fulgurite no matter how much she tried to stay practical.

“Also I miss you.”

He could think of exactly two people he’d want to say goodbye to, three, maybe? If he counted Tama; who had been nothing but kind to him from the start. Faustite, oddly enough, if he weren’t aware of how badly that conversation would go. He lacked those same hurdles Matt faced, the concept of a family, made, chosen or otherwise. A father and a sister to mourn him? He knew enough people who couldn’t have said goodbye to any of that at all, not for any lover, or husband, or sweet pink girls with swirls in their hair, and so instead embraced the reality of their circumstances without fail.

Fulgurite had done none of that it seemed. Syrus wondered if Nikki had up until a point? What the breaking point had been for her? Who all she’d left behind aside from teammates and chaotic entities. Had she been alone *enough* that it hadn’t mattered back then? Was it truly that she had so strong a moral compass….

A thousand questions he could ask her some other time if and when he remembered too, but not now. Not tonight.

“Everyone else seems to manage this somehow, don’t they? Not without consequences, obviously! But…” and he knew they’d managed, he’d heard enough about it time and again, all the people who slipped quietly or loudly or otherwise to the other side! If Faustite could manage it after all he’d done! That was a prevailing thought, but that had been handled differently too. They’d all been aware, there were no secrets, the people that loved him loved him regardless.

“I think, as far as plans go? For this. I’m the wrong person to ask. The one you’ve needed to talk to is *her*--” and Syrus was frustrated with himself for not noticing sooner the deterioration of Matt’s life, of his connections outside the man's small and growing ever smaller world. Frustrated all the more in realizing late in the game that there were some things even he couldn’t plan for.

How different it all was when it was perceived as a life or death situation, and when it’d stopped being that? When the danger had been unrealized and the fears had been mostly resolved. When Fulgurite had been pushed out of most people’s reach — when he had, himself, eventually, made up his damn mind to take on that extra chaos and become a super.

“And honestly, Fulgurite? I don’t know why you haven't been doing exactly that.” And now he wondered what it’d all been for, why it’d been done at all? Was there a point in staying beyond the superficial—

Matt’s family—

That could be argued for, Syrus could wince and feel the pain of that, but the rest?

“That is—it boggles me, truly. Everything that’s happened up until now and the one you avoid is the one who, honestly, allowed for any of this at all? The woman who can supply the resources that would fix this…I…” he huffed softly around a grimace and a shrug because he too didn’t know how he’d recover any of himself at all. There were sunk costs in all of this, irrevocable transactions, there would be loss on all sides.

Would they even remember enough to know what they were losing? What they’d left behind? He looked at Nikki and wondered how she handled the gaping void, or if maybe it helped to cross over and have no memories to weigh her down.

“We’d planned for something much hastier, I know-–it was all very life or death in that particular moment and then when the heat died down we stopped working on it entirely.” He almost wanted to let go of Nikki and pace, or apologize, oh to apologize to both of them at this point because it felt very necessary! Especially considering how short sighted he’d been up until now. How, comically blind and complacent with it all he’d been until now. “We let things keep sliding, and took on more *chaos* to keep up the charade. To prepare ourselves for something we either need to be doing or not….”

“Whatever we plan, together? It can’t involve sitting on the fence anymore. We need to choose something. I honestly thought you’d be in charge of that— that Nikki had a princess on standby or.. or no.. that really was just wishful hoping? That she loved you enough that when they came for you, you’d land very softly on the other side and everything would work itself out.”

Or not, oh, there was a massive ‘or not’ that he’d also planned for and feared. All the things that were out of his control, that he thought he needed to trust to others. Of course? He wasn’t blameless in all of this either. Knew it in his soul that he damn well hadn’t taken it upon himself to ask Nikki for anything. Not about purification, not about helping fulgurite. It’s all been a personal little romp and a few gentle not-dates because if Fulgurite was with this woman then he needed to get to know her, didn’t he?!

It’d all made sense at the time—-

You have to let me.

We need to choose something.

I can answer your questions.

You needed to talk to her.

What was he doing? Why couldn't he move? All the things they were saying made sense, all the things that he had been saying made sense, all the questions that he had just seemed to be piling up and the answers were probably right in front of him but they were also behind him, but perhaps they were nowhere and everywhere all at once. How did he recover his writing? How did he recover his floral expertise? Did it even ******** matter?

Did anything ******** matter? He would lose all of his memories anyway, wouldn't he?

He would lose all of his memories anyway, he would lose the memories of the people he was talking to, he would lose the memories of everything that Syrus had spent all that time helping him write and nothing on the tablets and even on the papers would have any meaning. And what of his family, that he spent so much time making sure wouldn't be hurt by his disappearance?

And why would he have to disappear at all? Why should he even do this? Why should he even bother letting her?

Was there even a point?

Why were they standing there looking so desperate for him to do something? Why did he have to choose?

Didn't he already make a choice?

They were already clinging to each other, they were already holding hands, they were already close. She was reaching out to him, but he wasn't reaching back. He hadn't seen her in a year, and that had almost been his goal. What he was seeing in front of him had been convenient. He hadn't expected Cryolite and Nectaris to meet and kiss, but when Cryolite told him that happened and told him that they had gotten closer, it had become deliciously convenient.

It had become the bow to what he had been hoping for the whole time.

Great. He didn't have to worry about any of it anymore. The two of them could just become close to each other and he could just fade away.

He wouldn't have to be part of it at all anymore.

And maybe that was the answer. Maybe that would be how he would hurt the least people.

Maybe that would be how he hurt the most people.

Maybe it didn't matter.

“I can't.”

And he was gone.