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When he was texted a gif of macaroni and cheese cups, he wasn't necessarily expecting anything bright.

It had become a bit of a habit of theirs. When they wanted to talk, there was always the accompaniment of mac and cheese of some variety. Ignacio had started working on perfecting something of a mac and cheese recipe to see if on occasion he could emulate Luke and his homecooked feels. But the nostalgia itself was worth the cups, and it brought his sister comfort, so it brought him comfort too.

But comfort food was usually associated with needing comfort. What had happened?

He took in a deep breath, rubbed at his chest where the thought of his chest being unsuccessfully burrowed into still lingered, and opened the front door. Looked like Luke wasn't in his office, and he was fairly sure Richard and Safira were still at work. He didn't know where Ophelia was, but Viatrix was probably working on her basement lab and her basement projects--

"Livie!"

Ignacio twirled his Bluetooth tag on his finger, walking his way through the front room and heading toward the kitchen. "Got the mac and cheese started?"

The energetic response took him by surprise -- not surprise that Livie was energetic, but the fact that she was energetic after requesting a mac-and-cheese-filled discussion. He did his best not to show it as she popped her head out toward the hall, instead offering an affectionate smile as he moved toward her. "That's fine! Sometimes a scene needs to be refilmed a few times before we get it right, so I appreciate you waiting!"

Not that he minded cold mac and cheese, but it did honestly taste better warm--

The last hour? That did track with when she messaged him, but this must have been a very recent development-- wait, the ex? His idle twirling fidget slowed down for a moment in concern. So why was she excited then? He followed, sliding into the kitchen behind her and wondering what she was playing at, hinting at -- not actually her ex, not because they hadn't been dating --

Oh.

He put the pieces together as she finished her statement, and his brows rose even as he said nothing about the kissing directly. Instead, he asked, carefully, "So you may be dating an agent?"

Or a senshi, he guessed, but there was no real difference in the Negaverse--

"How did you run into him?"

She had a point, but her situation was also complicated. Complicated by their opposite sides, complicated by their prior past, their prior past that only one of them knew, complicated by the fact that if he was of the Negaverse, there was no guaranteeing this wasn't a trick. There was no guarantee that one day he'd be running down an alleyway and attempting to rescue her life while not telling someone else of their relation, or maybe giving up and saying what that relation was anyway because look where it had gotten him with Basiluzzo--

His breath caught. Ignacio buried it down.

"The emotions may still be there, even without the context. You can still feel strongly for someone even without remembering how you met." To be honest, he had a lot of that feeling with Richard and the Bells in general. They hadn't been with Richard at the time, but their state at the time meant that Ignacio was flatly uncertain about the details of their earlier meetings. That relationship was just there. Strong.

He rubbed his shoulder as he took a deep breath, puzzling how to answer the part he was avoiding as he walked over to join Livie on the floor. He pulled his legs close to his chest, resting his arms atop them.

Mad was the wrong word.

"No, not mad." Ignacio bit his lip. "Worried. Entering any kind of relationship with an agent or corrupt is always filled with risk. Even friendship. I was friends with someone who eventually purified, Stillwaterite," calling their relationship friendship had been iffy back then, but it was still a decent example considering their continued conversations, "and she did try to take my starseed. I'm only still alive because transcendence protected me."

He'd've been dead before that point without transcendence. He'd've been dead after that point without transcendence.

His chest ached.

"And this is something much closer than that. How did you run into him? And how did this happen?"

Ignacio watched as Livie lept up to deal with finishing the mac and cheese. He stayed put, figuring that if she went so eagerly she at least wanted to handle it...

On one hand, mission accomplished. She had clearly distracted him from the murder because she was, at current, still alive. Would it remain that way at their next meeting? He had to hope so, had to believe so-- And he had no innate issue at all with the apparent polyamory, more power to them even if he himself was very singularly focused on one tall protective dancer, but what he did immediately wonder about was the husband. He assumed the husband could actually know who her not-ex civilian's form was. Therefore, he was probably also Chaos...

Especially if she was implying he was in the database, and the database really didn't have a lot of allies.

And there wasn't really a stunning spread of possibilities of someone who could be in the database with a husband who he'd want Livie even near-- "I mean, he sounds like he's being sweet. I'm glad kissing him meant that you came home today." And that was true, even if he wasn't sure he'd recommend her keep doing that. "Be careful, alright? That brings him very close to..."

Encke was pretty sure he didn't need to specify. The thought of doing so made his throat tight.

"How does he plan on marrying you if your relationship gets to that point, though? I don't feel like marriage would work well with you on opposing sides. Do you think there's any chance he's a potential purification?" Ignacio would certainly try to help where he could if there was a chance, even if he'd be fighting a heart attack every time until she was definitively safe. But if her new-old beau had a husband who was prominent enough in the Negaverse to be in the database...

Well, he wasn't sold on the purification thing.

He was actually more worried about her getting forced back.

He eagerly took the mac-and-cheese and the fork that came with it. Honestly, maybe the mac-and-cheese had been for him the whole time. It at least gave him something to fidget with, anyway--

Love conquers all was something he desperately wanted to believe. It was hard to believe it after what he had been confronted with time after time with the Negaverse. And yet, he wanted to hold onto that optimism. Richard had stopped him from backsliding so many times. And even platonically: Grayson had done the same, Nadia had done the same, Sadie was doing the same, Viatrix was doing the same, the Bells were doing the same...

But could love really conquer all when one side could just decide the other was over?

"It's not a dumb thing to say, and you're not dumb. Emotions are complicated. Extracting yourself from Chaos is complicated." But what was she afraid to--

He couldn't quite hide the way he choked on his mac and cheese. He cleared his throat, swallowed it, and looked to her with an expression not of anger. Alarm, maybe. Sadness, maybe.

"Faustite?" He confirmed, swallowing again. He took a deep breath, clarifying first, "I still don't think you're dumb, alright? Hell, if it helps, you were smart to come home here and consult the database to see if you can figure out who the husband is." But her not-ex was part of his group. That made a lot of sense, now when he thought about it. One of the only database accounts of Albite had mentioned him in relation to Faustite.

He supposed one of Faustite's minions purified before considering where that account came from. It was theoretically possible. He wasn't sure it would be possible with someone so dedicated to Faustite as to be his husband-- Why didn't he just try to take out Faustite when he had the chance--

"Albite isn't Faustite, but to be married to Faustite does at least imply some deep dedication to Chaos and Metallia. You've read about him. I don't need to tell you about him. But I will say a couple of things I didn't quite put in my entry: he would have killed me if I wasn't transcendent, and he would have killed Arra if not for Viatrix."

Not truly not for him. He had spent too much time grandstanding and trying to obscure their relationship.

"Do you know if he has a chance of finding out about you?"

Ignacio had read that entry, too. Cybele had learned a lot about Faustite's psyche in the process of being stuck with him, and it only reaffirmed everything else that had been said: from himself, from Nembus, from Ganymede--

"Torture is gross," he affirmed, catching the way she ran her thumb over her wrist. He had been through torture. He had died from torture.

It was a strange thing to confront, but he was used to it now.

Ignacio wrapped his arm around Livie's shoulder when she came close, tucking her against his side if she allowed. He took a stabilizing breath. Nectaris was fine. Livie was fine. His sister was here, and Albite hadn't done anything, and Albite hadn't just called in Faustite to murder Nectaris -- "He has. A few times now, actually. He drained Arra before he awoke and starseeded him after -- not that he knew the connection. He and I run into each other fairly often."

More often than he ran into most agents.

But the husband wasn't the crux of the problem -- it was just a sign of what the problem was.

"Chaos is a deeply corrupting influence. He may think what he does is necessary. Is right, maybe even morally. Maybe it's excusable because his team needs him to, or because Faustite needs him to, or maybe he needs him to. Maybe he just legitimately wants to, and maybe Chaos just made that worse."

He sighed.

"And if he believes any of that, it doesn't change how nice he is. He's still acting in the name of evil. He may have done some sincerely evil things, especially since he works with and is married to a known torturer and murderer."

He hugged her a bit closer. "I'm not trying to say that people even that deep can't be saved from the influence of Chaos. It may be possible, even in the slightest bit. But to be purified, they need to come to that decision in their own rights. They need to want to leave Chaos behind. And I'm not sure if Albite sounds like the type of person that would decide to do that, especially considering..." There was a lot of evidence that expressed the contrary.

He wouldn't say he wouldn't, he didn't know Albite well enough to make that decision, but... The concept of Nectaris being that close to someone whose husband at least would as soon as see her death--

She was tense, so he didn't press her further, but he did offer a supportive arm rub as she spoke. And he knew that, knew that she knew what Chaos was, knew that she had been a part of Chaos. And he didn't mean to imply that she didn't, and he would have apologized for that, but he didn't want to interrupt her, either.

He understood having to confront knowing that she had likely murdered people. He understood having to acknowledge that he had done bad things, and that sometimes a craving hit him wrong and he still wasn't quite sure what to do with the reality of it except eat a very vegetarian diet for the next few days.

He pushed that to the back of his mind.

It was true. She had been in deep. But he noticed the progression in even his knowledge of her as Sylvite. The second time he met her, she seemed more desperate to leave than the first. The records of her in the database were so variant that it backed up that she changed. And it was not just a dumb baby dream that it could happen, and he wrapped her up and hugged her close.

"I wish we could. I want to save everyone. I want the influence of Chaos to be gone. Any remaining evil would be scrambled, and any people who could be good would be out of the influence," he sighed shakily. He wished Caedus' plan had actually gotten its chance and hadn't been replaced by Lyndin's gambit. "If I could, I would save everyone you love. Believe me. And it's not some dumb baby dream."

He had been saved, too.

"But for every you," he swallowed, "there's several that will never make that decision to leave, no matter how much we try to save them. And while we should keep being here for those that will and keep being a place they can come to for that, we need to be careful that we don't end up hurt or dead in the process."

He pictured Nectaris on the ground, her neck under Faustite's foot, her starseed in his hand but him not able to make it in time--