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Cryolite had remained powered for convenience sake, easier to bamph into a place, to disappear out of it should security have suddenly woken up from wherever they parked themselves all night and magically begun to pay enough attention to cause him issues. Issues that *Syrus* wouldn’t have to deal with, because Cryolite would take the fall. It was amusing enough to imagine them putting a nearly naked, barely recognizable, ice skating wizard with hair that would’ve made Rapunzel envious on some sort of watch list! The kind that could seemingly walk through walls and only came out at night—

The thought of how unlikely all of that was, was more than enough to make him move through the space with his guard low—-

With his mind focused on the particular prize of studying for free—

Here all the worlds delights lay! In pages upon pages of books. There was a future here in this quiet, solemn space. There was safety. A bubble wrapped away from the outside world.

Cryolite soaked in it, his mind, his body, let it all unwind like tension from his body, and then wound it up a different way.

A way he liked. With a neat stack set atop long oaken tables, a glassy lamp alight above them (just bright enough to read by); info on LSAT, spreads of color coded notebooks, the NAPLA handbook. Between strides of shelves to table to book one through five he was already checking off boxes, amassing items from the suggested reading list from Yeshiva University, theirs in particular because he liked the familiarity of the authors, because he needed a refresher for his refresher—

For nostalgias sake if nothing else.

So engrossed was he in this, studying, working, reading up — so lost in the moment of freedom the library granted him — that he didn’t notice the aura creeping up on him until it was in his face, pink tinged, alive, loud!

He nearly threw the seventh volume of a heavier text directly at the source of sound that greeted him—held back by his startled fingertips while he stifled a gasp of shock. Because the face was known as the aura. Because it was Nectaris speaking to him—

And all the months past rushed back up on him in a crushing blurr— left him standing there, mouth open, stunned —

What did he even say!? What had she even asked???

“Ah—h-yes? I’m sorry, one more time? I was—“ he’d been reading, he meant to say, meant to ask her to repeat herself. To do anything other than starfish in the middle of being caught red handed! Doing homework and committing to comfort reading of all things! “And you! Yes—h-how are you?” he sounded far more scandalized than the scene called for, but he really hadn’t expected anyone.

Let alone the lovely girl he hardly had any answers for, and wasn’t that the b***h of it? That he only had cold dead silence waiting on the back of his tongue, that he’d heard nothing—-But maybe he didn’t have to have nothing? If anyone had experience with the sorts of questions that had plagued him between bouts of doing his damndest to keep busy so he didn’t have to think about all that quiet — it would be her, wouldn’t it?

She was just saying ‘hi’ — it was true — and it was on him to swallow his own embarrassment for jumping at shadows, for being so damn book-blind to the situation that he’d not only ignored her aura coming up on him; he was inside after all, who in the world would break into a library just to get at a single roaming signature!! But he’d also forgotten exactly how far out his own aura might project now. That he was no longer *just* a basic, that he might be attractive—-

As a beacon to the enemy, not just to Nikki, that he had far more lighthouse in the dark qualities than he had before.

Cryo light chuckled sheepishly, smoothing over hard-backed covers, bound thick, scrawled with gold leaf and yellowing pages within. Looked over the collective mass of his life’s works….

And then back to Nikki, on full, with a smile he hoped was a little less fish out of water flustered.

“Hi, Nikki—I know it’s only you—but never doubt your ability to be surprising,” the lightest tease before he was tilting his head, softening his stance, there was the urge to laugh there because he had heard something like this! Only from a far less serious source, and I. A far harder to decipher way.

“Ah yes, secret ninja abs? Am I correct—Albite mentioned it once or twice as your best quality, aside from your blinding kindness and ability to have fun under any circumstance-—“ A sore point of a sore subject, and he did feel bad for always bringing the man up like a collective place-marker between them, but? But nothing. It was something he needed to work on, to remedy doing entirely.

But….

“Fulgurite used to talk about, well, how bad it all truly was for him back in the beginning? He made you out to be his guiding light in the dark—his savior—“ and he briefly mused about the concept of knights and Senshi, how entirely entwined they were, if people like Nectaris and Faustite were living, breathing proof — that one and the other would eventually flock together and form tight bonds. The irony of it all, how the passage of time had formed great expansive reversals. How often it was he saw one powerful Knight, agent, what have you— with a flock of magic users tucked under their protective wings.

Waru had mentioned it often, in passing, in attempts to others engage about concepts that were surely beyond the man’s own understanding!! Cryolite had simply found him to be right, how strange it seemed? One Knight — to a cavalcade of star-cored beings. He almost wanted to do a study on it, run statistics, collect data that he could graph and chart. Wondered what he’d ultimately find — if the structure existed in the negaverse alone, or? Was a product of the new era — reflecting how truly weak and soft beings like Senshi had become a thousand years later—or maybe this was some inevitable cycle? An inverse of the outverse that had once been. If Knights really had once served Senshi—Then why now did it seem so many Senshi flocked to surround themselves around any singular Knight? To band themselves together around one like plates and cutlery around a centerpiece?

But that was too many fragmented pieces ida Golden vial sipped and lost to dreams— Syrus shook it out of his glamored lengths, let the idea go with a smile.

Focused up—

“Not exactly how I’d picture a spy? But that is the point, isn’t it? To be deceiving.” His smile warm as he hummed about the best way to explain what he was doing here, how none of this was particularly reading for fun, in spite of him having learned to enjoy it, and even more? To enjoy retaining what he liked of it.

“And I’m reading…I’m studying up on a few new concepts, nailing down the old. Have you ever gone back to a story again and again because you want to know it by heart, because you loved it so much….” and he stepped away from the table finally, to greet her like anything other than a ghost, left all the laws and Latin and endless lines exist in view, she could pursue them or not, he didn’t care anymore now. “Except I don’t love this, not like an old story, but? I find its usefulness in practice within the larger world to be great enough that it’s worth learning to love! Even if it can be an absolute pain in my thin, pale, a** to get it all paired down into something consumable.”

“But what about you? Do you like to read—a favored author, a genre?”

He didn’t bother to hide his smile, a sharper grin for her puffed out, perturbed features. The way she looked somehow chipmunk cute and lion fierce all at once. Such an interesting dichotomy— clash of pinks and her absolute disgust of a shudder.

He drank it all in, ate the story up. Remembered, vaguely, Waru coming groaning about something like that for days— lengthy crying sessions, treatments for non-venomous snake bites. Talks of a messy aftermath and the battle which had ensued during the end of it all. It had been equal parts funny as it was sad, all of Warus morning— how easily impressed he was — How well he maybe understood, now, possibly? That the pair which had been was no longer.

Not that he could ever really be sure what Waru understood, not the depth of it. Best to leave it all be, to focus on the positives of the outcome. An entire statue dedicated in her honor.

“I hadn’t heard—I think I might have been neck deep in studying. But? If seeing it in all its glory requires a little bit of cleaning. Then I suppose I can help. It’ll cost you though. My times not free,” he teased as he listened on attentively, nodded in agreement. Playing with ways to secure another date, a ruse he didn’t need to play up, but couldn’t deny the fun of it either. The way it was almost like courtship — Ah, no? Maybe like the ways a friendship should’ve been built. With time spent, from the ground up, just the two of them getting to know each other while skirting the deeper parts of their lives entirely—

And there was sadness there, for that, knowing he could only know her in these instances. In snippets outside of the reality of civilian life. The way that sadness grew exponentially, until it hurt to swallow it down. He couldn’t meet her eyes and say how he knew she was more his light than anyone —

How he was purifying for her, obviously! How keeping quiet on all the rare moments he got word from the man in-between bouts of absence were a wound in so many ways— deep running, chasmous voids. Nigh unfillable, because there was no substitute for Fulgurite himself. In the flesh. In person. Powered or otherwise! No words he could offer in lieu of Matt’s own. It wouldn’t be the same, it wouldn’t be right, either. To assuage all her worries when there was only one man whose words would do the job of it.

He traced the edges of old leather, slid a worn string bookmark in-between a thin page, took a breath and found the nerve to meet her eyes once more. To try and keep the sadness out of his own.

“It is all legal stuff, sadly; boring, bone dry, not even the covers are enticing. Save the occasional bit of gold leaf here and there—“ thoughtful as he shoved some of his own work aside, hummed some affirmative. “You know? You should send him another note—“ open palmed enticement, a brush of words, as though he both did and didn’t care what she did with them. He followed his first sentence with another, a tidbit of info. Seeking camaraderie as much as he was offering a gold nugget of truth. “He writes, you know? Things that could be screen plays as easily as novellas. Things that might contain pirates?”

And since he was on a roll? Better to leave the table behind, it’s telling contents, it’s sandy, boring, litanies of study lines. He nearly beckoned Nectaris with a finger — immediately thought better of it, and held out his hand — patiently waiting, a doggedly excited guide eager to show off the vastness of the library’s space.

“And I’m planning on seeing him soon. To harass him as much as anything— to ask about all the notes in person. Because it’s been a long time, maybe too long….”

Whether she read as avidly as he did or not? This was his world, and he loved it. All the ways it had gotten him through hard days, harder nights. The way he abused it now as an ultimate escape from two other, far harsher, realities—

“And after that? We have ourselves a cleaning date — you’ll tell me even more about yourself, because what I know from others is hardly enough. And maybe we can even watch a show while we do it? Something vaguely historically inspired, but mostly romantic. A maid murder romance—Mmnh, there’s been quite a few shows lately? Bridgerton— I did like the Queens Gambit myself....”

All the ways he wanted to find her something in it to love as much as he wanted to find something in hers that he could love back in turn. Something other than a person— because the grass was never greener, no matter the side. Because everything felt fraught of late, the greater he reached, the harder he tried, the more it all slipped away.

“And I think it’d be wise that I learn a little more about what you love. Everyone puts you on this pedestal—ah—that is? They have their own opinions of who you are…were? It almost makes things easier on me, coming at this from a perspective that’s entirely new and all my own.“

But Nectaris was here. Now. Alive and glowing in the shadows cast from the moon through the skylights above, and if he couldn’t give her a tour of his own damn apartment? He could certainly manage giving. Her a tour of this!! His home away from home~

“Coming at you, that is.”

"Nothing you don't already give with breathless ease --" a wink, a promise, a grin for her easy acceptance of what surface seemed to be a very small ask. What he knew was, for some others, a very large one indeed. All the ways people armored themselves, coveted their personal lives and vices. Such wondrously shiny secrets made so risky to bare. How everyone went on keeping their own cores hidden, treasured, tucked away from all the ways the world could wound and tarnish them simply for daring to place so fragile a gem out into the light.

That was the safer way to play the game, wasn't it? To do all of that. Rather than hold a whole heart open in the sky, leave it out to weather all the worlds storms and collect nicks and scuffs from random passersby. He wondered, maybe, if Nikki had been like that before? Heart on her sleeve as barren and open as her blunt honesty for any situation was. If the transition between a darker bodice and a lighter cape had -- little by little -- along all the way -- bled some of those tendencies to share like a faucet out of her. It certainly hadn't dampened her spirit at all--

He expected her to walk with him, and instead she soared. Ever a mischievous pixie, a veritable peter-pan pressed into pink. A moonchild that had escaped Earths orbital pull---

Some small part of himself envied her. The rest, those parts of him that saw this space as hallowed learn-a-torium and sacred for all book seekers! Oh, the squawk he made for the very idea of heel-scuffs over ancient lacquered oakenware. Not that he'd dare tell her to stop. That thought lay beyond him, caught between aghast awe and smirking wonder; the way the sourness that briefly stole his features at the mention of Matt before he forced them to soften entirely.

"I don't think he's powered up since--before? I want to say May--but it could be June...July...It gets hard to keep track..." apologetic as he turned on his heels, walked the space backwards, dodged a chair pulled out a hair too far -- and continued to watch her --- "Of all you've sent him to see? I think his lack of response means he hasn't seen any of it. I am planning on seeing him in person though. Physically. And I do intend to bring absolutely all of this up to him then."

He said it all seriously. Thought it loudly as he spoke the words with severity and confidence. Because he would. Absolutely all of it, every, single, line. Because while Nikki seemed to take everything in stride; as effortlessly and weightlessly as her gait! Syrus simply didn't. Could only take that sand under his skin itch of feeling ignored for no good reason for so long, before he felt it more like a personal scorn than mere absence. Before he got bratty about it. Maybe it was silly of him? To have knowingly ventured down this particular road--

To foolishly claim he'd understood it's dips, bends, potholes. Only to become upset by it all as days turned weeks turned months...

Maybe this was the cost of love? Some pound of flesh toll he'd missed the fine print on when he'd signed all the dotted lines, heedlessly, with what'd rolled off his heart.

"Power dynamic vibes. It's accurate. I prefer this though. That I only get to know the version of you that you'd like me to know. There's no past or future to mar the details." He still to this day struggled to imagine it, like an architectural array of a new city laid over the old. France's vast catacombs, New-York's endless underdark of abandoned skyscrapers and churches connected by pipelines and grates. The maps of both existed, could still be traversed to an end -- but he only lived in the one space -- lived with the one version -- and so any talk of exploring the other seemed so alien to he who hadn't known it's causeways and run-off zones personally.

Why disturb the 'dead of a sort' when the living was right here, alive with him now? Beautifully flitting across his shadow-cast path deeper into the libraries entrails.

"And I prefer it that way, honestly? It's not like I couldn't find out if I wanted to--but it seems to cause such dissonance--the two versions don't connect or compare. Not for me." he smiled as he beckoned her for a turn, gave into her pull of fun and leapt into a section of the library that had been gated off to the typical students. It contained endless drawers with endless labels; skinny, fat, wide, deep sections of wares. All with tarnished brassy handles, with words written in cursive scrawl and ink denoting their find dates, their function, the contents and it's numbering. Full of items once living, dead, floral, faunal, bisected, glittery. All made for viewing. All made for the those of visual-minded sort, rather than dusty tomes and boring trawl of legalese.

"I think---I think it helps we're not trying to sway each other either, doesn't it? Oh--you do like flowers right? This section is a marvel--we'd never be let in here during the day. We're not professors afterall..." and there was glee in his voice, for doing something slightly beyond the rules. For bending them like this, secretly in the dead of night, enjoying a 'forbidden zone' and breaking a bit of etiquette here of all places.

"I really think you should," his words quiet and conspiratorial enough to be a whisper while he pulled out another drawer, marveled at its contents, returned her effortlessly bright smile as he closed the next one back up. The way it felt as though they were sharing secrets they almost assuredly shouldn't have been. Sharing things they should've always. From the start, nothing that began with lies ever ended well for anyone. Hadn't he learned that by now? Shouldn't he be sending her lists of asks, jotting down criteria with check boxes. Making demands of her every like, whim, feeling!? So he could have them known and unquestionable.

"Send a letter to him. Grace me with your presence as though it's really just as easy as we'd both like it to be. We'll set up a meeting spot, schedule our outings, make it all something more worthwhile than just -- random acts of running into each other all the time..." Because as much as he didn't want any of it to be a secret, in some major ways it was, this, him, her. The three of them. Playing a game of Metallia in the middle, of hot potato with the traitor, of---

"Oh, and I'd be more surprised if you weren't. The difference is that I'm actually swayable to some degree, where others might not be. So the effort's appreciated---and if I do it at all? It wouldn't be just because of Fulgurite. It wouldn't be because I fear being alone, either." he wouldn't go on about all the ways he wouldn't be alone, about how he'd set up fall-out shelters worth of plans, the kind that had bunkers full of buddies in them. The ways he hadn't told her of Aramis, of his work that he loved. Of all the ways he liked his circles small, smaller, smallest of all. He would've stayed in doors all the time were he not coupled to any number of friendly extroverts that dragged him out and made him soak up some Vitamin D for a few hours.

There was so much they didn't know about each other.

"I've been meaning to ask. What exactly are you two to each other? Now, I mean. Not sure if there was some nebulous before...ah...how that before worked? But it doesn't matter since I'm more interested in the present." he hedged his question carefully, would've taken any of either, what she remembered, what she didn't. Knew there were vast gaps, and so? His focus was on the now, the present, how she and Fulgurite had defined getting together with each other.

It was important to him.

And Matt had mentioned something, surely, had explained parts of it. But he preferred to hear it from her. In her own words. All the things he'd ever meant to ask and have hashed out, all the ways Matt had seemed so determined to protect Nikki, as equally as determined as she had seemed to protect Matt.

Of course, one of those things made more sense to him than the others. She was the wanted man in this scenario so to speak--

And Matt---Fulgurite....

No, it made all the sense in the world. They were both hunted bodies with prices on their heads. Even if one figure was far higher and the other simply hadn't appeared yet, it surely would soon enough.

The lack of labels; establishing terms and phrases that denoted rules of engagement, that defined the standards of how one was *supposed* to behave. That she was choosing to tell him how she eschewed any sort of labeling entirely? And he’d heard it before. It was such a familiar thing that it nearly gave him whiplash— the amount of times he’d heard it before, the person he’d heard it *from* — but this, here, now was *Nikki*.

*Nikki—* gently holding his hand, drawing him in close, pulling the whole world to a standstill; and he met her smile with one equally soft, sharpness laying in the edges of his gaze, the distant look of his brain turning on and running over her words with an exacting blade. Because he was taking care, listening with dawning awe and a sprinkling of surprise as all those differences appeared to him, a way to categorize the same yet different as one would a species of ants — *of butterflies* — that just because two of those butterflies were blue, it did not at all make them the same. And oh— as she explained herself? Paired it down, watered it down into digestible bits all just for him, those differences became stark. Nikki wasn’t about to marry a stranger, or date a boy she didn’t know the name of, *or—*

Whatever *they* had been before, herself, Fulgurite, it was clear now that this was different. Not some continuation of a past story — but a whole new tale in a completely different book.

How sensible, how clean, how clear and logical—

Especially for Nikki!

But maybe that was on him? His own shortcoming for assuming she was always anything other, that just because she appeared light as a feather, surface wise all fun and games, that didn’t mean she couldn’t be serious when it counted. Couldn’t be honest, blunt, almost brutally so. Syrus almost felt like the silliest of the three now, throwing his entire lot into one basket, uncaring of whether or not that basket was being thrown off the nearest cliff. Willing to fight for it all in spite of knowing to some degree that there would be no soft landings at the bottom.

He swallowed as he followed her down, made himself a lotus on the floor, and entwined his fingers about hers like gently cloying vines. Only the barest hint of hooked claw in the form of his lawyered nails against her slender, warm digits. *Listening*. There were points he wanted to argue into a grave, points he wanted to agree upon wholeheartedly!

*’She loves him—‘*

Knowing that felt important, an anchor-point, a lifeline, something that needed etched in stone—

Something Fulgurite needed to know.

No. *To Believe*.

He decided it would be passed on, that of everything he was hearing? That was the most important part. Her love for Fulgurite above all else. The rest pieced in holes where his own information had lacked, all that he lacked, for he’d never known Sylvite anymore than he’d known ‘Alexa’. She’d been a name without a face, actions iterated to him by others. Phantoms of a person *he* didn’t belong to.

Not then.

Maybe now?

Regardless— she was sylvite, and sylvite was her, and all the power of Cosmos and memory wiping in the world would not sever the two halves entirely.

Not cleanly, at least.

He wondered if she’d wanted it done cleanly, or done at all? Wondered any number of things as he watched with some amount of startlement as she curled in on herself like a flower touched by flame, withering petals, shame he couldn’t understand.

“Nectaris—-“ sudden, attention seeking. An ah-ha moment, because here he did see where those support hugs would come in handy! But maybe his tone was too sharp, too cutting for the way the air had stilled to just his attentive breathing and her voice in an otherwise quiet space. “Nikki?” he tried for softer, didn’t feel it was soft enough, closed the distance she’d created, opened his arms like an offering — like an apology —

“*Darling—* I think we’d have to build a stake of books to nail me to and burn me on if I suddenly— The sheer hypocrisy—-“ he snorted derisively, shaking his head to clear that thought, reaching for a story. “I have a friend, yes? Mon amant,” and he should’ve said ‘our’, because ‘our’ would’ve been more accurate, because Aramis was beholden to none, lover of many. Demanded the moniquer in spite of having always been his friend first and a warmth seeking, drama watching, artsy cuddle monster second! Yet Aramis had always, always been ‘my lover’ even though they’d never once — *never would* —- But if he started explaining his explanations? He’d never get through them! “And you see, for all that we’ve never once been lovers in the biblical sense? For all that— I am endlessly confused, endeared, and somehow besotted with him— in all his forms — we never will be quite like that.“

And they’d kissed, and held hands, and— the sheer number of sleepovers and long haul study nights that had only been that. Pressure-free things, easy understanding, endless good natured teasing.

“But mon-amant understands, carnally, that he’s not meant for me. *Physically*. Because he’s very rarely a ‘he’, which is my preference for such things, and yet? That doesn’t mean we can’t have all those other niceties— those comforts — That certainly doesn’t mean there can’t be *love* — just because we aren’t..ah…doing more?” None of which he’d come to a conclusion of all on his own. He’d learned it, had it taught to him. How to draw boundaries, and verbalize his wants, and that things could be given expectation free!

“Mmh…it's all a very long winded way to say I don’t mind. That I appreciate—“ and he could look at her earnestly, with hope that he hadn’t rambled his way through something he rarely knew how to express on his own. How he couldn’t see the harm in — in any of it. How he appreciated knowing, but only because it was important to know her for herself, her boundaries, where her lines lay. Not at all because she’d crossed some line she could t possibly have known he’d have!

And the complexities only grew because even if he’d taken issue with something, how would he have told her before? Playing telephone? With Fulgurite there? Preferably that —- but he burned with the determination that they’d get to the point they should’ve been at from the start. That carving through the harder conversations opened pathways unseen prior.

“You.”

He realized now why it was worth sitting down for this, to silently process it all in stride. Nectaris in his arms and her words in his ears, maybe he needed the emotional support hug just as much as she did? Maybe it wasn't so one sided; listening to her pour her soul out in the quietude of the surrounding space. Her heart -- his sanctuary -- and he wondered if it should've pained him more? All the things they didn't know about each other, all the words that'd never been spoken for how vastly their lives differed. How massively split apart they were. He didn't think he could blame her lack of knowledge, no more than he could blame himself or Fulgurite. It was, somehow, rather difficult to connect that way with someone on the other side of a canyon drawn by faction lines. It was easy, in fact, to keep the sort of secrets he wouldn't normally have with someone he could pick up a phone and call, or go visit at a cafe.

Secrets that weren't secrets at all---

In all his ignorance he hadn't been trying to hide things, he'd simply, uncharacteristically, gone with the flow. Hedged out of his routine and followed his feelings, however cautiously and with no small amount of thinking going on behind the scenes---

He had tried to be spontaneous in a thoughtful way.

He was trying---

"It doesn't change what I wanted to do-- that I enjoyed what we did..." with careful softness as she finished, as she took a breath, and he hummed through a pause of his own, slow and steady in his course. Because he wanted to get this right. He felt like he had to; for himself, for her, and for Fulgurite whether he was here or not to be witness to it all. "That is to say that the romance part of this is fine," said with an amount of confidence, knowing he would've spoken up sooner otherwise. That the romance part was, truly, alright by him. It wasn't as if she hadn't given him all the time in the world to think! As though he hadn't sat there, and after what felt like an eternity of deliberation, said yes to a kiss. Encouraged it, even. "I can't promise that it'll ever be more than that, but it sounds like that works in both our favors, doesn't it?"

How had Fulgurite managed this relationship so far? How had they made things work if they'd been doing it without these sorts of conversations? Or maybe they'd already happened and Syrus was the one behind. He didn't like the feeling of that, being out of the loop and unawares. Made it a point to avoid ignorance like the plague. Which made him cherish this all the more right now, marking down in his mind every little note of interest she expressed, things she wanted to do, to try, to experience with another person. The way none of it tripped any red warning lines of his own, it all felt as safely platonic as the warmth she exuded in his arms.

"And I think....if we got to do more of those things together? I could like you back the way you like me. Certainly more than the way I like you now, if that makes any sense at all..." he winced for the words, for how they sounded familiar enough to feel like dejavu, for how he wasn't sure if any of that made sense to say them at all? Because he liked her, he did! And then there was the void of distance that being unable to share those moments brought, the freedom they lacked to have that casual sort of intimacy...

He couldn't call her when he got sick, or bring her a hot meal if she was sad, they couldn't eat ice cream together on a couch and binge some horribly soppy movie, or go out to a play, or---

They couldn't have that. Not the way he might have wanted, and the thought of everything he'd have to give up in order to have that! Or maybe it was nothing at all? Maybe it only felt like everything, all of the time, because the trade felt equidistant and same. Felt unfair, in every facet of his mind, even if there was also a strange, stark fairness to it. The universal truth of there being no way for him to have his cake and eat it too.

"I do like you, Nectaris. I do." and if he squeezed her a little more tightly while whispering those words into her hair like he feared she'd apparate into nothing. Looking beyond the furls of pink and walls of books and off into the space between those spaces. The crushingly stark realization of what would have to happen if he kept going on like this, with them, with her---

He liked her, and everything that meant for the future was a little terrifying.

More than.

And he couldn't do it alone---

He didn't know how to do it alone. To survive it all, even with Nikki by his side. He knew himself well enough to know that one person wasn't ever going to be enough. Even in a life he chose -- even with people he was choosing -- and for a moment it was all, simply, a lot to take in.

"And I don't think that's going to change..." it was better in his mind to stifle how terrifying the words were to say, for how sincerely they left his mouth. How genuine the feeling that fluttered in his ribcage was for such a simple sentence. He decided that it was best, even, to shove it all somewhere into the back of 'later' and soak in the hug he so rarely got to have. If he could put everything else off until another time. If he could get Fulgurite in on this---

No, not if. He would. He had to. Nikki deserved it.

And so do I.