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Syrus loathed to count the slipping months, the way that time drained away inexorably. There and gone again in a blink, in a pantomime of sand through his fingers. He didn’t know when he’d woken up, found spring to be over, and summer to be in full swing. He only knew that in all that time he’d — briefly, hesitantly, with love in his heart, tried his best to coax Matt into the idea of *this…*

A night out on the town, powered up, and it had taken much batting of bedroom eyes and battling of internal demons, for both of them to finally come to this point. Standing amidst the elongated shadows cast by city lights on a moonless night, sweating in the waning summer heat, atop a familiar library’s roof. Watching for a single signature as a meteor shower steadily streaked the sky overhead, it almost felt a little bit like fate.

At least to Syrus it did. He had to tell himself it would ultimately be worth it, to be here as Cryolite, to look for Nikki *now*. How it was hardly fair to keep stringing her along. Not to her. Not to either of them. It was, in fact, wrong. How she’d put up with it for so long? All of their hesitancy, their absence. What deep well of patience she had for being put off and essentially on hold—

Well, it was beyond him. He certainly didn’t possess such depth. Barely had the patience in this instance to stay still where he stood, blaming his need to fidget with his long sleeves on nerves, though? He was glad for once for the natural chill of his sphere and the skimpiness of his uniform; it always did make the summers a little more bearable.

“You know love? If it gets much hotter out tonight, I might have you turn that some of that well-spring you possess on me. We could make a whole endeavor of it, a business? Snow cones. Cold showers….” and though he felt Matt? When he turned he realized he didn’t quite see…

Where?!

“Fulgurite? Matt…” soft hiss of a whisper full of a feeling he couldn’t quite name; how it ached like getting pinched somewhere sensitive, the sympathetic tug he felt in his soul for the other man. Syrus was almost willing to let Matt off this hook…

But no. No. Not this time, some things needed to be settled. Whether they stayed, whether they left? Even if it hurt to do.

“Hush,” murmured a warm tenor, the only thing that made it out of the corner, pressed behind the hissing of the mechanics stored on the roof, “you can't use that name for me while I'm in this accursed skin.”

This accursed skin, that Syrus had dragged him into, not kicking and screaming but by kissing and moans and begging and warmer showers than described. Perhaps it was a bribe. Perhaps it was an attempt to get him to stop wallowing in a corner. He would say his life was fine. His life was definitely not fine, but he thought that his father’s business was better off.

Though, what had been the point of functionally writing himself out of it if he hadn't even needed to leave?

He felt the blossoming of an aura nearby that made him want to wretch, and it reminded him of how much the chaos rebelled against the energy of the White Moon? Order? Whatever the ******** it was called. He didn't care as much as he did. He had been in this mess for over a decade and he knew how the debacle worked.

He wished he didn't.

He winced when he heard the name of the accursed skin from a softer soprano, anyway.

This wasn't how this was supposed to go. Wasn't he supposed to purify? Wasn't she supposed to forget about him when he didn't need to purify at all, and it turned out that they blamed someone else, and he was just supposed to fade into the darkness? Wasn't this supposed to be a convenient thing where she fell in love with his fiancé, and his fiancé ended up forgetting about him too because they ended up getting along great and he wasn't needed in the end?

Wasn't she supposed to be mad?

He didn't know what to do, and in the end, he froze! He didn't try to leave the corner, even though he was trying to be eased out of it. What was he supposed to do? The hell did he do after a year of disappearing?

He didn't have a good answer.

Years of writing didn't give him answers for this. Years of writing didn't give him answers for the man who ghosted which didn't resolve in the man who ghosted simply disappearing, or simply being forgotten, or simply just being the bad boyfriend who was abandoned because he was a bad boyfriend.

The worst part in the end? He wasn't even a boyfriend.

He didn't know what he was.

He certainly wished he wasn't Fulgurite at that moment.

She waited a second. She waited two. She took Cryolite’s hand and maybe squeezed it a little harder than she should have.

She could feel Fulgurite’s aura, right there, but nothing changed. He was still somewhere just out of reach, still hiding from her, from the one who had poured her heart out for him, from the one who had kissed him when everything was going wrong, who had promised to always protect him. Her breath caught. There was no way to stop the way that the tears were already welling up in her eyes.

What was she even supposed to do right now? Should she head in there and grab him by the hands and hold on with white knuckles and dug-in fingernails, even if it ended up hurting her more, even if it almost killed her? Did she want to turn this into a repeat of what had happened with Albite?

No. If he was really so determined to never see her face again, then that was how it was going to be.

It would break her heart into a million tiny pieces, though. It was already starting to.

There was no rule that said she couldn’t tell him as much.

“I miss you,” she told him, as steadily as she could with all the crying. “So much. I’ve been worried, that the Negaverse got you, and when I found out you were alive, I was worried that-that you were sad, or scared, or-” her voice broke completely, “Maybe just that you forgot? That you didn’t care?”

It was hard to breathe, but she couldn’t stop now. “And if you don’t, okay, but I want you to know that I still care. I still care a lot.”

Syrus winced for the metallic clang, the reverb of bending metal crumpling beneath power, the way some internal fan part cha-chunked and whined under the punishment of Fulgurite's frustration. He’d come to realize he’d never quite seen it before, his lover, actually angry? He’d seen him take down packs of youma, slime monsters, all manner of other sort of ilk. Watched him shocked into sickness from a mission gone wrong and more.

But he felt like he’d missed this–this–this glaring piece of self-destructive force that made him realize exactly how much of a type he truly had. How deeply cost-sunk his heart was in the idea of the two of them, their success. Nikki’s success. Because even if she wasn’t wearing a ring? She had been there first, in her own way; as mentor, friend, confidant. The person he believed Fulgurite owed more than silent, self-directed rage towards.

How she was clearly more than willing to take whatever risk it was to be here, with them, like this—

“M a t t –” each letter gently mouthed, silently so, desperately so; as Cryolite looked on longingly, because what could she really do with a guess at a name? A hint at a nickname, even? There were thousands of Matthews in the city. It was a name as common as Michael, or Smith, or Alexander. It didn’t matter now if Nikki could somehow read lips! Certainly it would cease to matter once they got themselves sorted out properly – because there would come a point when that was what they’d do – especially if this was what the outcome of staying looked like? Resonating pain shared like a single red thread, with Nikki’s tears rolling down her cheeks and sinking into her pink satin ruffles like an unstemmed tide…

Then Cryolite had never felt more assured that Fulgurite should go. Sooner rather than later. With him or without.

But not alone—

He dreaded that thought, Fulgurite finding himself on the other side, utterly unprepared. Alone. For Syrus knew he certainly hadn’t tried to further any inroads into Order on his own, and he no longer knew what Matt had done; save cut all ties and bury himself more deeply than any coffin on Earth.

“Darling,” and if he let Nikki squeeze his hand til the fine bones in it ached? If he thought it best to say nothing for it, and simply stand close enough to be a support worth leaning on. “I miss you too, you know? With no small amount of guilt, because I have the pleasure of seeing you outside of this. Because— I know you hate this. Truly, I do,” and he didn’t mean them, that was the furthest thing from what he meant. He meant chaos, the uniform, being powered at all. That there was only the one way out of it he could discern, and hiding in civility and out of office hours was not that. “But I love you. She loves you! And there’s no hiding from that…”

“Tsk, you’re going to ruin your hands…” muttered somberly under his breath as he stared at the vent-works and mechanical units like he could see through them, like he could will Fulgurite out of hiding and into their arms with his mind alone. Hoping….

What the ******** did Cryolite think he was doing? When he glanced over the side and caught the way his lips moved, he blanched, smacking his hand into the side of the machinery again as an attempt as a distraction. Didn't he just tell Syrus not to use the name Matt? He supposed it was common enough–third most common name in America in his year of birth or some s**t like that–but leaking who they were to Nikki was probably not the best move in the scheme of things no matter what happened in the long term. He found himself pacing as Syrus–Cryolite–continued to speak, and then froze that pacing when Nectaris spoke.

He did hate this. He hated all of it. Cryolite wasn't wrong. He hated being chaos, he hated being involved with chaos. He also didn't hate chaos. He also didn't want to leave chaos. Didn't know what he would be without chaos. Didn't know if there was an option without chaos. Figured that there was an abyss without his family and his friends without chaos. Knew that there was realistically an out. Also knew that he shouldn't take it.

Also knew he didn't want her to go.

“Cryo, don’t call me that,” he finally muttered, speaking instead of punching and pacing. “It's Fulgurite when I'm wearing this.”

What would even be his other name?

Why would it matter? He was Fulgurite, by Metallia-

“I discovered that they had someone else to blame. I didn't need to leave. They blamed the guy who fell off the building, the guy who died. The guy who got shoved off by the senshi and the White Moon–Order–knights. He was apparently involved in some other shady financial things.” Fulgurite shook out his hand. It throbbed. He wanted to punch the whatever-it-was again. He almost did. “Anyway. The push was gone. So why rush?”

He swallowed.

“Why bother? Why try to push myself out of this life if I don't have to? Why make my father mourn his family dying again?” Was that too much? He was a leaky faucet. Albite called that out. Nectaris knew it. Cryolite probably knew it.

Widower fathers weren't exactly uncommon, especially not in this forsaken city. He swallowed the urge to mention that his sister had also been abducted before, whether she was back now or not. A kidnapped sister and a widower father would likely be a bit easier to track down than just widower father.

“I have an okay life, I guess. And you do, too. You have a family. Friends. A whole new life around you. I'm a ******** mess. You can survive without me. And then I found out you found,” he stumbled, “Cryo. Kissed him even. That was convenient. Figured you two could just… run off without me.”

Was his hand bleeding?

He sighed, turning around the machinery.

“But then neither of you did, and Cryo bribed me over here, knowing you'd come.”

Nectaris gasped as he finally came around the corner, and she couldn’t take it any more. For one second, she looked at his face, and took it all in, but the next second she was letting go of Cryolite and sprinting over, throwing her arms around his shoulders and shoving her wet face right into his chest.

“You could’ve told me,” she said. “And yeah, maybe I would’ve kissed you and told you to purify anyway, and you would’ve said no, but that’s our whole game, isn’t it? That’s our whole thing. That’s so much better than this. Like, me and Cryolite without you, Fulg?”

The name sounded fake in her head now that she knew his real one, now that she could whisper Matt to herself, but she wouldn’t say it out loud again. This was already dangerous. It already felt like he was about to run. She didn’t need to make that worse.

“That doesn’t even make sense. You’re the one who’s holding us all together. You’re the one I’ve had feelings for since before I even purified. He’s your fiance. Every time I see him, we talk about you. Like, a lot.”

Maybe she shouldn’t be squishing Fulgurite. Maybe that wasn’t the right move here. She let go, took half a step back, looked up at him with her shining-wet eyes.

“And yeah, for the record, I’m with Cryolite in saying that I’m committed. Yeah, it’s been a little bit, we’d have to catch up on some stuff, but that’s easy.” She said that like it was nothing, but she was still crying. “Remember, last time something happened it was ‘cause I lost all my memories, and I was still trying to keep up with my friends as much as I could.”

She swallowed, rolled her shoulders back. “If you want me to go, it’s on you to break stuff off, face to face.” And if that happened, it was gonna break Cryolite’s heart, too. She knew it.

She also knew something else, though. Maybe she wasn’t the one in the Bell house who was an expert on mental health stuff, but she’d picked up a little bit, and anyway it didn’t take an expert to figure out what was going on here.

“But honestly, you’re not acting like that’s what you even want. What you’re acting like is super depressed.”

He winced at having that stinging little truth flung back at him, because it was a bribe, in its own way. But it was fine to have it out, to let it go. There would be no hiding things with pretty language or technicalities here, it seemed. Syrus could handle that…

What was hard to swallow was the way Fulgurite stood there like Nikki wasn’t even in his arms! All her pleading, all her softness flung around the man, and all he could see Matt doing was—-

It shouldn’t’ve hurt to see, but it did. Fulgurites resistance, his admissions, the self-admonishing tones. Was this how things had gone with Albite? Was he next to be cut from their lives — from Matt’s? Was he capable now even of allowing such a thing to happen, to give either of them up peacefully, when he felt as though he’d made up his mind about this. Somehow, somewhere, he’d made a choice, no matter how unconsciously or quietly he went about it. He had. The way his heart had wanted and the way it’d all clicked and how accepting they both were of the other people that shared those spaces…

Syrus didn’t believe a heart could hold much of anything, but he’d made space in it for them, and he wasn’t about to dig them out of it and leave those them-specific spaces hollow. Not yet.

The air was hot, but every inhale felt cold enough and winter dry to needle his throat, to hurt enough to bring an unfamiliar sting of tears to the corners of his eyes, little beads of wetness he hastily scrubbed a sleeve through as he turned to look anywhere else, just long enough to collect himself, to take some of the hiss out of his own words.

“If murder or the capacity for it was at all a turn off? I’d be single,” scoffed hoarsely, spat onto the roof rather than at Fulgurite and Nikki, and maybe Fulgurite had been cruel once? Syrus wouldn’t know, not truly. But he knew that this man wasn’t that person any longer. Knew that Nikki certainly wasn’t whomever she used to be! At least, that was what he wanted to believe, that was the buy-in. “And none of that’s easier…”

“Oh, temporarily, yes.” Because he lived in that same boy and waited for that other shoe to drop and powered up just often *enough*, and? Knew with all his blond heart that the only reason they’d gone so long unbothered had more to do with luck than anything else. “But for how long?”

“And he’s not just breaking it off with you like this..No one is! This isn’t…it never should’ve just been some game,” it couldn’t be one any longer, maybe never again, even? Though he knew it wasn’t truly that way for either of them, for any of them, believed that with all of himself or he wouldn’t’ve invested so much! Syrus wasn’t willing to give any of it up now, not over one bad night, or one long, bad night.

“It’s not a game and this isn’t how I’ve been taught relationships are supposed to go when things get rough, either.” a breathlessness to the words, a hurt intonation, the panic a sadness could bring. Because he was right there, he’d been right there the entire time and somehow Nikki in all her wisdom had noticed something he hadn’t. That Fulgurite was more than just his typically reclusive self, that the man was hurting, in his bed, and in his face, and hurting! Syrus wondered how he’d been so blind to it all. If he was too close and too enshrouded in all of this to even be worth the ring he wore. “And I’m so sorry I missed how rough it’s been….”

It felt like all the more reason to need Nikki, to keep her close, someone who could read through the bullshit even Syrus couldn’t see at times from within his own dingy little book-laden mind. All the ways he and Matt had similarities, the fondness for that, and how that was precisely what made Nikki’s differences all the more valuable in moments like these.

“Funny that some of the least murderous of those I know in the Negaverse don't mind,” Fulgurite snorted, but shook his head out of it. He supposed Cryolite had long attached himself to Albite, who was happy to provide starseeds to his husband. (Nevermind Faustite himself.) And he supposed Sylvite’s team had always contained multitudes. There was Aschera. There was Gismodine. …And then there was Ransomite.

Whatever happened to him, anyway? Had he actually gotten out? Did it matter, really?

Anyway.

It was interesting to not only hear his fiancé put his foot down about the concept of breaking up, but Nectaris, too. She did it, and she did it in such a way that she wanted to let go of the purification push for a bit. Did he buy it? He wasn't entirely sure. Purification had always been what she wanted for him.

She wanted her whole team to purify, right? That was one of her goals. Fulgurite did count as that, even if their relationship had fundamentally shifted from leader and follower to something very different. Were they actually dating now?

Fulgurite spent a lot of time chewing the side of his lip and also the air. He was quiet, much like the time he spent with Cryolite. Less like the time he spent with Nectaris.

“Been nice to not be Fulgurite, right?” He finally offered, glancing to Nectaris specifically. Syrus had the option to see him outside of this. She didn't. He didn't have the option to break one without the other. It was cruel. Maybe he was cruel. Maybe Cryolite had been wrong about that one. “I don't think I'm in danger anymore, it's true. They've long blamed it on someone else. Don't even think Albite suspects me.”

Which was surprising, honestly, but he still didn't want to be anywhere near the ********. A lot of people thought he was innocent. A lot of people also didn't understand that he was a very good reader of people and it took a certain kind of man to willingly marry himself to what was basically a fire demon. “I still don't really want to spend time like this. It's nice just being by myself, in a way. Nice to not have to worry about all of…,” he gestured to himself, “this, for the first time in over a decade. This, and I don't even have to betray Metallia.”

He paused. That was an odd turn of phrase.

Anyway.

“Point is. I don't feel like I want to stop existing. Just want to be.” By himself. Isolated. Winding his life down. What did he even do now? Was he even needed? Why was he here? Why did Cryolite and Nectaris want him around? “Do you really need me to power up?”

If she wanted to see him, with her outstretched hand, yes.

Why was this so hard?