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Pulling on power felt like pulling on a weighted suit; thousand pound anchors strapped to every inch and just waiting to weigh him down…

Syrus lamented unto himself that it hadn’t used to feel like this, but didn’t have the energy to dig into the wheres and whens and whys of it right now. In fact? It was as if the second he’d considered doing so – deep delving into his own psyche to tear it apart with heaving sobs and cold claws all over again – that a small, bright, distraction came through! It hit him in the face with unprecedented tenderness; a bright pink glittery balm.

When he read it he smiled unwittingly, unable to stop himself, to help the slow buildup of warmth in his limbs and over his mind—

This, if nothing else? This made it worth it. Teleporting into the familiar locale, trying to be quiet about how he crept into the building like a thief who only wanted fresh knowledge to steal. Found himself getting stolen away instead, the breath from his lungs in a small gasp, the pleasant wash of his mind, for there before him was an entire scene.

Nikki – looking for all the world the butterfly of the moon he believed her to be. He wondered how Matt could give all of this up, how he could step away even at the sake of sparing them grief and hardship?

He wondered ******** how—-

Then let himself be mesmerized by her graceful steps and the way her cape neatly brushed just above the patterned marble surface. And beyond her swirling steps a set-up that looked suspiciously like a ‘date’ to him. A real one this time; no cold rocks, no craggy caves, no random strolls, no tears—

“Excuse me, Daughter of the Moon? May I have this dance...” the line felt so horribly cheesy in the best way. Like he was passing on a shared piece that belonged to all of them, using another man's words, filling them with love instead of secrecy, as he crept up towards Nikki on sharp, black heels all his own. Oh, it hurt to say, but it felt good to feel! To reach out to Nikki with an open hand and ask with a faltering smile on his face, with softness in his eyes, if he could take a spin with her. The way he missed Aramis for things exactly like this – the way he’d turned her down once – but would not put that same burden on Nikki, not this time. This? This would be his club tonight. His secret outing in disguise.

“I somehow feel both over and underdressed for the occasion. You didn’t tell me it’d be a date? I’d have brought you something nice—” he chuckled, emphasized the ‘ice’ in the word like a bad pun as his own magic seemed to wake up around them with his next step closer, with an edge of – not anxiousness – no, whatever flighty, fluttering thing that came before that? The happier sort of nerves that came filled with good vibes!

The hug stole his air, a solid umph for all her slight weight, her core a firm line in his arms. Oh, how he needed this hug! To have the breath squeezed from his slender lungs while he stifled a breathless chuckle and returned it gently. She was everything his week hadn’t been, bubbling warmth and swift joy.

It was infectious as her smile, as the way she played at gentle flirtation; so Cryolite smiled back, let his grin be full in her presence, his hands warm in her own while he listened to her – hah – flirt? And it was flirting, soft and unexpected, he blushed for it as his eyes filled with consideration, an internalized question. Was it that, his real name? Could he put any sort of claim to it from this side of the line—

Could he be Dione – even here and now – even as Cryolite? He wondered— about Fulgurite, who he missed like a bruise, about *Praxidike* – and the way he’d learned his name from Tama, the way Waru had always made it sound like a choice; mineral or man, astral body or earthly being?

Could he be both somehow? Could he be so easily split and happy with it – could he make those choices like so many others seemed to do with little more than a thought. The depth of the question undercut in his own mind by her sincerity, by her praise of it as a beautiful thing, the blush that struck his cheek bones and stayed.

“Technically? I think Dione was a goddess once – of a kind? But I like the idea of being your pretty ice prince and a gift all in one,” hummed as he took up the stance, blinking in surprise.

‘Is she leading? She is!’

“I wanted to thank you, by the way, for introducing me to your friend –” softly hummed as he kept time and let her sweep him along to the invisible music he could faintly hear if he imagined it hard enough. He let himself be led, as he had been, as he would continue to be. Into order – into the next step of a gentle waltz – where it’d once been Matt’s hands and now were Nikki’s guiding him.

“You’ve a lovely support in Pendour and I can’t wait to meet even more of your people, Nectaris.” Sincere as he left his fingers light on her hip, nearly huffed another laugh as she led him further along —

“I got the letter to Fulgurite,” barely a whisper, with how he didn’t want to ruin the moment, the burgeoning good mood. How he simply wanted to drown in her distraction for the rest of the night, but she had to know. “The second I get his response? I’ll make sure to tell you – I – how’re you so graceful at this!” He wondered if she danced formally? If her lighter than air movements came from practice over time rather than magical talent!

He was impressed by it nonetheless.

He accepted her compliments with a gentle nod, with blushing aplomb, because if she said it? Then surely she meant it! Her sincerity clear as her leading arms and heartfelt gaze, and he blinked only at the thought of meeting more of her friends equally as good as Pendour – her overlarge system which seemed to have no singular end in sight – he’d always heard order described like a mismatched band of half-dressed pirates.

Uneven pairs of odd socks that never went together. Unorganized – unseemly – but to hear Nikki talk of them? Like they were just everyday people all swept up in a quasi-war, like they were well meaning if also all those other things….

Or maybe none of those things at all.

“Oh, yes— we talked,” and it didn't feel like a lie as he said it, pulling Nikki the slightest bit closer, holding on with delicate fingertips as he let her spin him into another foray down a vaulted pass. The world could be beyond them here, he thought, the desks could spin by, the whole outer world could disappear. He could have her, and this, and his privacy. He could be happy for her presence, and sad over Matt at the same time; like a limb-loss that pained him constantly.

He could be sad with her, maybe? The way she talked of Promethei being good after breakups – the way he didn’t want to think of what had happened as being that exact thing. He refused it, put a wall around the concept in his mind. That he and Matt were done. That Nikki too, her letter aside, was truly over Fulgurite.

“With everything but words. We’ve been….hah-dancing around the subject? Not nearly as gracefully as this.” Looking down at her somberly as he spoke, his words airier than his heart was feeling. “I’ve sent him flowers, I’ve apologized for wasting his time. That he won’t let me in his home? To meet his family? That he tells me to leave— in the most beautiful displays of poetry I’ve ever seen. Even if it’s only a single line on paper.….”

Syrus’s laugh was a harsh thing for a moment, rough and forlorn, he was sorry for himself. With himself? Truly, that he was playing a game he knew he should’ve ended but wouldn’t – couldn’t – not while he still wanted to make plans, to keep trying, to wring himself dry of the idea of it. Them, the three of them, Matthew—

“I’ve not given up the ring just yet,” spoken knowingly, as if he could feel her gaze flit past the sparkle of the band around his finger, as if his hope was contained in the foregone symbol of shattered futures and finite happiness. The way Syrus quietly felt it would be the single greatest act of self mutilation to take it off *now* – that he would’ve had to take his whole hand with it if he did it too soon. If there was to be a loss? He wanted the weight of it to match, the devastation of it to be equal, if Matt was going to lose him and live in hurt alone? Syrus maybe wanted something to remember the man by if all else ended up being forgotten.

”Because I’m too stubborn to do so—but maybe you can help me with that? You — when all my plans have failed – you’re the one with answers? And the ability to arrange a table so beautifully!” a warmth that seeped back into his tone as he looked at her like he wanted to kiss her, to have her up in his arms and complete their dance the way it always went in fairytales.

If she asked – anything she asked? And he decided he would tell her – that it was the right thing to do? That his room had become his tomb, that Matt seemed to be living in a box made of shadows and greenery, that everything in the aftermath was a volley of emotions and he didn’t know what to do with them save hide them under his covers, and rugs, and let them spill out onto other peoples floors in broad-day-public!

“I think….I think I’ll be needing Promethei before I’ll be needing a Princess? But I want to hear about them too….I want to hear about everything, Nikki. In turn? I want to tell you everything too. Whatever you ask that I reasonably can answer. That's a promise.”

“Ah— I don’t — I didn’t want to ruin this…” he sat dutifully, pulled down by love as much as gravity; occasionally casting glances down the way towards the lovely display she’d made. He didn’t want to be the rain cloud to her silver lining — but she’d asked? Looking soft and serious, and easy to settle down next to.

So he did, nudging a cushion to the side, pulling his own lanky legs up until he was comfortable, squeezing her hands back before he dove into the mess of it.

“He treats me like someone he doesn’t want to know. Like it’d be better if we were fake strangers? I played along, I thought it’d help...” it was a struggle to untangle what’d been winding up for weeks; the barbed wire mess of it all. The way it shown on his face, a mental task that’d become physically painful in so many ways.

“Though I don’t think I’m trying to talk to him correctly….that I pushed things too far by hunting him down when he’d made it clear not to…cornering him at his work?” How to express in words the stilted way Matt had looked at him, as though he’d trespassed on the man’s life, betrayed him in some terrible way. The way he’d wanted to cry over Matt — and finding out the texts had been from Matt and Matt alone?

“I’ve seen him twice now. But it’s all in public spaces.” So Syrus tried to express it, squinting back a new prickling rush or emotions. Taking a steadying breath here or there. “I can’t speak to him the way I want to—It feels like I don’t know how to anymore…“

“And the next time when I tried? He reminded me there were cameras—as if that matters, as if I care?! I practically ran out of the building.” His scoff a harsh nasally sound, an action rooted in holding himself back, until he couldn’t anymore. “The way he blew me off? I think he must hate me! But then he called you the ‘Daughter of the Moon’ — he acted hurt by our absence — or — glad that we’d finally traded him off for one another? Like he was disposable. He doesn’t pretend to not know us completely, he hasn’t asked for his ring back —*he* hasn’t broken up with *me*— or with you — And so I texted him that I’m going to be coming back again — as often as it takes..”

“At least, until I leave?” A shrug; a long look at Nikki, as though she held the answers to the madness. Knew how to untangle it with kids gloves and intelligent hands. “I let him know I meant it, that if he really wants to stop me he’ll have to try…”

“It worries me that he won’t — I must’ve looked insane — standing there and crying like that over your letter….It was horrible….and somehow? In spite of it all. It made me more determined for it than ever.” To keep trying while he still could, even if it aches to do so, thI way it felt necessary. The way dealing with Matt had felt so wrong!

Like he wa missing some crucial detail and in spite of all his trying couldn't possibly sus it out …

“And to top that twice over fiasco off — I very stupidly stood up my friend, my Amant? She’s furious over it..or worried or…I wonder if I’m sending off the same red flags Fulgurite is…I don’t think I’d know if I was…I don’t think I even know what his look like…..” like he couldn’t have imagined them if he’d tried? And he was trying…

There was no chore in it, filling in the gaps between, the areas Fulgurite had cut Nikki from like a withered vine he’d intentionally starved of light and water – thinking it’d be better to transplant them together – to meld butterfly and ice into a single being over whatever the looming fear was. Syrus could see it, too. That ‘safer option’, and all its appeal. The way he’d believed the lie himself until it’d clicked that there was no safer option–

How there was no option at all if it meant he lost Matt in one way or another. If he lost the man's soul and kept his body? He didn’t need for more sex, what he needed was…

Matthew, unburdened by chaos, free of being haunted, removed from a year of acting like the shadows were going to come alive and swallow him down into hell and the stress he knew they’d all born from that in their own ways. That he was sure Nikki carried as much as Matt did; if her letter meant anything at all? It’d been hard on them, undeniably so, and when the directly looming threat had passed?

Oh, how the trap of staying was so sweetly laden with every heart's desire…

But a trap nonetheless.

“His boss is his father–” and it was nice to lean back with Nikki in his arms, to stroke his fingers over her cap, to entwine himself into her the way she did him. He had bridges to fill, citywide potholes empty with neglect. “--his work is his home.”

“He’s….I was never invited into those spaces, to go there casually? My place was always better, I live alone, he doesn’t. Then? It was so easy Nikki, so easy to just – to keep staying away because the reasons kept growing for doing it. Because it seemed obvious and right?” he winced as he clarified, felt suffused with embarrassment, laden with the kind of blunted stupidity he would’ve attributed to – ******** – to Albite? A man who lived in a run down shoe box but had never not invited him into it – had simply warned him of it’s ‘less by his standards niceness’. To Nikki – who would have him on the moon if she could! Who wanted to swaddle him up and take him home and to see her people!

The tears stung freshly, the way he wondered what he’d done wrong, the way it slowly dawned on him how much he’d missed. That he couldn’t say what was on Fulgurite's walls, what Matt’s bed looked like. That his loves world was so tiny—

A father. A sister. A home. A job.

And he existed in none of it – was welcome in none of it – had tried so hard to move Fulgurite in with himself because that’d seen the adult thing to do!! Because he’d wanted to love him greedily and keep him close and had decided all of his own volition that he was fine with not being intrusive so long as he could have that man!

“Until I realized exactly how wrong it was….that I’m wearing the man's ring and banned from the core of his life…for safety, we’d say. For my protection? For his? Which– is a ******** laugh when I look back at it now.” A frown aimed at the ceiling, a thing that twisted until he could close his eyes to it and breathe a deeper sigh. His fingers finding those endlessly bouncing pink locs and tangling in the ends, curling them out to watch them spring back again.

“I do agree with you though, that this, how this is on him…and in saying that…Nikki? I realize how scared for him I actually am right now. It's just–I'm worried, and I can’t place it, and I don’t know what to do with that.”

He was being serious, that he was less hurt than fearful, less angry than terrified, that all the shattered bits of his heart melted at the idea of Matt locked away and alone – never leaving some vaunted tower again – never living – and he wondered how long it could last for the man before something gave? Before someone came to big bad wolf down that sturdy front door…

“I’ll also—I’ll reach out and apologize? It was – it was my birthday recently, you know? And being a miserly ice prince I didn’t exactly feel like celebrating…even what could’ve been a very nice night out…” sad and chagrined, but she remained right as she always had. He respected her opinion – especially on the matters of being stood up for dates? “I just…I couldn’t tell her why…but I could hear how she didn’t buy my very poor excuse…so..apologies are definitely in order.”

They wouldn’t be like Matt – he would do his best to try, to save the man from himself? If that was what was needed.

The shock of realization that he’d never heard her curse before? It would’ve been funny, if it didn’t instill a sense of dread. The way it pitted deep in his gut. Her sudden turn of demeanor, her distress, and if all he could do was hold her?

Then he thought he would do that as he listened, hold her and try not to panic, or weep, or laugh at his own stupidity! Fulgurite being a step ahead, more than a brilliant artist—-

How had he missed these signs?!

“I realize I’m not sure how much I trust him now, about who he lives with, who he doesn’t. He doesn’t mention his mother — only his father — a sister I think?” Syrus chuckled dryly, in face of the sad, sad truth. The way he used to feel like he knew these things inherently. Like he had them down in more than writing! The way he realized he and Matt had a peculiar sort of distance — all the things that made him love the man, that had drawn them both so close!!

The way a wretched job made co-workers band together — the way absence made his heart more fond — none of which explained all the love he still had even as it felt like a life had been shoved clean through it.

And he did love the man, he knew it, the way he knew the sound of Matt asleep versus awake. Or the smell of their favorite eatery. Those other details had ceased to matter in the face of all that love and its overwhelming grandiosity! He was surprised with himself, in some ways. At how his own closeness to the subject had also left him blind to it!

Willfully so.

He’d been happier not knowing — happier not to push — to enjoy commiserations— warm company — someone so witty, and artistic, and bold enough to say what needed to be said!

If only ever behind closed doors—

The way he’d felt his thoughts echoed in the other man like a ripple in a spring. There was no undoing that. Not now. Not ever. Even if the ache faded? Or the memory dimmed? Syrus doubted he would forget the feeling of being *known* in a way he enjoyed so intimately as it had been!

“If they’re close or not..any of them? She doesn’t live there, I don’t think. And I assumed things, you know, but by virtue of how he’s been acting?”

But if I’m wrong about it all, if every word was a lie, I’d what I have in writing is a red herring—

“We were playing it so safe, Nectaris. I don’t believe he’s lied to me, not before, maybe not — not even now — but I also don’t know how to trust him in this moment.”

“And I’m being a terrible— fiancé, to him? A— hmm…a friend, with you? I’m lacking the words. I’m dumping this on your feet and you’re at such a disadvantage…it’s hardly fair…”

“But you’ve also the clarity of mind to see what I’m missing. So?”

“What I can do is try. Any of your suggestions, all of them, even. Because I’m not giving up on him yet and neither are you— and together? Even if we lose him at our sides, at least he won’t be lost…”

“As long as he’s alive we can always try again, right? He just—“ to think of all the alternatives, any other possibility, everything he’d so brazenly missed! He clutched hee hands all the tighter, took her weight, held her near.

It was enough, he thought. To have this moment and be able to let every little sigh and sallow shudder and bitten whine exist between them. To cling and be clung to like a balance sharing the load. Nothing would ever be too heavy so long as it was split—

Not even this, the moment in which he realized how badly he’d failed Fulgurite. No wonder the man wanted nothing to do with him. No wonder Nikki didn’t want more? How could she — him stepped in chaos and giving her nothing of information. Leaving her in the dark because his ego told him his plans were bulletproof!

He wouldn’t even get to be her boyfriend—

Maybe only her date?

Though he decided he’d accept that as his due, more than easily, laying broad strokes with a flat palm over her back. Soothing himaelf as much as offering comfort of his own.

The feelings hadn’t hit her all the way until she ran out of things to say to him. She wanted so badly to be able to deal with this herself. Like, preferably to be able to talk to Fulgurite himself firsthand, or at least to see his family and get to the bottom of all of this. She wanted to send him Pendour to see if she could crack through the shell, or to send him a Princess to shake him until he snapped out of it and realized that there was a better way out of the situation with him.

Instead, she was here. She could tell Cryolite how scared she was. She could tell him how serious this was. She could give him suggestions on what to do, on how to help, but that was all.

Her chest felt too light. Half-empty, even as Cryolite held her hand and promised to keep trying.

How long had it been since she had even been part of the equation here?

She bit her lip for a second so that Cryolite wouldn’t see it start to tremble. Then he kissed her and she kissed him back, so he really wouldn’t notice.

He was promising to try, and she trusted him to do it. He was the best person for the job, maybe even better than she would be. She’d said her piece, done the communication that she was supposed to be doing here, and it wasn’t fake, the way she was relaxing against him, and letting the nerves bubble up about another aspect of their relationship and their labels, instead of just Fulgurite.

“Yeah, that’s all we can really do, right?” she said, still leaning in close enough to him that he couldn’t see her face. “And it can’t wait, like, weeks, but it can wait, like, hours. Long enough for us to finish our dance, and do the flowers, and talk about stuff, yeah.”

She didn’t care if it was old fashioned to go steady. She liked the vintage aesthetic, and the thought of something like that made her smile enough that she felt like she could look at him again.

“You want the flowers next? Here!” She was pushing away from him, padding back across the library floor to where she’d left her little stash of cookies and flowers. She came back to him with the bouquet in both hands, all of the cute little Cryolite-themed blossoms that the sweet florist with the green eyes had picked out for her. There were dark blooms, and icy blue ones, and seeing it next to him? Yeah, it was perfect!

She just hoped he thought the same.

“And don’t worry! You’re good at love! Holding people and talking about their problems is probably the important part of love, yeah?” She’d been learning more and more that the cute mushy stuff wasn’t what any of this was really about, deep down.

She wasn’t going to stop doing the cute stuff completely, though.

“If you want to flirt, though, you can be like, uh,” she considered for a moment, then made a show of fluttering her eyelashes. “I brought you these as a present, my sweet prince.” She stepped forwards, and nodded deeply before handing them over. “You are as beautiful as morning sunlight on fresh snow.”

She couldn’t quite help the giggle after that one, her eyes dancing merrily.

“You know. Stuff like that.”