Besides, everything that might have mattered was back in Hyderabad, he would have insisted once. Anything he did in Destiny City was being done by a dead man who hadn't had the sense to lay down and give up. He'd done his absolute damndest to avoid being caught in any long-term tangles, to keep himself at a distance from everyone around him. To draw a sharp line between "Before" and "After."
But he couldn't stop thinking about the things that little Senshi, so full of hope, had said. How she'd insisted that being a monster was what he did, not what he was. That just because the Negaverse had made him something not-human-anymore didn't mean that he wasn't still, in some way, a person.
The thought made him gag. It was so much easier to just...not. To believe that he'd had all of that taken from him.
The complicating bit was--well.
Biolumina had been an op. A chance to screw around the way he had before, when he'd been more able to go to clubs. When Jaidev Vaswani had been a regular at any number of nightclubs and venues in his home city, celebrating victories and drowning defeats. It should have stayed that way, but he'd decided to go home with a cute boy and have a fun night.
And then he'd realized that because Simon was a nurse, there was no way he'd question all the weirdness inherent in hooking up with someone who could only be human for three hours a day. There was no expectation of staying to cuddle for longer than a little while, no assumptions of breakfast and small talk or recriminations for those being lacking. And it had been fun, and so he'd gone back. And back again.
It hadn't meant anything, he insisted to himself, as pointless as that was. It couldn't mean anything, because he didn't get to have that kind of thing anymore. He didn't want it, had never wanted it, it was just fun--
All of that would have been so much easier. But Nagyagite was pretty sure that something that was Just Fun wouldn't be making him so twisted up inside. Wouldn't be making him wonder--
Wouldn't be making him feel things.
Honestly, if it weren't for the stupid ******** world-eating snake, Nagyagite was pretty sure he'd have been able to continue putting off this particularly annoying emotional realization. Would have been able to continue hooking up with Simon casually, and pretending that he wasn't actually really invested in this whole...thing that had developed between them. But of course, the stupid ******** magic space snake was coming, and there was no avoiding that people like Simon were the most in danger.
Nagyagite could lie to himself. He could probably have decided that maybe Simon was a Knight or something and he'd be fine. He could even probably decide that there was no point in telling the truth because it wasn't like it would change anything, because if Simon was just an ordinary civilian, there would be nothing he or Tabitha could do to fix things. They'd just have to know the apocalypse was approaching and deal with it. And if Simon was a Knight, surely he was already in the know and preparing--but then, Nagyagite thought of that woman who hadn't seemed to know s**t about anything, and that was...sure a thing that had to come into his mental calculations. Who even knew if Order was organized enoguh to be sharing information. It wasn't like they had a hierarchy like the Negaverse.
It was a risk, Nagyagite knew. One way or another, this was going to change things between them. Honestly, Simon was probably going to be freaked out if he didn't know about magic, and if he did...Nagyagite would deal with that when it came to it.
But the thing was, he couldn't lie to himself. He couldn't pretend it would be fine. He couldn't just keep letting things go on, and hope that it would all work out. Maybe this would turn out to be pointless, maybe nothing in particular would happen, maybe everything would end and it wouldn't matter. But it would matter to Nagyagite, for however long he had left.
He'd had so much taken from him. He'd let so much be taken from him. He'd simply accepted that becoming a half-youma meant that he no longer got to have a human life, or human feelings, or human attachments. Had worked so hard to cut himself off and leave those parts of himself behind. Had tried to mold himself into a monster, because that was the easiest option. It was the one that took any responsibility for what he did out of his own hands and assigned it all to fate and chance and the whims of one a*****e who thought death matches with a monster were the way to determine if someone was worth putting more effort into.
It was letting Rajadrohite win. It was letting what she did to him define who he would be for the rest of his miserable ******** life. It was letting the Negaverse craft him into its weapon, and accepting that was all he could ever be again.
Nagyagite did not want to accept that. Did not want to discard the pieces of himself that were still his. And if that meant risking this thing he and Simon had...
At least he was reclaiming something for himself.
[wc: 1,021 words]
