Basiluzzo was powered up to make sure youma weren't taking advantage of the storms doing... whatever it was they were doing. So he was on patrol once he'd gotten what information Ignacio knew. His parents had warned him about going out, and he could tell that his father would have rather come with him, but Basiluzzo reasoned that he was, firstly, a grown adult and, secondly, had been doing patrols long before his father had ever powered up into Stromboli. Granted, he couldn't blame his parents. At least, not in good faith. Not when Basiluzzo had once had the very same arguments with Encke.

But Basiluzzo wasn't currently interested in being in good faith, and so he'd left to go on patrols. To watch out for rogue youma and rogue... whatever else. He wasn't sure what to be looking out for. He'd been busy--too busy to really patrol, too busy to attend the meetings that had happened recently. He'd read the database entries, and that was really the only way he knew about everything. The names alone were dizzying. Normally he'd laugh it off as something obviously outlandish, but time and experience had tempered some of his normal optimism. Now, Basiluzzo sat on the edge of a building, looking up at the clouds roiling over his head, staff laid across his knees.

He should probably go lower, given the statistics about lightning strikes and high places, but he would sacrifice his vantage point. Basiluzzo frowned, turning his staff over in his hands. It had been hard enough to get up there. He didn't know if it was just from not having powered up recently, but everything seemed to take more out of him to do than it used to. He wasn't that old! He was...

How old was he? Doing the mental year math, take-the-year-add-seven-- Jesus, he was only thirty-two. ...He'd been nineteen when his initiation into all of this started hadn't he? Vis-a-vis a too-skinny pale redhead he'd run into on a late-night run while off of college for the summer.

---

Not enough to be emaciated, enough to make Richard wonder if he was sick, he'd interrupted his run by walking--shuffling really--across his immediate path. It was late. He didn't look like he was just out on a walk.

"Hey dude, are you alright?" Richard frowned when he was ignored. But he didn't smell alcohol or sickly-sweetness on the guy, and the guy wasn't limping or bleeding or anything. Richard almost kept on his way, resuming his run once the guy was out of it. He even took a couple steps. But then he turned back around. He couldn't just leave it go--something was nagging at him. "Hey, are you okay?"

A grunt was more helpful, but Richard didn't like the way the guy was shuffling along. "Hey, I'm first-aid trained. If you need help, I--"

"No." Shaggy red hair obscured yellow eyes when the man finally looked at him, but Richard froze for a moment when he saw them. Haunted, not sunken in, but no spark in them. But there was something about them that Richard was certain he'd seen before. Somewhere.

Maybe in the supermarket or something.

"Are you sure?" He regained his metaphorical footing, noticed the way the guy was watching him. "Look, I won't judge, but--"

"No."

Richard was not a stubborn man. Normally, that would have been it. Hell, the first 'no' would have been it. It was late at night. They were alone. He had no truthful idea of if the other man was armed or not. It wasn't worth being stabbed over. But something made him set his jaw, press his lips into a firm line, reach out and put his hand on the other's cool skin. It felt like being shocked. "Wait--"

The next sound out of Richard's mouth was a groan as he sat up and rubbed his jaw. But the other man hadn't run off. Instead, he stood over Richard, moon making a halo of his hair. They locked eyes, and again Richard froze, hand still on his jaw. He remained that way, moving only his eyes and head to follow as the redhead crouched down. Richard swallowed audibly. The guy seemed to flinch at the sound.

"I-" Richard began, but was swiftly cutoff from his attempts to apologize.

"I will eat you." Then he shoved Richard, muttered something under his breath Richard didn't catch, turned, and hurried away, leaving Richard to stare after him, wide-eyed.

---

Basiluzzo reached up and rubbed his jaw at the memory of it. Everything had become clear later, of course, after Richard had run into Ignacio again somehow. And again. And started walking along with him and, if Basiluzzo was being honest, probably being a fair nuisance to Ignacio. That was before Ignacio had any of the therapy and medication that started returning him to himself. But Ignacio ended up growing accustomed to Richard's presence anyway.

Not that Richard could explain to himself or anyone--and his parents and siblings definitely asked--why he was having anything to do with someone who punched him and threatened to eat him. But Richard remained resolute. Even eventually dragged Ignacio home when he found out the state of the apartment Ignacio lived in. Told his mother and father, in their own house, that this strange man was moving in.

Basiluzzo didn't know what made them say yes, even now. But something had. And thank god for that. And thank god for them being willing to put up with the recovery and therapies and medication and screaming sobs in the middle of the night, the welts on Richard's arms and black eyes from trying to get between Ignacio and his demons and accidentally looking like them instead.

Ignacio had gotten better, obviously. Thankfully. Seeing the sun turn Ignacio's clean, brushed hair into a halo of gold for the first time, hearing him laugh from joy and not hysteria... Years later, Ignacio had eventually recovered evidence that he had had a partner in the past thanks to the little robots, and further memories had eventually revealed they were Uranian. Considering Basiluzzo awakened as a Uranus knight, it had sort of fallen into place at that point.

Basiluzzo heaved a sigh and looked up at the unnaturally purple sky. He wished something would explain itself about this. Lightning crashed nearby, however, and he decided it was time to get his a** off of the roof before he got hit. He'd deserve that too, really, sitting on the roof in a storm. Ostensibly, he was out there to find information, not let his thoughts wander about his husband. He hooked his staff in his belt and set about climbing back down the ladder he'd used to get up there.

No youma, though, that he'd noticed.