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After that nighttime confrontation with Albite, stumbling from the fair thing Nectaris did where she told the two of them about each other anyway, Fulgurite was... at best, apprehensive.

Albite had never acted like that before. Fulgurite had thought that perhaps by the end he had smoothed things over, but it didn't quite feel right. He left in near ******** silence with his bird bonded, leaving Fulgurite sitting with his mouth dry in this little cove that clearly meant something to Albite. It meant enough that he was not only comfortable confronting there, but he thought he had the advantage.

Albite had the advantage so much that he felt okay threatening to tear him limb by limb, even as much as he was crying too. What had Fulgurite done? What had he violated?

It was strange. He had figured that Albite would have been upset about Nectaris herself, but he didn't seem to be. He had acquiesced that his ultimate priority was what the Negaverse wanted, and the Negaverse wanted her dead, so perhaps Albite too wanted her dead. He had just nodded, robotically, and Fulgurite couldn't quite guess the depths behind it, but it at least implied Nectaris wasn't safe from him, either. At least, she wasn't protected by him, either.

He feared for her safety, to be honest.

Fulgurite went to the gardens often to clear his mind. To be honest, as he sat there, he briefly felt envious of those of the White Moon. They could just pick themselves up and go reflect on planets of silence, couldn't they?

But would they have these beautiful, albeit dried and dead, flowers?

Fulgurite made no effort to hide. That meant he didn't hide when he looked up at the sounds of someone debating a love's existence, but when he realized it was Nectaris, he hurriedly looked down. What was the right thing to say to her--

Fulgurite should have known that she would approach him on her own, in retrospect. The moment she saw him she would approach him, whether he found himself looking down and scrambling for good words to say to her or not. What did he tell her? Did he tell her everything was fine? Did he make some excuses, prevent her with some interesting gossip, or ignore the reality? Did he tell her the truth, that afterward, he had a stomach flop of a conversation in which Albite had actually threatened him?

He didn't really have time to think before she was asking him if he was mad, if Albite was mad, if anyone else was mad because gossip spread rapidly even between sides--

"Not anyone else as far as I know," Fulgurite was able to at least awkwardly answer that one easily, still not quite looking up at her. "Not yet, anyway."

Not yet, because while he had thought he had perhaps diffused some of Albite's crying and upset and anger and threats by the end of their conversation, he couldn't confirm that Albite wouldn't simply tell anyone else that Fulgurite had kept to himself that he had relocated the traitorous Sylvite--

Would Albite do that? It would implicate himself. But Albite was always a bit... different than he might have expected for someone who admitted without breath that he wouldn't stop anyone from killing Nectaris. He had caught how quiet he had gone when Fulgurite had said that he couldn't give Albite that knowledge because he was dedicated to the Negaverse first and foremost and above anything else--

"I'm not mad, just," he sighed, "worried. Albite was actively upset. Felt it appropriate to threaten my life, actually, over the whole thing. Not quite over you directly but because I hadn't told him I still knew you. Seemed to think I was gonna put everyone at risk."

He glanced up, but not quite at her. "Also admitted by his silence that he, at the very least, wouldn't stop the Negaverse from killing you. It was a very uncomfortable conversation."

"He told me there wouldn't be a body left to mourn. Brought his giant multiheaded bird, too."

Fulgurite bit on his lower lip, wetting it with his tongue.

"Don't think blaming you would be enough, actually. I get the sense what he was focused on was the fact that I hid you from him. Kept saying I was going to do something that was going to get everyone killed. The team killed. And," he paused, swallowed around the name Syrus because he knew he couldn't tell Nectaris that. He trusted her. He still couldn't tell her the identity of someone who wasn't himself. That was his privacy, his decision, "someone I'm close to, especially."

That was... good enough, albeit sorely incomplete. Cryolite and he had said when they became official that they would tell each other if they were kissing anyone else, but he had to be careful when it was a side divide. He owed the same to her, but it was the same.

She was a potential long-distance girlfriend of his, in a way. To her, Cryolite was the same, a long-distance boyfriend of Fulgurite's. They weren't likely to cross paths.

He was tense, and it was quite obvious he was by the way he kept looking elsewhere and looking at her out of the side of his eyes. His leg bounced.

"I know we're on separate sides," Fulgurite took a deep, shaky breath, before turning his gaze to her. "But you're important to me. I can't understand why someone would dedicate themselves to someone and still just... let them die, no matter what that side differential says. Some things should be more important."

She was more important.

There was something very different about the way she said that, and it caught his attention right away. She usually didn't get serious like that, not unless something was wrong. He could recall her using that tone a bit back when the Negaverse had called her Sylvite, but only as things were serious--

"Well, quick clarification there -- he said I was going to threaten my loved one. Worried about me doing something that'd ******** the team over or something. All prompted by..." Fulgurite wrung his own hands at the thought of harming Cryolite. His babe, his sweetheart, his Lover, the one who had already half-drunkenly asked if what Fulgurite was proposing was-- he shook his head out of it, shook out his hands, and nodded.

"But he still threatened me."

Fulgurite didn't know if he should be saying any of this, but the fact that Nectaris was promising to come to his defense was heart-warming. Her word was her word, and when she had said she would still be there for him, she had meant it. It would have been easy to take a similar view as Albite apparently had -- whatever his side did to him, they did to him. They were on separate sides now, divided by Metallia having ultimate control of his life and her being dedicated to the Moon, but it was true. Some things were more important.

"Know he's important to you." And he was important to Cryolite too, which made all of this ... messy. "But I think you're right."

Didn't want to be. He didn't want to see Nectaris upset like this. And would Albite consider a violation of the trust they barely even had for him to be discussing this? Did he care? What was Albite going to do, make him more miserable? Make it so there really was no body left to mourn?

He leaned his head back. "********," he murmured, with a laugh with no mirth. "I'm sorry. Didn't mean to just ... dump on you."

It was obvious, and Fulgurite felt awful for it.

She deserved to know what had transpired, even if a part of him worried he shouldn't have said anything. Would that by itself be a danger? Would Albite be angry if Nectaris knew Albite threatened him? Probably, considering everything else. Why had Albite done that? Why had Fulgurite said that? Why was this all so needlessly complex; why couldn't they all at least respect each other and keep their distance if they couldn't?

Albite had opted to keep some distance since that night. Fulgurite had picked up more of his quota again.

Irrelevant.

"Do you want a hug?" tried Fulgurite, quietly, inching a bit closer on the bench he was sitting on.

"I also have some uh, more gossip?"

He was using the gossip as a distraction tactic when she kept bringing up things he couldn't confront and couldn't deal with. If that worked to distract her from him, perhaps it might also help distract her from the boiling over of emotions related to what he had just said. He didn't want her to be crying.

Nectaris collapsed into him and Fulgurite shifted, bending so she could easily fold into his side and he could gather her up and keep her there as long as she needed. At least he could do this much. Couldn't do much for being a target of potential murder and couldn't do much about the complex emotions she found herself in the middle of, but...

He could offer a kiss, too, and he gave her a quick, gentle one.

He liked kisses.

Fulgurite took a deep breath and let it out in relief when she implied her problem wasn't him, at least. It was Albite. "Well, you're in love with him, right? Makes sense your feelings about this would be a lot."

But he'd leave it there. He'd rather spill tea. Where to start...

The easiest source of gossip for him, admittedly, remained Faustite. Not for whatever strange ailment he seemingly caught, but for the fact that he had so many interpersonal relationships which provided a gold mine of things to talk about. There was an easy place to start with that, of course, and Fulgurite would happily shoot the s**t from there.

"Faustite has a thing for boys in general, ya know. Not just husband Albite," Fulgurite shook his head at the thought of him. "There's a few others. All boy senshi, most also husbands. Like there's this one named Heliodor? Think he and Faustite have a long history. Like many years long and rocky. Serious business too, watched that guy turn in like a dozen starseeds at once... Think his powers are ryuto?"

Fulgurite, admittedly, had no idea what that was.

There was no starry-eyed enthusiasm, but it was enough. It pulled the topic away from Albite, and away from him. Talking about other people was easy to do. Talking about other people was generally better. It kept the focus off his reality, off the weird tightrope he had walked since he had been originally corrupted ... nearly ten years ago? ********, man--

"He's very non-monogamous. Pretty sure he's married to like half the team?" Fulgurite seemed thoughtful about this. "Think he's got something up with Alkmene too?" And maybe Celadonite? He hadn't seen that one close up as often, though, just at the wedding... then again, that might have been close enough. Not many had been invited to the wedding, and it had taken him by surprise that Albite had pulled him along. It hadn't necessarily been unwelcomed, though it had certainly not been expected.

Good thing he had a gift, anyway--

He jumped with a start when she asked if he was married to Faustite. "Ah, no," he shook his head rapidly out of that concept. "Only even had one one-on-one with him. Mostly on Albite's branch of the team, though that hasn't stopped Faustite from giving me assignments anyway."

The ******** op--

He needed to get to work on that before Faustite looked for a damn update, plumes of smoke emitting from his body or not.

It was easier to answer the second question, even though he didn't know how to navigate it. They were on separate sides. He was on a separate side from her. He couldn't just tell her about Cryolite's life. He promised to keep him safe, and that in theory meant from her. Nectaris wasn't the jealous type, no, but there were things about keeping these sides safe from each other, safe from even the chances of being found out. He couldn't violate that, so how much could he say? Should he say? He didn't want it getting back to Albite ******** do have a boyfriend, though. Hope that's okay," Fulgurite's smile was sheepish. "Remember the blight? Were you there for that? He invited me home after we confronted it, and it kinda ... blossomed from there." He sounded ... fond. Very fond. "He's the someone special that Albite accused me of endangering. Hope you understand my caution."