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Lio stands by the heater with his hands held out to soak up the warmth. If he focuses — closes his eyes, takes a breath and wishes — he can pretend that he’s pouring the heat out; that he’s burning as big and bright as he’s used to doing. That he’s warm and alive and — not cold from the tips of his fingers to the depths of his heart. He breathes and feels like any human, he’s always known that to be true, but he’s not used to living without his fire. Lio doesn’t know how to be a person without his Promare, without the little voice pleading for hotterbrighterbolderfaster and the heat that comes from obeying.
He’s so fucking cold now. How do people live like this? How is Galo so fucking comfortable prancing around loud and proud in nothing but low rise pants when he must be so cold all the time? Lio doesn’t understand it and so he shifts closer to the heater, curls up beside it and revels in the artificial heat. It’s not the same, not even close, but it’s better than the emptiness he feels.
Lio falls asleep remembering the soft whispers of hotterbrighterbolderfaster of his piece of the Promare with his head drooping close to the heater. It isn’t the warmth he craves, but it does something to fill the void inside of his heart.
It’s not the first time that Galo finds Lio curled up by the heater with his legs held tight to his chest. He thinks, for a moment, that Lio looks a little scared and far too small before he leans down to scoop him up into his arms.
Lio’s expression doesn’t change but his left arm flops away from his chest to reach for the heat he’s lost for the second time. He’s not really asleep, but he’s not quite awake either, he’s caught in a limbo of unawareness and not knowing that’s been plaguing him every since the Promare drifted from his body into the cold abyss of space and he came home to rebuild.
Rebuilding’s a funny thing, really, because he’s not helping rebuild anything of his own. Galo says it’s good to get out and move! Get his blood pumping! His burning passion…burning! But Lio hears the whispers. He hears the nothing would be destroyed if it weren’t for the Burnish and he rolls his eyes, because he’s used to these whispers. All they do is whisper about him and his people and after a little while, the whispers turn into white noise that, like Galo’s snores, help Lio sleep at night.
But the whispers are changing, too, as Lio himself has changed. Not all of the whispers are digging a hole for him to lay in, some of them are throwing the dirt back down to build him a palace. He saved us. Without him, we would be lost. Without him there would be nothing but burningburningburning.
People smile at him on the street and eventually he learns how to smile back but he knows that it’s as hollow as chest is. The people may feel safer without the Burnish, without the Mad Burnish especially, but Lio feels...empty.
No.
Lio feels vulnerable .
Most people don’t want to hurt him anymore, which he supposes is a win, but he doesn’t know how to defend himself against those that will. There’s no fire , no heat licking upupup until it yells in glee when Lio lets it out to burn as it so wants to. No armor, no bike, no throne, no Mad Burnish… There’s nothing left for Lio to grab onto for security. Nothing to make him feel safe.
Lio feels like nothing. He thinks about the darkness of space as he floated through it and the Promare left him bereft with a happy laugh after finally getting to burn the way they wanted to. They were happy and Lio was happy to see them and then he realized that they were gone.
His little piece of the Promare is gone forever now and Lio has no eager little voice egging him on, no warmth to curl in his chest when he feels cold and lonely. Lio knows that he’s a person outside of the flames but it is so hard to convince himself of that when he doesn’t know where to go from here.
Lio .
Huh?
Lio? Are you okay?
Are they back? Will the emptiness in Lio’s chest go away? Will he get to feel warm again?
“Hey, Lio!” It’s Galo. He’s warm and solid, he’s very real and his voice is...concerned. “Oh, there you are! You fell asleep in front of the heater again!”
It’s a struggle for Lio to open his eyes but when he does, Galo’s face is almost too close for comfort. He swings his hand up before delicately pressing his warm palm to Galo’s face. Galo is real. Lio wonders what it’s like to feel real. “Felt cold. Needed the warmth.”
Lio’s vision is still slightly blurry from sleep but he can tell that Galo’s face is twisted in incredible confusion. “Why didn’t you lay in the bed?”
The bed is their bed and it’s only warm when Galo is in it, not when Lio is alone in it with some mindless dating show on in the background. Not when he’s alone with his thoughts and his frail body and Galo’s popcorn ceiling. Who even has popcorn ceilings anymore? They’re ugly. Galo should change them.
“That’s mean . But you didn’t tell me why you didn’t just get in the bed!” Lio curls himself against Galo’s chest, his hand slowly coming down from Galo’s face to rest on his shoulder. Still warm.
“The bed isn’t warm enough. Not without you. Not without them.” Lio realizes that it’s the first time he’s actually referred to the Promare as an entity that he misses and craves. Galo is wonderful, he truly is, but he’s not quite aware of what Lio has lost. The Promare wasn’t only alive, it was a part of him. Lio was never without it from the moment it manifested inside of him and he will never know what it’s like to feel like that again.
But the miracle about Galo is that he’s willing to learn about Lio. He’s willing to hear and learn and adapt because that’s what his burning firefighter soul requires him to be. Lio wishes he could be more like that; adapting is so hard when you’re so out of your own depth. “With ‘them’? You mean the Promare? You miss them?”
“Miss isn’t a strong enough word for what I feel for them,” Lio sighs and wraps his arms around Galo’s shoulders before he tucks his face into his neck. Galo smells like sweat and normal smoke. He’d responded to an illegal bonfire at a campsite and the warm woodsy smell is lulling Lio again. “When I was with them, I had a friend with me at all times. I had company in my loneliest moments and warmth when the winter bit at wherever we were hiding. They laugh, you know, the Promare. They delight in the burn, in the heat, and that sort of energy… It makes you laugh, too.”
Galo reminds Lio of the Promare, sometimes. His energy and enthusiasm is often infectious and Lio likes forgetting that he feels like someone cut a hole right into his chest and forgot that they needed to stop the bleeding. Galo is warm and neverending, constant and loyal, and wholly Lio’s. He has lost the Promare, yes, but maybe he’s gained something similar.
Similar. Not quite the same. Galo has to leave every day and the Promare was with him until they couldn’t be.
Galo could also leave him forever if he wanted. Could. Lio doesn’t believe that he would.
“When they left, they took that bright happiness and their warmth with them. I haven’t felt the same since and any other heat source is a poor substitute.” The rhythm of Galo’s gait hasn’t changed, but his breathing has caught. The gears, what little of them may be there, are turning inside of his head as he tries to make sense of it all.
“I...don’t know what you’re going through and I know that I can’t replace the fire that used to burn all the way inside of you, but I can try to help if you’d like?” His voice is so warm, so genuinely, that Lio feels his chest tighten and…
Warm. Lio feels warm.
“Some help grieving may be nice..” Grieving… How odd that Lio’s mind knows that’s what he’s doing even if Lio hasn’t quite caught up. He’s lost more than a friend and it’s only natural for him to grieve such a loss. “But if I need time, will you give it to me?”
Galo is beaming down at him and Lio’s heart is beating a little faster than he’s used to but it’s making him warmer so he doesn’t complain.
“Whatever you need!” Lio can feel Galo’s chest puff up in pride and Lio loves his passionate fireman. He knows how to put our fires, of course, he’s good at that by virtue of his chosen career, but he also knows how to create warmth.
Galo doesn’t start fires but he can cultivate the warmth in the humans around him until they feel good enough to lift themselves up.
Galo is what Lio needs waiting to pick him up when he stumbles down the road of recovery. Lio needed to know that when he crumbles that he didn’t need Galo to pick him up; he needed to know that Galo would encourage him to bring himself up and he knows that now.
His heart beats faster as he tucks his face into Galo’s neck and breathes him in. He’s not okay yet and he knows that he won’t be okay for a while.
He knows that both of those things are perfectly acceptable.
“You know what I need, Galo?”
“What!”
“A nap.”
Galo’s laugh vibrates eagerly against Lio’s lips and curves them into a fond smile as Galo marches to the bedroom to set Lio down. Lio’s still warm as he watches Galo change from his fire fighting gear into something more comfortable — sweats and sweats only — and climb into bed with him. Typically, Galo lays on his back with Lio on his chest but Galo seems to tell that Lio doesn’t need that.
He lays atop Lio and keeps their warmth wrapped up in their bodies, his strong arms wrapped securely around Lio’s middle. Galo’s cheek rests over his heart and Lio can’t keep the smile off of his face as one hand passes over Galo’s errant hair.
They say nothing and Lio reaches over to grab the remote so he can put some idle background noise on. It’s peaceful but Lio feels secure in this peace; it doesn’t feel as fabricated and fragile as it once did.
Lio has no idea if he’ll feel okay when he wakes up. He doesn’t know if this new warmth will replace the Promare but he knows now that he doesn’t need to replace the Promare. There’s no replicating such a magical experience, after all. What he does know now, that he didn’t know before, is that Galo will let him be as ragged as he needs to be.
They might have to talk about this heater situation, though. Unfortunately, Lio likes napping by the heater, fire hazards be damned.