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Here are the stages of falling in love, if your name is Lio Fotia.
One: he attacks you on a roof, and he is an idiot.
The kid has a whole fucking powerpoint presentation on the historical implications of his tech, his friend in the copter projects it up above the skyscraper for him and everything, and yet something about him is so naked and earnest that Lio pays attention. Just for a second. The kid roars when he runs at Lio with nothing but a pole and a pair of rubber boots, molars glinting through the flames. He is an ember and Lio wants suddenly—wants to kick him and toss him off the roof and set him alight. Just to see what colors he makes as he burns.
So what if Lio lets a piece of his helmet break off, just so he can look at the guy better? So fucking what?
Two: he comes after you in the cave, and he is an idiot.
Lio wants to throw him into the fire, roast him with the hot dogs and the canned fucking vegetables. How did he find them, anyway? Lio doesn’t ask, because he knows the answer will be I followed my burning soul or I go up in the woods and run around screaming every night for fun or something else equally stupid. Lio doesn’t ask. He just knocks the kid out and stares at him, his stupid-long nose and his stupid-angular jaw and his stupid-big mouth, oddly soft now that he’s not using it, like he wears chapstick and does facemasks in between the firefighting.
When he wakes up, it’s almost worse. Lio should really tie him up more securely, take him to a secondary location, anything to prevent him from seeing which road the trucks take, but then he’s too stupid to put the pieces together, and anyway, if his dumb luck found Lio once, maybe Lio wouldn’t mind it happening again.
Three: he screams at you to calm down, and he is an idiot.
Galo fights naked. Or as good as, flimsy tech and enormous flared pants and this unbelievable fucking smirk on his face, like he expects a fire to roar up from inside him and cut down the world, or remake it. He screams at Lio like his anger is nothing, like it is a reflection in the frozen fucking lake, like it is a distraction. Kray Foresight. He betrayed me too. And how much foresight did that bastard have anyway if he couldn’t see this coming—this kid who throws fire like a gauntlet and rides dragons just to find out how far his voice will carry from the air.
Then again, nobody could’ve seen this guy coming. They could only hear him: he’s the loudest thing in the world. And so what if Lio’s following the echoes like he’s a paper clip and Galo is a magnet the size of the fucking moon? So what, so what, so what.
Four: he kisses you, and he is an idiot.
Galo walked through fire to do it, he will tell Lio later. No, walking isn’t a strong enough word. He marched—no, he pounded—no, he was the taiko drum and its echo, the cannon and its fucking gunpowder. I’m gonna save Lio, and the world, and you, Kray Foresight.
Fight fire with fire. Change what it means to be fire in the first place: change the shape, the color, the texture. If burning is Lio screaming through the city, how is burning also Galo saying fuck it and leaning in and pressing his mouth, his impossibly big-loud-quiet-soft mouth, to Lio’s? It is. It is, because Galo says it is.
No brains to speak of, and yet he is the loudest thing in the fucking world. He screams and he moves the earth, he pushes it back into tune. If you call this fire, and I call this fire—
We can save them all.
Five: he goes home with you, and he is an idiot.
Technically—okay, technically, Lio is going home with Galo, to his little room in the Burning Rescue barracks, to his twin bed and his poster of Kray Foresight on the wall that he lets Lio rip down and light with a spare match and throw out the window, laughing. Technically. But Lio is the one who makes dinner, throwing rice and tofu and broccoli into a saucepan and burning himself because he isn’t used to watching his hands. Galo laughs at that, too. Galo laughs at everything, all the way through collapsing on the bed and stripping free of his singed pants and explaining his stupid catchphrase and letting Lio tangle his hands in Galo’s hair and push him flat, push his palms into Galo’s stupid-warm chest, and. Well, then Galo isn’t laughing anymore.
Lio’s had the longest day of his fucking life and still somehow he isn’t tired. He could look at this idiot forever, he thinks. Big mouth, insane hair, chest scarred over with burns, eyes as wide as the fucking universe, pretty when he’s asleep but prettier when he’s awake, when he’s smiling, when he’s looking back.
So what if you’re in love? So what if you don’t even hate it? So fucking what?
Lio doesn’t tell him. Doesn’t want to blow the idiot’s tiny mind when he’s only just learned what burning really means. But someday. Galo falls asleep, Lio’s head on his shoulder, his breathing evening out and going soft—and Lio plans it out. Where he’ll be, how he’ll phrase it. How loud Galo will scream.