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He lets you go. That’s what Sylus does.
He watches over you, he allows you to lean on him, he helps you, he doesn’t contradict you and protects you when undoubtedly you fail, he teases you and reads your needs before you feel them yourself, and then when it’s all done, he lets you go.
Go back to your tidy, pretty life. Go back to the world where you can pretend he doesn’t exist.
Go be the person you learnt to be without him.
He doesn’t hold it over you, the fact that you didn’t remember him. He doesn’t want you to look that sad again, as you did when all of it came rushing back. It’s been so long for him, the pain has dulled, just you at the forefront of his thoughts.
You don’t have that buffer. So even as you wake up exhausted, days after the fact, he cannot stop you from going. He cannot open his mouth to claim you, to explain exactly what it means, to have your souls tied so. To fill up the gaps in memory, reach out to you and know himself wanted.
So he lets you go.
In the aftermath of your actions, there’s enough work to do in N109 Zone, and he allows himself to sink into that with a ferocity that scares everyone. People bleed, streets and walls painted red, matched across his knuckles. Empires crash, as he gurges on more and more and more - and yet never enough, because nothing is quite as close as having you to make him full. He throws things across room after room, throughout multiple locations, to keep his hands busy from trying to reach out to you. He won’t be just a different leash, he won’t lay a claim on you beyond what’s been given to him lifetimes ago, he won’t beg anymore.
He lets you go, because in the deep recess of his heart, he hopes you’ll be back. He lets you go, even though in the deep recess of his heart, he has no idea how he will ever be enough.
Days and nights pass. He’s growing scared.
Days and nights pass. He’s growing sloppy.
The featherlight touch at his temple catches him unaware, having fallen asleep in the chair of his armory. He never sleeps, not like this, but he’s been the type of tired that only days of rest or a hug can fix.
You’re kind, tender gaze softening as he blinks, bringing himself to awareness, enough to turn his head and catch your hand in his. Then, just as gently as you’ve been treating him, he places a kiss against your palm, lips lingering to your fingertips, one by one, before allowing your hand to fall between your bodies, resting against his heart.
It beats, always, in the same rhythm as your heart. Faulty at times, but yours nonetheless.
You’ve killed people for him with the same hand you’re using to caress him. He doesn’t think he can adore you any more than in this moment, returned to him, and he’d give away all he has for this moment to be stopped in time.
“What are you doing, Sylus?” you say, softly, but your voice is firm, chiding even and he sighs, because that means someone told on him, and if it is his own worried twins or someone on your side, he doesn’t have it in him to care.
“Playing dominoes.”
“With people’s lives?”
“Started long ago, Little Bomb.”
And your eyes go softer, your hold against his shirt growing tighter. Because you know exactly how long ago, a revenge over a decade in the making, Sylus a most careful planner. Genius, really.
“Didn’t we agree you’re part of my ending?”
A conversation not from that long ago, but still back when goals were satisfied and memories hidden. He isn’t sure you still want him now, but why would you be here otherwise? To break him, blame him?
He cannot answer, instead just staring at you, hanging on your every word, too jaded to hope; he doesn’t rely on something as fickle as that.
“So where do I fall, Sylus? In your game?” you continue, and you shift, just enough to go straddling his body.
Sylus swallows the knot in his throat, tongue peeking out to wet his lips, looking up at you to notice the way your gaze drops to his mouth for just a brief second, trying to steel himself. And when you at last meet his eyes, he answers.
“You’re the only real thing,” and he grabs your other hand, does the same path of kisses in reverse, stopping with his lips against the thin skin at your wrist, where he can feel and taste every flutter of your heart. “And you belong wherever you want to be.”
Your breath hitches when you can feel his tongue against your now heated skin.
“Here, then,” you say, and Sylus grins.