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Ma Meilleure Ennemie //

sylus x fem!reader // [AO3] // wc: 15k // NSFW MDNI 🔞 // ♡ / ↻ — appreciated!

♡ Summary:

You didn't want to but you shot him. His Aether Core reacted. A moment of resonance, a tear in reality—and just like that, Sylus was somewhere else. A world where he had everything he never let himself want. A version of you who loved him without hesitation, who remembered. And for the first time, he was happy despite the guilt. But he was never meant to stay. And returning home means losing you all over again.

♡ A/N notes:

Before diving in, please make sure to check the tags—they exist for a reason. This fic was heavily inspired by Arcane (specifically, the themes surrounding Ekko & Jinx in S2) and the song Ma Meilleure Ennemie, which perfectly captures the mood I wanted to weave into this story. If you really want to elevate the experience, I’ve also attached a playlist that sets the atmosphere—because, let’s be honest, this fic is best consumed with the right music in the background. Playlist link: Ma Meilleure Ennemie playlist

♡ Content:

★ NSFW, soulmates across timelines, memory loss, emotional sex that cuts deep. Reincarnation angst, time distortion, and a love that refuses to die. Established but messy—he remembers, you don’t. Creampie, fingering, aftercare, soft smut laced with heartbreak. Mutual pining in every universe. Parallel worlds, same ache. No beta, just tears and orgasms.

The air between you was thick with the scent of smoke and blood, heavy enough to choke on. The gun in your hand trembled, its metal burning against your palm, but your grip was weak—just as he wanted.

Sylus sat beneath you, reclined in that oversized chair like a man who had already won something unbeknownst to you. His silver hair fell over his forehead in loose soft strands, his crimson-hued eyes locked on yours, gleaming with something unreadable. He could feel your pulse hammering beneath his long fingers, where his hand tightly curled around your wrist, forcing the gun to stay steady. Not yours. His. His heart, his body, his rules. Even now.

“Go on,” he murmured, voice dark, teasing in a way that didn’t feel like it. “You’ve wanted this for so long. Wasn’t it your objective? To shoot the big bad guy of the N109 zone, Miss Hunter?” He scoffed, because even if his life was quite literally in your hands, he was aware that you viewed him as the top dog of the no man’s land, someone who threatened all that you stood for.

Your breath came too fast, too shallow. He could see it—how you hesitated, how your knuckles went white against the grip, how the weight of what you were about to do sat heavy in your ribs, because for one, you have never killed a person, never actually went after someone who wasn’t a wanderer.

Perhaps, in your perspective, it should have been easy. Hell, it was supposed to be easy. He was a criminal, a mass one at that, someone with a goddamn bounty on his head that was worth millions if not billions amounts of money.

His grip was stronger than yours, guiding your hand, forcing your lithe fingers to curl around the trigger as it left your wrist for a moment. His other hand found your wrist once more, calloused thumb brushing slow, deliberate circles over your pulse, feeling it spike under his fingertips like some sort of heightened frequency. Still, for you, it was a mere reminder—of control, of patience, of power.

“Don’t look away,” he said, tilting his head. “I want you to remember.”

And he meant it. If you were going to kill him, he wanted to be the last thing you saw.

Your stomach twisted. He saw it in your eyes. That hesitation. That doubt. He would have laughed, if not for the part of him that wanted you to do it. That wanted to see just how much you could take. What it would make you.

A slow, steady pull. The trigger clicked. The gun roared.

Heat seared through his chest. The recoil of the gun didn’t hurt the way you thought it would. Not at first. It wasn’t the bullet that burned.

It was you.

His head lolled back against the chair, his body slumping from the force of the shot, but his lips still curled at the edges, breath leaving in something almost like a laugh. The protocore in his eye flared at the edges of his vision. He felt it, the way his core should have helped his evol to pull him back together, the way it should have already been stitching flesh and sealing the deep wound.

But something was wrong.

The air rippled, thick with something electric. Your Aether Core pulsed. His flickered in response, as if whispering back in an ancient language neither of you could understand. His fingers clenched around your wrist, breath hitching. His eyes locked onto yours, wide, startled—not with pain, but recognition.

He felt it before he understood it.

The collision was violent. Raw, unchecked energy surged between you, wrapping around his ribs, curling deep inside his lungs like fire and static, and something ancient waking up inside his bones. The edges of the room blurred, the world folding in on itself, dragging him down, down, down…

There was no floor beneath him, no walls, no sense of gravity. Just weightlessness, as if he had been yanked from existence itself. The nothingness stretched infinitely, void pressing in from all sides, and for a moment, he swore he could still feel the ghost of your hand against his chest, your heartbeat overlapping his own.

His mind clawed for something tangible, something real. But the only thing that existed was absence. No air, no sound—just silence so deep it rattled inside his, perhaps now nonexistent, skull. Was this death? Or something far worse? Perhaps, for someone like him, it was the right way to go out, all things considered.

He was still aware though, aware of the last thing he heard being your voice. Calling him back.

After that? There was nothing.

It could have been seconds. Minutes. Hours. Days. He had no way of knowing. Time did not move here. It had no form, no direction, no flow. He was lost within it, floating, grasping at something unseen lost in his own thoughts for what felt like a millennium.

He wondered what it would be like… if at the end of the day, things had turned out the other way and you would’ve remembered. He pondered the possibility for a while, and then just shut off, seeing no point in it anymore.

It wasn’t until Sylus felt pressure. A pull, slow at first, then all at once. He was dragged back down, breath stolen from his lungs as sensation crashed over him like a tidal wave. Heavy limbs, breath coming too light, too thin, like he’d been holding it for longer than he should have. His body wasn’t where he left it. It was somewhere else—

Soft sheets under his naked back. The scent of something warm, something sweet curling into his lungs. Reality was unsteady, blurred at the edges like ink bleeding into still water. The sensation of weightlessness made his stomach lurch, like stepping off a ledge only to find solid ground where there should have been a fall.

Then—pressure. A touch, gentle and familiar, pressing against his chest. His mind clawed at the sensation, trying to place it, trying to understand before the world clicked into focus all at once.

A manicured hand on his chest.

“Morning, my dragon.”

His eyes snapped open. His lungs locked tight as he lightly flinched at the words.

The bed dipped beside him as you shifted, pressing closer, and it was you. But not quite. Not the way he remembered. Not the way he had left you.

Your hair was a shade warmer than before, a hue that caught the morning light in a way that unsettled him. The soft curve of your face was familiar but wrong, the placement of a mole near your temple off by just a fraction. Your skin looked healthier, as though you had never known sleepless nights spent chasing ghosts, never worn the sharp edges of grief, thanks to losing your loved ones, in the set of your jaw.

Your pretty lips curved in a lazy smile, soft with sleep, with something warmer, something easy. Your hand trailed down his chest, fingertips feather-light, as if this was second nature to you. Your voice hummed with the weight of a thousand mornings just like this.

But it was wrong. All of it.

His body had always been primed for danger, his mind trained to recognize even the smallest inconsistencies. And this—this was a trap he didn’t know how to navigate. Every detail, every shift in reality, was so seamlessly woven into what should have been real. But he knew better.

His breath was uneven, muscles tensed as if expecting a strike that would never come. You weren’t looking at him with suspicion, with fear, with disgust. You weren’t recoiling from him. You weren’t her.

And that was the worst part.

Because the last thing he remembered was you putting a bullet in his heart.

His fingers twitched against the sheets, breath coming too shallow, too sharp. The words shouldn’t have meant anything to this world’s Sylus. But they did—to him. To his real self.

A slow blink, a measured exhale. He forced his body to relax, to settle back into the warmth pressing against his side, but the coil of unease in his chest refused to loosen. He needed to play this off, to find his footing before you noticed—

But you already had.

"Bad dream?" your voice was gentle, teasing, as you brushed stray silver strands from his forehead, fingers trailing down to rest against his jaw. "You looked like you saw a ghost."

He let out a breathy chuckle, low, strained. "Yeah. Something like that."

Your gaze lingered, just a fraction too long. Not in suspicion—at least, not yet. But something about his reaction had given you pause. The way your fingers absently traced over his collarbone felt almost reflexive, as if you were grounding yourself, making sense of something that didn’t quite fit. Your Sylus wouldn’t have reacted. Your Sylus knew exactly what that name meant to you.

This one—he flinched.

He didn't think twice about it. Not because he was careless—no, he was never careless—but because he never had to. You weren’t the type to notice, not in the way that mattered. Or at least, not the you he knew.

This one? This one had been watching him for a long time.

You weren’t staring at him the way someone would look at a lover acting strangely. You weren’t confused, or concerned. You were reading him. The way he breathed, the way he moved, the way his pulse had jumped when you called him that name.

The Sylus in this world—your Sylus—must have never reacted like this before. Maybe that was why your head tilted just slightly, the beginnings of a thought forming, only to be brushed away before it could settle. A flicker of curiosity, not alarm.

The realization curled in his stomach like a vice. He had spent years perfecting the art of deception, of control. And yet, in a single second, he had given himself away to someone who had spent just as long studying him.

He needed to fix it. Needed to cover his tracks before you could follow them too far. He shifted, turning onto his side, propping himself up on an elbow as his lips brushed the curve of your shoulder.

"Maybe you wore me out last night, sweetheart," he murmured, voice slipping into something smoother, something easy. "Guess even I have my limits."

You huffed a laugh, shaking your head, but the tension in your fingers remained. You were still watching him. But not in a way that suggested you had figured him out—just in that quiet, assessing way of someone who had learned to pick up on even the smallest shifts in behavior. And for now, you seemed content to let it go.

"I'm sorry, Sy, I will be less demanding on you next time then." You purred out, amusement lacing your tone as you placed a soft kiss under his jaw.

He needed to tread carefully. Because whatever this was, however he had ended up here—he wasn’t the only one beginning to notice the fractures in the illusion.

He let out a slow exhale, willing his muscles to stay loose, to let himself sink into the warmth of this world—this lie. And yet, it didn’t feel foreign. That was the part that gnawed at him. The way his body knew how to fit into this space, the way his arms instinctively curled around you, the way he could slide into this role without even thinking.

It should’ve felt unnatural. But it didn’t.

A flicker of something old stirred at the back of his mind. He had been here before—not here, not in this lifetime, but in something close to it. The pieces slotted together too easily, the familiarity too deep to be mere coincidence. He had been with you before. In one lifetime, in one story, in one myth.

The Abysm Sovereign as one would’ve called him. The last of the dragons. The one who had hoarded something too precious, too fragile, only to lose himself to it.

Was that what this was? Another return to something inevitable? Another step in a cycle he was too entangled in to escape?

His fingers twitched against the sheets, his breath slow and controlled, but his mind ran circles around the truth.

Maybe this was why it was so easy to fall back into you.

Maybe it had never been a matter of if—only when. Your lips lingered against his skin, soft, familiar in a way that sent something cold slithering down his spine.

"You say that, but I know you," he murmured, forcing a smirk, running his fingers up the curve of your spine. "You’ll have me right where you want me again by sundown."

You laughed against his throat, your breath warm, real, and yet every second of it felt like something closing in around him, something he couldn’t escape. Because the moment he stopped playing along, the moment he let the weight of what had happened settle—

What then?

His fingers curled into the sheets behind your back, grounding himself. He needed to understand how this had happened, why this had happened. His core still hummed faintly beneath his skin, pulsing with something unsettled, something wrong.

And you? You were too at ease, too at home in a life that had never belonged to him. You weren’t looking at him with suspicion anymore, not yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time.

He had to move carefully.

He had to get ahead of this before you started looking too closely.

A week passed, and the edges of reality blurred further, slipping past his fingertips like water.

The leader of Onychinus hadn’t meant to fall into it so easily. He had intended to keep his distance from you and this entire place, to play the part without slipping deeper. But the longer he stayed, the more the weight of this world settled into him like second nature. The way his hands reached for things before his mind could catch up. The way he answered your questions not with lies, but with truths that didn’t belong to him.

Everything was wrong.

N109 wasn’t the place he had built—not the ruthless, lawless battleground where only the strongest survived. It was something else, something structured. There were systems here, stability where there should have been chaos. And he could see the mark of your hand in all of it.

You had helped him build this.

Or rather, you had helped him—the version of Sylus that belonged to this world. The one who had let you in, who had trusted you enough to do this with you instead of fighting against it. The one who, by all accounts, loved you openly—without the guarded words, without the veiled threats laced with something too sharp to be mistaken for tenderness.

Sylus had never been that man. He had never been happy.

The realization crawled under his skin, digging deep. He moved through the city, and people didn’t look at him with fear. They acknowledged him, some even greeted him, as though he was someone worth trusting. As though he was someone good.

But he wasn’t. He never had been. He was always seen as a monster.

Yet this world had rewritten him into something else, something he couldn’t recognize. And worse? His body remembered things he hadn’t lived.

The first time it happened, it was small. A flicker of familiarity when he reached for a glass in the penthouse, his hand moving before he even thought about it. He had never lived here. Never walked these halls before. But his feet knew where to go. His hands knew what to reach for. The weight of a life that wasn’t his settled on him like muscle memory, instincts burned into his body without his consent.

Then the memories started creeping in. Not all at once, not enough to overwhelm, but slow, steady, like a trickle of water, like something waking up inside him, filling in the gaps of who this Sylus was supposed to be.

Your laughter against his skin. The press of your hand over his as you guided it to something he had once refused to hold and he scoffed at your audacity in a way that wasn’t malicious. A quiet moment in the dark, where your breath had mingled with his, your fingers tracing his jaw like you were memorizing him, your chests pressed together.

He wasn’t supposed to have these memories. But he did.

And you—you noticed.

Not in suspicion. Not yet. You watched him in the quiet moments, like you were waiting for something. Like you saw the way he hesitated before answering, how his gaze lingered too long, and instead of questioning it, you let yourself hope for the first time in years.

Because you knew what it was like to remember when no one else did.

You had lived that life already—spent years waiting, never pushing. Because in your world, you had been in his place. The one who held the memories, the one who had to swallow down the ache of being the only one who remembered what it meant. And the version of Sylus you had known—the one who belonged to you—had never remembered you.

However, these days… a thought of such scale didn’t seem to be just that—just a theory.

Because for once, he was the one acting differently. He was answering in ways that weren’t expected, slipping just enough to make you wonder. And that meant maybe—just maybe—your dragon had finally found his way back to you.

And Sylus? He couldn’t afford to let you believe that. Because he wasn’t your Sylus. He wasn’t yours at all.

But he couldn’t bring himself to say it either. Was it selfish of him to bask in your affection? To feel happy to be in your presence? He felt like an imposter, and hell, he was.

And yet, he couldn’t help but want to stay, to bask in your warmth and affection like the starved man that he was.

It started in the small moments. The way you curled up next to him without hesitation, your body fitting against his like it had always belonged there. The way your laughter filled the space between you, warm and unburdened, untainted by the kind of guardedness he had come to expect from you—from the version of you he had left behind.

You reached for him often, and he let you. But his touch was different—hesitant, restrained. He knew you noticed. Knew you could tell that when his fingers skimmed over your wrist, when his palm rested against the small of your back, it wasn’t with the same familiarity as before. It was careful, measured, as if he were trying not to take too much. As if he was still convincing himself he had no right to.

And you—you never said anything about it. Never called him out on the distance that shouldn’t have been there. Maybe you thought he was relearning, trying to remember you in the way you hoped he would. Or maybe, deep down, you didn’t want to risk shattering whatever fragile balance had settled between you.

Maybe that’s what made it worse.

It was in the way his hand would linger at the small of your back just a moment too long when guiding you through a crowded space in the city. The way his gaze would flicker to your glossed lips when you spoke, as if some part of him was already familiar with the way they’d feel against his own. The way his breathing would shift in the middle of the night when you curled closer in sleep, as if his body, not his mind, was the one remembering what it meant to hold you.

And yet, for some reason, your dragon still held back.

One evening, you sat across from him at the kitchen table, the hum of the city outside muffled by the walls of the penthouse. You slid a cup of tea toward him, fingers brushing against his, and he almost pulled away—almost. Instead, he let the warmth of your skin linger against his own, just for a second longer than he should have.

“Long day?” you asked, voice softer than usual.

He let out a quiet chuckle, running a hand through his hair. “Something like that.”

You hummed, watching him over the rim of your own cup. "You know, you don’t always have to act like you’re carrying the weight of the world. You can let me carry some of it too."

Something tightened in his chest. That was the difference, wasn’t it? This you—you didn’t fight him. You didn’t push against him, claw your way in through force and fear. You were already there, waiting, patient, understanding, everything he could’ve asked for, really.

His gaze flickered over you, cataloging every detail—the warmth in your expression, the easy tilt of your head, the way your fingers wrapped around your cup like it was the only thing anchoring you in the moment. It was such a simple thing, an evening routine that felt natural. Comfortable.

He had spent a lifetime keeping people at arm’s length, yet here you were, fitting into his space like you had always belonged in it. And maybe—maybe he wanted to let you.

His fingers ghosted over the ceramic of his own cup before reaching for it fully, brushing against the spot yours had just been. The residual heat lingered against his skin, sinking into him, grounding him in a way he hadn’t expected.

“That so?” he murmured, voice just a touch lower, something dangerous curling at the edges. Something he couldn’t quite hold back anymore.

You smiled, slow and knowing, like you had already decided the answer. Like you weren’t waiting for him to give it—you had always known it was inevitable.

And for the first time, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to fight it. Because for the first time in his life, staying didn’t feel like a trap. It felt like home.

You tapped your fingers against the side of your cup, watching him carefully, studying him in the way you always did when something unsettled you. "You're different," you said finally, the words light, like an observation rather than an accusation. "You've been spending a lot of time in your lab lately. More than usual."

He didn’t react immediately, instead swirling the tea in his cup, staring into the liquid as if it might hold answers he hadn’t yet found. "Just keeping busy."

You exhaled softly, leaning back into your chair. "Busy with what?" The question was easy, and unassuming. But it hung between you like a thread waiting to be unravelled. When Sylus hesitated to answer, you spoke out before he could, again. "Something tells me you’re not going to find it that easily." You rested your elbow against the table, propping your chin on your hand, eyes flicking over him like you were trying to fit mismatched pieces together. "I get it, you know. When you’re searching for something that’s missing, it feels like nothing else fits until you find the exact piece."

His fingers tightened around the cup, tension settling into his shoulders before he brushed it with a soft scoff. "And what is it you think I’m looking for?"

You didn’t answer right away. Instead, you let the silence stretch, heavy with meaning. "I don’t know," you admitted, voice softer now, thoughtful. "But I know it’s important to you."

A muscle in his sharp jaw ticked, but his expression remained unreadable. "And if I was?"

Your lips twitched, something faint and unreadable in your gaze. "Then maybe you’re looking in the wrong place."

For a moment, he wasn’t sure if you were speaking about the research or something else entirely. But then your hand brushed against his again—deliberate this time. A quiet, wordless reminder that he didn’t have to look so hard for something that was already here.

And for the first time, he wondered if you were right, but the thought went away just as fast as it came.

“Sweetie, I think you are overthinking, in fact, I am just busy tinkering with Mephisto, seems like he’s been malfunctioning a lot these days,” He sighed wearily before continuing, “Maybe Luke and Kieran pulled a prank on him again after the last mission, some parts are a bit hard to come by.” That was what he told you in the end, his tone held a tint of finality to it. It was all lies, you knew, he knew, an attempt to deter you. You didn’t question him directly after that.

That was why, hours later, when the silver-haired man was out, you found yourself in your shared room, standing before the small, unassuming pouch tucked away deep in the drawer of your closet. You hesitated before reaching for it, fingers grazing the worn fabric, your breath coming slower, more measured.

You hadn’t touched it in years.

The protocores inside—shining fragments of something more dangerous than they appeared—were the last thing you ever wanted to see again. But now, after watching Sylus over the past few week, after seeing the way he moved through the city like he was searching for something invisible, you couldn’t ignore the creeping suspicion that perhaps this was what he was looking for.

You pulled the pouch open, the familiar hum of the cores vibrating against your palm. A chill crawled down your spine.

Your grandmother, no, the woman who had adopted you, Josephine, had given them to you. A legacy, she had called it. A curse, you had always believed. Because you knew what they could do. What they had done to your body and not only that.

Caleb.

You swallowed hard, pushing down the sick feeling curling in your stomach. Your childhood had been built on the wreckage of experiments thanks to Ever, of pain, of things no child should have known. Caleb had paid the price for that knowledge. And now, you had kept these, untouched, avoided them like they might reach out and pull you back into that nightmare.

But Sylus—your Sylus—had never cared for protocores. He had never needed them, never even mentioned them. And yet, the way he had been disappearing into his lab, the way his eyes darkened when he thought you weren’t looking…

What if he was looking for these?

What if he already knew they existed?

A new kind of dread settled deep in your chest, anxiety slowly creeping in. If he had been searching for something that shouldn’t be here, then maybe—just maybe—he wasn’t supposed to be here either.

The city stretched out below them, neon bleeding into the skyline, turning the air electric. But here—just outside the N109 Zone, where the roads weren’t quite as suffocating, where the world wasn’t watching—it was quiet.

The leader of Onychinus leaned against his bike, fingers drumming idly against the handlebars. The wind carried the scent of the sea, crisp and laced with salt, and for the first time in days, maybe weeks, he wasn’t thinking about what he had lost. What he was trying to return to.

Instead, he was here, with you, hoping that the place he was taking you to still existed even in this world.

"Didn’t think you’d actually take me up on this," he mused, tilting his head as he watched you swing a leg over the bike beside him.

You huffed, rolling your eyes but settling in behind him anyway, the heat of your body pressing into his back. "Well, I didn’t think you did joyrides."

His lips curled, half amusement, half something softer. "You underestimate me, sweetheart."

You couldn’t see his expression, but you could hear it in his voice—the edge of something warm, something almost teasing. And that was what made it strange, wasn’t it? Because this wasn’t the Sylus you had known before. He was different in a way you couldn’t quite grasp yet. There was something looser about him, like he had stepped outside of his own skin for just a moment, letting himself be without the weight of expectation pressing down on him.

His fingers curled around your hands as you settled them against his waist, steadying you against him. The touch was easy, natural. Like he had done this a thousand times before.

Maybe, in a way, he had.

The memory had come to him unbidden earlier that night—the sight of another road. Not here, but somewhere else, far, far away. Somewhere that didn’t exist in this world. You had been there, too. A different you, and yet… still you, laying on the grass bed of crimson datura flowers, splayed out like a goddess before a heartless monster like him.

He shook the though off with a squint of his eyes as he focused on other things at hand.

"Figured you deserved a break," he murmured, turning the engine over, the rumble of it cutting through the silence. "Could use one myself."

You raised a brow, shifting against him as the bike eased forward. "So what, you’re taking me out on a date now?"

A chuckle, dark and amused. "If I was, you’d know."

But maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly what this was.

The city faded behind them as he pushed the throttle forward, the roar of the engine filling the empty space between words. The wind bit at your skin, but you barely felt it, pressed close to him, feeling the steady rhythm of his breath beneath your cheek under the helmet. He rode like it was instinct, like the machine beneath him was just an extension of himself, weaving effortlessly through the empty roads, taking you somewhere only he knew.

It wasn’t until he slowed, rolling to a stop just off the side of the road, that you realized where he had brought you.

A cliffside view, the city lights flickering in the distance, the dark sea stretching endlessly before you both, its waves crashing against the wet stone. It was breathtaking. Quiet. Isolated in a way that made it feel like the rest of the world had melted away.

You exhaled, pulling off your helmet, staring out over the water. "You used to come here a lot, didn’t you?"

Sylus didn’t answer right away. He was still for a moment, gaze distant, unreadable. Then, finally, after a moment that stretched for far too long: "Yeah." There were no lies to his words.

You studied him, the way the neon glow caught the silver strands of his hair, how the tension in his broad shoulders had eased ever so slightly. "What for?"

He let out a soft breath, the kind that wasn’t quite a sigh. "Thinking."

You hummed, rocking on your heels slightly. "Dangerous habit."

That pulled a smirk from him, small but genuine. "Tell me about it."

The quiet stretched between you, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was easy, the way the silence settled, the way the wind played with your hair, the way his presence beside you didn’t feel overwhelming, just… solid. Something you could lean into without fearing it would crumble beneath you.

The red-eyed man shifted slightly, and then—before you could react—he shrugged off his leather jacket and draped it over your shoulders.

Your brows lifted. "Chivalry? From you? I must be dreaming."

He scoffed, rolling his eyes. "You’re shaking."

"Am not."

His lips curled, like he wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t argue. He just stepped closer, close enough that you could feel the warmth of him, even with the space between you. Close enough that if you reached out, you could...

You swallowed hard, looking away first.

"Thanks," you murmured. Were you allowed to kiss him? At this point in time, you didn't know.

He didn’t respond, but his gaze lingered, steady and knowing. And then, softly: "Resonate with me." The sound of his deep voice was nearly swallowed by the waves beneath the two of you, because if he was any further away from you, you wouldn’t have heard what he said.

The words sent a slow ripple of shock through you. Your fingers tightened around the jacket he had draped over your shoulders, your breath catching in your throat. Of all things, you hadn’t expected that.

"What?" Your voice was quieter, more than you meant for it to be, but the moment felt fragile, like one wrong move would send it slipping through your fingers.

His gaze didn’t waver. "Resonate with me," he repeated, voice smooth but deliberate. "You offered before, didn’t you?" He knew he was tapping too much into the memories of the person who had lived with her before he ever came here, yet he couldn’t help himself.

It was truth though, you had offered. But not like this. Not with this kind of weight behind it.

Because it had been him—the other him—who had never pushed for it before. And now, here he was, making the request instead, but for reasons you weren’t quite so sure you understood yet.

Your heartbeat hammered in your ears. If you resonated, if you let yourself open up to him—if he let you in—there would be no going back. If there was even a sliver of a difference, if something didn’t match, you would know. You would know for certain whether the man standing in front of you was truly the one you had always loved… or something else entirely.

But the look in his eyes was unreadable, and for the first time, you weren’t sure if he wanted you to say yes, or if he was afraid you might.

But you nodded, slowly, lifting your hands between you. Sylus watched, his expression carefully neutral, but you caught the faint twitch of his fingers at his sides, the way his breath came just a fraction too slow. He was anticipating something—bracing for it.

You exhaled and reached for him. “Palms up.”

He didn’t question the request.

The moment your palms pressed against his, something inside you clicked, as if a long-buried mechanism had finally been set in motion. A warmth—not just from your Evol, but something deeper, something old—coursed through your veins, latching onto him, pulling him closer without touch. You could feel him, the real him, beneath the layers of fractured memories and misplaced identity and confusion. For a split second, you swore you were looking into the eyes of the man you had loved before—before timelines fractured, before everything twisted beyond recognition.

And Sylus—this Sylus—felt it too.

His long fingers clenched around yours, breath hitching, as something shifted in his expression, his lips parting like he wanted to speak but couldn’t quite find the words. His energy tangled with yours, hesitant but hungry, threading through the connection like a hesitant echo, unsure if it was supposed to be there at all.

Your chest tightened. He didn’t pull away.

He should have. He always pulled away.

But this time, he didn’t, didn’t want to.

You didn’t speak. Neither of you did. You let the resonance settle between you, the familiarity of it both exhilarating and terrifying. You could feel his presence weaving through yours, wrapping around your bones, filling spaces that had been left empty for too long. And in that moment, you knew.

This wasn’t your Sylus.

But he carried your Sylus’s memories. He was being rewritten, piece by piece, attuning to you like he had been yours all along. And he didn’t even realize it in the way you did just now.

You swallowed hard and forced a smile, careful not to let your fingers tighten around his. He couldn’t know what you had just learned.

So you let the moment pass, let the resonance fade, and when he finally exhaled, something in his dark carmine gaze flickering uncertainly, you only tilted your head and offered a quiet, "See? Not so bad."

His lips twitched at that, something unreadable in his gaze as he tried to process his own emotions and yours too, to a degree. "You always this smug?"

You let yourself laugh, even as something inside you twisted with the weight of what you now knew. "You tell me."

And just like that, the moment was gone. But you wouldn’t forget. You couldn’t.

“You are unpredictable, at times.” His eyes were soft, crinkling at you, red hue chasing the warmth of your gaze.

“I suppose, you never complained though.” You scoffed playfully when all you wanted to do was push him into a hug, tell him you understood, understood him to the core, yet, you couldn’t.

“Perhaps I never did.” He murmured back, his eyes fleeting away from your face and over to the neon-painted horizon.

Just like any day of the week, the city stretched endlessly below, a sea of neon and shadow, humming with a life that neither of you could quite touch from up here. The penthouse balcony felt like another world entirely—isolated, removed, too quiet despite the distant hum of traffic and the occasional siren wailing through the depths of the N109 zone.

The leader of Onychinus stood near the railing, hands braced against the cool metal, shoulders tense beneath the weight of his thoughts. Another night, another failure. The protocores didn’t exist here, not in the way he needed them to. Another dead end as his experiment at creating one failed spectacularly. He needed something, anything to resonate with, to try and recreate the feeling he had felt back then when a version of you shot him back in his old reality.

He was tired of thinking, unsure of why he even wanted to go back—however, he felt like he was stealing someone else's life, their moments, their memories. His imposter syndrome was getting worse by the day, he just got better at stuffing it down and pretending to ignore it until late into the night when you slept soundly next to him and his eyes stayed wide open.

// You're the best thing to ever happen to me

But also the worst thing to ever happen to me

On that day when I met you, maybe I would rather

That it never happened to me (To me)

The worst of all blessings

The best of all cursеs //

You stepped up beside him, close enough to feel the frustration rolling off him in waves, but you didn’t say anything at first. You just reached for the bottle he had set down on the ledge, taking a slow sip before setting it back down between you.

He scoffed, but it wasn’t sharp. More like a breath of amusement he hadn’t meant to let slip as he looked over his shoulder. "Didn’t take you for a whiskey thief."

"Didn’t take you for someone who’d let a bad mood ruin a perfectly good night," you shot back, bumping your hip lightly against his as you shrugged in a way that was far too casual.

He exhaled, shaking his head, but didn’t pull away. His grip tightened against the railing, tension coiled tight beneath his skin. "It’s not a bad mood. Just—"

"Frustration? Exhaustion? Stubbornness?" You listed off each word with a teasing lilt, watching the faint flicker of something softer pass through his expression. "You really think brooding’s going to get you any closer to what you’re looking for?" Here it was again, your subtle questioning that he wasn’t sure he was ready to begin dealing with.

"And you think dancing will?" His voice was flat, unimpressed, but the flicker of a smirk gave him away. You saw it even in the dim glow of the city lights reflecting off his pale skin.

You grinned, stepping back toward the open space of the large balcony, arms outstretched as you swayed slightly. "It might not get you answers, but it might remind you why you’re still here." Your words sounded almost cryptic to him, but at this point, he was too tired to keep track of every word you spoke. This version of you seemed like both a prophet and a walking riddle, unfortunately to him.

His carmine gaze followed you, something unreadable in the way he looked at you then. Cautious, hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure he was allowed to step into whatever this was. But when you reached for his hand, palm up, waiting... he took it, automatically.

The first step was slow, uncertain, like he had forgotten how to move without a purpose despite being a great dancer. But for the first time ever, it was you who led, guiding him effortlessly, the rhythm slow, the tension melting from his body as the weight of everything else faded into the background. The air between you was warm, charged, something unspoken weaving between each movement as your fingers stayed entwined with his, his other hand settling at your waist like it had always belonged there, the warmth of his palm seeping into your shirt.

You laughed, attempting to spin him around as he gave you an effortless smirk back and a shake of his head before he turned the tables on you and had your body inches away from the floor, your faces close together. You looked beautiful, a flushed mess, strands of hair sticking to your face, and hell, he knew it was an image he’d remember for a long time, because this was an expression, and experience you gave to him voluntarily like it was charity.

The music was distant—something playing from inside the penthouse, soft and melancholic, a tune that felt both familiar and foreign all at once. You swayed together, the city watching from below, his breath warm against your temple when he exhaled slowly, finally giving in to the moment.

"You’re ridiculous," he muttered, voice lower now, something closer to fondness threading through the exasperation.

"And you’re a liar," you murmured back, tilting your head slightly, your nose barely brushing against his jaw as you moved. "You like this." You murmured.

His fingers flexed against your back. He didn’t deny it.

// I should stray away from you

But as the saying goes

"Bettеr than alone, is to be in bad company" //

The movements slowed, a lingering pause between each step, until there was no rhythm left—only the quiet press of your bodies against each other, the weight of his palm against your spine as you both swayed gently back and forth. His breath came slow, measured, as if he was waiting for something. As if he was waiting for you.

Your fingers trailed up, brushing along his jaw before settling at the back of his neck, your thumb tracing small, absentminded circles against his skin. His red eyes flickered down, gaze lingering on your soft lips for just a second too long, before he let out a breath—one that almost sounded like surrender.

And then he kissed you.

It wasn’t rushed, wasn’t desperate, but it held something deeper, something that had been simmering beneath the surface for far too long, for the last few months he had spent here, really. He kissed you like he was grounding himself in you, like you were the only real thing left in a world full of uncertainty. His fingers tightened against you, pulling you closer, as if he wasn’t ready to let go just yet.

And maybe, just for tonight, neither of you had to.

But it wasn’t enough, for a greedy dragon like him, nothing was ever enough, and yet you knew, encouraged it even, because he was your dragon, no matter the timeline, no matter what came between the two of you.

Sylus’s hands moved before he could stop them, tracing up your spine, anchoring you closer as his lips deepened against yours, his tongue brushing softly against your bottom lip in a silent plea for more. The weight of his past, of his guilt, of the knowledge that you weren’t his but still knew him, pressed down on him like a vice. He needed this—needed you. Because for once, Sylus felt understood, accepted to his core and you didn’t even have to make it verbal.

// You know what they say

Stay close to your dearest friends

But also

Even closer to your adversaries //

This version of you was all he ever wanted, and it felt unfair, unfair that he ended up here this way and you weren’t his from the very beginning. No, instead you moaned, allowing his tongue into your mouth like it always belonged there, your tiny hand pulling on his hair to have him lean more into you, his weight pressing you against the railing.

He broke the kiss only to pull in a breath, his forehead resting against yours, his voice barely above a whisper. "Please, tell me to stop, y/n." The lights of the city flickered in his sharp yet soft eyes and you shook your head, as if disapproving of such request to begin with.

You didn’t. Instead, your fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, tugging him forward until the tall man stumbled slightly, his grip tightening on your waist. The warmth of you burned against him, grounding him in ways he couldn’t explain. He was unraveling, and you were pulling him apart thread by thread, but he didn’t want you to stop, he was hypnotized, no, bewitched by you.

Your lips found his again, slow and deliberate, and something in him cracked. He let himself have this. Just this.

You gasped softly when he shifted, hands sliding beneath your thighs, slightly under your shorts as he lifted you effortlessly. A quiet laugh left you as your back hit the doorframe of the sliding door, his large hot body pressing flush against yours, his mouth finding the pulse at your throat, lingering there like he could memorize the rhythm.

The world outside didn’t matter. His search for the protocores, the fractures between realities, the inevitable moment when he’d have to leave you behind—none of it mattered when you both started bleeding into one, making good use of the curse you’d put on him once upon a time.

Not when you were here, warm and willing, whispering his name like he was something worth holding onto.

Perhaps from the very beginning, you were both his key back and his demise all wrapped up in one. It was like you were a tiny, dangerous package, waiting to be unraveled by his own calloused and tired hands. For now, he was still far away from unraveling the entire truth, but you both knew it was inevitable. All it took was a kiss for your mind to come to a conclusion, that regardless of the result, you would help him, help him go back if he wished to do so. Still, you couldn’t help but think it was bittersweet, you were finally getting what you wanted but the cost was far too much, and you refused to think how long it would later take you to recover from this bond that you both gave into. His gaze was set on you, soft, deep, and all yours, you almost couldn’t bear it.

// But my best enemy is you

Flee from me, the worst is you and I

But if you keep searching for my voice

Forget me, the worst is you and I //

He carried you inside, into the dim light of your shared room, the door sliding shut behind him as your hands tangled in his snowy-white hair, pulling him closer like you were afraid he’d let go.

And for the first time in a long, long time, Sylus let himself believe that he belonged somewhere, that perhaps even a monster like him was worthy of his beloved’s touch.

His hands mapped the curves of your body with reverence, but there was nothing chaste about the way he touched you. He was greedy—fuck, he was always greedy when it came to you. His lips never strayed far from yours, dragging slow, wet kisses down your throat, nipping at your skin just to hear you gasp. He wanted to ruin you, wanted you to come apart under his hands, but fuck, he needed to take his time, too.

You whispered his name, breathless, and he groaned in response, grinding against you with a quiet, desperate noise that only came from years of suppresing one's self desires. He wanted this to be slow, to be soft, but he wanted you more. His fingers curled into the fabric at your hips, gripping tight, like he was barely holding himself together.

The bed dipped beneath you as he laid you down, hovering above you as if he were afraid you’d disappear if he blinked. His lips traced the edge of your soft jaw, your deep collarbone, but it wasn’t enough. He needed more.

"You're mine," he muttered, but it wasn’t a claim—it was a fucking plea. A confession. A desperate, broken thing that he offered you in hopes of acceptance he didn’t need to fight for in the first place.

You pulled him down, fingers tangling at the nape of his neck, guiding him back to your lips. "I always have been." It was a fact, a statement to calm him down, and perhaps yourself too.

And when he kissed you again, it was deeper, hungrier, like he was trying to drown in you.

// I had told you, not to keep looking behind

Your past will follow you and wage war on you //

His mouth left a trail of warmth down your skin, kissing, sucking, marking. As much as he hated himself and perhaps even this entire situation of him ending up here, he wanted to fucking brand himself into you, make sure you’d never forget this, never forget him. His hands slid lower, fingertips teasing at your thighs before parting them, spreading you open for him, eyes dark and wild with need. He slid your shorts down with ease, your soaked panties coming into view.

"Sweetie, look at you," he muttered, voice wrecked as he dragged his knuckles up the inside of your thigh, feeling the way you trembled for him. "So pretty. So fucking perfect."

Your breath hitched, hips arching instinctively when his fingers finally dipped between your legs, long fingers pushing the flimsy fabric aside. He groaned at the wetness he found there, jaw tightening as he slid his fingers through your slit slow, teasing, drawing soft, shuddering gasps from your lips.

"Let me," he whispered, but he wasn’t really asking. His fingers pressed deeper, curling just right, and you moaned, your hands flying to his muscled arms, nails digging into the solid warmth of him. He felt you, squeezing around him, already so sensitive, so eager, and it was fucking perfect.

Your hands moved instinctively, reaching for him, sliding over the hard planes of his back, feeling every muscle tense beneath your fingertips. You traced his spine, his shoulders, memorizing the way he shuddered when your lips found his throat, tasting the salt of his skin, sucking bruises into him because you needed to mark your dragon too, just the way he marked and bit you all those years ago.

He was unraveling, piece by piece, and yet he didn’t want to stop. Didn’t want to pull away from the warmth of your body, the soft sounds you made just for him, the way your fingers clutched at him like he was something worth keeping.

"Sylus," you gasped, his name falling from your lips like a prayer in ways that had nothing to do with religion, and that’s when he fucking lost it. His fingers tightened against you, two long digits fucking into you with aching reverence, his forehead pressing against yours as he watched you come undone, as he felt you lose yourself against his hand when his palm brushed your clit.

"That’s it, love," he whispered, his voice wrecked, full of nothing but you. "That’s my good girl. Come for me, show me your face when you do, please," He rasped in a plea, looking like he needed this more than you.

And when you shattered against him, trembling, moaning, desperate—he caught you, held you through it, whispering your name against your lips like a vow he would never break.

Like a man who had finally found home.

But you weren’t done.

Your fingers traced down his chest, slow, deliberate, feeling the way his muscles tensed beneath your touch as you unbuttoned his shirt properly. His breathing was uneven, ragged, his body still wound tight with restraint. He wanted you—fuck, he needed you—but he hadn’t let himself take yet. Hadn’t let himself have.

"Let me touch you," you whispered, pressing soft kisses against his jaw, down the column of his throat, feeling the way he shuddered under your lips. "Let me make you feel good too."

His hands twitched at his sides, fighting against the instinct to take control, to flip you beneath him, to make you his in the way he so desperately wanted. But your fingers, soft yet firm, trailed lower, undoing his belt with an ease and familiarity that sent heat flooding through his veins.

"Y/n," he warned, voice hoarse, but you only smiled, pressing your palm against him through his clothes, feeling how fucking hard he was for you.

"No buts, no ifs," you murmured, your fingers slipping beneath the waistband, wrapping around him, hot and heavy in your grasp. "I want this too. I want you too."

His head tipped back against the pillow, a guttural groan ripping from his throat as you stroked him, slow, teasing, savoring the way he twitched in your hand. His breath stuttered, fingers gripping at the sheets, trying—failing—to keep himself together as you touched him with the same aching reverence he had given you.

"Fuck," he hissed through clenched teeth, his hips jerking slightly as you tightened your grip, finding a rhythm that had him near unraveling, breaking apart beneath you.

And as his desperate moans filled the space between you, you knew—you’d never let him forget how much you wanted him too.

And hell, you weren’t finished yet.

Your fingers left his cock only long enough to pull your flimsy top over your head, baring yourself to him, watching the way his eyes darkened, the way his lips parted in something close to awe as your naked chest came into view. You reached for his shirt next, pushing it down his shoulders, revealing more of the hard, scarred planes of his body beneath your touch.

His breath hitched as you climbed onto his lap, straddling him, pressing your bare skin flush against his. His hands found your waist, gripping tight, as if grounding himself, as if this was something he needed to commit to memory.

"You drive me fucking insane," he murmured, voice rough, strained, his fingers flexing against your hips as you rocked against him, teasing, deliberate, slit dipping into the form of his cock like a mould.

You leaned in, lips brushing against his ear, your breath warm against his skin. "Then let me ruin you, properly."

A shudder ran through him, his grip tightening as if he needed to anchor himself to reality—to you. His lips found your chest, slow, reverent, tracing open-mouthed kisses down the curve of your collarbone, lower, lower, until his tongue flicked against the peak of your soft breast. You gasped, your fingers sinking into his hair, holding him there as he worshipped you with his mouth, his hands, murmuring words against your skin that you could barely make out—something about how perfect you were, how he would never get enough of you.

You arched into his touch, desperate for more, for everything, your fingers trailing down his abdomen, tracing the tense muscles there before reaching between you, finding him, hard and leaking against your palm.

"Please," you whispered, breathless, need curling through your voice, arousal thickening the tone, deep, carnal, animalistic. "I need you inside me."

A strangled noise escaped him as he pulled back just enough to look at you, his pupils blown wide, his breathing uneven. "You sure?" But the way he said it, the way he swallowed hard, like he was holding himself back, you knew he needed it just as much—if not more. Yet, he was guilty, guilty of asking for more than he already had received.

You nodded, guiding him to where you needed him most, the anticipation sending a sharp thrill up your spine. His hands trembled against your waist, and when he finally pushed inside, slow, careful, savoring the stretch, a moan tore from both of you, breath tangling as you held onto each other like this was the only thing keeping you tethered to this plane of existence.

He cursed under his breath, gripping your hips like he wasn’t sure if he could control himself, pulling you flush against him as he set a slow, deep rhythm, dragging pleasure through every inch of you as he moved from below. Every thrust sent heat curling in your gut, the friction perfect, devastating. You gasped, nails digging into his biceps, feeling the muscles tense beneath your touch, his breath ragged against your lips as he fought to keep it together.

But it wasn’t just about the pleasure. It was about this—the way he looked at you like you were the only thing grounding him, like he needed you more than air itself. It was about the way he whispered your name like a prayer, the way he kissed you between gasps, desperate and searching.

"You feel so good," he groaned, voice rough, reverent, like he wanted to worship every part of you. "So fucking perfect, I love you—" the words slipped out before he could even stop them, the emotions between the two of you proving too much.

You whimpered in response, meeting his thrusts, chasing the sensation building between you, chasing him. The way his body slotted against yours, the way he shuddered when you clenched around him—it was intoxicating, overwhelming. “Love you too, my dragon.”

His forehead pressed against yours, sweat slick on both your skin, messy strands of snowy hair in his face, his movements turning erratic as he felt you tightening, trembling beneath him. His grip on you tightened, his pace faltering as he gasped your name like a plea. "I can’t—fuck, I’m gonna—"

"M-me too," you breathed, gripping his face, kissing him hard, letting yourself fall apart with him.

The pleasure crested in a wave so intense it stole your breath, your entire body trembling as you clenched around him, pulling him over the edge with you, white noise ringing in your ears. He groaned against your mouth, burying himself deep, hips stuttering as he spilled inside you, hands shaking as he held you close like he never wanted to let go.

Silence filled the space between you, save for the soft, uneven breaths you shared. His arms tightened around you, his lips pressing against your forehead, your cheek, anywhere he could reach.

"You okay?" His voice was hoarse, but his touch was impossibly soft, fingertips tracing idle patterns along your skin.

You leaned down, smiling against his shoulder, pressing a lazy kiss to his jaw. "More than okay."

He let out a breathy laugh, rolling onto his side and pulling you with him, keeping you tangled in his arms like he wasn’t ready to lose the warmth of you just yet. He kissed your temple, your shoulder, his touch slow, absentminded, like he was memorizing every inch of you all over again.

Neither of you spoke for a long moment, content in the quiet, in the soft hum of each other’s presence. His fingers brushed through your hair, massaging your scalp, grounding himself in the weight of you pressed against him.

"I needed this," he admitted, voice barely above a whisper, almost like he wasn’t sure he had the right to say it.

You curled closer, pressing a soft kiss over his heart. "I know."

A beat of silence stretched between you, but it wasn’t heavy. It was warm, something unspoken settling in the space where words should have been. Your fingers traced idle shapes against his skin, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath your palm.

"I don’t care where you came from," you murmured eventually, your voice barely above a whisper. "I don’t care if you’re not exactly him—because you are. You carry his memories, his feelings, his burdens. You’re my dragon, no matter what."

Sylus stiffened slightly, his breath catching, but he didn’t pull away. If anything, his grip on you tightened, his fingers pressing into your back like he needed to hold onto you, needed to be sure you were real.

"You knew," he breathed, something unreadable in his voice. It wasn’t a question. It was realization, settling into him like an inevitability.

You nodded against his chest. "I had my suspicions, and resonating confirmed them. The way you looked at me, the way you reacted when I called you that name… and then your search… for protocores, I assume? I don’t really know what they do, not exactly, but I know they must be important. And you aren’t looking for something impossible, are you? You are looking for a way back."

His breath hitched slightly, his fingers pausing in their slow movements against your back. You could feel the weight of it, the hesitation, the way he was still balancing between trusting you and protecting you from the truth.

"Tell me," you murmured, tracing your fingers gently along his jawline. "What really happened? How did you end up here?"

He sighed, the sound heavy, resigned. "It was the shot," he admitted finally. "Our, no hers and mine Aether cores… they reacted. I shouldn’t have survived it, not like that. But instead of dying, I woke up here. And it’s all the same but not. It’s wrong, and it’s—"

"Different," you finished for him, tilting your head to search his gaze. "But not entirely, right? Because I’m still here. And maybe that means I can help."

Sylus studied you for a long moment, something unreadable flickering in his expression. You could see the internal war he was fighting—the instinct to bear the weight alone versus the quiet, desperate longing to let you carry some of it with him.

You reached up, brushing your fingers over his cheek, cupping his face in your palm. "I might not understand everything, but my Evol… it’s tied to resonance, to connection. And those protocores—I’ve had them since I was young. Maybe together, we can figure this out. But only if you let me, allow me in."

His throat bobbed, his arms tightening around you as he traced the fractures of your life with the same aching recognition he had carried in his own. Even in this world, you hadn’t been spared from the weight of what had been done to you. Different choices, different faces, but the same pain, lingering beneath your skin like an old wound that never fully healed. His fingers curled slightly against your back, gripping you like a tether. "You really want to get involved in this mess?"

You gave a small, breathy laugh, nudging your nose against his. "I think I already am."

For the first time, something in his shoulders eased, though not entirely. His lips brushed against your temple, a quiet, unspoken surrender, his breath warm against your skin, his presence grounding. He let himself have this, just for a moment longer than he should. Just until the moment shattered.

"Alright," he murmured. "Then let’s start in the lab. Later, in a few days." The words felt like a delay, an excuse to hold onto this a little longer, because the more time he spent with you, the more he feared what it would mean when he finally had to leave. He was falling—already had fallen—for this version of you completely. A dangerous, selfish thing to do, because one day, one way or another, this was going to end, just like all good things in his life.

"Okay." You breathed the word out, the syllable melting into the warmth of the space between you, skin against skin as you inhaled his presence, his hesitation, his unspoken struggle.

A moment passed, his fingers tracing lazy circles against the plane of your shoulder, his other hand resting low on your waist, as if grounding himself in the quiet of your heartbeat. Then, finally, he spoke, the question slipping out in a voice barely above a whisper. "Was it hard?"

You blinked, tilting your head slightly to look up at him. "What?"

"Knowing that the me from this world didn’t remember you the way you remembered him?" There was something guarded in his voice, a careful attempt at detachment that didn’t quite hold.

You exhaled slowly, letting the weight of the question settle between you. "It was," you admitted. "But I never pushed him to. Because I knew I couldn’t force him to be something he wasn’t, or well, didn’t want to be."

His grip on you tightened slightly. "I went through the same thing. Just… in reverse."

You pulled back just enough to meet his gaze, eyes searching his, soft but steady. "Then you know why I never gave up on him, on you."

His expression shifted—something unreadable flickering behind his eyes. He had spent so much time trying to be the version of himself that you deserved, to fill the space left behind by another man, another life. But here, now, with you pressed against him, with the quiet weight of the past and present tangled between your fingers, he wasn’t sure it mattered anymore.

You had never asked him to be anyone but himself.

And yet, somehow, it still didn’t feel like enough. Not when he carried memories that weren’t truly his, not when he was slipping into another man’s place with terrifying ease. He wasn’t supposed to belong here. And yet, with you looking at him like this, with all the warmth and knowing in your eyes, it was hard to remember why he should leave at all.

He swallowed hard, his fingers brushing over the curve of your cheek, hesitant, like he wasn’t sure he had the right to touch you this way. "You know, if you were also an art piece, then whoever created you must have loved you dearly."

The words came unbidden, slipping past his lips before he could stop them. He realized it too late.

Your breath hitched, your fingers tightening ever so slightly where they rested against his chest. You knew those words. You knew them.

His pulse stuttered beneath your touch, and for a moment, neither of you moved. Your lips parted, but whatever you were about to say faltered before it could form.

Because this wasn’t something the Sylus of this world had ever said to you.

It was something else. Older. Something tangled in the past you had spent lifetimes trying to understand.

A memory wrapped in myth, woven into the very essence of your existence. It was a phrase that had echoed through time, through lifetimes, a truth neither of you had fully grasped until now. Because you were the one who cursed him to always find you.

"Sylus…" Your voice was barely above a whisper, something raw laced into the way you spoke his name.

His throat worked around a swallow, but he didn’t let go. Didn’t move away. Instead, he leaned in, pressing his forehead to yours, letting the silence stretch between you, letting it settle.

He wasn’t supposed to stay.

But you weren’t supposed to recognize him either.

And yet, you did. Because no matter what world you were in, what life you lived, he had always been yours. And now, in the quiet of your shared breaths, you both had to reckon with what that meant.

You ran your fingers through his messy hair, feeling the way he shuddered under your touch, how his breath hitched as you traced along his jaw, memorizing the lines of his face like you had a thousand times before. This version of him, the one who knew too much and yet not enough, the one who carried another’s memories but still looked at you like you were the only thing tethering him to this world—this was your Sylus, too. And you weren’t going to let him forget that.

"Take me again," you murmured, voice softer this time, reverent, like an invocation. "After all, you are my magnum opus, too."

His breath left him in a slow, shaky exhale before he surged forward, kissing you like his life depended on it, like you were the only real thing left in his unraveling world. His lips were urgent, desperate, but beneath it, there was something softer, something aching—a quiet kind of devotion buried beneath the hunger.

Your Evol surged between you, wrapping around him like a second skin, slipping into his body, his bones, his very soul. He groaned at the sensation, his grip tightening, his hands pressing into your skin like he was afraid you’d slip through his fingers if he let go. He wasn’t just touching you—he was feeling you in a way he never had before, deeper, like every thread of your being was merging with his.

His lips trailed down your neck, over your collarbone, pressing kisses that felt like prayers whispered into the moonless night. He breathed your name between them, voice hoarse, full of something raw, something unspoken. "I don’t know how to stop wanting you."

"Then don’t, not until you will have to stop because there will be no other choice," you whispered back, and for once, he listened.

// You told me I would never see you walk away

Said you'd never break my heart

Never leave me in the dark

I guess there's just some promises you shouldn't make

Should've known from the start //

The days passed in a haze of quiet moments and endless work. The lab became a space of flickering lights, glowing protocores, and the hum of equations muttered under breath. Sylus had spent hours testing, recalibrating, adjusting parameters, his mind consumed by the impossibility of what he was trying to achieve. But he wasn’t doing it alone.

You were there, beside him, sleeves rolled up, eyes alight with concentration as you fed your Evol into the protocores, trying to get them to react. You asked questions, challenged his theories, made him consider angles he hadn’t before. And despite the weight of his purpose, despite the growing dread of what success would mean, he found himself happy.

It wasn’t loud, wasn’t a rush of euphoria—it was quieter than that. The kind of happiness that settled into his bones, that made him feel like, for the first time in forever, he wasn’t just clawing toward something impossible. He was here, with you. Creating something together.

He watched you, the way you chewed your lip in concentration, the way your fingers flickered with Evol’s glow, and something inside him ached—not in the way it usually did, not with grief or longing, but with something warmer.

He wanted to leave a mark on you, something more than just marks on your body that would blur back into your skin with time.

Not like this. Not like a memory that would fade the moment he disappeared from this world. No, he wanted something real. Something tangible.

So he worked through the night, after you had fallen asleep curled up in the corner of the lab, exhausted but refusing to leave his side. He pieced it together with careful hands, refining every detail, ensuring it was perfect.

By the time you woke, from what presumably wasn’t a very comfortable nap, blinking blearily against the dim light of the lab, he was waiting for you, something small and glinting in his palm.

"What’s that?" you murmured, voice thick with sleep.

The man smirked, but it was softer than usual, less cocky, more... something else. "A gift."

You sat up slowly, rubbing at your eyes before focusing on the small object in his hand. "For me?"

"Who else?" He rolled it between his fingers, and as the light hit it just right, you could see it—a necklace, the pendant intricate yet simple, shaped like something familiar. A dragon, curled protectively around a small, shimmering core, its tail looping around to form the delicate chain that would rest against your skin.

You stared at it, breath catching in your throat.

"Sylus…"

He didn’t meet your eyes immediately, instead focusing on the way the light caught on the edges of the pendant. At the back of the small dragon’s body, barely noticeable unless you looked closely, was an engraving—your name, alongside a phrase in a language almost lost to time. Magnum opus. The words were carved with meticulous precision, as if each letter had been pressed into existence with intent. "It’s not much," he muttered, voice lower than usual. "But I thought… if I leave, I don’t want you to forget. And I wanted something of mine to stay with you, even if I can’t."

Your fingers brushed over the pendant, tracing its curves, before reaching for his hand instead. "Like I ever could."

For once, he didn’t have a smirk or a teasing remark ready. He just looked at you, something vulnerable flashing behind his eyes before he pressed the pendant into your palm, curling your fingers around it like a silent promise.

// Reach out and show a little loving

Shine a little light on me

Show a little loving

Shine a little light on me //

After a moment, his fingers lingered at the chain. "Let me?" His voice was softer now, almost hesitant.

You nodded, and he shifted closer, taking the necklace from your hands with deliberate care. His fingers brushed against your skin as he gathered your hair, draping the chain around your neck, the metal cool against your collarbone. The clasp clicked into place with a quiet finality, and he let his hands settle lightly on your shoulders, his thumbs skimming the curve where your neck met your shoulder.

His gaze dropped to the pendant resting against your chest, something unreadable in his expression. "Looks good on you," he murmured, almost like he was speaking to himself.

You swallowed, pressing your fingers over the pendant. "It’s beautiful, you know."

Sylus let out a quiet exhale, his hands falling away reluctantly. "You’ll keep it on?"

You met his eyes, something warm and unwavering in your voice. "Always, after all it’s a gift from my dragon."

For a moment, he just looked at you, the weight of something unspoken passing between you. Then, with a slow nod, he leaned back, watching the way the pendant caught the light, like he wanted to commit the sight to memory.

The days bled into weeks, and the lab became their second home inside their home. The protocores you gave lined the tables, some glowing faintly, others scattered in varying states of disassembly. Wires snaked across the metal workstations, and the air smelled of burnt circuits, metal, and the faint energy hum of active Evol. It was methodical, precise work—calculations laid out in notebooks, equations scribbled on glass panels, the sound of quiet murmurs filling the space between them.

"If we adjust the frequency output here—" you gestured toward a set of figures on the screen, brow furrowed in concentration. "It might stabilize long enough to sustain a full transfer when I use my Evol."

Sylus leaned back, exhaling, his gaze flickering between you and the numbers. "Theoretically, sure. But the problem isn’t just maintaining the flow—it’s how the protocores respond to prolonged exposure."

You rolled your eyes, crossing your arms. "That’s the same argument we had two days ago. We already ran the last test at max output, and it held. The issue isn’t the flow. It’s the integration."

He huffed out a quiet laugh, shaking his head as he adjusted a dial on the worktable, watching the way the energy flickered beneath the surface of the half-built device. "You sound like me."

"That’s because I’m right."

He glanced up at you then, something amused—something fond—in his expression before he returned his attention to the mechanism between you. The metal casing was nearly finished, the internal structuring laid out in careful detail. It looked crude, unfinished, but Sylus could see it—the shape of something real, something functional—coming together in front of him.

"We’ll need a power source capable of stabilizing the fluctuations," he muttered, mostly to himself. "Something more stable than raw Evol."

Your fingers tapped against the edge of the table. "Would a secondary protocore work? One embedded into the structure itself?"

He considered that, rubbing a hand over his jaw. "Might. But that’s a risk in itself. If it fractures under pressure—"

"Then we’d both be in trouble," you finished for him, sighing. "I know. But if we can’t sustain the shift long enough for a proper transfer, then what’s the point?"

Sylus went silent, gaze fixed on the unfinished device as his mind ran through every possible failure point, every risk, every outcome. And then, finally, he exhaled, rolling his shoulders back.

"We do it."

You blinked, momentarily thrown by how easily he agreed. "Just like that? You think your consciousness will seperate from the body just like that?"

A ghost of a smirk played at his lips. "You’re the one who said you were right."

You let out a soft laugh, but it didn’t reach your eyes. He saw it—the way you smiled just a little too quickly, the way your hands lingered over the project like you weren’t ready to let go. Like if you just kept working, you wouldn’t have to think about what finishing this meant.

You weren’t the only one pretending.

Neither of you said it. Neither of you acknowledged what came next. Instead, you both turned back to the device, hands moving in tandem, finalizing the last connections, watching as the energy flickered and pulsed in a steady, rhythmic glow.

It was done.

"Will it work?"

A tired breath.

"I don't know, but this seems final."

// My body's on the line now I can't fight this time now I can feel the light shine on my face Did I disappoint you? Will they still let me over If I cross the line? //

The next few days passed in a quiet limbo. Neither of you spoke about what came next. The equations checked out. The device was ready. The chance of failure was small—too small. But you hoped, in some selfish, desperate way, that it wasn’t small enough. That something, somehow, would keep him here.

Sylus didn’t push to activate it right away. He let the days stretch, let the minutes and hours melt into something softer, something that neither of you acknowledged for what it was. An ending.

You spent those days tangled in quiet conversations, in stolen glances, in the way his hands lingered a little longer when he passed you a tool in the lab. In the way he pressed a kiss to your temple when he thought you were half-asleep after sex that left you both yearning. In the weight of his arm slung across your waist as if he could anchor himself to you.

Neither of you rushed.

Neither of you dared to say goodbye.

Because the moment you activated that device, one of you was going to disappear from each other's lives, forever.

// Take a seat But I'd rather you not be here for What could be my final form Stay your pretty eyes on course Keep the memories of who I was before So stay with me because //

The lab was too quiet. The hum of energy from the device filled the space, pressing against your skin, against your ribs, against the unspoken words lingering between you. The Protocore pulsed steadily, waiting.

"You're sure about this?" your voice was steady, but the slight tremor in your fingers as they hovered over the Protocore betrayed you.

Sylus exhaled, his gaze flickering to you before settling back on the mechanism. "No. But we’re out of options."

Your Evol shimmered at your fingertips, stabilizing the energy field surrounding the device. It crackled, resisting at first, but you pushed past the tension, guiding the flow into something controlled, something manageable.

"If I hold the frequency stable, it should buy you enough time to separate cleanly," you murmured, adjusting your stance as a pulse of energy pushed against you.

"Should," Sylus repeated dryly. He glanced at you then, something in his expression unreadable. "You always did have a habit of gambling with the odds."

You swallowed. "I’d rather gamble than have you miserable, if you are inclined to go back, then just do it." Something in you almost snapped, all that tension contained in your small body.

A muscle in his jaw twitched, but he didn’t argue. He only nodded, stepping forward, fingers flexing at his sides, his carmine gaze locked onto the mechanism as though daring it to prove him wrong. A sharp breath. A flicker of hesitation.

Then, he reached for the switch.

Time buckled.

The air around you warped, bending in on itself, light fracturing into something unfamiliar. A deep, guttural hum reverberated through the lab, the walls trembling with the weight of it. Space twisted, folding inward, a tear forming in reality itself.

A strangled gasp tore from Sylus’s throat, his body shuddering as his form split—not in two, but into something neither of you understood. His skin shimmered, his edges blurred, the weight of existence pressing down on him. He looked different—his silver hair shorter at the nape, his carmine eyes clouded with something beyond exhaustion, his entire presence thinner, like he was being stretched too far, pulled in a direction he could never return from.

The sight made your stomach drop.

"Sylus?" Your voice cracked, Evol sparking wildly at your fingertips. The connection between you flickered like a dying star. "No, no, no, hold on!"

His body flickered again. The Protocore pulsed brighter, its hum turning into something shrill, something piercing. He was unraveling before you, a white ringing noise in your ears.

"Don’t—" His, now panicked, voice faltered as his eyes locked onto yours, his hand lifting but never quite reaching you. "You have to let me go."

Your Evol reacted, spiraling out of control as you reached for him as you lost the control over your own emotions, raw energy crackling between your fingertips. You didn’t think—you just acted, instinct overriding logic as you tried to grasp onto something of him, anything, as if sheer will could keep him here.

For a fleeting moment, your hands touched. Just barely. His fingers ghosted over your skin, the sensation featherlight, ephemeral, not enough.

Tears burned in your eyes. "Please—" It wasn’t fair. It was never fair. Yet faced with the consequences of your actions and seflnessnes you couldn’t help but want to be selfish, for once in your life.

His lips parted, something on the edge of his tongue, he mouthed the words at you because he felt like the actual sound wouldn’t reach you.

I love you.

// Honestly I thought I was fully prepared for The threshold in store Stay your pretty eyes on course I guess I never really faced my fears before So stay with me because //

A wrenching sensation tore through the lab. A surge of light, a ripple of pressure that made your ears ring, your body burn with the force of it as the lights went out and some light bulbs tore apart, small glass shards raining over the equipment. The impact of it all sent you staggering back, your vision blurring, a scream tearing from your throat as you felt the world snap back into place.

The Protocore burst into a violent pulse before it shattered, shimmery dust sparkling in the now still air of the lab before silence engulfed you.

A dead, aching silence that pressed against your aching skull like thousands of needles, suffocating, crushing as you fell to your knees, trying to come to terms of what you’ve done just now.

You barely registered the movement on the floor behind you until a sharp, gasping breath broke through the quiet.

Sylus—your Sylus—gasped awake, fingers clawing at the ground as he sucked in deep, ragged breaths. His body jerked, muscles spasming as though something had just ripped him back into existence.

He blinked, unfocused, disoriented. "What—"

But you were still staring at the empty space where he had been, hands trembling, heart hammering wildly as you tried to stop the hiccups. You couldn't remember the last time you had a panic attack this bad, your entire body shaking, as if reaching for something that didn't exist anymore, a comfort that only belonged in your memory.

He was gone.

And this Sylus, your Sylus, didn’t even know why you were crying.

// My body's on the line now Pull the blanket tight now I can feel the light shine on my face Did I disappoint you? Will they still let me over If I cross the line? //

The sensation was a shock to the system—his lungs burned, his body ached, and for a moment, he wasn’t entirely sure he had made it back at all. The shift between two separate timelines had been seamless, cruel, even. One breath, he was watching the tear in time consume him; the next, he was exactly back where he had left, forced to stay almost at the exact second it had all gone wrong.

Memories worth of months trickled into his subconscious all within a few seconds, forcing him to relive all of that, yet making him stay here as if he never left to begin with.

The weight of a body straddled his lap, grounding him in something real, something tangible. The warmth of you, the way your thighs braced against him, the scent of gunpowder thick in the air, your hands hovering over the wound in his chest. A wound that, for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, wasn’t healing immediately. The pain was sharp, electric, but it paled in comparison to the disorientation flooding his senses and the ringing noise in his ears.

Still, he tried his best to keep his expression rooted in calmness and forced his vision to sharpen, on you.

You were still over him, breathing hard, panic tightening every muscle in your frame. The gun you had fired lay discarded somewhere on the ground, its barrel still smoking, the air thick with cordite and something else—something wrong. Your hands trembled where they pressed against him, hovering between regret and survival instinct, torn between saving him and finishing what you had started.

And then, for a split second, the world shifted again. The Aether core flickered at the edges of your heart where it was nestled, reacting to something unseen, something lingering between this world and the one he had just left behind. It pulsed, faint but undeniable, something poking at your skull like a thousand needles.

Your breath hitched deep in your throat. A sharp inhale, eyes widening—not in horror, not in fear, but in recognition.

"Sylus?" you whispered in a voice that did and didn’t belong to you at the same time. The craziest part about this was that this version of you didn’t even know his name properly.

Still your words… they were not a question. Not a demand. A call—the same way you had spoken to him in another world. The same way you had reached for him when time had fractured around you. The voice of the woman who had begged him to stay, the woman who had known him in ways you shouldn’t have, couldn’t have.

It struck him like a blade. The breath he took rattled in his wounded chest. You had remembered—for just a second, you had remembered, and hell, if he only came back here to die, this recognition on your face was more than enough for a man who had a dying wish to begin with.

However, that emotion that flickered within your pretty features, slightly different than what he came to remember, was gone in an instant.

The recognition flickered out of your gaze like a dying ember, slipping from your grasp and consciousness before it could root itself in place. The fear returned just as quickly, swallowing it whole, consuming every other emotion in your expression. You blinked, the moment severed, and your hands pressed harder against the wound, grounding yourself in this reality, the only one you knew. The only one you had ever known.

"Shit—stop bleeding—" Your voice trembled, desperate, your grip firm as if you could physically hold him here, as if you could undo what you had done.

Sylus, bleeding out, could only laugh, breathless, hollow, head falling back against the high-backed throne-like chair he was still sat on. What else was there to do?

Because he had made it back.

And yet, he had lost you all over again.

His fingers stiffly twitched at his side, reaching for something that wasn’t there, something that never would be again. The ache in his chest had nothing to do with the bullet lodged inside him and everything to do with the fact that the person he had spent months knowing—the person who had known him back—was gone.

And you, this version of you, looked at him with the same eyes but didn’t see him at all, didn’t see him past the façade he put on.

A dull, slow warmth started spreading beneath your palms. His Evol was finally kicking in, sluggish but effective, helping his wvol with the wound pulling itself back together, knitting flesh where it had been torn apart. The pain dulled, his breath came a little easier, but none of it felt like a victory.

If anything, it was pathetic. The body would heal, as it always did, but the wound carved into something deeper—something raw and untouchable—would never close. That, he knew with certainty.

His breath hitched again, this time with something like amusement. A smirk ghosted his lips, though it barely held together, more like a cruel mockery of what it should have been.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," he rasped, voice hoarse but laced with something eerily close to amusement. "Relax, sweetheart. Just scared you a little."

Your fingers twitched against his chest, hesitation breaking through the frantic worry lining your face, you were so naive in your intentions it was almost laughable.

"Bastard."

He exhaled, shaking his head slightly. "You should do a better job next time, kitten."

The words landed between you like a slap, and he almost laughed again at the way your brows furrowed, your lips parting as if to protest. But you didn’t. You only pressed your hands firmer against him, watching the last traces of blood smear against your skin as the wound fully disappeared beneath your touch.

There was a time he thought home was a place, a kingdom of steel and fire where only the strongest survived. Then, he thought home was a person, soft hands pulling him from the wreckage, a voice saying his name like it was something worth remembering. But now, standing at the edge of a world that had rewritten him, he understood—home was never his to claim. It was borrowed, fleeting, a warmth that slipped through his fingers the moment he held it too tight. What is a home, if given by another? A gift? A curse? A promise he was never meant to keep. And in the cruel, inevitable symmetry of it all, he had always been doomed to lose you, in every world, in every lifetime, over and over again.

There was no fight left in him. And you—this version of you—had no idea what he had just lost.

// If I cross the line

If I cross the line //

a/n: divider by @/cafekitsune // fic by: @dijayeah

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