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Nero found Kyrie on the remains of a balcony in the richer part of the city. He’d thought she’d be among one of the search and rescue crews, helping them clear out the debris and uncover survivors—or bodies. She’d thrown herself into it in the past week; Nero had never seen her do any sort of hard labor before, but she returned to their makeshift home in the rubble each night just as exhausted as Nero himself was from beating back the demon hordes that still roved Fortuna.
Nero sat quietly besides Kyrie. He didn’t know what to say, so he kept his mouth shut. He hugged one of his knees close, the other leg dangling over two stories of open air. Kyrie was in her own world, staring out across the destruction of their hometown. Every now and then, she sighed heavily. After something like fifteen minutes, she slowly tipped over, her cheek landing softly on Nero’s shoulder.
“What are we going to do?” Kyrie asked him. She was quiet; she was usually quiet, other than when she sang. She always sang so loudly, proud to worship Sparda in a way that Nero never had been.
“We?”
“Yeah, we.”
Nero blinked down at the top of her head. He didn’t know what he had expected from her; she was his oldest friend, the only one to stand by him when he was angry and disruptive. Even his friends in the Order had distanced themselves after a while, too wary to be seen near a loose canon like Nero.
“Demons killed your parents.” Nero’s voice sounded small even to himself. Kyrie straightened off his shoulder with a heavy sigh, like the small movement took more effort than it actually did. Kyrie met Nero’s eyes, lips pursed. “They ruined your life.”
“They did,” Kyrie allowed, “they have nearly cost me everything.”
“Then how can you say we?” Nero looked down at his devil bringer, the glowing claws, the vibrant scales. He clenched it into a tight fist. “I am. . .”
“Do you remember being inside the savior?” Kyrie asked before Nero could finish.
Nero snorted. “It was like a week ago. Obviously, I remember.”
“What was it like for you?”
Nero hesitated. What did he risk by telling her? Nothing. Talking to Kyrie had never been hard, even in the silence of her parents’ old house. He figured he shouldn’t let it get hard now.
“It was good,” he said, “at the beginning. I could feel. . . well. I was part of something bigger, for once. And you were there.”
“I don’t really remember it,” Kyrie admitted quietly, “or maybe I don’t want to remember it. I was the only one to make it out of the Savior—other than you. But I was in it, Nero. I was in it with you. For a moment, I thought I could understand what it was like to be a demon, what the draw was. I’ve been having nightmares. And I know you’ve been having nightmares as well.”
Nero shrugged a shoulder, but didn’t deny it. “It got a lot worse when you disappeared. Then I realized I was really trapped.”
“I know,” Kyrie said, “I could feel it. I could feel you. We were fuel for the fire, but you were the fire, Nero. And I could feel all of it.”
Nero stared at her, unsure of what to say. What did she want him to say to that? He couldn’t help what Sanctum wanted from him. He couldn’t change it now; he’d done what he could in the moment, panicking and alone, trapped in the overwhelming weight of hundreds of Fortunans who were happy to serve, locked into the warmth of a community that he knew didn’t care for him even while they cupped him in their palms.
“I grew up very sheltered, didn’t I?” Kyrie whispered. She looked up at him, eyes wide and glistening with tears. Nero didn’t know what he could say to help her, to take away the pain and guilt in her expression. “How could I not notice everything you were going through? Nero, I failed you.”
“You didn’t,” Nero said.
“I did,” she said, placing a hand on his arm, “and I didn’t see it until we were trapped together, and suddenly there were no other distractions from it. I can’t even blame my parents or Credo from keeping the truth from me. At some point, I just. . . I stopped looking. You hurt so much more because of that, because I couldn’t protect you from—”
“I don’t need you to protect me,” Nero interrupted, something going tight and white hot in his chest. “I can protect—”
“I wanted to!” Kyrie burst out.
They both fell silent for a second, caught off guard by her sudden shout. Kyrie was the perfect lady; she rarely screamed, and only ever when she was in danger. Was Nero the danger here?
Kyrie’s tears dripped down her cheeks. She made no move to wipe them away.
“I wanted to protect you,” Kyrie repeated at her usual volume. “I thought I was protecting you by keeping you away from all the—the shitty things everyone always says.”
“Swear jar,” Nero said automatically, trained from Credo’s years of overbearing presence.
Kyrie snorted. She slumped into Nero’s side. Nero pulled her closer, curling around her and clinging as tightly as he dared. She fit in his arms perfectly, but it felt like there was a gap between them. Like the words they were saying had lodged between them, where her chest pressed against his, keeping them apart.
“You curse way more than I do,” Kyrie pointed out, voice wobbling.
“You could curse a little more, even if Credo doesn’t—didn’t like it,” Nero said. He rested his chin on top of her head and took a big, steadying breath. He was still nervous to have her in his arms; they had been friends for so long, but being girlfriend-boyfriend was still new. The shine hadn’t worn off yet; he hoped it never did.
“Maybe a little,” Kyrie murmured.
“Could complain a bit more, too,” Nero pointed out. When she laughed again, he said, “be louder, too.”
“You just want me to be as impolite as you are,” Kyrie teased. Nero could feel her tears through his shirt.
“We’ll be Fortuna’s biggest menaces,” Nero decided, nodding like this solved all his problems. “And no one will ever fuck with us ever again.”
“Maybe. . . maybe I will curse more,” Kyrie said tentatively.
Nero raised an eyebrow. “What, really? Why?”
Kyrie was quiet for a long time. Nero let her have her silence. She had always been like this, too introspective for her own good. Nero was easy, if he had a thought in his head then the world would know about it, one way or another. Kyrie had always kept her emotions close to her chest, had expressed them carefully, only when she had to. Her smile was brilliant, her laughter always raised the mood, she made the world so much brighter—but her darker moods, she kept to herself.
They’d had many days growing up where Kyrie was upset, sitting quietly at Nero’s side. Nero had learned to sit through them with her, let her have the time she needed to work through it all before she let any of it past her lips. Nero spewed his anger like a volcano; Kyrie had always kept it locked inside.
It was equal parts nostalgic and reassuring to sit with her like this, a week after their world had ended. Nero felt like he was a shit-ass fourteen year old again, sitting uninvited in Kyrie’s bedroom, letting her lean against his back while he hunched over his little metal projects. Or like he was seventeen, picking fights in bars while Kyrie looked on, expression impassive in the face of all Nero’s chaos. Or being kids, Nero making a mess in the sandbox, getting sand and dirt all over Kyrie’s pretty white dresses, and her letting him do what he wanted just to take the blame for it in front of the nuns and her parents.
She’d been protecting him then, hadn’t she? Nero looked down at her, some of his memories realigning in his head. She’d taken up so much time with her parents when they were young—was it just so they didn’t spend time treating him like he was the son of the Savior? She always took the fall from when they messed around back then, didn’t she?
And then her parents had died, and Nero was back in the orphanage, and it was years before Credo was able to get Nero out of there again. Kyrie had been different, distant. She was too pretty and too wrapped up in her friends to spend too much time with Nero.
Had that been intentional, too? Keeping her friends away from Nero so that he didn’t have to deal with their curious glances or inopportune questions?
“I meant it when I said you were the most human man I know,” Kyrie finally answered Nero. “And I still do. But maybe I haven’t been very. . . I could stand to do better, Nero. I don’t want to just. . . I don’t want to just be like this because I have always be like this. I don’t want to be so—so scared. I don’t want to be so scared of stepping out of line because I’ve seen the social exile you were in and didn’t want that for myself. I never should have let you slip away from me like you did!”
Kyrie disentangled herself from Nero and turned to sit facing him on the balcony. She wiped her face and stared into his eyes.
“I don’t know what it’s going to take,” she said, “but I want to stay with you. I want to protect you and take care of you. I’m sick of being a pretty thing—I want to be useful to you and to Fortuna. And I can’t do that if I’m just—if I keep standing still like I have been my whole life. I want to help. And for that, I need to change.”
Nero examined her determined expression. He took in the exhausted bags under her eyes, the grim set to her lips, the tears that still traced shining arcs down her cheeks. Even now, at the end of the world, she was still so pretty. He loved her so much.
He wanted to tell her that she didn’t need to change. That he would accept her however she was, because she had done the same for him, and her unyielding support meant more than she could ever know. He wanted to tell her that she didn’t need to keep protecting him, that he should be the one to protect her.
Instead, he carefully took her hands. They were so soft in his, only now developing callouses from the work she’d been doing. “If that’s what you want, I’m with you.”
Her smile was small and wet and beautiful. She scooted forward and pressed a light kiss to his lips. “Thank you, Nero. I know you don’t like to be protected but—thank you for letting me try.”
“Yeah,” Nero mumbled. He scooted over, so he could press into her space, toppling them both slowly to the dusty balcony floor. He let himself hide in the curve where her neck met her shoulder, covering her body with his.
Kyrie wanted to protect him. The thought was scary; no one had ever protected Nero in the way he wanted. They were all so controlling. They thought they were so high and mighty.
Kyrie had never been like that. She would listen to him, he was pretty sure, if he told her to back off. If he told her the walls were closing in on him, she would ease up, he was pretty sure, she would give him the space he needed. It was just a matter of trusting Kyrie—and that, Nero knew, had always been easy.