You're trying to concentrate on your game, but you can't shake the feeling that something is wrong. Eventually you sigh and stand up, stretching. "Sorry… I need to see what's up with him…"

Tavros nods. "I'll just sort of, maybe, stay here if that's okay?"

"Yeah… it's fine…" you say. You turn on your TV and press play on the troll anime you had paused. You toss him the remote. "Just… sit on the couch and watch this…"

He complies, crossing his legs and leaning forward with an expression of polite interest on his face. You look at him for a bit longer, wondering if he's just pretending to like it to be nice and deciding that that's probably the case, and then you head out.

You know by the look Meulin gives you when you very nearly trip over her – she really needs to stop sprawling out on the ground, you're pretty sure that everyone you know has tripped over her at least once – that she's told. You don't bother with her, instead kicking off of the ground and flying the rest of the way to Cronus's hive.

The door is off of its hinges.

Shit. He's already here.

You take a cautious step inside. "Cronus?" you ask. After a moment, you call out "Horuss?", too.

No answer. You step carefully, taking note of the dented walls and the broken glass littering the hallway. Is he upstairs? That's where Cronus's room is, you know that, maybe he managed to barricade himself in…

No. No, he didn't manage to barricade himself in, because Horuss can break through any barricade in about two seconds.

You grimace and head upstairs. The railing is ripped off in places. Yeah, Horuss definitely went this way. It won't be that hard to find them, actually. All you need to do is follow the trail of destruction. Fun times.

Or, rather, it'll be 'fun times' until you find Cronus basically dead (again), and then it will turn into 'is he going to come after me or am I going to be stuck in this relationship forever?' times.

There's a flash of movement to your left and you whirl around. Nothing. Did you just miss it, or are you imagining things? You don't really know anymore. You realize that you're so nervous that you're sort of hovering when you bump your head against the ceiling.

You force yourself to calm down and your feet touch the floor again. You'll keep going. You'll keep following the trail of destruction.

It ends abruptly at the bathroom door, which is ripped off of its hinges and lays in the middle of the hallway floor. The bathroom is smashed – there's glass everywhere, and a few pipes are spraying water everywhere.

You peer out the window to see his load gaper outside.

Huh.

At least you don't see any violet blood out there. It's possible that he's escaped somehow, but you think that it's much more likely that the both of them are somewhere. Maybe Horuss captured him and took him back to his hive-

Actually, that could be what happened. But you'll keep searching Cronus's hive just in case.

His bedroom has been mostly untouched, you realize as you peer in. His weird human bed is a bit messy, but overall it looks like it usually does.

So, after a brief investigation of the rest of his disappointingly empty hive, you head out. You'll try Horuss's hive next. If Cronus isn't there, you can maybe just sort of hang out until Horuss comes back?

Or not. That actually sounds like a really bad idea.

But you'll check, just in case Cronus is there.

You fly to Horuss's hive and end up smashing through the sunroof. Well, nobody's in this room, and the only blood on the floor is yours from that broken glass. You make quick work of Horuss's house, but there's no Cronus or Horuss here, either. You're started to get a little discouraged, but… you can't just head home and continue playing Fiduspawn with Tavros, because it's your fault that Cronus is in trouble, and while you had no doubt that Horuss could at the very least hold his own against Damara… Cronus is a different story.

As in, you're not sure if Cronus could actually hold his own against you, let alone a Zahhak.

You end up flying above the trees, eyes peeled for any movement whatsoever. You do see movement, and you swoop down, but it just turns out to be the Alternian Ampora. He jumps, swears at you, and leaves so fast he's just a purple cape in the distance after about two seconds.

You're about to get back up into the sky when you hear something. You decide that making noise would be really stupid, so you just sort of creep toward the noise, wincing whenever your wings brush against branches or you step on twigs. But, chances are, whoever it is is too busy to bother with little noises.

You peer around a tree to see Cronus backed up against a wall. He's breathing hard, chest rising and falling erratically. Horuss is standing in front of him. He looks positively livid.

The grin still isn't off of his face.

Cronus catches your eye and his eyes widen – just a fraction, but you barely manage to duck back out of sight before Horuss whirls around. Your heart is pounding faster than you thought possible. You want to leave, you want to fly away and go back to your hive but you can't, not really, you need to… you need to save your new matesprit slash possibly moirail (quadrant flipping isn't really a big deal, you're dead anyway) and stop being such a damn coward.

But you still need to work up the courage to do so.

This takes about three minutes before you realize that you're never going to have enough courage, but you're going to need to do it anyway.

"Horuss!" you call before you can help yourself, and Cronus deflates immediately, tipping his head back and breathing out a sigh of relief. Horuss drops him and he immediately tries to slide away. Horuss puts a foot on his shirt to keep him in place. You swallow. You can feel sweat trickle down your neck. "I… uh… please stop…"

"You lied to me," Horuss said. The grin isn't wavering at all, and that's the scariest part of all of this. "You said he was just your moirail. Meulin told me everything."

You swallow again, trying to get rid of the dryness in your throat. "She didn't… she… please…"

And then he's holding you up by your shirt and you have never been so terrified in your life. You can't really breathe very comfortably, but it's not that bad, you suppose, except the fact that that grin is even more menacing than ever.

"Why would you do that?" he asks, and his voice is quiet. It's too quiet. You're scared. You open your mouth. "I love you, Rufioh. Why would you leave me for him?"

"I don't…" you trail off and squeeze your eyes shut before you say this next part. "I haven't wanted to… to be with you for a while now… and…"

Your voice is picking up speed now and you're rolling over your words, stuttering a little but powering through. "I want to break up with you I've wanted to break up with you for so long and I used him, I used him and then it turned into something I d-didn't want to lose and I want to break up with you I don't luh-love you I don't I-"

You're on the ground and the force of it knocks the air out of your lungs. You swallow. He just dropped you, you're pretty sure, he didn't mean anything by it. The grin is finally gone by now. There's no way he can pass that off as not hearing it. There's no way. Not only do you have a witness, but…

With a yell of rage, he turns around and aims a kick for Cronus, who rolls out of the way with a deftness you could only imagine. He's fast, you'll give him that. He stands up, palms of his hands flat against the wall, grimacing. "Alright, chief, calm down," he said. "He said he doesn't like you-"

Horuss hits him in the face and his head bounces off of the wall with a sickening crack. You're on the ground and you're shaking and your hands are clutching at the grass and you want to help Cronus, but you don't know if you can, or how, or anything.

But that's stupid. You need to… you need to do something.

You stand up and grab onto Horuss around the waist. He jerks his elbow back and it catches you in the stomach and you're pretty sure you're dying. You crumble immediately, coughing and retching and he had to have ruptured something that was just instinct you've never been so terrified in your life you can't breathe you're hunched over and gasping and coughing and you can't handle it this is almost worse than Damara paralyzing you.

It's a while later when you realize that he must be gone, because now Cronus is kneeling beside you, a light hand on your shoulder, not talking but you really don't blame him because he did just get hit in the face by Horuss Zahhak.

"I'm fine…" you manage to say. You push yourself into an actual sitting position. The entire left side of his face is bruised. He half-grins, then winces.

"Dumbass broke my face," he says, except his voice is all muffled and it's even weirder than usual. You laugh a little. "Soon as he realized what he did, he froze and then ran off."

"Do you think… do you think we're broken up now?" you wonder, and Cronus winces again.

"I hope so," he says. "Let's head back to my hive. We can make out and then talk about our feelings."

"Wouldn't that… you know, hurt?"

"Oh, yeah. We can watch Grease and then talk about our feelings."

"Sounds like a plan, doll…"

So this ended sort of abruptly but I don't know it just sort of. Ended, I guess. But yeah! I really did enjoy writing this and I hope those of you that read it enjoyed reading it!