“I could have?—”
Cyrus' eyes swirled green. “I knew.”
“Great, you knew. Did you also know Seri would get hurt?”
The man sighed. “Look. I made a choice. You don’t like the choice I made, or rather that I made a choice at all. But I would have never done it if I didn’t believe the outcome wasn’t the best and safest option.”
“You—”
Cyrus held his hand up and cut him off. “Wait… Let me finish. Because all that being said, Killian has made me aware that even if it WAS the best option, I shouldn’t have disregarded your feelings about the outcome. That you have every right to be upset about, and I can’t and shouldn’t just brush it off.
“While I can’t say I won’t do it again, I also can’t ignore that we are different people, and what my brain sees as a path that's unchangeable…you just see all the collateral. You see the people that got hurt, the people I knew would get hurt and die. You probably can’t understand how I could sit back and initiate something, knowing the outcome was the death and pain of others.
“While I, on the other hand, compared the outcomes of what would happen if I hadn’t done it. I’m neither wrong nor right for what I did, it is just what it is. But for hurting you, and for not realizing, or rather for ignoring what Seri and Skya meant to you, I’m sorry. I was a bad friend for trying to brush all of it off.”
“You were a shit friend…” Severo grumbled.
Cyrus winced. “I was. I won’t apologize for doing what I thought was right, but I will for hurting you, and for hurting two people you obviously love. I should have genuinely apologized when you confronted me. I should have tried to understand where you were coming from, and I didn’t. So, for that, I am again sorry. I’ll try to do better in the future.
“I can’t promise I won’t do something like this again. Fates are not supposed to interfere to the point of altering predestined outcomes… We are just supposed to go towards the ones available, if that makes sense. So, I will always choose the better outcome when it comes to my friends and those I care about, as well as all the people working under me.
“I…can’t stop that part of me from interfering with my decisions. It will show me things without me looking. What I CAN do is try to do better toward you, and everyone else, in the aftermath. You had a right to punch me. You had a right to be heard. And I should have shut my mouth and listened.”
Severo stared silently, taking a few moments to process the man’s words. “Tell me one thing… What would have happened if you hadn’t done what you did?”
Cyrus grimaced. His eyes began to swirl again, and his voice came out almost trance-like when he spoke this time. “Sometimes the ‘what could have been’, is best left in the void. But in this case… I saw Seri and Skya being taken. You almost died... The thing about Jorah was that he was here from the beginning. He knows who you are, about your family. I saw the men Preston sent using dysea laced bullets. But…because it was Jorah telling the Dweller the information, Preston had his men hold back, after being told who your family was…”
“To Seri and Skya… What would have happened to them?! I frankly don’t give a fuck about myself…”
The man’s head tilted. “He wouldn’t have been injured…but…” Cyrus grimaced. “The trauma would have been worse. Skya would have been used to force him into doing whatever Preston wanted. I don’t think I should say more…”
He didn’t need to say more. Severo knew what Preston had already done. It didn’t take much of an imagination to dream up what he’d use Skya to do… The sting was less on knowing that… As for the man’s apology…
“I’ll accept your apology…but I am still mad. And I may be for a while.”
Cyrus' shoulders sagged in relief. “Thank you. I do care about you, Severo. You are my friend, and I love you…in a nonsexual way.”
Severo scoffed. “Please, I know you want all this.” He waved at his own body.
Cyrus rolled his eyes.
“I’m still quitting, by the way.”
The man leaned back in his chair. “About that…”
Seri gasped. “HE DID NOT!”
“He did!” Killian chuckled evilly as he sat there hugging onto Skya like she was a damn teddy bear. She seemed content, so Seri wasn’t going to bother her.
“He did not!”
“He really did! Took his pants off right there, got up on the table and said, ‘look, it grew!’.”
Seri burst out into a fit of giggles. “I can’t even imagine him doing that.”
“I mean…he was like twelve. And Cyrus, fifteen at the time,may have managed to slip him some alcohol that he’d gotten from some of his younger, but still older, relatives.”
“Oh! His parents must have been mortified.”
