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If there’s anything about Fulgur it’s that he doesn’t do grand gestures. He can appreciate a good meal but he’s not one for classy reservations. God knows he doesn’t care enough about what he wears to those fancy outings, much less the outing itself. Why would he? He doesn’t get the appeal of putting on these polished faces. Acting like anyone but himself, the guy that would down a can of soup in one gulp if you were the one serving it to him. It’s the meaning behind the action that gets him, not candle-and-starlit balconies. These limbs are red enough to put any rose to shame.
These limbs. Cold to the touch, layers of plate. The first time he reached out of his own volition he remembers how your back straightened to steel. He’s never felt insecure about the chill until then, but it wasn’t long before he realized how you leaned in anyways. Where he tentatively brushes along with a fingertip, you take in his palm. Not a single shred of fear or hesitance then.
He turns his back to face you the first night you slept together, detaching his cynets from where the socket ends. His right arm is the last to go. Each limb rests on a cloth in order.
The next night you watch, and when he notices, he shuffles his left leg before taking off his right. There’s an order to the panels. The legs are a series of hooks and latches in order to be properly doffed, while the arms are simple, but sensitive. There’s a certain amount of force needed to press the buttons that detach the limb. The final button is under a tab within his palm—the end of the largest mesh crease, at the furthest point his thumb can stretch. It slides off cleanly.
The third night Fulgur narrates it. He’s forgotten some of the names because he’s had this steel for so long, it’s become instinct, not process. By the fourth it takes half as much time as usual and he’s wondering if there’s anything you can’t make easier.
“The next part is… this latch, right?”
“Yup. C'mon, use some more force. I’ve taken it harder than that.”
The switch by his wrist unlocks under your thumb, and the last mechanism left is the panel on his palm. His thumb rests loosely. The flat of his hands are made of blackened mesh to simulate the give of flesh. It detects your own as your fingers skim his and reach for the button.
The socket is neat. The steel goes deeper than the prosthetic, and as you remove it, it exposes the ports where the wiring connects. Fulgur rolls his shoulder, loosening the connection, before it fully detaches. That’s not a required movement. He shifts back into his place in the bed sans prosthetics.
“What, you’re not even going to call me a pervert?” He asks. His eyes are closed but his shit-eating smile is plain to see.
“Fuck off.” You poke his cheek. Annoyance. Then you raise the blanket up to his chest. A few inches below his Throa2, just how he likes it. “I didn’t want to mess up.”
“It’s hard for you to mess up. Those limbs have gone through hell and back.”
“Yeah, but I wanna make sure it’s okay though. ‘Cause what if it’s not?”
“Nah, you wouldn’t mess up.”
You lay down and toss the blanket over yourself. Even without the cynets, Fulgur is cool to the touch. You can feel the ridges of surgical steel along his shoulder blades, and where it’s thinnest are the small, tiny bumps where the ports were screwed in. The pale skin, nonetheless, is soft in a way his mesh-palms aren’t. Without his arm there’s more room for you to place your head along the plush of his chest and the paneling. The chest-pillow is cold on either side.
His eyes are still shut. You feel the rise and fall of his chest along your cheek as his breath travels through. When you close your eyes as well, there isn’t much of a difference between your dark bedroom and the embrace of rest.
You almost forget how to speak.
“Goodnight,” you mumble five minutes later.
He relearns the skill a minute later, too. “Yeah,” he says.
You’ll have to remember that later.