"Noted," he says, but any worry over it seems to have been utterly and completely replaced by bliss.

"I'd ask if you were going to up and float away, but since that's something you sometimes literally do..."

"Hmm, that's actually a good idea," he says, and floats up to the ceiling to hug it.

"You're a very silly person. Anyway. My dad will probably cooperate if we don't elect to tell literally everyone else we know; I am admittedly less tempted to go the stealth route than I would be if Boots were around but it still has some simplicity advantages."

He flinches slightly when Boots is mentioned, but doesn't let that affect his mood. "Do you want me to stooooop being a silly person?" Pause. "Or doing any other thing?"

"It is fine that you are a silly person, although if you could tone it down during significant conversations that would be convenient."

He floats back down and sits cross-legged in the air. "Alright. Can do."

"Hmm. Well. I'm... a flashy person. And a bit vain. And I'm kiiiiiinda bursting with joy and pride that about two minutes ago you called me boyfriend. So if I were to listen to that part of me, it would go, well... toning the silliness down, that part would shout something like 'I am Lorica's boyfriend' from the rooftops. I do not usually indulge that part to that extent. It's not even a very insistent part of me, there is zero loss in wellbeing from completely ignoring it. There's even a certain appeal to being hush hush secret, too."

"Also if you shout that you are my boyfriend from the rooftops it might mess with your hard-won nonbinary costumed persona."

"...that, too. I could go with 'enbyfriend' out in costume or something, though there would be a subsequent loss in understandability." Pause. "If the forums get wind of this they will go wild."

"You could also just say 'Lorica is my girlfriend', these things being symmetrical."

"Yes. Yes, I could." He grabs his new shoulderbot (with added, mysterious weaponry!) and hugs it.

Lorica giggles. "Anyway, is the forum going insane - although I think you're overestimating how much attention we get like that - a pro or a con?"

"Pro. Definitely a pro. And I may be overestimating it, buuuut from what I've seen of PHO forum shippers, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if that was the most significant fact in their opinion about either of us ever, even taking catching Purity into account."

"Well, we didn't keep her."

"We kept her for a couple of months, that's more than anyone's ever done. And I'm not totally sure how the law works there but I think this counts as her first strike."

"True. Anyway. How about a mixed solution: we see if we're still together in a month, then we announce."

"I mean, like I said, I wouldn't mind if you wanted to make us a complete secret, buuuuut yes I like that solution, we're totally gonna still be together in a month."

"You're a precog now."

"Nope, just insanely confident. Luckily you're here to take me down a few pegs."

"I mean, I'm not planning to dump you, but one doesn't plan such things, maybe we have some fundamental incompatibility yet to be revealed."

"Yeah, I guess. I think it's unnnnnlikely, but well, if I didn't I wouldn't have crushed on you in the first place! Probably."

"Probably?"

"I mean, there's also the possibility that I'm terribly bad at introspection and have been fooling myself all along, or something like that."