It isn't much of a jump. But it's one Jedao was steadfastly, desperately ignoring, even though he saw Fives reaction when Jedao got scared after the breach, even though he knows, really. He doesn't know how he could love Fives more, how he could be committed to him any more than he was after their traitor's oaths, only the third time they ever spoke together. Fives and his brothers and his mission is Jedao's first and best and only real reason for wanting to live again. Jedao doesn't know what else he could possibly do to convince Fives he won't lose him, not by any choice of Jedao's -

- except that Fives will lose him. He has to put an end to the kissing, the touching - fire and ash, he thinks, slick intolerable selfishness, he was so close. He doesn't want to stop. He doesn't want to stop trying, doesn't want to give up the hope of going to bed in messy earnest someday. But it's wrong, it was always wrong.

And Quentin is touching him, simple warm human kindness, and Jedao has always fought not to think about a life where he might be allowed to be sentimental -

He can't move, and he can't speak. He blinks rapidly, otherwise frozen rabbit-still. The sound of tears sliding off his chin and going plink in the teacup sounds horribly, unbearably loud.