"I don't know his name, exactly, but sometimes I feel the shape of him in the dark, the hollow in the stories, the- threat, implicit. Is- he the one you killed, right?"
That makes him laugh again, not a rasping sound now but a knocked-free wild clamor, a hundred bells dropped from a high window, a sound that makes his whole body shake.
He remembers the weight of Kujen anchoring on him, squeezing him out of control of his own unwanted body, how it felt to drown for a few minutes in the vastness of his mind, cold and bright as starlight.
"He was always so damn beautiful," Jedao whispers. "He made me - like this, because he wanted forever, real immortality. There wasn't one other person in the universe he remembered how to notice but he wanted to keep me." And Jedao wanted to let him.
He's never told anyone. Hemiola understands, a little - Kujen was the center of its world, too, of course. But the servitor was only assigned to one of the Hexarch's many bases. It wasn't created, seduced, surrounded. He was newborn and seventeen in a man's body, utterly alone in the universe, between his fearful, furious troops and his cold disdainful ship and the forced loyalty of his poor fucking aide. Longing for family he couldn't remember, and any companion who wouldn't flinch from him. And Kujen - who was everything, who made himself everything, father-creator-commander-sustainer-admirer.
It doesn't help that Jedao can see he was doing it. In his worst moments, he hopes that Kujen loved him better than the first Jedao, for being vulnerable, more malleable, more - not virginal, exactly.
(I thought this would be a good time to make you a gift of him.)
More exclusive to him. Everything he'd ever seen or touched or been, from Kujen's hands. Everything he needed to rely on. For Jedao, until the moment he succumbed to the assassination, Kujen had always, always been there. For Kujen, Jedao - this Jedao - had always and only and ever been his.
You will have everything you could possibly desire. I have made sure of it.
He holds onto Quentin and shakes, gasps and pants like he might be dying, finally sobs.
Quentin folds him into his arms, cradles him against his chest, hums into his hair and waits with him while he cries. It's been a long and complicated couple of days together, but in the end he feels they got right where they needed to be, that this is what he is here to do for him.
He stays still. He exudes calm. He doesn't judge, he doesn't shush him, he just strokes his hair while he cries his eyes out.
Slowly, slowly, he wears himself out. Part of him wants desperately for someone to hurt him, but even if he imagines Kujen (how easily), the memory of what he did to Dhanneth, all because he was a selfish, indulgent child, poisons it. So he just cries, until it feels like there can't be anything left inside him, until there's nothing Quentin's patient embrace.
"You deserve better, you know," he says finally, hoarsely.
"I don't have anywhere I'd rather be. If all I can be is the difference between you crying in someone's arms and crying on the floor alone, then I've done the most important thing I could do."
Reasons Quentin, a little confused as explanations go, but sincere nonetheless.
"No, I mean, I meant -" he has to get another shuddery breath in himself, and he thinks about letting go enough to look into Quentin's eyes, but just ends up clinging to him tighter, wiping his face roughly on Quentin's damp shirt.
"Better than - that. You deserve a love that doesn't eat you. You can. You can rely on someone without that."
Carding his hair back, then reaching out with a long arm to grab him a couple of tissues, for his poor nose.
"Well, it's going to take me a long time to fall out of love with Jedao, and maybe by then I'll be old enough to be wise and lucky enough not to come into the radius of someone who could do it to me anyways. And if I do, I feel like somehow Jedao'll sense it across space and time and just like, manifest and fucking murder them."
"Yes," he says, with the kind of thoughtless certainty he feels understanding Jedao's elliptical codes. "See? He'd be there for you. Even if he is kind of a slut."
He says it without any awareness of Jedao having said the same thing, but with almost the same inflection, only marred by his rough waterlogged voice and a smidgen of jealousy. But Quentin is so - good, and he was so happy, when Jedao told him about the swooning. Jedao wants it to work, obscurely and fiercely, at least for Quentin's sake. And while Jedao has no call to ever tell anyone not to want something that would hurt them - he wishes he could make the wanting itself hurt a little less.
Love him though he does, he's not going to correct him. Beautiful, seductive, perfect jerk. He shifts, resting his chin on top of Jedao's head, and closes his eyes.
"I think a lot about this kind of thing. About thinking about other people and being able to predict their reactions the way I can play chess- strategy piece games where you think some dozen moves in advance."
"Sometimes I feel like I can almost do it, then other tims it's like when I was first learning to play. It doesn't happen often any more that I get yelled at for being outright insensitive- but it kind of feels like I'm a chicken and he's a hawk, and managing people is flying."
Or, trying to think of better metaphors.
"He's a sleek snake and I'm like- a weird waddly little newt. I do luck into seducing people, but it's all what I am, and not what I do. Like I appeal super hard to a niche market, but totally lack versatility. Is that a weird thing to think?"
"I think you're more like a hummingbird," he says pensively. "Specialized, yes. Not really built for distance. But close up, with your favorites - bright and deft and exquisite."
He means it; Quentin has said more precisely right things with him than Jedao has any idea how to express. Even if they had to trip over each other first for Jedao to admit there was anything to talk about.
"I think it makes me an ugly fledgling all in patchy half-down," he says candidly. "And who knows what I'll be. I'm not any good at it yet, but - I can see sometimes, the shape of the skill. If I pushed, if I practiced. I had Kujen beat for beat after a few weeks and sometimes I can know my students, but I'm not flying with - anyone."
He swallows. He thinks of a wing with three uneven flight feathers; he wonders how he would tell the difference, locked in the citadel, between still growing and clipped. He wonders if knowing would make a difference to him.
"I know it's really complicated, I don't know if I entirely understand, but there's not a lot wrong with learning how to do it alone in case you have to."
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Asks Quentin, breath catching a little- he hadn't even known he was lying, but now here this is.
"It's not naive?"
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"You don't think he needed to make me look right just for the war, did you?"
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Says Quentin, frowning.
"I don't know his name, exactly, but sometimes I feel the shape of him in the dark, the hollow in the stories, the- threat, implicit. Is- he the one you killed, right?"
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His voice cracks. He wants so badly not to cry.
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Agrees Quentin, heart breaking for him;
"He got inside your head?"
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He remembers the weight of Kujen anchoring on him, squeezing him out of control of his own unwanted body, how it felt to drown for a few minutes in the vastness of his mind, cold and bright as starlight.
"He was everything."
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Admits Quentin, quietly, nose pressing into his hair.
"I hope you can get help. For the scars he left in your thoughts."
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He says, sincere and soft. Just because someone hurts you doesn't mean you don't mourn them, Quentin has learned.
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It doesn't help that Jedao can see he was doing it. In his worst moments, he hopes that Kujen loved him better than the first Jedao, for being vulnerable, more malleable, more - not virginal, exactly.
(I thought this would be a good time to make you a gift of him.)
More exclusive to him. Everything he'd ever seen or touched or been, from Kujen's hands. Everything he needed to rely on. For Jedao, until the moment he succumbed to the assassination, Kujen had always, always been there. For Kujen, Jedao - this Jedao - had always and only and ever been his.
You will have everything you could possibly desire. I have made sure of it.
He holds onto Quentin and shakes, gasps and pants like he might be dying, finally sobs.
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He stays still. He exudes calm. He doesn't judge, he doesn't shush him, he just strokes his hair while he cries his eyes out.
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"You deserve better, you know," he says finally, hoarsely.
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Reasons Quentin, a little confused as explanations go, but sincere nonetheless.
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"Better than - that. You deserve a love that doesn't eat you. You can. You can rely on someone without that."
He...thinks. Assumes. Hopes.
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Carding his hair back, then reaching out with a long arm to grab him a couple of tissues, for his poor nose.
"Well, it's going to take me a long time to fall out of love with Jedao, and maybe by then I'll be old enough to be wise and lucky enough not to come into the radius of someone who could do it to me anyways. And if I do, I feel like somehow Jedao'll sense it across space and time and just like, manifest and fucking murder them."
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He says it without any awareness of Jedao having said the same thing, but with almost the same inflection, only marred by his rough waterlogged voice and a smidgen of jealousy. But Quentin is so - good, and he was so happy, when Jedao told him about the swooning. Jedao wants it to work, obscurely and fiercely, at least for Quentin's sake. And while Jedao has no call to ever tell anyone not to want something that would hurt them - he wishes he could make the wanting itself hurt a little less.
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Admits Quentin, quickly. He's not anti-slut. Just pro-pairbond.
"Weirdest guardian angel ever, I guess?"
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"Me too," he admits. "Uhg. Asshole."
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Love him though he does, he's not going to correct him. Beautiful, seductive, perfect jerk. He shifts, resting his chin on top of Jedao's head, and closes his eyes.
"I think a lot about this kind of thing. About thinking about other people and being able to predict their reactions the way I can play chess- strategy piece games where you think some dozen moves in advance."
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Or, trying to think of better metaphors.
"He's a sleek snake and I'm like- a weird waddly little newt. I do luck into seducing people, but it's all what I am, and not what I do. Like I appeal super hard to a niche market, but totally lack versatility. Is that a weird thing to think?"
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"Does that make you the owl? Odd, a bit, but wise and fearsome and awe inspiring?"
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"I think it makes me an ugly fledgling all in patchy half-down," he says candidly. "And who knows what I'll be. I'm not any good at it yet, but - I can see sometimes, the shape of the skill. If I pushed, if I practiced. I had Kujen beat for beat after a few weeks and sometimes I can know my students, but I'm not flying with - anyone."
He swallows. He thinks of a wing with three uneven flight feathers; he wonders how he would tell the difference, locked in the citadel, between still growing and clipped. He wonders if knowing would make a difference to him.
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He says, with such faith.
"I know it's really complicated, I don't know if I entirely understand, but there's not a lot wrong with learning how to do it alone in case you have to."
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