ninefox | IC Inbox

"I've got a friend who turned into someone else. He told me there was something he was worried about and to please follow him just this way. I turned to look over my shoulder at him and he was already moving, he slit my throat."

A shiver, and he burrows closer.

"It's just now hitting me."

He presses a soft kiss to Quentin's temple, wraps his other arm around Quentin's waist.

"Okay," Jedao says, even though what he wants to say is let me skin him, the scorcher is still charged -

But if Quentin wanted anything even close to that, he'd have given Jedao a name already.

"Do you want me to talk, or just be here?"

"I had entropy reversed before the blood hit the floor. I knocked him unconscious, tied him up, then sat with him until the right person was in the body again."

So he's not death tolling.

"But now that the crisis is over my brain is trying to explode."

This does not at all mean Jedao wouldn't still be happy to skin someone. Quentin can destroy people, but he doesn't much like to. Nevertheless.

"You should let it. Your brain uses the lightning gap for a reason," Jedao says, in his most eminently reasonable voice.

"What's a lightning gap?"

Wonders Quentin, arms sliding around Jedao's middle, hanging on extremely tight.

"It's just what we call the mechanism," Jedao says softly, running his fingers through Quentin's hair.

"Your brain has to react to shock, to absorb and disperse it, which makes it less damaging. But in the moment, you also have to not react that way, because you have to ignore the shock and deal with whatever caused it. The lightning gap is just a delay, like the delay between a lightning strike and the wave of thunder propagating out. And the delay helps you survive. This isn't weak, Quentin. This is you being strong, just as much as what you did earlier."

In that case, he gulps down a watery sob.

Because yes, put that way it doesn't seem like a terrible thing if he's going to cry just a little bit.

"Piece of shit."

"Damn right," Jedao says, utterly open-ended support, rubbing circles into Quentin's back some more.

It comes in about a five second burst, shocked sobs into Jedao's shoulder, before he straightens up, scrubs his eyes, and decides;

"Fuck."

Jedao just holds him close through it, then keeps his arm more loosely around Quentin when he pulls back for air and space.

"Yes."

That puts it all quite neatly, really.

"I don't know why I'm overreacting. I cleaned his fucking clock."

Scrubbing his face, sheepishly.

"You're not overreacting. You're not reacting to danger, or even to the violence, really. You're reacting to how senseless it was," Jedao observes.

"Things disturb us most when they don't fit into how we understand the world. You don't expect that from people. You know it's possible, but you don't expect it."

"I mean, yeah."

A steadying breath.

"Yeah, thank God it was me. He killed poor Patrick too."

"I'm afraid I missed that one," he admits.

"Patrick. He- you'd have liked him, he made me get new pants."

He says, and then hitches a sob, because this is a ridiculous thing to be talking about.

"He sounds kind and wise," Jedao affirms, leaning into the ridiculous.

"He was."

He says, and nearly loses it again, then holds resolutely on.

"Talk to me?"

Jedao gives him a warm squeeze of a hug.

"I'm so glad you were here for him, Quentin-shei," he murmurs, voice rough, into Quentin's hair.

"You should send him to live with me a couple of years."

He says, again;

"If he wants that. He seems like he could use a little while with no pressure."

"He'll want it," Jedao promises. "He just has to work around to it in his head a little bit. This week was a lot for him." Jedao's voice is dry and gentle at once.

"It's going to be a really nice bookstore."

Quentin decides, committing to the plan in earnest at last.

"Fuck," Jedao mutters, pulling Quentin closer again for a moment to drop a kiss into his hair, confess without meeting his eyes.

"I should just be happy for you, and relieved for him. But I'm so selfishly glad I'll have an excuse to see you again."

"I love you."

He says, remembering.

"I always will."

He remembers the boy talking to Quentin about it, but it's not the same. He holds Quentin tight for a moment, breathless and careful.

"I love you so much," he murmurs, nearly whispers. "You make me believe in better worlds."

"And you make me believe in myself."

Which is just as precious.

"What have you got today? Can you stay awhile?"

cw violence, deadly injuries

cw violence, deadly injuries

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