He contemplates the board and exactly how he wants to phrase his next comment at the same time, slicing his bishop across the board to threaten two different pieces at once.
"He'll be far more comfortable with chess than with talking. Which I mean as a briefing, not to dissuade you." He thinks Quentin's odd mix of gentleness and logic, awkwardness and idealism, might be quite good for Nico, albeit terribly perplexing. Nico thinks he doesn't get along with "good" people, but there's a difference between a hero like Steve with shrapnel in his wake, and Quentin's quiet, dreamy presence, his faith and wonder neither dimmed nor weaponized by the evil he's encountered or the regrets he carries.
"Yes," Jedao says, in a tone that is kissing cousins to the way he talked about the future under the calendar. He can't see the whole route there, but he knows it will happen because it has to happen, because he will make it happen.
"I think he...needs this." To go through being unable to repress his feelings, before he can allow himself to have them, before he can feel like a person who is allowed.
"He did look tired, and ashamed of it. Like he didn't know that everyone rests sometimes. Or like he comes from a world where when you're inevitably weak for just a minute, it kills you."
"You, obviously. Even worse. You can't even acknowledge that you might potentially in some universe or other have had something like a vulnerable spot."
He breathes out, and smiles at him;
"I mean, sometimes you do, but it's like watching someone see how long they can hold their fingers in a candleflame on a dare."
"I don't have to be ashamed of weaknesses to prefer not exposing them," Jedao says softly. Even if some of them he is.
"You - well. It feels like watching someone from a different world." Which, obviously, it is. "Sometimes it feels...comforting isn't quite the word. Nor is safe. Nor reassuring, when it isn't re anything. Sheltered, maybe - like you've brought a piece of your world with you and I could...take risks, under that gradient, that I wouldn't normally."
He smiles, the slant of it matching his shoulders.
"Mostly it just makes me feel protective. Even though I know you don't need it really."
"I do and I don't. I can count on my hands the number of people who've ever felt protective of me, before I came here. Minus a teacher or two when I was a really little kid."
He reminds him, with a small smile.
"But you be careful, Mister Fox. Of the five of them, two resented me for it for a very long time. Don't you let me gradient be something that makes you compromise yourself."
"Yeah, but I'd be a liar if I didn't tell you that it costs sometimes."
He says, with a tiny little shrug, leaning into the bed a little more, arms draping over it, cheek resting against them, regarding Jedao from his sideways sprawl.
"You know the real difference between me and Fives? It's that I remember a time when I hadn't yet learned to live like that."
He doesn't swallow, doesn't look away, doesn't think about how he feels about children. But if he were less well trained, he would have.
"I don't want to have to live like that for the rest of my life. I don't want to raise my millions of clone kids to be that way. I don't want to always be a hypocrite when I tell Fives he's allowed to be hurt. And I'm pretty fucking sure it's something I need to deal with to graduate anyway. You aren't making me, Quentin. You're...making something easier."
"Intellectually I know that, but I still kind of worry for you."
He admits. He worries for Fives too, though it feels inappropriate to say it- but he looks up at him now, checking in on him with a single glance, before looking back at Jedao.
"I spent a lot of years trying to be more like you two. I got pretty good at it, at one point. And it hurt to come back from."
He agrees, and moves forward, lifting their chessboard very carefully aside so he can come over, adjusting his pillow, falling onto his side and draping into Jedao's lap, rather than over the bed.
"Ugh, life is weird. Anyways, we'll figure it out eventually."
"Curious about how you're going to finish that sentence?"
He asks, and rolls onto his back so he can look up at him while Jedao pets them. He tucks his pillow under his knees, taking some of the pressure off his lower back, which is crummy this week.
"Are you staying, after all?" he asks quietly, not meeting Quentin's eyes. There's soft dread in his chest and he couldn't even say what it's for, that he'll be rebuked for his presumption - gently of course - Quentin laughing and saying no, of course not, he can't, and what gave Jedao that idea? Or Quentin saying yes. Quentin having his own cause for resentment.
"I - need you to think about it," Jedao says, feeling slightly panicked himself, heart rabbiting at the temerity of the demand, although he doesn't show it except in the careful exactness of his breathing. "Or to think about what you need to get in order to think about it without being paralyzed. And maybe that isn't fair either, but. I need it."
He keeps stroking his fingers steadily through Quentin's hair.
"It's just - there's this thing I need to do. And I'm pretty sure it's going to wreck me for awhile. And I put it off, because - well, no reason to ruin the beautiful goodbye. And because I wanted to put it off, if I'm honest. So if you're going to go, then I'll keep holding off. I can't do it until Fives is feeling steadier anyway, so you've got a window. I can kiss you, and miss you, and do it. Or if you're going to stay, I can do it, and trust you to help me through. But I can't do it and then lose you when I'm - whatever it makes of me. When I'm not the person I want you to remember me as. I don't want that and I don't want to know that I - wasted my last days with you. But I can't put it off indefinitely. I can feel it eating at me, in quiet moments."
"I'd let you. I'd twist in the wind and pant at your fingertips if I wasn't going a little bit freshly fucking insane wondering what memories he stole from me," he murmurs. His hand shifts, fingertips tracing the outline of Quentin's face.
"If a breach came along and wrecked you, I'd hate to think of you running home in that state, and being alone without any of your friends or anyone who even understands what the fuck about the barge," he points out. "They come monthly now. Could you promise me three weeks? I can fake functional for two weeks if I have a week to psych myself up, no matter how broken I am. And we could just - we could love each other wrecked, darling, we could say goodbye not quite as ruined as we were."
And that's a kind of beautiful goodbye; beautiful in a way that Jedao, from his cracked-clock world, finds sweetly romantic in its own way. That Jedao thinks he could tolerate, even ripped open.
"Promise me three weeks' notice, and I promise not to ask for more?"
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Jedao shakes his head, but he's still smiling.
"He'll forgive you. And Mikodez and I are actually...working things out might be an overstatement. Co-existing more tolerably."
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Quentin promises, and smiles back.
"Is he feeling better too?"
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"As well as he ever is."
He contemplates the board and exactly how he wants to phrase his next comment at the same time, slicing his bishop across the board to threaten two different pieces at once.
"He'll be far more comfortable with chess than with talking. Which I mean as a briefing, not to dissuade you." He thinks Quentin's odd mix of gentleness and logic, awkwardness and idealism, might be quite good for Nico, albeit terribly perplexing. Nico thinks he doesn't get along with "good" people, but there's a difference between a hero like Steve with shrapnel in his wake, and Quentin's quiet, dreamy presence, his faith and wonder neither dimmed nor weaponized by the evil he's encountered or the regrets he carries.
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He asks, breathlessly, looking past him and up at his sleeping form.
"I saw him right before he- uh. This all. We visited the library, I picked him out a book. He super doesn't get fiction yet."
But he's working on it.
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"I think he...needs this." To go through being unable to repress his feelings, before he can allow himself to have them, before he can feel like a person who is allowed.
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Resting his temple against the edge of the bed.
"There's a case of that going around."
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"You're better at people than you think you are, sometimes," he says, by way of only slightly circuitous confirmation. "Who else?"
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He breathes out, and smiles at him;
"I mean, sometimes you do, but it's like watching someone see how long they can hold their fingers in a candleflame on a dare."
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"You should have seen me the other night, putting tiger stripes all up my forearms with smoke streaks."
Quentin knows him too well.
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He wonders, looking at him shyly.
"I hope I don't make you uncomfortable. Or scornful."
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"You - well. It feels like watching someone from a different world." Which, obviously, it is. "Sometimes it feels...comforting isn't quite the word. Nor is safe. Nor reassuring, when it isn't re anything. Sheltered, maybe - like you've brought a piece of your world with you and I could...take risks, under that gradient, that I wouldn't normally."
He smiles, the slant of it matching his shoulders.
"Mostly it just makes me feel protective. Even though I know you don't need it really."
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He reminds him, with a small smile.
"But you be careful, Mister Fox. Of the five of them, two resented me for it for a very long time. Don't you let me gradient be something that makes you compromise yourself."
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"Aren't you supposed to be the one arguing that it's healthy not to feel like a moment's weakness will definitely kill me?"
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He says, with a tiny little shrug, leaning into the bed a little more, arms draping over it, cheek resting against them, regarding Jedao from his sideways sprawl.
"Worth it, but not simple."
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He doesn't swallow, doesn't look away, doesn't think about how he feels about children. But if he were less well trained, he would have.
"I don't want to have to live like that for the rest of my life. I don't want to raise my millions of clone kids to be that way. I don't want to always be a hypocrite when I tell Fives he's allowed to be hurt. And I'm pretty fucking sure it's something I need to deal with to graduate anyway. You aren't making me, Quentin. You're...making something easier."
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He admits. He worries for Fives too, though it feels inappropriate to say it- but he looks up at him now, checking in on him with a single glance, before looking back at Jedao.
"I spent a lot of years trying to be more like you two. I got pretty good at it, at one point. And it hurt to come back from."
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He can admit that much.
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He agrees, and moves forward, lifting their chessboard very carefully aside so he can come over, adjusting his pillow, falling onto his side and draping into Jedao's lap, rather than over the bed.
"Ugh, life is weird. Anyways, we'll figure it out eventually."
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"So we will," Jedao agrees. Never surrender before you've lost.
"Are you -" he starts, and then cuts himself off.
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He asks, and rolls onto his back so he can look up at him while Jedao pets them. He tucks his pillow under his knees, taking some of the pressure off his lower back, which is crummy this week.
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He says, face getting really, immediately hot.
"Which is unfair to you. But staying is kind of unfair to Fives- we started this up because I told him it'd be our beautiful goodbye."
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He keeps stroking his fingers steadily through Quentin's hair.
"It's just - there's this thing I need to do. And I'm pretty sure it's going to wreck me for awhile. And I put it off, because - well, no reason to ruin the beautiful goodbye. And because I wanted to put it off, if I'm honest. So if you're going to go, then I'll keep holding off. I can't do it until Fives is feeling steadier anyway, so you've got a window. I can kiss you, and miss you, and do it. Or if you're going to stay, I can do it, and trust you to help me through. But I can't do it and then lose you when I'm - whatever it makes of me. When I'm not the person I want you to remember me as. I don't want that and I don't want to know that I - wasted my last days with you. But I can't put it off indefinitely. I can feel it eating at me, in quiet moments."
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He folds his hands together over his stomach, fingers lacing.
"I guess my big fear is that I'll commit to staying, and then a breach'll come along that just ends me, and I have to break my promise."
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"If a breach came along and wrecked you, I'd hate to think of you running home in that state, and being alone without any of your friends or anyone who even understands what the fuck about the barge," he points out. "They come monthly now. Could you promise me three weeks? I can fake functional for two weeks if I have a week to psych myself up, no matter how broken I am. And we could just - we could love each other wrecked, darling, we could say goodbye not quite as ruined as we were."
And that's a kind of beautiful goodbye; beautiful in a way that Jedao, from his cracked-clock world, finds sweetly romantic in its own way. That Jedao thinks he could tolerate, even ripped open.
"Promise me three weeks' notice, and I promise not to ask for more?"
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