"Of being able to be that decadently bad at their stupid little intrigues?"
He wonders, arm tucking around his waist, mouth pressing against the top of his shoulder in a thoughtful kiss.
"I thought about it with you because of the bit with the frozen building. I feel like you scooped me up and out of there and dealt with my dumb stubborn pneumonia."
"Yes," he admits. "Or...we were terrible at it first year. The fucking surveillance squirrels -" But that's too close to a bit of happiness that burns to touch. "But not decadent." And they couldn't stay bad. Not that Jedao had a 'them' after first year. Grenades shouldn't have friends.
"I suppose able is really the operative word."
Jedao skates his fingers through Quentin's hair.
"I don't think you were dumb. You were just...lonely. And shining. So I grabbed you like a magpie when no one else was looking."
"I spend my whole stupid life putting myself into trouble, playing chicken with the idea that someone's going to notice enough to heave me out by the scruff."
He says, with a rueful sigh tickling against his ear.
"Infatuated with brilliant boys, fantasizing about tying myself to railroad tracks just in their earshot. If you ever want to make me smile, pretend-rescue me. It doesn't even have to be from anything, just come up to me and say you're rescuing me and pull me away from what I'm doing by the wrist, and I'll be-"
Yours for life, he almost says, except he won't quite, will he?
"I was infatuated with a wild, brilliant boy, and failed to save him," Jedao murmurs, which is easier than the name. Easier than the full shape of the story.
He kisses Quentin's neck gently, just because it's there.
"You know I've been trying to save people ever since." Even if it meant sacrificing everyone else he loved, in a perverse kind of punishment. "Just let me, darling. Just give me a whisper of a chance."
He's trying to save Fives now and is terrified he won't be enough when he lets himself stop to think; he's holding Quentin too tightly.
"And maybe a book where someone gets rescued after all."
"Oh, well, grab the sequels. This Book is Full of Spiders, Seriously Dude Don't Touch It, and then What the Hell Did I Just Read?"
That'll pass some time.
"Third one's really, really romantic. Uh, kind of. Depending on how you interpret- it's just. It leans pretty hard into the unreliable narrator thing."
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He wonders, arm tucking around his waist, mouth pressing against the top of his shoulder in a thoughtful kiss.
"I thought about it with you because of the bit with the frozen building. I feel like you scooped me up and out of there and dealt with my dumb stubborn pneumonia."
no subject
"I suppose able is really the operative word."
Jedao skates his fingers through Quentin's hair.
"I don't think you were dumb. You were just...lonely. And shining. So I grabbed you like a magpie when no one else was looking."
no subject
He says, with a rueful sigh tickling against his ear.
"Infatuated with brilliant boys, fantasizing about tying myself to railroad tracks just in their earshot. If you ever want to make me smile, pretend-rescue me. It doesn't even have to be from anything, just come up to me and say you're rescuing me and pull me away from what I'm doing by the wrist, and I'll be-"
Yours for life, he almost says, except he won't quite, will he?
"-the happiest I've ever been."
no subject
He kisses Quentin's neck gently, just because it's there.
"You know I've been trying to save people ever since." Even if it meant sacrificing everyone else he loved, in a perverse kind of punishment. "Just let me, darling. Just give me a whisper of a chance."
He's trying to save Fives now and is terrified he won't be enough when he lets himself stop to think; he's holding Quentin too tightly.
"And maybe a book where someone gets rescued after all."
no subject
Quentin has never read such a book in his life, but he will find one for Jedao, he swears he will.
It may also involve a dragon, but he can cross that bridge when he comes to it.
"I don't know why I didn't just give you Earthsea. I make everyone read Earthsea."
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"And I rushed you. Earthsea, then."
no subject
That'll pass some time.
"Third one's really, really romantic. Uh, kind of. Depending on how you interpret- it's just. It leans pretty hard into the unreliable narrator thing."