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[ninefox]

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[ninefox]

"Yeah?" Jedao prompts, unworried because Fives is so clearly unworried. He rather thought he would broach the subject of Quentin's extended stay first, but finds himself completely unsurprised to find Quentin has beat him to it.

[callmefives]

"About him staying." Though he supposes Jedao must know that, Quentin had talked to him about it first, after all.

"You know I never would have said no, don't you?" he asks, concerned that Jedao might have doubted him.

[ninefox]

"Didn't we have a very long discussion about you being able to say no to me?" Jedao points out, squeezing Fives' ass a little.

[callmefives]

"That's different," he insists quietly, even if he knows Jedao probably thinks it isn't. "You know I'll say no to you when it matters." He feels he's proven that much. "But he makes you happy... you love him." And he deserves that after everything he's suffered.

[ninefox]

"It is, a bit," he concedes. What happens to Fives' body and what Jedao does with his own body - or mind, he thinks, remembering the bond with an internal wince - is another.

"But I think we don't always have exactly the same criteria for what matters."

He nuzzles Fives' cheek.

"I didn't think so, really. But...I know he scared you, at first. You're careful about Nico, aren't you? Quentin and I both want to be careful about you."

[callmefives]

"We probably don't," he agrees, and he's mostly okay with that. They're different people with different frames of reference and he's learning to accept that and adapt to it. It's been... hard, after the life he's had, surrounded by brothers with almost identical formative experiences and opinions and attitudes, but he's learning.

"And... he still scares me. A little." Which is almost as hard to admit as any other weakness, but Jedao deserves his honesty. "But not as much. And-" He stops, lips pressed together pensively as he tries to figure out how to say the rest. "He asked... he wants to be... family?" he finally finishes. Not brothers, it's not that profound a connection, he doesn't think. At least not yet, if it ever can be. But it's different.

[ninefox]

"Yeah?" he asks again, but there's a different thread of tentative hope, this time. Maybe he's a hypocrite, considering his ambiguous feelings about Clark, but in a perfect world, Jedao would want to be married with both of them. Even if it can't last with Quentin - romantic happiness, in his head, is more stable, more real, in more-that-pairs. Two people is all you need for a hook-up, but three is a solid foundation.

[callmefives]

"Yeah." He's not sure how else to explain it, if he should elaborate somehow or what. "Uh... co-boyfriends?" Which feels, honestly, a little more threatening than family, but is still better than being completely separate entities.

"It feels better. Safer," he adds after a moment. "I hadn't really... I hadn't thought-" He stops, not sure how to explain to Jedao. "I've always shared," he finally settles on, quiet and slow. "Everyone. But... it was always with brothers?" Maybe that will be enough for Jedao to understand; he knows so much about Fives' life before the barge, and he's good at making those leaps.

[ninefox]

"I'd love us all to be family," he says honestly, which, if not less threatening, certainly feels less artificial to him. "I haven't ever been with two people at once before, you know," he admits. "Because I wasn't with one person long enough to matter."

The closest was Ruo and Yeren; they'd all known Ruo still had a claim on his heart, even if they were trying different things. They'd all wanted for each other, as much as wanting each other. It hurts to remember - but less than it used to.

"But it feels...right. To be shared. And I didn't know...whether you wanted that with him or if he wanted to think about it that way at all." He leans in, presses a slow but shallow kiss to Fives' mouth. "I hoped so much, when you started working on magic, that you'd get closer. That you could be good for each other."

[callmefives]

"I've never really been with only one." Other than that first little bit with Clark, he supposes, but even by his standards that wasn't long enough to matter much. "But... but Echo was always mine," he adds very quietly. "And I was always his. Everyone else was... they were brothers, and we loved them, and it was good. But it... it wasn't the same." And that's part of what scares him even now, with Quentin. Even if they're going to be something like family. "And it was the same with Tup, mostly." Not as intense. Tup hadn't replaced Echo, or tried to, and Fives hadn't expected to be that for him, either.

And now with Jedao... no matter how much he loves Clark, or thinks that Clark loves him, they're neither of them that for each other. But Jedao is, for him. He's everything. But he doesn't have the right to expect to be that for him for him in return.

He closes his eyes and shimmies down a little so he can burrow up under Jedao's chin, his face pressed into the warmth of his throat. "I'd rather be close than not. I'd rather... care about him too." And have Quentin care about him in turn. He hopes that will make it all easier. He thinks it will.

[ninefox]

"You're it for me, you know," Jedao murmurs softly, cupping his hand against the back of Fives' neck. "I've never felt about anyone the way I feel about you. When I barely know who I am, I know I'm yours."

He could have loved Ruo like that, he's sure, at the bottom of his romantic heart. But they didn't have the time. Jedao's never loved anyone the way he loves Quentin, either, but it's not the same as it is with Fives, not utterly vital in the same way. If he were caught in the carrion bomb again, Jedao thinks, you could see Fives' face glimmering in his soulglass.

[callmefives]

Fives takes a shuddering, gasping breath, still tucked into the shelter beneath Jedao's chin. No matter how many time Jedao says it, or something like it, it always feels like a surprise, like his breath's being sucked away and his chest constricted and he just wants the feeling to last forever. Wants to live in the moments when he can believe it, all the way to his bones, before a lifetime of conditioning makes it feel like a distant, impossible dream.

"I want to be with you always, Jed'ika," he whispers. "I want Quentin and Clark to figure out how to stop our aging, and get old and... and grey with you, surrounded by our brothers and... and by our children," he adds even more quietly. It's not a dream he's ever let himself even touch before now, and it still feels fragile and impossible, but he wants it with everything in him.

[ninefox]

Jedao squeezes tightly.

"I want that so much," he whispers, a terrible, wrenching confession, like the disaster of his life or the edifice of his enemies will hear if he speaks too loud.

"I don't ever want to be without you. I couldn't do it. I could live for the vod'ike but not happily, not without you."

[callmefives]

Fives never in his life thought he'd have any cause to exchange marriage vows, to even think it would be possible. He never thought he'd so desperately want to the way he does in this moment, when he knows with everything in him that Jedao means every word of that.

Wants it, but has no idea how to ask for it, or if Jedao would even consider it if he managed to find the nerve. But this is... it's better than good. Better than anything he'd ever dreamed he could have. "I won't ever leave you if I can help it," he promises fiercely, because that's the best he can do right now. "Treasonous kriffing bastards together, Jed'ika." And that feels, in it's way, like a vow, it has from the first day. "Always."

[ninefox]

"Always," Jedao echoes. "I won't ever choose to leave you either," he promises. War is war, but if it happens, that won't be his choice, won't be anything like it.

[callmefives]

And right here, right now, he absolutely believes it, even though he knows the certainty will fade again with time, and he knows it will be his fault when it does. But he isn't going to think about that now, when everything between them feels good and safe and right. Even Quentin doesn't feel like a threat right now, and maybe he won't again, or at least not as much of one.

"I like him a lot, Jed'ika," he whispers. "That he's kind, and... and cares about hurting me. And wants to help." And it would be so easy for him not to. To let Fives' rapid aging eliminate him as a contender for Jedao's affections. "But most importantly, he takes care of you."

[ninefox]

"I've been just madly lucky, haven't I?" Jedao agrees. Both of them are so wonderful, so good for him. Mentally he includes Horseriver too, for all that that wound is still raw and tender. His off-kilter honorable old monster-king, and his gentle dreamy magician, and his traitorous bastard, his blinding-bright indomitable soldier, ready to shake worlds with him, who would trust him with children.

[callmefives]

"Or maybe it's us who've been lucky," Fives counters solemnly. "I know I have. Before you I knew I wanted my brother's to be able to serve with honor, but I didn't know to want them to have the choice not to serve at all. To want them to be free. I didn't... I didn't know what it is we should wish for... for our children." A word he'd never thought to apply to any of them, at any age. A word that had seemed so meaningless to him until Jedao had shown him what it could, and should, mean.

"You make the world... larger. And more full of possibilities than I ever imagined. And you make them all seem possible."

[ninefox]

Jedao sucks in a breath, a sob lurching somewhere in his chest.

"Our children," he whispers, ducks his chin deeply so that he can kiss the crown of Fives' head. "You make me feel free," he murmurs. "You make the world seem - bright." Instead of backbreaking.

[callmefives]

"Ours," Fives agrees fiercely. "And they'll all be free." Or he'll die trying to make it so, and he has never once, for even a moment, doubted that Jedao will too. "And you'll show them... lambs, or something like them, and how to dance, and how to grow up as people, not tools or weapons; not things."

[ninefox]

"We'll show them," Jedao corrects, because Fives loves the lambs, and dances wonderfully, and has known in his bones since long before he met Jedao that his brothers were not things.

[callmefives]

Fives ducks a little and rubs his face against Jedao's shirt with a wet, snuffling noise. "I'm not sad... or frightened-" He snuffles again and holds Jedao tighter. "Why is this kriffing happening?" he demands, sounding vaguely offended and decidedly... damp.

[ninefox]

"Too many feelings," Jedao says, deliberately exaggerating his drawl. "Gotta squeeze'em out." And then, less farcically, "It happens with happiness, sometimes. It just does."

[callmefives]

He huffs--wetly--and rubs his face against Jedao's shirt again. "It can stop any time," he mumbles, indignant. A moment later he adds, more than a little nonsensically, "I'll squeeze you out," and pushes at Jedao until he gets him rolled over onto his back then... flops on top of him, face still pressed to his shirt.

[ninefox]

Jedao laughs and groans, knees hitching up a little to bracket Fives between them.

"Is that a promise or a threat?" he asks, bemused, stroking a hand over Fives' back.