His breath catches and he goes tense; he hadn't realized Jedao had been able to hear that. "Not by you." But his voice is unsteady and he curls into Jedao a little, swallowing against a lump in his throat. "It was stupid to let that... hurt. I know you're not ignoring me, Quentin just... he just needs more?" That has to be the reason it feels like Jedao tends to focus on him more when all three of them are together, right? And it feels childish and stupid to have a tally of little hurts that mean nothing.
"And you've never forced me. You've never been anything but exquisitely kind to me in bed, even when I was being an absolute inscrutable ass. Am I stupid, any time I'm scared?"
There are other things he should probably respond to, there - but he's a hound with a bone, now.
"The reason you don't know is because you didn't do anything wrong," Jedao tells him, close and kind and firm. "We're all people living with complicated histories and old hurts, and I have an unfortunate habit of going at maximum velocity until I slam into something, even if that something is someone I love."
He strokes a hand over Fives' skull, then squeezes the back of his neck. "It's not surprising we didn't get it perfect right out of the ship. But we're all worth working for, to get there."
The hand at his nape is never not going to ease his tension, not from someone he loves. "It wasn't just not perfect," he points out quietly. "It was a disaster." And he can't really believe he didn't do anything wrong
"Nobody died. Nobody cried. We didn't even set anything on fire." He grins, rueful and silly, and kisses Fives again. "Just because I have to wait a little bit longer for my dearest loves to fulfill a wildly cherished fantasy doesn't make it a disaster."
He sets his forehead against Fives' and hums thoughtfully.
"I know you're used to...not having time? One thing getting derailed might have meant never getting another chance. But we are going to have our whole lives, and you are going to grow properly old, with us. Anything that doesn't jeopardize that isn't a disaster. It's just a temporary setback."
His breath hitches again, and this time it's almost a sob. He hadn't... he really hadn't realized that that was part of it, not consciously, but it was. Even though he knows it's not true, that there will be more chances, that there'll be a whole lifetime of chances, some part of him's been convinced that it was the only chance he was ever going to get and he'd ruined it.
He shifts his weight and Tits, finally sick of all the moving around, gets off his lap and stalks away to take over a pillow while he slumps into Jedao. "I know it's not the only chance, why does it still feel like it was?"
"I hate it," he mumbles, fully aware just how childish he sounds and not really caring enough to do anything about it right now. And all of it makes him realize another part of it, that hurts just as deeply. "I don't know how to be perfect at this, and I don't know how to not need to be."
"If you were any more perfect I'd fuck it all up because of the pressure, probably," Jedao muses, and although the tone is light it isn't a joke at all.
"You wouldn't fuck it up, you know how to deal with people." Real people, he means, though knows better than to say. "And how to be in real relationships." Which he doesn't know better than to say.
"I was an idiot child when I fell for Ruo and I killed him. And you can't have a real relationship if you're always lying about who you are and what matters most to you in the world. And anyway I was -"
A hawkfucker -
"Always on campaign, and it wasn't like the clones, you know that. You're the second person I've been with for anything more than a casual fling."
Fives rolls and pins Jedao under him when he realizes how badly he screwed up, trying to be a soothing weight. To help physically if he's just going to make a mess of things when he opens his mouth.
"I'm sorry," he murmurs, pressing the words to Jedao's cheek and jaw, chasing them with kisses. "I'm sorry, I know that and then... I forget. Because you seem so much like you know exactly what you're doing and how to make things... make them right. With someone like Quentin." Someone normal and fragile in strange and surprising ways. Ways he feels like he has no clue how to navigate.
Jedao catches him in a proper kiss, fierce and deep, his hands bracing Fives' face as his legs wrap around him. He takes a few deep, earnest breathes before he tries to reply.
"I've been dating him longer. And I do know more about...people generally. It probably helps that when I fuck up, you usually thing it's your fault," he mumbles. "That makes me look great, never making my own mistakes."
Fives melts into the kiss, warm and enthusiastic as always, and when Jedao breaks it to talk he rests their foreheads together. "But... it was my fault," he points out, more perplexed than outright defiant. He's not sure how Jedao could think him freezing like that, and misinterpreting everything, was anything but his own kriffing fault.
"I knew it was a risk, you feeling excluded. I was the one calling the plays, and I got it wrong," Jedao says simply. "You didn't feel awful out of nowhere, Fives. I wasn't taking care of you right."
"I'm not a child," he answers, shifting to drag their cheeks together instead, so he doesn't have to look at him. "I should know better." It's what he's been telling himself every time it's happened, he just... hadn't managed to make himself believe it hard enough or fast enough this time.
Fives shudders and then sinks a little against him, his weight bearing him more firmly into the bed just by dint of Fives not actually holding his own weight up anymore. Then he lets out a ragged breath, presses his face into Jedao's neck, and finally gives up on trying to convince himself not to be hurt.
"It just... it almost always feels like it's... like it's more about the two of you when... when all three of us are together," he whispers, and feels guilty down to his core for it. For noticing it, for being hurt by it, for daring to actually say anything about it.
"I worry about him more than I should," Jedao admits. "It - in my head, it feels like if anyone really were on the outside, it'd be him? We're married, we're - the same in ways he's not. Even though it took longer to work sex out, you and me were going to be forever since that day at the pond. In my head, that's - given, that's a rule of the universe. Your life is my life, and mine is yours. And it's our life he's coming into, when he didn't plan for it, when he's not meant for war, or noise, or - and I know that's how he sees us, too. One shared destiny that he's navigating. And he was so scared at first of coming between us. And I know that's not how you see it, but I'm bad at remembering - how much. But he doesn't actually need to be reassured about that as much as I do it, I think. So I just keep - calibrating it wrong. I'm sorry for that."
Fives isn't wrong to notice, or to say it. It just doesn't mean what his brain wants to insist it means.
"That's why it's so stupid I keep feeling like this," he chokes out, because hearing Jedao put it that way just makes him feel worse for how badly left out he keeps feeling when Jedao's just trying to make sure Quentin doesn't feel left out.
"But... it did feel like he was coming between us at first," he admits, voice going even more rough and quiet, feeling more guilty. "I was so scared you'd... that you'd get tired of how hard everything was for us. And he's brilliant and powerful and he can give you... he can give you s-so much I can't." He's not a powerful wizard, not a brilliant mathematician and scientist, not even, by the standard of so much of the multiverse, a grown man.
And while they'd fought for every inch of progress, Jedao had courted Quentin and Fives had spent most of that time waiting for him to decide that what they had just wasn't worth the effort, that all they really needed to be was traitors together, brothers without being lovers. And then Quentin had decided he wanted to stay and it had terrified him even more, but he loves Jedao too much to not want him to be happy, even if it's happy without him. It had taken him a long time to get far enough past his fear to start loving Quentin himself. A long time and a lot of reaching out from Quentin himself.
"And I should know better. I should." But he keeps tripping over hurt and fear that he knows he's not entitled to, not when Jedao's worked so hard for so long for them to have this. Not when he's kriffing married him.
"You gave me a future," Jedao tells him, in a soft, gentle, awed voice. "And a home. And children. You gave me everything I thought I could never, ever have."
He strokes his fingertips down Fives' spine. "If I'd never met you, I'd still have fallen in love with Quentin. But I don't think I could really be happy."
Without Fives - without his traitor, his soul's proof against being a monster alone in the world again, he'd fall back again and again into the pit. He'd love Quentin and hold him and try to be good to him, but he'd want to let him go, back to his books and his dragons. He'd still want to die.
"Don't tell him I said that, okay?" Jedao knows it's terrible. But.
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Or, wait, was that the other way around.
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There are other things he should probably respond to, there - but he's a hound with a bone, now.
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He leans in and kisses Fives again, softly, something to soothe them both, a gentling kiss.
"He wasn't stupid to be hurt, and neither were you."
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He strokes a hand over Fives' skull, then squeezes the back of his neck. "It's not surprising we didn't get it perfect right out of the ship. But we're all worth working for, to get there."
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He sets his forehead against Fives' and hums thoughtfully.
"I know you're used to...not having time? One thing getting derailed might have meant never getting another chance. But we are going to have our whole lives, and you are going to grow properly old, with us. Anything that doesn't jeopardize that isn't a disaster. It's just a temporary setback."
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He shifts his weight and Tits, finally sick of all the moving around, gets off his lap and stalks away to take over a pillow while he slumps into Jedao. "I know it's not the only chance, why does it still feel like it was?"
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“Old fears have their own life. Yours just as stubbornly as mine.”
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"No, I don't. People, yes, but -" He chokes.
"I was an idiot child when I fell for Ruo and I killed him. And you can't have a real relationship if you're always lying about who you are and what matters most to you in the world. And anyway I was -"
A hawkfucker -
"Always on campaign, and it wasn't like the clones, you know that. You're the second person I've been with for anything more than a casual fling."
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"I'm sorry," he murmurs, pressing the words to Jedao's cheek and jaw, chasing them with kisses. "I'm sorry, I know that and then... I forget. Because you seem so much like you know exactly what you're doing and how to make things... make them right. With someone like Quentin." Someone normal and fragile in strange and surprising ways. Ways he feels like he has no clue how to navigate.
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"I've been dating him longer. And I do know more about...people generally. It probably helps that when I fuck up, you usually thing it's your fault," he mumbles. "That makes me look great, never making my own mistakes."
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"You shouldn't have to know better. I'm your husband. No matter what you know, making you feel wanted is my job, forever and ever, eyefox witness."
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"It just... it almost always feels like it's... like it's more about the two of you when... when all three of us are together," he whispers, and feels guilty down to his core for it. For noticing it, for being hurt by it, for daring to actually say anything about it.
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Fives isn't wrong to notice, or to say it. It just doesn't mean what his brain wants to insist it means.
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"But... it did feel like he was coming between us at first," he admits, voice going even more rough and quiet, feeling more guilty. "I was so scared you'd... that you'd get tired of how hard everything was for us. And he's brilliant and powerful and he can give you... he can give you s-so much I can't." He's not a powerful wizard, not a brilliant mathematician and scientist, not even, by the standard of so much of the multiverse, a grown man.
And while they'd fought for every inch of progress, Jedao had courted Quentin and Fives had spent most of that time waiting for him to decide that what they had just wasn't worth the effort, that all they really needed to be was traitors together, brothers without being lovers. And then Quentin had decided he wanted to stay and it had terrified him even more, but he loves Jedao too much to not want him to be happy, even if it's happy without him. It had taken him a long time to get far enough past his fear to start loving Quentin himself. A long time and a lot of reaching out from Quentin himself.
"And I should know better. I should." But he keeps tripping over hurt and fear that he knows he's not entitled to, not when Jedao's worked so hard for so long for them to have this. Not when he's kriffing married him.
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He strokes his fingertips down Fives' spine. "If I'd never met you, I'd still have fallen in love with Quentin. But I don't think I could really be happy."
Without Fives - without his traitor, his soul's proof against being a monster alone in the world again, he'd fall back again and again into the pit. He'd love Quentin and hold him and try to be good to him, but he'd want to let him go, back to his books and his dragons. He'd still want to die.
"Don't tell him I said that, okay?" Jedao knows it's terrible. But.
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