"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.
He sniffles into Jedao's neck and feels even more like a kriffing child for how much that reassurance means to him... and for the part of him that still feels the need to point out, "But you could have all of that without... without me. Like this, anyway."
And then his breath catches against a sharp stab of completely irrational fear. He tries to bite it back, but he knows if he doesn't say it now it's going to fester, no matter how fucking stupid he knows it is. "You know that, right? You don't... if you ever decided... you don't have to do this to-" He stops to suck in a ragged breath, just for a second, sick guilt twisting in his stomach for even saying this- "You can have all that without having to... to keep me." He'd never take that away from him, even if he thought he could achieve everything they have planned without Jedao.
"Yeah, I know." Knows that Fives would have pined forever if Jedao hadn't been completely incapable of resisting him, panic attacks be damned. "But after all the things Kujen and the barge together have done to my brain and body, I think I can confidently say that even if I were a castrated amnesiac with no extra rewards whatsoever, I'd pretty much still constantly want your cock in me somehow or other."
Fives snorts a (unattractively damp) laugh against Jedao's neck then snuffles again, relieved and so kriffing grateful. "You're fucking ridiculous," he murmurs, the shape of a smile pressed into Jedao's skin in the wake of his works, before he kisses the same spot and makes himself push up enough to meet his eyes again. "And I really really love you."
Fives ducks a little, sliding down so he can press a kiss to Jedao's chest, wishing it were bare skin but willing to make do. "There's nothing rotten about your heart, cyar'ika."
"With you I could believe it," Jedao tells him. "I wish you'd stop saying you should know better. I mean - you do. Clearly. You know. The problem isn't knowing. The problem is being so impatient that you still need some reassurance. And we all do, at different times. So keep letting yourself ask."
He tips his forehead against Jedao's sternum instead of pushing back up. "How?" he asks quietly. "I just... I don't know how." He has no idea what he should have done differently with Jedao and Quentin to keep things from spiraling so far out of control. When or how he could have said anything, or what it should have been.
He draws in a shuddering breath at the realization that Jedao is, in fact, right. Bust still- "But what about before? With Quentin. I didn't know how to fix it and instead I made a mess of everything."
"It happened too fast. The whole mess about oral - it took us both by surprise. That was just...bad luck. Or my fault for not being more honest with Quentin ages ago. And Quentin and I both decided that making sure the man we love was okay was more important than having sex that particular night."
Jedao curls up enough to press a kiss to the crown of Fives' head.
"And that was our choice to make. So just...let us?"
"I scared Quentin, and... made him feel like I didn't want him there." That still hurts a bit. And no matter what he knows intellectually, he still has the residual feeling of having been an interloper. "And I don't know how to keep it from happening again." Because much as he hates it, he knows himself well enough to know he's not going to just magically get over his issues.
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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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And then his breath catches against a sharp stab of completely irrational fear. He tries to bite it back, but he knows if he doesn't say it now it's going to fester, no matter how fucking stupid he knows it is. "You know that, right? You don't... if you ever decided... you don't have to do this to-" He stops to suck in a ragged breath, just for a second, sick guilt twisting in his stomach for even saying this- "You can have all that without having to... to keep me." He'd never take that away from him, even if he thought he could achieve everything they have planned without Jedao.
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"Yeah, I know." Knows that Fives would have pined forever if Jedao hadn't been completely incapable of resisting him, panic attacks be damned. "But after all the things Kujen and the barge together have done to my brain and body, I think I can confidently say that even if I were a castrated amnesiac with no extra rewards whatsoever, I'd pretty much still constantly want your cock in me somehow or other."
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Jedao curls up enough to press a kiss to the crown of Fives' head.
"And that was our choice to make. So just...let us?"
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