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Yeah, dude, I forgive you.
You were feeling terrible because of an actual curse, and you were as cruel as you knew how to be. You could've blown it off, but you apologized anyway. I think that's really brave and cool of you.
You were feeling terrible because of an actual curse, and you were as cruel as you knew how to be. You could've blown it off, but you apologized anyway. I think that's really brave and cool of you.
Wh--
[ Roman's had to apologize to people before. Especially on the barge. But there's always an edge to it, a gruffness from the other person, or some sort of schpiel. Raylan and Jedao, though? ]
Huh.
I am brave and cool. You're right. [ His ego loves it, that's for sure. ]
[ Roman's had to apologize to people before. Especially on the barge. But there's always an edge to it, a gruffness from the other person, or some sort of schpiel. Raylan and Jedao, though? ]
Huh.
I am brave and cool. You're right. [ His ego loves it, that's for sure. ]
You remind me of myself, a little bit.
[It could be a joke about the specialest boy, but it isn't; it's quietly musing, something he's thought for a while.]
You stayed safe, I hope?
[It could be a joke about the specialest boy, but it isn't; it's quietly musing, something he's thought for a while.]
You stayed safe, I hope?
Executed Zerxus with his own sword and punted Gaius off the ship when his brains wouldn't stay scrambled.
[Not quite casually. Coolly, evenly. Jedao has no regrets about taking care of them.]
Had you killed somebody before?
[Not quite casually. Coolly, evenly. Jedao has no regrets about taking care of them.]
Had you killed somebody before?
Oh, well, yeah, sounds like a tuesday. [ Roman shoots Jedao a look: not quite incredulous, not quite disgusted, but one he's developed solely for his friend that's a hearty mix of 'you're weird' and 'excuse me?'
Best to keep sliding down the chair as Jedao works on his arts and crafts. ]
Yeah... Uhh, no. No murder. Nothing direct, at least.
Best to keep sliding down the chair as Jedao works on his arts and crafts. ]
Yeah... Uhh, no. No murder. Nothing direct, at least.
Edited 2023-12-07 18:59 (UTC)
As the only warden on this corpsefucking ship who can control myself while under a rage curse, apparently, I had a duty to take down the heavy-hitters who were off the rails.
[It's a little terse, but bitter rather than defensive. He puts down the knife for a moment, and sighs.]
I'm sorry.
[It's a little terse, but bitter rather than defensive. He puts down the knife for a moment, and sighs.]
I'm sorry.
Getting your head fucked with killing someone you care about sucks. I'm sorry that happened to you.
[Matter-of-factly, rather than gently.]
[Matter-of-factly, rather than gently.]
Mr. Eiffel is dying at the bottom of the stairs next to the Enclosure, and there's a weird kid not letting anybody in the infirmary. Can you help him?
[Not more than five minutes later]
Eiffel is fine. Shallow stab wound from a child who panicked and had a pocket knife.
Eiffel is fine. Shallow stab wound from a child who panicked and had a pocket knife.
Edwin can't help it--the strength and purity of the emotions scares him. It scares him because it will be so much worse if Jedao ever decides to hate him. It scares him because he doesn't want to say something that will make that happen. He could ruin it, and he's never had or expected anything like Jedao's intangible warmth.
I love you.
It's an overwhelming set of words. He makes a soft, shocked noise.
"...Why? What did I do?"
If he can learn, maybe he can do it again.
I love you.
It's an overwhelming set of words. He makes a soft, shocked noise.
"...Why? What did I do?"
If he can learn, maybe he can do it again.
"I love that you ask good questions," Jedao says softly, "And that you try so hard, that you're brave and stubborn and you don't take anything for granted. But most of all I love you because...when I was new, and confused, and not the person my maker wanted, nobody loved me. And brand new people are supposed to be loved, even though so many aren't. I found you. Maybe not first, but I found you, and you're so much like me it hurts sometimes, so I get to love you. I get to do that. I love you because I can, and nobody can stop me. That's why."
A long, startled silence, and an internal sense of turmoil from Yellow--confusion, nerves, gratitude, longing, the sharp withdrawal of mistrust and uncertainty. But he doesn't demand to be let go or even ask Jedao to put him down. The withdrawal eases, slowly.
[...How do you know when you love someone?]
[...How do you know when you love someone?]
Different kinds of love can feel different, Jedao muses, but he's not blowing it off, he's trying to give Edwin a real answer. He doesn't say love is when you would make sacrifices for someone, because Jedao would sacrifice himself for people he's never even met. Love is something else; something that gives back to you out of the deep clear well of your own heart, whether you sacrifice or not.
The way I love Hakkai is full of trusting him to be careful with me when I'm fragile, and knowing he understands the things that are most important to me, and wanting to share as much of my life with him as we can, to build things together. I feel safe and wanted and understood and not alone, when he's there.
The feeling of it is steady and wondrous and warm and exhilarating, the regular beat of the waves on a Carribean shore. The water would buoy him up; could surround him and carry him along; is strong and endless and gentle at the same time.
The way I love Eiffel is knowing he won't ever want to hurt me, even if he does by accident sometimes. Knowing he doesn't want to hurt anyone, because he's kinder than I know how to be, and I want to keep that close and learn from it, and be kind to him even when he won't ask for it. It's full of feeling...younger and lighter and more free, free to be silly and enjoy things, when he's there.
The joy of running madly through a summer field, of shrieking and tumbling down a hill, of discovering the precious tiny shine of fireflies, and learning to make wishes on them.
The way I love Norton is just thinking he's...delightful. He delights me, especially when he's not trying to. I love how shameless he is and how petty. When I'm with him, it's not just okay to be self-indulgent, it's good, it's fun. I see him and I'm happy he's alive. I'm happy he's himself.
Cozy and sparkling and easy all at the same time, like laughing around a campfire, like blowing the puffs off of dandelions and watching them fly.
I've loved people who hated me before, Jedao admits, with a soft patter of old melancholy, like the gentle sound of rain outside, the grey-blue like drifting cool through the windows. And it did hurt, but the joy was still there, that they were themselves, that they existed in the world, even if they weren't for me. I think that's the core of what love is. Being glad to know someone exists, that they are who they are not and not someone else, thinking the world is so much richer and better because they are. I like John very much, but I'm also so glad you are you and not John. I think I'm very lucky I get to meet you. I'm so lucky I get to watch you grow.
Jedao tries to keep the volume turned down low on all the flavors of love he's trying to show Edwin, enough to notice and understand what he means without being overwhelmed by it. It's harder to do with the love he feels for Edwin, who's right there, for whom he feels so ferociously protective, and so unbearably tender, wanting to squish him so tight to Jedao's chest that he never knows what it's like to not be wanted again, like holding a bristling two-week-old kitten in the palm of one hand.
The way I love Hakkai is full of trusting him to be careful with me when I'm fragile, and knowing he understands the things that are most important to me, and wanting to share as much of my life with him as we can, to build things together. I feel safe and wanted and understood and not alone, when he's there.
The feeling of it is steady and wondrous and warm and exhilarating, the regular beat of the waves on a Carribean shore. The water would buoy him up; could surround him and carry him along; is strong and endless and gentle at the same time.
The way I love Eiffel is knowing he won't ever want to hurt me, even if he does by accident sometimes. Knowing he doesn't want to hurt anyone, because he's kinder than I know how to be, and I want to keep that close and learn from it, and be kind to him even when he won't ask for it. It's full of feeling...younger and lighter and more free, free to be silly and enjoy things, when he's there.
The joy of running madly through a summer field, of shrieking and tumbling down a hill, of discovering the precious tiny shine of fireflies, and learning to make wishes on them.
The way I love Norton is just thinking he's...delightful. He delights me, especially when he's not trying to. I love how shameless he is and how petty. When I'm with him, it's not just okay to be self-indulgent, it's good, it's fun. I see him and I'm happy he's alive. I'm happy he's himself.
Cozy and sparkling and easy all at the same time, like laughing around a campfire, like blowing the puffs off of dandelions and watching them fly.
I've loved people who hated me before, Jedao admits, with a soft patter of old melancholy, like the gentle sound of rain outside, the grey-blue like drifting cool through the windows. And it did hurt, but the joy was still there, that they were themselves, that they existed in the world, even if they weren't for me. I think that's the core of what love is. Being glad to know someone exists, that they are who they are not and not someone else, thinking the world is so much richer and better because they are. I like John very much, but I'm also so glad you are you and not John. I think I'm very lucky I get to meet you. I'm so lucky I get to watch you grow.
Jedao tries to keep the volume turned down low on all the flavors of love he's trying to show Edwin, enough to notice and understand what he means without being overwhelmed by it. It's harder to do with the love he feels for Edwin, who's right there, for whom he feels so ferociously protective, and so unbearably tender, wanting to squish him so tight to Jedao's chest that he never knows what it's like to not be wanted again, like holding a bristling two-week-old kitten in the palm of one hand.
Yellow is fascinated by the sense of each one in turn, the differences and the ways they feel the same. But when Jedao gets to loving him, the gentleness and protection and absolute acceptance make Yellow shrink in on himself. Not because he doesn't want them. He wants those things to be for him, he wants it so much it burns. But he's afraid.
He's so afraid.
What if he ruins it somehow? What if he takes these feelings as things he gets to keep and they fall apart or Jedao decides he doesn't deserve them? Can he take knowing that these emotions could be for him if he just knew how to make them stay?
[I... love John.]
It's true. He realizes it now, as he crouches away from the responsibility of Jedao's love, terrified of failing the gift. He doesn't feel that when he talks to John. He never has. Yellow still worries about it, quietly, the idea that John will stop caring about him and he won't know why. But it is quiet, an occasional worry, one that disappears whenever they talk.
[I love John.]
He's so afraid.
What if he ruins it somehow? What if he takes these feelings as things he gets to keep and they fall apart or Jedao decides he doesn't deserve them? Can he take knowing that these emotions could be for him if he just knew how to make them stay?
[I... love John.]
It's true. He realizes it now, as he crouches away from the responsibility of Jedao's love, terrified of failing the gift. He doesn't feel that when he talks to John. He never has. Yellow still worries about it, quietly, the idea that John will stop caring about him and he won't know why. But it is quiet, an occasional worry, one that disappears whenever they talk.
[I love John.]
If he's not careful, he'll think of Mandrake, his breach-brother who never pretended it was anything else, and burn Edwin with a mix of caustic old self-recrimination and jealousy. It's, profoundly, not about him.
It would be too easy, too, to think more deeply of Dhanneth, who Jedao loved so feverishly, and lost so emphatically. It's so tempting to tongue the wound of him like a child who's lost a tooth, to taste the sluggish blood and feel the tender spot. Jedao knows exactly how shattering it is, to believe in someone's love and then feel it wrenched viciously away, replaced with the truth of hatred.
It won't happen to Edwin, not from Jedao, but dwelling on the agonizing truth of that fear made manifest, or even drawing attention to the fear at all, won't do any good. So Jedao keeps his own heartaches firmly packed away.
"I'm so glad you have him," Jedao murmurs, dwelling in that emotion instead: the rose-gold dawn-chorus sweetness of his affection for John, the unexpected delight of finding someone who understands so many things about him, who is so earnest and kind and forthright. It's a bright, pure thing, but not half as powerful as the heavy, chest-churning purr of his love for Edwin. And the joy of it is pure gratitude, flowing like a clear mountain stream. For both of them to have someone else who understands, who is like them -
(Revenant never promised to love him. Jedao pushes away missing it. Revenant hated him too, in the end.)
It would be too easy, too, to think more deeply of Dhanneth, who Jedao loved so feverishly, and lost so emphatically. It's so tempting to tongue the wound of him like a child who's lost a tooth, to taste the sluggish blood and feel the tender spot. Jedao knows exactly how shattering it is, to believe in someone's love and then feel it wrenched viciously away, replaced with the truth of hatred.
It won't happen to Edwin, not from Jedao, but dwelling on the agonizing truth of that fear made manifest, or even drawing attention to the fear at all, won't do any good. So Jedao keeps his own heartaches firmly packed away.
"I'm so glad you have him," Jedao murmurs, dwelling in that emotion instead: the rose-gold dawn-chorus sweetness of his affection for John, the unexpected delight of finding someone who understands so many things about him, who is so earnest and kind and forthright. It's a bright, pure thing, but not half as powerful as the heavy, chest-churning purr of his love for Edwin. And the joy of it is pure gratitude, flowing like a clear mountain stream. For both of them to have someone else who understands, who is like them -
(Revenant never promised to love him. Jedao pushes away missing it. Revenant hated him too, in the end.)
A commitment. Makes sense, in its way. It's strange not to hesitate in guiding his crown into Jedao's hands, knowing what will happen. Inviting it, being relieved to find himself drawn into that simultaneously dark and translucent interior world.
There is absolutely the sense of Edwin snuggling in, like a cat smugly pleased at stealing a dog's bed.
There is absolutely the sense of Edwin snuggling in, like a cat smugly pleased at stealing a dog's bed.
Jedao, meanwhile, wraps around him in turn, just a tiny bit gleefully, with all the answering smugness of a child favored enough to scoop up a cat in his arms and receive a purr instead of scratches for the presumption. Jedao cradles the crown gently against the forearm of the hand he keeps control of, and finds a spot where two machines are both running facing opposite each other, then hops up to sit on top of one, feeling the steady rumbling warmth beneath him.
What's up, buttercup? Jedao asks, affectionate and silly and gentle.
What's up, buttercup? Jedao asks, affectionate and silly and gentle.
Hello, darling.
How did the flood treat you?
Yeah. Different fuckery, but...same shit, really.
I was much luckier in my company than in its effects.
[Less diplomatically: it was an extremely shitty time to return to - one that did not even allow him to cheerfully use the line 'it could have been worse', because it couldn't, really - but he managed not to blow up any of his relationships, so. That's good.]
You?
[Less diplomatically: it was an extremely shitty time to return to - one that did not even allow him to cheerfully use the line 'it could have been worse', because it couldn't, really - but he managed not to blow up any of his relationships, so. That's good.]
You?
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