"Yeah - hold on there, the more weight I put in the more it'll tilt, but if you don't roll into me we should balance alright."
He reaches a hand over Gonou's body to grip the far side of the hammock, starting off as a brace that will turn later into a cling, and then shifts his weight, maneuvering quickly enough to avoid flipping anyone out, although he does end up sprawled somewhat heavily and unceremoniously on top of Gonou.
"Oops," he says, utterly unrepentant, and drops a kiss on Gonou's cheeks.
Gonou has excellent balance, when he's not being startled by unfamiliar furniture; he braces himself against the hammock as Jedao drops himself in with better grace than he'd managed, hangs on, and is promptly flattened beneath Jedao's weight.
He laughs softly at the unconvincing 'oops,' settling his arms around Jedao's waist as he wiggles his shoulders into a slightly more comfortable position.
"You didn't mean to do that?" he teases, and returns the cheek kiss with a brush of dry lips. "Well. So it can hold two." Although he wouldn't like to test it by moving around too much with both of their weight on the ropes.
"Maybe I didn't," Jedao says loftily, ruining it right at the end with a small yawn, and he snuggles in, which doesn't really bring them any closer but does make it that much more apparent how close they are; he nuzzles Gonou's neck and sticks a hand under his shirt to hold him. There's no particular teasing, just the drape of Jedao's hand and forearm loosely over Gonou's belly.
"Maybe you did," Gonou teases back, soft, and turns his face against Jedao's hair. He closes his eyes, breathing in, long and shakily; there are a few goosebumps puckering his skin under Jedao's fingertips.
"...If you want to go back to sleep," he murmurs, "that would be all right, too."
"I don't think vengeance is -- right," Gonou murmurs, his fingers absently counting over the ridges of Jedao's backbone as he thinks. "He thinks it's what he needs, and I'm sure he'd feel better for it, but that's part of his problem, isn't it?
"Maybe he just needs time. To see that his not getting vengeance doesn't mean Cloud is going to hurt someone he loves again."
"Maybe he would. But he also wants to protect his people, and he can't protect anyone with simple violence, not here. It doesn't stop anyone, it just pisses them off. So I want to give him alternatives but I don't know what a better alternative than look, he's still alive could be."
James needs not to feel helpless, and in some ways the barge makes that even harder than an empire.
"I don't know either. From what I heard from Raylan -- it was really just an accident. He was startled out of sleep, he lashed out, he called for help the moment he realized what he'd done...."
It hadn't made Raylan any less dead, but it made violent revenge even more pointless.
"You can't really plan against accidents like that."
Phrased that way, he can see why Flint's so stuck on it: there are some things that can't be protected against. To lose a lover to one of them-- well. It's not easy.
Flint isn't helpless because of all the forces that have conspired against him in the past, even though the feeling is all tied up with them; he isn't even helpless because Jedao isn't letting him get revenge. He's just helpless because everyone is a little bit helpless against the infinite vagaries of chance. But there's no way to untangle it, and Jedao already worries he's said too much that should be private.
"The thing is," he says suddenly, quietly, hotly. "If it was me, and I was an immortal inmate with nothing to lose, and some fucker killed me thinking that would be enough to scare me into behaving, I'd ruin him."
"Only if I didn't get to him first," Gonou murmurs. "But-- yes. Exactly that. And making the death slower and more torturous only makes it more certain that his target, and his target's friends, won't be willing to let it go.
"So that's not a solution at all. It can't be. It's just much more mess. I did offer to spar with him sometime, if he needs to hit someone real instead of Enclosure simulations."
He pauses, and adds, "If it's barehanded, I'm almost completely sure there's no danger I'll kill him."
"I know you don't," he says into Jedao's hair, quirking the slightest smile. "But since I'm an inmate with nothing to lose -- if someone tried to hurt or kill you to scare you into doing what they wanted, I might have to show them why that wouldn't work."
Empirically. Probably also without killing them, although if they start a fight he can't make any promises there either.
"It would be a learning experience," he adds, deliberately innocent.
"They'd know it didn't work when I didn't do it," Jedao says, a little bit flatly. "I care about control, I don't care about pain at all."
Anyone with any brains who actually wanted leverage against Jedao would threaten to hurt Gonou. Although actually going through with it wouldn't be nearly so effective. Jedao knows that letting themselves be - known, in public, is a security mistake. But it's a tradeoff for other things.
"If someone hurt me just to be an asshole I figure you get one free punch. As far as I'm concerned." Xie Lian might have his own opinions.
"I'd prefer one free dangling them over the railing by their shirt collar while I explain their mistake," Gonou mutters. Xie Lian might have his own opinions about that, too, but Gonou has the strong suspicion that they would boil down to watching Gonou dangle them over the railing and offering advice on his collar holding technique.
He leans his head back against the rope of the hammock, which creaks, a faint shivering sway running through it with the shift of his weight.
"I don't find violence satisfying, is the thing," he murmurs at last. "That doesn't stop me from lashing out, but I don't fool myself that it'll make me feel better. Mr. Flint says it does, for him. I imagine it's harder to resist if it actually works."
"Satisfying is not the same as works," Jedao mutters darkly; part of him worries that if he slips up and Flint finds that out, he'll just spiral even worse at the compounded sense of helplessness.
"Also, there's nets now." Which is to say he suspects collar-dangling would fall into the same category of gratifying but ineffective. But he's not fussed enough that he'd actually be mad about it.
"Vengeance isn't good for anything but making you feel better, so in this one very specific case, it is the same. And anyone hoping for anything more out of their vengeance is fooling themselves from the beginning."
He taps a fingertip against the small of Jedao's back, quirking a smile.
"And the nets don't matter. I wouldn't want to upset you by dropping them, in any case. I'd just lecture."
James is very much fooling himself, except that the things he's fooling himself about being able to get are mostly things people should have, like not living in constant fear of loss. It's a mess.
"Once a schoolteacher," Jedao teases, instead of digging deeper into it.
"Mm," Gonou agrees, letting it go. He doesn't think he understands James Flint well enough to give Jedao any useful advice, and rambling isn't that helpful.
"One has to be flexible with one's pedagogy for the situation at hand," he says instead, light and amused.
"I wish I had nice things to tell you about. Maybe I should get a pet." It's only idle musing though; he has enough responsibilities already, and it wouldn't be fair, he thinks, to get a living creature he knows won't be his priority.
"I am fully prepared to switch a few hundred dust jackets around just to be annoying if he was a prick to you," Jedao promises, loyally and immediately. He's pretty sure he could get James on board with that.
"He didn't do anything to me," Gonou says, on a soft chuckle, and nuzzles into Jedao's hair. "It's just -- I got upset over that punishment he's giving Daniel."
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"Yeah - hold on there, the more weight I put in the more it'll tilt, but if you don't roll into me we should balance alright."
He reaches a hand over Gonou's body to grip the far side of the hammock, starting off as a brace that will turn later into a cling, and then shifts his weight, maneuvering quickly enough to avoid flipping anyone out, although he does end up sprawled somewhat heavily and unceremoniously on top of Gonou.
"Oops," he says, utterly unrepentant, and drops a kiss on Gonou's cheeks.
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He laughs softly at the unconvincing 'oops,' settling his arms around Jedao's waist as he wiggles his shoulders into a slightly more comfortable position.
"You didn't mean to do that?" he teases, and returns the cheek kiss with a brush of dry lips. "Well. So it can hold two." Although he wouldn't like to test it by moving around too much with both of their weight on the ropes.
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"...If you want to go back to sleep," he murmurs, "that would be all right, too."
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"Yes. And he gets to be upset, but he's just - it's more than that, he's stuck. And I don't know how to get him unstuck."
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"Maybe he just needs time. To see that his not getting vengeance doesn't mean Cloud is going to hurt someone he loves again."
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James needs not to feel helpless, and in some ways the barge makes that even harder than an empire.
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It hadn't made Raylan any less dead, but it made violent revenge even more pointless.
"You can't really plan against accidents like that."
Phrased that way, he can see why Flint's so stuck on it: there are some things that can't be protected against. To lose a lover to one of them-- well. It's not easy.
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Flint isn't helpless because of all the forces that have conspired against him in the past, even though the feeling is all tied up with them; he isn't even helpless because Jedao isn't letting him get revenge. He's just helpless because everyone is a little bit helpless against the infinite vagaries of chance. But there's no way to untangle it, and Jedao already worries he's said too much that should be private.
"The thing is," he says suddenly, quietly, hotly. "If it was me, and I was an immortal inmate with nothing to lose, and some fucker killed me thinking that would be enough to scare me into behaving, I'd ruin him."
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"So that's not a solution at all. It can't be. It's just much more mess. I did offer to spar with him sometime, if he needs to hit someone real instead of Enclosure simulations."
He pauses, and adds, "If it's barehanded, I'm almost completely sure there's no danger I'll kill him."
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"You know if anyone does manage to hurt me I don't want that," he adds, but it's almost pro forma, rueful and mild.
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Empirically. Probably also without killing them, although if they start a fight he can't make any promises there either.
"It would be a learning experience," he adds, deliberately innocent.
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Anyone with any brains who actually wanted leverage against Jedao would threaten to hurt Gonou. Although actually going through with it wouldn't be nearly so effective. Jedao knows that letting themselves be - known, in public, is a security mistake. But it's a tradeoff for other things.
"If someone hurt me just to be an asshole I figure you get one free punch. As far as I'm concerned." Xie Lian might have his own opinions.
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He leans his head back against the rope of the hammock, which creaks, a faint shivering sway running through it with the shift of his weight.
"I don't find violence satisfying, is the thing," he murmurs at last. "That doesn't stop me from lashing out, but I don't fool myself that it'll make me feel better. Mr. Flint says it does, for him. I imagine it's harder to resist if it actually works."
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"Also, there's nets now." Which is to say he suspects collar-dangling would fall into the same category of gratifying but ineffective. But he's not fussed enough that he'd actually be mad about it.
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He taps a fingertip against the small of Jedao's back, quirking a smile.
"And the nets don't matter. I wouldn't want to upset you by dropping them, in any case. I'd just lecture."
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"Once a schoolteacher," Jedao teases, instead of digging deeper into it.
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"One has to be flexible with one's pedagogy for the situation at hand," he says instead, light and amused.
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"I wish I had nice things to tell you about. Maybe I should get a pet." It's only idle musing though; he has enough responsibilities already, and it wouldn't be fair, he thinks, to get a living creature he knows won't be his priority.
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He exhales, a long breath, and walks his hand up Jedao's back to cup the back of his head.
"... I had a little bit of an argument with Jon," he murmurs.
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