Gonou turns towards him, wrapping his arms around Jedao's shoulders in an equally tight squeeze. The letters crumple in his hand as he does, but he doesn't care.
"I still don't know what I did differently! I feel the same--"
He pulls back, a little, and tilts his head just a bit so his silver limiters catch the light.
"-- except I can feel you now, even with these on."
"Like your hair growing. All of a sudden, it's 'how did that happen?'" He laughs a little, and lets them into the strange conglomeration of the engine room.
"Graduation is the moment when you realize it's long enough to tie back," Gonou agrees, straight-faced, and follows Jedao in, staying close enough for their shoulders to brush together.
The Engine Room, as always, is a bizarre agglomeration of things, with the game consoles and the bronze-and-marble air hockey table stuffed in cheek by jowl with light displays, crystal arrays, buttons and leavers. Jedao heads over to the steam pipe, behind a bulkhead, and checks the water level in the boiler and the the valves before opening up the burner grate.
"I tried to write some of those," he admits. "I was awful at it, though."
It's strangely comforting in here, with all the strange clutter and blinking lights: possibly because he associates it with Jedao, still. Possibly just because, even if he doesn't know what any of it does, this is one of the places on the Barge that looks really functional: strange, yes, but full of things that are doing something.
He leans a little more closely against Jedao at the admission.
"I don't think mine were any good," he confesses. "Very self-absorbed. But I thought it would be worse to say nothing...."
He looks down at the letters in his hands, wrinkling his nose. He might have to write some more, just in case. Wardens don't die if they leave, but Wardens sometimes disappear without warning, and he remembers Raylan's upset when his partner had disappeared after a fight they hadn't had the time to resolve.
With a small sigh, he picks out the one with Eiffel's name on it and slips it onto the grate.
"You're allowed to say things that are about you, you know," Jedao points out.
He stirs up the remaining charcoal and pulls out the pack of white matches that the barge thinks go with with the old boiler. He'd used a laser to light it once, and she puffed steam right in his face. He tosses one inside and uses a mothtouch to scrape a line of wax away from the phosphorous. It spits and sparks, and quickly catches on the paper.
"I kept trying to plan my own rescue. I'd be alive, I'd have just forgotten, at worst. Iris would get me, if just for his sake, and - it all sort of fell apart there, if the Admiral wouldn't take me back."
"I could get Iris to take me with her now, if anything happened," Gonou remarks, leaning a little against Jedao as he watches the edges of the letter curl and wither.
"-- that one said 'Take care of Jedao,'" he adds softly, with a wry sidelong glance at Jedao. "'And yourself too.' I think I threatened to haunt him if he didn't."
Jedao leans in too, tipping his head onto Gonou's shoulder.
"The first time I came to the barge, I was just - a guest, during a flood. For him. And I was so mad that everyone kept declaring they were going to rescue me without asking me first. I wasn't - of course I wasn't happy there. But I was still doing things that were important to me. Or it was important to me that I'd decided to do them, or something. But I'd go with you, if you just said you were my friend. That it wasn't about him, and I could bring Hemiola. And - I know we said it wasn't destiny. But - I know I could fall in love with you again. There's so much you understand. If it ever came to that."
"Then it's a plan," Gonou murmurs. "If it ever happens. It-- doesn't have to be destiny, for the two of us to fit together, even if one of us forgets."
He pulls out the letter with Jedao's name on it, looking at it for a long moment before he glances a little uncertainly at Jedao.
"...if I rewrite this," he adds, very quietly, "I'll put directions in it, to Sha Gojyo's house outside town, where you can find me even if I forget." Because he'll be alive, now. Because he doesn't have to write, Be happy with someone else; you deserve so much love. He can be just a little bit more selfish than that, and write Come get me when you can instead.
Jedao cups his cheek in one hand, kisses him softly.
"It would be so hard not scaring you off, just - me wanting you so much, being a crazy stranger who knows too much, you being so private. But nobody said miracles should be easy, did they?"
"I know I could fall in love with you again, too," Gonou murmurs, kissing back. "Because you're still the same man I fell in love with. But maybe I'll include a letter of introduction for you, so I'll take you seriously...."
He pulls back, takes a deep breath, and tosses the letter onto the fire grate.
He doesn't have to let go. The relief of it leaves him weak-kneed.
"This is Jedao, he's so earnest he sounds like a liar but he's just like that, he wants to blow you so badly that he forgets how to sound like a normal person," Jedao suggests, teasing himself more than Gonou. He wraps his arms around Gonou's waist, tucking in against him and holding him close.
"I'd come for you," he promises quietly. "Letter or no letter."
"I know you would," Gonou replies softly. "Mm, maybe give me a few days to adjust to the idea before you bring up your admittedly excellent oral skills, though. I'm very shy and prudish."
He settles into the embrace, tucking his chin over Jedao's shoulder as he slips arms around him.
"Right, that's why you have to warn yourself. He's probably going to come on too strong but it's worth it, trust me, I'm you. Live a little," Jedao rambles.
Gonou's chuckle is unsteady. He turns his face further into Jedao's shoulder.
He's not sure what he's feeling. Buoyant, as from the release of a great weight; unsteady and unbalanced, as from the release of same. His laughter trembles on the edge of turning into-- something else, though he couldn't begin to say what.
"You did it," Jedao says softly, as the letters curl and blacken, the embers of the old coals starting to glow as the brief kindling dies away. "You made it."
The raw sob that forces its way out of his throat shocks him. The second is, at least, less of a surprise.
Gonou had not realized he remembered how to cry. He hadn't even cried for Kanan: he'd gone somewhere far away for a while, but he hadn't shed a tear. This is an ugly outburst of well repressed terror, pressure suddenly easing and letting the emotion pour out like a lanced infection.
He curls close in Jedao's embrace, shivering, and cries.
"Darling, I promise I'm smart enough that I figured out before we started dating that you also have some feelings you're just carting around until it's safe to deal with them," Jedao points out, wry and gentle. He goes on his tiptoes and gives Gonou a soft kiss.
"Oh." Huhn. "Well, I did have two years of Shuos-appointed therapist-interrogators mentioning this sort of thing. It's normal." Or at least normal for Shuos-adjacent compartmentalizing assholes like them.
"It makes sense," Gonou admits, settling his cheek against Jedao's shoulder -- then making a face, and relocating a handsbreadth closer to Jedao's throat, away from the disgusting damp spot he'd left on the cloth.
"I just... didn't notice. Or didn't know it was that much."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: 1/7, before his public post
"I still don't know what I did differently! I feel the same--"
He pulls back, a little, and tilts his head just a bit so his silver limiters catch the light.
"-- except I can feel you now, even with these on."
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"I tried to write some of those," he admits. "I was awful at it, though."
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He leans a little more closely against Jedao at the admission.
"I don't think mine were any good," he confesses. "Very self-absorbed. But I thought it would be worse to say nothing...."
He looks down at the letters in his hands, wrinkling his nose. He might have to write some more, just in case. Wardens don't die if they leave, but Wardens sometimes disappear without warning, and he remembers Raylan's upset when his partner had disappeared after a fight they hadn't had the time to resolve.
With a small sigh, he picks out the one with Eiffel's name on it and slips it onto the grate.
Re: 1/7, before his public post
He stirs up the remaining charcoal and pulls out the pack of white matches that the barge thinks go with with the old boiler. He'd used a laser to light it once, and she puffed steam right in his face. He tosses one inside and uses a mothtouch to scrape a line of wax away from the phosphorous. It spits and sparks, and quickly catches on the paper.
"I kept trying to plan my own rescue. I'd be alive, I'd have just forgotten, at worst. Iris would get me, if just for his sake, and - it all sort of fell apart there, if the Admiral wouldn't take me back."
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"-- that one said 'Take care of Jedao,'" he adds softly, with a wry sidelong glance at Jedao. "'And yourself too.' I think I threatened to haunt him if he didn't."
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"The first time I came to the barge, I was just - a guest, during a flood. For him. And I was so mad that everyone kept declaring they were going to rescue me without asking me first. I wasn't - of course I wasn't happy there. But I was still doing things that were important to me. Or it was important to me that I'd decided to do them, or something. But I'd go with you, if you just said you were my friend. That it wasn't about him, and I could bring Hemiola. And - I know we said it wasn't destiny. But - I know I could fall in love with you again. There's so much you understand. If it ever came to that."
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He pulls out the letter with Jedao's name on it, looking at it for a long moment before he glances a little uncertainly at Jedao.
"...if I rewrite this," he adds, very quietly, "I'll put directions in it, to Sha Gojyo's house outside town, where you can find me even if I forget." Because he'll be alive, now. Because he doesn't have to write, Be happy with someone else; you deserve so much love. He can be just a little bit more selfish than that, and write Come get me when you can instead.
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"It would be so hard not scaring you off, just - me wanting you so much, being a crazy stranger who knows too much, you being so private. But nobody said miracles should be easy, did they?"
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He pulls back, takes a deep breath, and tosses the letter onto the fire grate.
He doesn't have to let go. The relief of it leaves him weak-kneed.
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"I'd come for you," he promises quietly. "Letter or no letter."
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He settles into the embrace, tucking his chin over Jedao's shoulder as he slips arms around him.
"I love you."
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He's not sure what he's feeling. Buoyant, as from the release of a great weight; unsteady and unbalanced, as from the release of same. His laughter trembles on the edge of turning into-- something else, though he couldn't begin to say what.
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Gonou had not realized he remembered how to cry. He hadn't even cried for Kanan: he'd gone somewhere far away for a while, but he hadn't shed a tear. This is an ugly outburst of well repressed terror, pressure suddenly easing and letting the emotion pour out like a lanced infection.
He curls close in Jedao's embrace, shivering, and cries.
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"I'm with you," he says softly. "We made it."
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It is an overreaction. He's at least aware of that much.
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"I just... didn't notice. Or didn't know it was that much."
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