Jedao resists the urge to fidget. "I just...I don't want you to get your hopes up too much," he says after a pause that's a little too long. "I don't want it to be a whole project."
He looks down into his teacup, leaning just a little more firmly against Jedao's shoulder. "I, ah. Don't want to make you uncomfortable. But something little, from time to time, maybe?"
Jedao lets him be a caretaker so often: he does know it's ridiculous. But it bothers him, that there isn't anything that's easier for Jedao to eat, when he does in fact still have to eat.
"I don't need you to like it," Gonou says: not instantly, because he doesn't want it to sound thoughtless, but with a solid certainty. "This isn't -- I don't want it to seem like I want to fix you. I want to use a skill I have to make something that's miserable a little easier for you. That's all.
If Gonou gets intense about it, Jedao knows he won't want to tell him no. Won't want to hurt him, taking away hope for something he wants, that Jedao has no confidence of ever being able to give without a deal. He can promise anyway, though, a guardrail against himself.
"New subject," Gonou agrees, and looks thoughtfully down at his tea for a moment. "I should try knitting something new this summer. I don't think the sock idea is going to work for me unless I find someone who needs socks and has feet at no more than a forty-five degree angle to their ankles...."
"Do you do any arts besides knitting?" he wonders, idly. "A companion tried to teach me felting, once."
Jedao has picked up a lot of amateur skills from sex professionals his various Hexarchs have sent to keep him supposedly sane. At this point Jedao thinks Mikodez thinks it's at least social interaction, and picks them more for their hobbies than out of any hope that Jedao would eventually sleep with any of them.
"No, it's just knitting and sketching. I don't have any idea how felt is made," Gonou admits with an intrigued lilt in his voice. "You could show me?"
He reaches out to catch Jedao's little finger with his own, not quite holding hands, but a little gesture towards it that won't keep either of them from being able to hold a teacup.
"I imagine that wasn't the part that bothered you." He remembers Jedao taking his clawed hand, pressing one claw so carefully against his own flesh until a single inky drop of blood slipped free: that had been his confession. So, a needle-stick...
Well. Not the sort of thing he'd welcome with a stranger.
Gonou considers.
"... well, maybe I could find a book, in that case. If you'd like to learn together. I've seen little felt dolls, they're very cute."
"Why would you want to deal with that, for a stranger, anyway?" Intimate revelations, in his own opinion, are for people with whom intimacy actually matters.
"But I'd like to at least try it. And see if it's interesting enough to be worth stabbing little lumps a thousand times, and my fingers at least five."
"Well, at least there was eye candy, then," Gonou says, shooting him a little smile. "And an interesting hobby...."
Despite all the horrifying implications of having a companion sent in who'd been pre-briefed on Jedao's species issues, probably -- meaning without his knowledge.
Gonou is glad, for so many different reasons, that Jedao's no longer stuck in the Shuos Academy station.
Jedao likes to think they had an unspoken agreement: Mikodez would never bring up what Jedao did or did not do with the implied offer, and Jedao wouldn't object to having regular social contact outside of his students and psych team, assuming that at least most of them weren't secretly on his psych team. And if nothing else, the guests were always extremely adept at hiding any fear or revulsion they might have felt.
"It was nice, honestly. They were always good at ignoring how awkward I'd be about it."
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Jedao lets him be a caretaker so often: he does know it's ridiculous. But it bothers him, that there isn't anything that's easier for Jedao to eat, when he does in fact still have to eat.
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"It... well. I know eating's difficult for you. If there is anything I can do to make it easier, I want to."
He pauses briefly, and lets his gaze fall back down to his teacup, and adds, "And it does mean a lot to me to be able to cook for people."
It had felt slightly too much like a lie, implying that it's entirely for Jedao's benefit.
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He's not going to like it, but he does have to eat something. It might as well be things Gonou makes, as long as he wont be too disappointed.
"Protein is good. I have options for bland carbs - I'll just take sugar pills on really bad days, sometimes - but I need protein, too."
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"But it's easier than most of what's in the cafeteria."
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He takes a sip of his tea, before it gets too cold, and murmurs, "Anything else, or -- change of subject?"
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He looks away again.
"I need you to not need me to like it. That's -" That's all, he wants to say. But it's not a small thing. "That's the condition." For trying.
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"Tell me if I get too intense about it?"
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If Gonou gets intense about it, Jedao knows he won't want to tell him no. Won't want to hurt him, taking away hope for something he wants, that Jedao has no confidence of ever being able to give without a deal. He can promise anyway, though, a guardrail against himself.
"New subject now, please?"
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"Tea cozies?" he suggests, with no idea of what makes a knitting project easy or hard.
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Well, something like that. Perhaps anatomical metaphors for teapots aren't working out very well.
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Jedao has picked up a lot of amateur skills from sex professionals his various Hexarchs have sent to keep him supposedly sane. At this point Jedao thinks Mikodez thinks it's at least social interaction, and picks them more for their hobbies than out of any hope that Jedao would eventually sleep with any of them.
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He reaches out to catch Jedao's little finger with his own, not quite holding hands, but a little gesture towards it that won't keep either of them from being able to hold a teacup.
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He lifts his teacup to his lips with his free hand, giving Jedao a wry glance over the rim.
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Rather than a guest seeing his black ichor on the wool.
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Well. Not the sort of thing he'd welcome with a stranger.
Gonou considers.
"... well, maybe I could find a book, in that case. If you'd like to learn together. I've seen little felt dolls, they're very cute."
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He cuts himself off.
"Anyway. I'll learn with you if you like."
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"Why would you want to deal with that, for a stranger, anyway?" Intimate revelations, in his own opinion, are for people with whom intimacy actually matters.
"But I'd like to at least try it. And see if it's interesting enough to be worth stabbing little lumps a thousand times, and my fingers at least five."
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Not that there was any chance of Jedao actually going for it, but he wasn't blind.
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Despite all the horrifying implications of having a companion sent in who'd been pre-briefed on Jedao's species issues, probably -- meaning without his knowledge.
Gonou is glad, for so many different reasons, that Jedao's no longer stuck in the Shuos Academy station.
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"It was nice, honestly. They were always good at ignoring how awkward I'd be about it."
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