deuceoftears | TLV IC Inbox

"One of the higher ones, I think," Gonou murmurs, and then bumps his shoulder deliberately against Jedao's as he opens his cabin door. "I wouldn't make the two of you share a bedroom, you realize. She wouldn't appreciate it either."

He takes a carefully hidden fortifying breath as he steps into the room: there's the plant box on the table and the cabinet, now. He points the plant box out to Jedao with a lift of his chin and heads over to the cabinet, reaching up to lift it down with the kind of care he'd take with ancient porcelain.

"I did get that feeling. But it's going to be your bedroom too, so." So if Gonou had wanted her that close, he'd have managed.

"Hello, everybody," he murmurs sotto voce to the plants, running one hand overtop of the fragrant leaves, by way of giving Gonou at least a suggestion of a private moment.

Gonou sets the cabinet down with care on the other side of the table, his gaze flickering up towards Jedao with gratitude for a moment, at his careful turning-away of attention.

He takes a breath, then undoes the latch, and checks inside. The saucers and incense are sitting on the bottom of the cabinet; he'll have to tuck those into the drawer built for them. The bud vase should fit beside them, but if not, he can put it in his own pocket for the short trip down to Jedao's room.

Slowly, his gaze rises to the pencil portrait framed and inset at the top center, and his breath catches in his throat.

"I forgot how much she looked like me," he says at last, his voice thin. He had almost forgotten what she looked like at all.

Jedao wishes he'd taken pictures while she was on the barge. It's hard to imagine her letting him, though.

"She did. When she replaced you, for one flood, I recognized her right away."

"I didn't have any pictures." He has to close his eyes, at last, to break his stare at the drawing. He recognizes his own style, but it's more careful and spare than his usual drawings, a painstaking attempt to capture the face he'd known. He'd drawn her laughing. "When I could have drawn her, I... couldn't have borne it."

Carefully, he opens his eyes again, looking down at the delicate saucers as he packs them into their drawer, slides the bud vase in beside them -- it does fit. The little water in it is dry, and it will need cleaning before he puts a new flower in.

"I'm glad I could here." The doors close without a sound. He drops the latch into place.

Jedao swallows.

"I'm glad you could too." He balances the bin of plants carefully and gets the door for them both.

For a moment, Gonou wants to say, Wait, wants to wrap his arms around Jedao and hold him before he has to pick the cabinet up again and bring it to its new home, his home.

Long habits of pride stop his tongue, and he smiles slightly instead, a polite public mask dropping into place as he wraps his hands around the brass-bound bottom corners of the cabinet and follows Jedao out the door.

Jedao pauses for a moment, picking up on something but not sure what. When Gonou doesn't speak, though, he nods and heads down the two flights of stairs home.

There's something unsteady caught between Gonou's ribs, but he keeps it trapped where it is, far away from sight until the door of Jedao's room is closing behind him and he can hurry to the study to find a high empty shelf.

One of the higher shelves, in pride of place over the desk, currently has an enameled plate decorated with hummingbirds displayed on it. Jedao had set its stand there when he first shuffled around all the art the quarters originally came with. It wasn't as crassly direct as hawks or sparrows, but it was still birds.

He follows behind Gonou, reaching out to pluck the plate off the shelf with a mothpull before he can even put the plants down.

"Alright?" he asks, without specifying the place or Gonou himself.

"That should do," Gonou murmurs, choosing to assume the question is about the shelf. He lifts the cabinet, settling it in place with only a little unnecessary fussing over its angle and position. The shelf doesn't creak under the weight, even if a brass-bound memorial cabinet is considerably heavier than a decorative enameled plate.

He lets his hand linger on the cabinet door for a silent moment.

This is home now, Kanan. I wonder what you'd think of me? The laughing face in the portrait was so young. Once they'd been the same age: now, she would never grow older than twenty.

He'd like to think she would be pleased to see him happy. In truth...

"I don't believe there's anything left of her but memory," he admits, stepping back with his gaze still lingering on the cabinet. "But this is a better way to remember her than bad dreams."

"The longer I'm here, the more I'm certain how important memories are," Jedao murmurs. "Are there any...rituals you want me to be part of, or - things I shouldn't do?"

"I don't think there's anything you shouldn't do that you would do," Gonou murmurs in return. "Rituals... not right now."

He pauses next to Jedao, resting a hand lightly on his shoulder. "Maybe tomorrow. I have some incense to burn for her."

More briskly, he adds, looking down at the desk, "Move the inkstone, you said--?"

Jedao shuffles it into a drawer; he doesn't actually practice calligraphy often enough to give it pride of place, even if it's beautiful. He does the same to a lovely stacking game with coiled, translucent pieces that he kept out just for the visual effect. He bustles the plants around in a semicircle, swapping until he's happy with who's next to who, based on their supposed personalities, then runs a thumb pensively over the edge of the hummingbird plate.

"What does it mean to you?"

"It was...a silent memorial, of a sort. It was the nicest thing with birds on it that came with the room. But my inmate graduated just before you went away, so my hawks are all alive again, now."

Maybe he'll put it in the living room, now that the wound is better scarred over.

Gonou dips his chin in a tiny nod, considering the brilliant enameled birds.

"I wouldn't think it was inappropriate to keep them on the same shelf together," he says at last, softly. "But if you'd like to put it somewhere else, now that your Kel have their lives back...?"

"I have to think about it. It's...weird, to realize I don't have to make do with whatever will pass beneath notice, anymore."

He's not sure what he has a right to, or what he wants to make - obtrusive.

"No, you don't." He squeezes Jedao's shoulder. "And... it's not exactly the tradition I was raised with. But household memorials are for lost family. If there's anyone you've lost who you want there...."

For a moment, he's silent. At last, he tips his head to the side, leaving the offer unspoken.

"I don't know."

He feels his insides knot and writhe for a moment. The closest thing to family he's lost is Kujen, and it's hard to imagine something more obscene. Jedao doesn't want him here even if he had any right to it. Where else to put that strange grief - he still doesn't know.

"Let's curl up on the couch, maybe?"

Suddenly, powerfully, he wants the simple comfort of being held, and he thinks Gonou might want it too.

There had been... siblings, Gonou half-remembers. Brothers he'd said he'd lost. But he would have agreed that Kujen isn't at all the right person to remember with honor.

"...yes," Gonou agrees, and reaches down to catch Jedao's hand in his own. "Let's."

Curling up with Jedao on the couch sounds -- exactly right, just now. He leads the way back to the living room.

Lost to him - but alive, somewhere, free. The same for Revenant. The same, even, for Shuos Jedao, whatever conquering he's doing in his new universe. Objects of wistfulness or resentment, but not mourning.

Jedao squeezes his hand and gratefully follows as they pull each other to the couch and climb in together.

Gonou settles into the cushions, wrapping an arm around Jedao's waist, and lets his face fall to rest at the junction of his neck and shoulder.

"That wasn't supposed to be so hard," he mutters. Perhaps it wouldn't have been, if he'd gathered the courage to open the cabinet before now.

"I think we did great. Extra points, even," Jedao counters. Difficult, yes. But done, and done smoothly, all things considered.

"Ah, extra credit. Does that bring up my B-plus?" Gonou teases, settling more heavily against him.

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