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.
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's so beautiful, the feeling of Jedao's affection. Yel... Edwin slowly settles, the sense of him like a cat circling closer and closer to the warmth of a fire.
[I've... never... No one has ever felt this for me. I... don't want to spoil it.]
You can't spoil it, Jedao tells him. And you also can't keep it exactly the same. It's going to change and grow because we're going to change and grow, because that's what being alive is. And the love is going to grow with us, so that it always fits.
[Like a plant.] He can see that. It makes sense, the way a thing would change over time, like if they grew some climbing vine together and shaped the path it took up a trellis.
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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.]
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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.)
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[I've... never... No one has ever felt this for me. I... don't want to spoil it.]
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[...I hope-- I hope that it always fits.]
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