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[deuceoftears]

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[littletonoidea]

And his mind immediately goes blank.

"Uhhhhh."

He looks down at Jedao's hands instead, rather than meet his gaze.

Okay. Deep breaths. This isn't so bad, it's just the two of you. You don't have to spiral about it.

"Look. I know we talk about boundaries and red-light-green-light and all that, but. I always figured we only had one rule. No regrets. Right?" He looks back at Jedao. "I don't want you to come back to us just because you think it's something I want. If you're still messed up about anything, you gotta tell me, so I don't make your anything worse. You were my friend first, and I don't care if we never have sex again - I just don't wanna stop being buds."

[deuceoftears]

No regrets hits him in the chest like a sledgehammer; he has to fight the urge to gasp.

"I'm messed up about a lot of things," Jedao whispers, because a whisper doesn't give it away quite so obviously, how much his voice is suddenly on the verge of breaking. He wasn't planning to tell Eiffel. He didn't need too. Eiffel would be fine, and forgive him, and Jedao would never, ever, ever say -

He should. He should probably tell him, though.

"I've been avoiding almost everybody, not just you," he says first, instead, swallowing. "My brain is still kind of a smoking crater right now. And there's nothing for some of that but time."

[littletonoidea]

Eiffel's gaze is nothing but sympathetic.

"Yeah. I guess that kinda makes two of us right now." He turns, leaning his butt and palms on the console instead, and sways slightly to nudge his shoulder into Jedao's. "Let's take our time."

[deuceoftears]

Jedao leans his shoulder back into Eiffel's, very lightly.

"I do - I still want -"

He stutters, can't bear to finish the sentence. Can't meet Eiffel's eyes.

"Slow would be good," he agrees, voice thick.

[littletonoidea]

He stays solid and present against Jedao's shoulder, letting him set the pace for how much contact he wants - and fighting a vicious internal war asking to give him a hug. "Let's start with movie nights and air hockey?" he asks instead. "Long as you don't mind letting a criminal get his sticky fingers all over the engine again."

CW, SA/situations of deeply fucked consent, suicide

[deuceoftears]

Jedao wants to gulp air like a frog, like a dying man. If he doesn't find the courage to tell Eiffel right now, he probably never will.

He could ask Hakkai to tell him. But they both deserve better than than that.

I'm scared, he thinks to the barge, in the humming gravitational language of moths, nestled into her heart. She never answers him in words, but he feels - warm, faith. He blinks too fast.

"I loved someone, before." Jedao whispers. "Who was mind controlled. Not - obvious, not happy. He was - subdued. Stern."

Jedao hadn't known, until Kujen showed him the video of Dhanneth before, just how different it had made him. The way he'd been stripped of his fierce air of command, his capacity for decisive, ferocious action.

"I knew he'd been - broken." Like a horse. "I didn't know he was. Forced to love me. I swear I didn't know."

Re: CW, SA/situations of deeply fucked consent, suicide

[littletonoidea]

Eiffel twists his neck (grateful it no longer stings to do so) to try and get a look at Jedao's face, but all he can see is the side angle of his face, no expression visible.

But he can read between the lines despite that. And...

He doesn't pull away from Jedao. The opposite - he nudges his shoulder into Jedao's a little more solidly.

And his voice is quiet, concern and nothing else. "Is it too fast to ask if you need a hug right now?"

Re: CW, SA/situations of deeply fucked consent, suicide

[deuceoftears]

"But do you want to." His voice trembles, wretchedly, broken open and soaked with tears still waiting, in his throat, to be shed.

[littletonoidea]

Without hesitation, Eiffel rounds on Jedao, throwing both arms over his shoulders and pulling him into a hug like he's being slammed into a foam brick wall, all but cradling Jedao's head against his neck.

[deuceoftears]

Jedao shudders from head to toe, eyelashes hot and wet against Eiffel's neck, and makes a deep, wrenching sound, less a heartbroken wail than an animal in pain, a twisted yowl.

[littletonoidea]

And he just holds on tighter as Jedao howls against him, unflinching against the devastating noise against his ear.

"I want to be your friend," he repeats, quietly firm, the same steel that let him survive hundreds of days in cryostasis, that let him talk down Minkowski from blowing everyone up with napalm, that let him throw himself over the red line and into the star itself. "And- I'm not gonna tell anyone that. Ever."

He knows how important infosec is to Jedao, above everything else. Sometimes above reason itself. So he knows, knows with the intimate familiarity of his best friend's habits how important this is. "And... thanks. For telling me. So I can make an informed decision." And quieter, with a softer, warmer edge. "You're not getting rid of me that easy."

[deuceoftears]

He flinches, a little, at informed decision, but not enough to pull away.

"He hated me, underneath," Jedao whispers, crying steadily and silently now, throat aching. "He killed himself about it."

[littletonoidea]

"I don't hate you," he says, immediate and sincere. "I'm..."

How much disclosure is too much?

"Sometimes, it... it can be a bit scary," he admits gently. "How much more- powerful you and Hakkai are than me." And he squeezes tighter, so Jedao can't back away from that, so he can continue, "But at the same time, I always feel safe with you, more than anyone else on the Barge. 'cos I know you're never gonna use that to hurt me. And there's nothing about you that's gonna make me change my mind."

[deuceoftears]

"I don't want to hurt you," Jedao promises, voice hitching, instead of saying all the stupid self-hating things that would just make Eiffel argue with him.

[littletonoidea]

"And I don't wanna hurt you, either," he echoes readily. "But if it happens in the future, we have to talk about it. No matter how scary it is. Okay? Otherwise we're just gonna do the same things over again and keep hurting each other."

[deuceoftears]

"You didn't hurt me," Jedao insists, choking, hands twisting where he's gripped onto Eiffel's shirt. He manages to get a few deep, ragged breaths.

"Sometimes talking does hurt, though."

[littletonoidea]

"Yeah. But... sometimes it's important. You're not supposed to close a wound 'til it's been cleaned, right? Disinfectant fucking hurts."

[deuceoftears]

"You're also not supposed to clean a wound until you've staunched the bleeding," Jedao counters, quietly, the silent not-sobs subsiding into little shuddering sporadic gasps.

[littletonoidea]

With Jedao settling a little, one of Eiffel's hands loosens to rub up and down Jedao's spine.

"Does that mean you're letting them keep bleeding, or you don't know how to stop it?"

[deuceoftears]

"I am stopping it. It's just...it takes awhile."

And effort, and focus, and safety, and not being torn up again, and not twisting himself into knots trying not to shock or scare or scream at anyone while his hands are still too slick with blood to get a grip

[littletonoidea]

"If... I wanna help you try and stop it faster." Sort of a question, sort of not. He does want to. "Are you gonna let me? Even just... being there, when you're having a bad time."

[deuceoftears]

"Sometimes."

He swallows and swallows again, like he could gulp down the truth of it and make it disappear. He doesn't know how to say this that won't hurt.

"Sometimes. Being seen is. Not help."

[littletonoidea]

"Okay." With another soft squeeze, an unconscious reward for the difficult admission. "So... when being seen... helps. Call me? Aaaand, when it doesn't... I'll leave you alone. Until you tell me to."

He lifts his hand from its slow trail down Jedao's back and uses it to hold his head in another gentle hug. "Okay?"

[deuceoftears]

"It's okay to ask," Jedao says softly. "As long as...I don't have to worry I'll hurt you, if the answer is no. And. You believe me, that I'm saying it because. I've been here before. And I've climbed out before, and I know the way."

New Year's was only the third worst day of his life. Maybe second.

"I'm not just wallowing or - whatever people assume I'm doing."

[littletonoidea]

"I didn't think you were wallowing," he says, and maybe there's some playful offense there but it's entirely aimed at the concept of people seeing Jedao go to ground and think it was because he was being angsty. "I mean, it's not like I didn't know you were avoiding me. I thought you were scared."