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[deuceoftears]

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[howtheyshine]

"I don't think it's... trust, the problem," he says, softly, relief in his tone for that hypothetical that thrums through parts of the air that don't truly carry sound. "He just... doesn't want anyone else to hurt. He doesn't want anyone else to hurt because of him, so he keeps all the hurting to himself."

[deuceoftears]

"Sometimes trust means trusting yourself not to hurt people too much. I know a few people that's really hard for."

It's hard for Jedao sometimes, too. Less so nowadays.

[howtheyshine]

He makes a soft, understanding noise at that. A shiver, and Edwin goes nosing at the base of Jedao's sweater before using another extra limb to lift it and try to snuggle underneath.

"When I got Roman for a warden... He showed me I hadn't actually... I hadn't hurt people, many people. Not really. Not before the barge, when I had my own body. I-I mean, I did, as the King I did, but... me, then, I'd only really hurt... Arthur."

A pause, and he continues more quietly. "Then I killed Chase and Collins."

He's strangely glad that Roman had gone before the last one.

[deuceoftears]

"You aren't responsible for everything that happened before you. But it can still be hard to learn new instincts, sometimes. I did things - things like Jedao One would do, that I didn't like, when I was figuring myself out, too."

[howtheyshine]

It helps. It helps a lot, actually, to hear that. After a moment of quiet, he says, "What happened to Jedao One?"

[deuceoftears]

Jedao swallows. "He killed so many people. And then he was killed in the middle of trying to do something good, but maybe doing it in a way where a lot of people still got hurt, but...I don't know if he had any other ways to do it. And then he came here, and eventually he graduated. He went to a different world with people he met here. He wants me to come with him, when I leave."

Jedao still isn't sure whether he plans to take him up on it.

[howtheyshine]

He wants me to come, Jedao says, and all at once Edwin is glad they aren't sharing mental space right now. It makes him ache in the same places that hurt after his talk with Arthur, right before the darkness. The places that hurt when he realized, or accepted, or whatever it was, that Arthur will never be glad he exists.

"If you do go... you don't have to stay. If it's not where you want to be. If you can't have an orchard there with Hakkai."

[deuceoftears]

"I know," Jedao murmurs. "He'd give me a whole planet for orchards if I asked, probably. He tried to come get me right after he graduated. I was so mad, that the one person who wanted me was the only person it had been - safe to hate. So I came here to be a warden instead."

Since the day of the communicator glitch, at least, the offer has been fermenting slowly at the back of his mind. All those little brothers. Magic lessons with Quentin. A world where aliens aren't strange.

"He's - he wants to be my dad. I didn't understand how much that meant, before I met you. He'd adore you. I bet he wants a grandson so bad."

[howtheyshine]

"He'd be lucky if you said yes to him," he says with total confidence. He believes that, one hundred percent. Not so much because of the grandson, thing, but Jedao as his son? Yes. "But you can... know him first. Before you choose. Can't you? You don't really yet, right? You know what he... was."

[deuceoftears]

"He's not like John. He's still just...him. Except I guess he's made enough different choices to graduate."

Like Godric, says part of his mind, unhelpfully.

"I've gotten to talk to him twice. If I wanted to get to know him, I'd have to go. I'd have to decide to give him a chance. Would...would you maybe want to come with us? When you're free?"

[howtheyshine]

When. When he's free. The faith is both uplifting and daunting. He rests his head against Jedao to listen to his insides move, the sound soothing to him in a way he can't easily explain.

"Yes," he says, quietly. "John and Arthur... are in a different timeline now. And John..."

He stops. John told Edwin his feelings. He told him why the answer couldn't just be yes. He believes his brother. He does. But also--

"There are things John and Arthur don't tell me. Won't tell me. Maybe never will."

He doesn't breathe, but somehow the words still feel tight anyway. Like it's hard to push the sounds out. "I can't... I won't be happy if I go... and all I ever get to be is... outside."

He doesn't know that there would be anyone else, after all. Just John, and Arthur, and maybe the other Yellow, the one who actually remembers what that Arthur said and did. He doesn't know about Parker. Has no clue about Faroe.

And there's the other Yellow. Someone he wants to help and also hates for taking his place.

[deuceoftears]

Jedao can't help it; he's already holding Edwin, but he squeezes him so tight. It feels like Edwin must be able to feel Jedao's false heart pounding against his false ribs.

"I don't want you to feel outside. I want you to come with me so I can love you up close always. I want you to let me write your name after ours in Xie Lian's family book, Cho Hakkai, Cho Jedao, and Cho Edwin. I want you to come with me to a world where none us are weird, where all of us can have friends in any form we want, because aliens with all kinds of limbs and shapes are already everywhere. I want you to meet my best friend who's a machine shaped like a snake who loves music and bad dramas. We'll find a way you can visit John, and even Arthur if he promises to be nice, but I want you to come with us, please."

Please don't take my sunshine away.

[howtheyshine]

Positioned under his sweater as Edwin is at this point, Jedao will get to experience the probably profoundly weird sensation of Edwin's face pressed against him as he starts to cry. The cool gel-like feel of the blobby against bare skin gets streaked with even colder little stripes as the oddity of Edwin's tears trickle over his face and sink back into his skin underneath his chin.

"Can--" His voice breaks softly on the one word. "Can we bring the other Yellow too, maybe, if he wants to come?"

[deuceoftears]

"If you want him to come, and he wants to come," Jedao agrees. "I can't promise I'll know how to love him like I love you. But I promise he'll be welcome."

[howtheyshine]

"It's okay, I think." Soft and sincere and pained all at once. "That's okay. He won't... know, anyway, what being loved is like. I just don't want him to be... lonely. To feel like being lonely is the only choice he can have. He can find a family too, make one for himself, but I want him to be... safe. Safe to look and know they want him too."

[deuceoftears]

"Ours is pretty big," Jedao says, and the only thing that's tentative about it is calling it our family, his and Lao Jedao's, the connection he's never sure how much he wants to lean on.

"There's your grandfathers here. But Jedao One has two husbands and a girlfriend and thirty-seven other kids, and Fives has a million clone brothers. So...there'd even be lots of people who understand being...almost exactly the same, but still your own people. There'd be lots of room for him."

[howtheyshine]

"Two husbands and a girlfriend?" Somehow that sounds harder to manage than thirty-seven children, but what does he know. Romance is weird.

[deuceoftears]

"He's a very...energetic person," Jedao mutters, like he doesn't have a husband, three boyfriends, and two more he's got his eye on.

[howtheyshine]

There's a long moment where Edwin stays quiet, letting his mind catch up with all the feelings of the last ten minutes. He has that same sense of something released, of something being settled somehow, but this time there's no layer of pain to it. Melancholy, a little, with--what had John said, the death of a hope? It's less a death than being put to rest, in a way, this time.

He snuggles against Jedao and closes his eyes--

And promptly remembers something he hasn't even mentioned yet, something that gets him excited enough to flail around briefly inside the sweater before he gets his limbs in order and crown on straight enough that he doesn't get caught in it as he noodles his head out of Jedao's collar so Edwin can see his dad's face.

"I dreamed! I forgot to tell you. During the movie night that John had, I was in my body and I fell asleep and I dreamed."

[deuceoftears]

"Oh. That's very exciting. Was it a good dream?" He hopes so.

[howtheyshine]

"...It was weird and didn't make sense." Mostly.

[deuceoftears]

"Yeah. Dreams can be like that a lot." Jedao strokes Edwin's head a little bit.

[howtheyshine]

He shifts, quiet, but only for a handful of seconds. There's something in Jedao's manner making him uneasy. "Are-- Did I say something wrong?"

[deuceoftears]

"Oh, no Sunshine, you didn't say anything wrong. I was just - pensive, I suppose."

He knows his body dreamed, before Kujen woke it up. He doesn't remember what.

[howtheyshine]

"Why?" He pokes his head out of Jedao's collar to give him a gently affectionate headbutt to the face.