Jedao lets him into the ship's cabin, all old wood and library books. Jedao wraps his arms around Gonou in a tight hug as soon as the door's closed behind him.
Gonou lets out a tiny surprised huff of breath at the hug, but, after a moment, slips his arms around Jedao's waist and tucks his chin down against his shoulder.
"Thank you for indulging me," he murmurs. It's embarrassing, having his feelings hurt like a child, over something that is objectively not even about him. But it still stings.
"I like this. It's cozy. I might start rolling dice to bother you random nights," Jedao muses.
"Do you want to talk about it, or do you want me to suck your dick about it, or do you want to see if we can cuddle in a hammock without anybody falling out?"
"You should," Gonou agrees. "Or just come bother me, no matter what the dice say. I--"
Suck your dick about it-- he huffs something almost like a laugh, heart squeezing painfully. He wants to claw his own skin off; he can't imagine feeling any less sexy than he does right now, but he still loves Jedao a little more for the casual ease of the offer. It's nice to be reminded that he doesn't have to be seen as his crimes first.
"Scientific curiosity says hammock first," he says, wry with the obvious excuse. "And let's talk about something else. I don't want to talk about it yet."
Maybe once he's had a little time to unwind, and possibly laugh about misplaced elbows while they try to fit into a hammock. But not yet.
"You're taller, so you get in first?" Jedao speculates, eyeing the hammock thoughtfully. Flint sleeps there when he isn't with Raylan, so it's got to be firmly attached, at least.
"I kind of like it," Jedao admits. He gives the hammock a very careful, gentle nudge so that Gonou can feel it swaying back and forth. "Like that. It's...soothing?"
"Yeah - hold on there, the more weight I put in the more it'll tilt, but if you don't roll into me we should balance alright."
He reaches a hand over Gonou's body to grip the far side of the hammock, starting off as a brace that will turn later into a cling, and then shifts his weight, maneuvering quickly enough to avoid flipping anyone out, although he does end up sprawled somewhat heavily and unceremoniously on top of Gonou.
"Oops," he says, utterly unrepentant, and drops a kiss on Gonou's cheeks.
Gonou has excellent balance, when he's not being startled by unfamiliar furniture; he braces himself against the hammock as Jedao drops himself in with better grace than he'd managed, hangs on, and is promptly flattened beneath Jedao's weight.
He laughs softly at the unconvincing 'oops,' settling his arms around Jedao's waist as he wiggles his shoulders into a slightly more comfortable position.
"You didn't mean to do that?" he teases, and returns the cheek kiss with a brush of dry lips. "Well. So it can hold two." Although he wouldn't like to test it by moving around too much with both of their weight on the ropes.
"Maybe I didn't," Jedao says loftily, ruining it right at the end with a small yawn, and he snuggles in, which doesn't really bring them any closer but does make it that much more apparent how close they are; he nuzzles Gonou's neck and sticks a hand under his shirt to hold him. There's no particular teasing, just the drape of Jedao's hand and forearm loosely over Gonou's belly.
"Maybe you did," Gonou teases back, soft, and turns his face against Jedao's hair. He closes his eyes, breathing in, long and shakily; there are a few goosebumps puckering his skin under Jedao's fingertips.
"...If you want to go back to sleep," he murmurs, "that would be all right, too."
"I don't think vengeance is -- right," Gonou murmurs, his fingers absently counting over the ridges of Jedao's backbone as he thinks. "He thinks it's what he needs, and I'm sure he'd feel better for it, but that's part of his problem, isn't it?
"Maybe he just needs time. To see that his not getting vengeance doesn't mean Cloud is going to hurt someone he loves again."
"Maybe he would. But he also wants to protect his people, and he can't protect anyone with simple violence, not here. It doesn't stop anyone, it just pisses them off. So I want to give him alternatives but I don't know what a better alternative than look, he's still alive could be."
James needs not to feel helpless, and in some ways the barge makes that even harder than an empire.
"I don't know either. From what I heard from Raylan -- it was really just an accident. He was startled out of sleep, he lashed out, he called for help the moment he realized what he'd done...."
It hadn't made Raylan any less dead, but it made violent revenge even more pointless.
"You can't really plan against accidents like that."
Phrased that way, he can see why Flint's so stuck on it: there are some things that can't be protected against. To lose a lover to one of them-- well. It's not easy.
Flint isn't helpless because of all the forces that have conspired against him in the past, even though the feeling is all tied up with them; he isn't even helpless because Jedao isn't letting him get revenge. He's just helpless because everyone is a little bit helpless against the infinite vagaries of chance. But there's no way to untangle it, and Jedao already worries he's said too much that should be private.
"The thing is," he says suddenly, quietly, hotly. "If it was me, and I was an immortal inmate with nothing to lose, and some fucker killed me thinking that would be enough to scare me into behaving, I'd ruin him."
"Only if I didn't get to him first," Gonou murmurs. "But-- yes. Exactly that. And making the death slower and more torturous only makes it more certain that his target, and his target's friends, won't be willing to let it go.
"So that's not a solution at all. It can't be. It's just much more mess. I did offer to spar with him sometime, if he needs to hit someone real instead of Enclosure simulations."
He pauses, and adds, "If it's barehanded, I'm almost completely sure there's no danger I'll kill him."
"I know you don't," he says into Jedao's hair, quirking the slightest smile. "But since I'm an inmate with nothing to lose -- if someone tried to hurt or kill you to scare you into doing what they wanted, I might have to show them why that wouldn't work."
Empirically. Probably also without killing them, although if they start a fight he can't make any promises there either.
"It would be a learning experience," he adds, deliberately innocent.
"They'd know it didn't work when I didn't do it," Jedao says, a little bit flatly. "I care about control, I don't care about pain at all."
Anyone with any brains who actually wanted leverage against Jedao would threaten to hurt Gonou. Although actually going through with it wouldn't be nearly so effective. Jedao knows that letting themselves be - known, in public, is a security mistake. But it's a tradeoff for other things.
"If someone hurt me just to be an asshole I figure you get one free punch. As far as I'm concerned." Xie Lian might have his own opinions.
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"Thank you for indulging me," he murmurs. It's embarrassing, having his feelings hurt like a child, over something that is objectively not even about him. But it still stings.
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"I like this. It's cozy. I might start rolling dice to bother you random nights," Jedao muses.
"Do you want to talk about it, or do you want me to suck your dick about it, or do you want to see if we can cuddle in a hammock without anybody falling out?"
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Suck your dick about it-- he huffs something almost like a laugh, heart squeezing painfully. He wants to claw his own skin off; he can't imagine feeling any less sexy than he does right now, but he still loves Jedao a little more for the casual ease of the offer. It's nice to be reminded that he doesn't have to be seen as his crimes first.
"Scientific curiosity says hammock first," he says, wry with the obvious excuse. "And let's talk about something else. I don't want to talk about it yet."
Maybe once he's had a little time to unwind, and possibly laugh about misplaced elbows while they try to fit into a hammock. But not yet.
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It sags beneath him and dumps him ass-first into the center of the hammock with a stifled squawk and without either balance or dignity.
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"Well, that's one way to do it. Are you comfortable?"
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How even.
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"Here-- I do think we can fit."
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"Yeah - hold on there, the more weight I put in the more it'll tilt, but if you don't roll into me we should balance alright."
He reaches a hand over Gonou's body to grip the far side of the hammock, starting off as a brace that will turn later into a cling, and then shifts his weight, maneuvering quickly enough to avoid flipping anyone out, although he does end up sprawled somewhat heavily and unceremoniously on top of Gonou.
"Oops," he says, utterly unrepentant, and drops a kiss on Gonou's cheeks.
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He laughs softly at the unconvincing 'oops,' settling his arms around Jedao's waist as he wiggles his shoulders into a slightly more comfortable position.
"You didn't mean to do that?" he teases, and returns the cheek kiss with a brush of dry lips. "Well. So it can hold two." Although he wouldn't like to test it by moving around too much with both of their weight on the ropes.
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"...If you want to go back to sleep," he murmurs, "that would be all right, too."
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"Yes. And he gets to be upset, but he's just - it's more than that, he's stuck. And I don't know how to get him unstuck."
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"Maybe he just needs time. To see that his not getting vengeance doesn't mean Cloud is going to hurt someone he loves again."
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James needs not to feel helpless, and in some ways the barge makes that even harder than an empire.
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It hadn't made Raylan any less dead, but it made violent revenge even more pointless.
"You can't really plan against accidents like that."
Phrased that way, he can see why Flint's so stuck on it: there are some things that can't be protected against. To lose a lover to one of them-- well. It's not easy.
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Flint isn't helpless because of all the forces that have conspired against him in the past, even though the feeling is all tied up with them; he isn't even helpless because Jedao isn't letting him get revenge. He's just helpless because everyone is a little bit helpless against the infinite vagaries of chance. But there's no way to untangle it, and Jedao already worries he's said too much that should be private.
"The thing is," he says suddenly, quietly, hotly. "If it was me, and I was an immortal inmate with nothing to lose, and some fucker killed me thinking that would be enough to scare me into behaving, I'd ruin him."
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"So that's not a solution at all. It can't be. It's just much more mess. I did offer to spar with him sometime, if he needs to hit someone real instead of Enclosure simulations."
He pauses, and adds, "If it's barehanded, I'm almost completely sure there's no danger I'll kill him."
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"You know if anyone does manage to hurt me I don't want that," he adds, but it's almost pro forma, rueful and mild.
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Empirically. Probably also without killing them, although if they start a fight he can't make any promises there either.
"It would be a learning experience," he adds, deliberately innocent.
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Anyone with any brains who actually wanted leverage against Jedao would threaten to hurt Gonou. Although actually going through with it wouldn't be nearly so effective. Jedao knows that letting themselves be - known, in public, is a security mistake. But it's a tradeoff for other things.
"If someone hurt me just to be an asshole I figure you get one free punch. As far as I'm concerned." Xie Lian might have his own opinions.
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