IC INBOX for The Last Voyages

[magician_king]

You know what to do.

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[magician_king]

"He's totally untrustworthy."

He agrees; this has never stopped Quentin.

"I wish I could figure out how to talk him back off the weird edge he's out on, but his brand of batshit is above my paygrade."

[kissthatgoodbye]

"Mine too," Alec agrees. "I don't do hope very well, but mostly I'm just hoping he doesn't jump off that edge while I'm still here, 'cause I got basically nothing for dealing with him."

[magician_king]

"No kidding."

A small smile.

"But things feel kind of okay lately? I'm jinxing it. But is that just me?"

[kissthatgoodbye]

The sharp look that gets isn't one of Alec's usual hamstringing ones, but much subtler, a flick of the wrist rather than a full out punch.

"It's not just you," he admits slowly, but warily.

[credere]

Hello.

Can I - ask for a favor?

It's alright if you say no. I've...made it kind of weird before.

[magician_king]

Yeah, for sure, what's up? How can I help?"

[ninefox]

They're curled together in Quentin's bed, past the panting into the lazy part of the afterglow. Jedao presses a kiss to Quentin's bare shoulder and breaks the moment, because it's easier to talk about hard things when it's harder to think.

"I'm going to pull the trigger on my memories. Soon."

[magician_king]

"Huh?"

Says Quentin, who's down about thirty iq points right now, and paws around for his lost glasses in the sheets when he realizes,

"Oh boy. The time is right?"

[ninefox]

"Fives got six hours of sleep last night," Jedao says, which is...one of the signs he's been waiting for. "He's getting closer with his inmate, which means he feels less helpless and has more to do. I just -"

He takes a shuddery breath. He was putting it off, again and again, but the incident with Quentin and the fucking survey has put the fear of it in him properly again. He needs to do this. However awful it is, whatever he becomes, however broken and hazardous - he needs to have all his own pieces.

Whenever he lets himself think about it at all, he realizes he's hanging on by his fingernails.

"I have to."

[magician_king]

"Okay. If I'm there holding your hand are you more comforted by my calm and adoring energy, or panicked about the pressure of needing to protect me from whatever ugliness kicks up in the aftermath?"

Glancing down at him, now through his glasses, utterly non-judgemental.

"I feel like you could swing either way."

[ninefox]

He breathes. He's not sure if it's a matter of more, or of panic. He is scared of hurting Quentin - Quentin who's already managed to trip the memories once when they weren't even there - but he wouldn't be feeling panic in the moment if Quentin was there anyway.

He'd just know, later, that he'd been selfish. More selfish than the person he wants to be, whether Quentin would want it or not.

And the other part of him, the squirming part, just wants to hide, wants literally as few people as possible to see him in a state he can't predict.

"I think -" and he doesn't want to say the bald I don't want you there, no matter how good Quentin is being about it. And part of him does. "I think the costs outweigh the benefits," Jedao settles on, swallowing, which is the truth without having to fully explain.

[magician_king]

"I love you." He says, and bends to kiss him, once, soft and slow, "contact me as soon as you can after you're done, okay? I'll be waiting."

He imagines a few hours, a day spent with Fives. No part of him braces for anything worse than that.

[credere]

....the magic that turns people into animals. You - can you do that to people who aren't magic themselves?

[magician_king]

Yes.

[But his voice does get a little nervous, now.]

Why, what are you thinking?

[ninefox]

"I love you so much," Jedao whispers fiercely afterward. He suspects that he will be volatile. He suspects that he will lash out unexpectedly, that he will treat Quentin badly sometimes in ways he does not remotely deserve, but that he will grovel and Quentin will forgive him.

In his secret, most terrified heart, part of him worries he will be volatile and violent, and that Quentin will end it, despite everything, as clean as a stroke of a sword blade.

You can't be here and be like that, Quentin told him, months ago when Jedao pulled his gun - he hadn't even want to use it, just feel it, just to have it, the key to a doorway out that goes nowhere here, but even looking at the key is comforting.

You can't be here and be like that. Jedao has never forgotten.

He does not imagine there will be, that there could be, any minuscule part of him that wouldn't want Quentin.

"I will," he promises. "I'll call you."

[credere]

I, um. I mentioned it to Shiro, and - she asked.

So I was wondering if....it was something we could do together? Please.

[magician_king]

Quentin thinks about the gun sometimes. He thinks about going back, and trying to explain- that it was the kind of wrong where if he'd let it go, he'd have been forced to lose something of himself. That it would do a kind of damage that he will never allow Jedao to do to him. Mostly for Jedao's sake, at that.

Mostly, though, he feels like they're past it. So he just leans in, and gives him a warm kiss hello.

"Text me when it starts so I'll know I'm waiting."

[ninefox]

Jedao doesn't think of it often. He's simply incorporated it as a parameter. But going forward, he can't trust himself. He might not accept the parameters he does now.

Jedao sighs into his mouth, lets himself savor the kiss, lets himself relax and draw reassurance from it. "I will," he promises.

Text+voice

[ninefox]

As promised, Jedao contacts him the next before it starts. Just after Jedao's lunch shift, Quentin gets a one-word text: "Starting."

A few hours later - two and half, maybe three - Jedao has written twenty different notes and deleted them all. As soon as you can, Quentin asked him, and he promised. He promised. Everything in text sounds so curt. Anything less than curt feels unbearable. He feels like he's ripping chunks out of his heart.

His heart is faithless. His heart belongs to a different order of monster. And Quentin's hand was just the sort of hand he liked, perfectly shaped for gathering up the silk strings -

His stomach turns over, even though it's long emptied of all its contents. Quentin, Quentin, Quentin. Even the sounds of their names are similar.

"It's done," he whispers finally, an auditory channel that he can't take back and fail to send yet again.

[magician_king]

Quentin may morph into Kujen in Jedao's thought, but he could not sound less like him when he joins the feed and asks him, voice a mess of nerves and adoration;

"Hey! Are you okay? Did it work? What happened? Can I bring you anything?"

He's already scrambling to his feet, on his way.

[ninefox]

His voice chokes, frail and harsh at the same time. Quentin's voice has always been so - comforting. How long did he wait begging for Kujen's? Even more than the light, the idea of someone, anyone out there, knowing they could speak, revenant to revenant, if he would only - Nirai-zho, are you there?

How rarely he answered. How grateful Jedao was, every time, the surge of adoration with no chest to surge in. He can feel it right now, how much he loves Quentin, and he can't breathe.

"It worked." He knows. He's still...himself, the various rearrangements of his soul's signifier matrices not carrying over along with the memory of how many times it happened, who he was and what he did.

"No!" Not loud but sharp, a flicker of raw panic, and then he slips into a pleading tone, right on the heels of it, never run from anything immortal, showing fear gets you hurt worse but sometimes begging pleased his ego, or at least bored him. It's begging even if Jedao doesn't use the word please, showing throat through nothing but his voice.

(Jedao can convey almost anything with nothing but the tone of his voice.)

"No, don't."

[magician_king]

"What?"

Asks Quentin, taken aback entirely, freezing with his hand on the communicator and lifting it carefully up to speak into. His hand is all but on the doorknob.

"Jedao, what's wrong?"

He won't move without permission now, but he needs to know more than this.

[ninefox]

"I can't." His mouth feels dry, tastes like ashes.

"I can't see you right now."

[magician_king]

He breathes out, and tries to decide what to do and say. He hates this news, obviously, but everything about this is not remotely about him.

Jedao has learned something, or is dealing with something, that makes seeing Quentin impossible.

"Okay. Have you got- a timeframe on this, do you know yet? Or should we hold off on that for a bit?"

[ninefox]

"I don't. I don't know," he admits, slumping a little in relief. "I'm kind of. Dealing minute by minute, right now."