He stumbles through it now, because they didn't just brush up against it, they slid right through it, perfect as threading a needle. Jedao's defenses are all as far down as they go, and Quentin has a right to whatever Jedao can tell him, to more than pinpoint confirmation.
"You almost saw once, with my gun - it's not hurting myself really. But it's calming too, sometimes. Just to - hold it, put it against my jaw. To pretend I might. Only it doesn't work as well, since I've actually died here. But then you - and it felt - it felt like everything."
"It's - I'm not sure? Sometimes we have different words for things." In the case of echo damage. Or no words, in the case of whatever Mikodez pretends not to have.
"Okay, well, I can tell you in terms of my brain and how it works, and you can pick and choose the parts that apply to you. But-"
And, swallowing hard, kissing the top of his head.
"-do you like talking about this stuff now? We could wait a minute. The books say you're supposed to be pretty emotionally open for the few hours afterwards."
"So sometimes, regardless of how okay things are going for me, my brain and body just- fall out of step, I sometimes think of it, but that's not a very good metaphor. It's just out of nowhere kind of- greyscale, all of a sudden, and at first I feel terrible, and then I feel absolutely nothing, and like it would just be-"
He can't say it, but he gestures, in vague reference to what Jedao has said already. Put another way, then;
"-I really don't feel suicidal very often, which makes me lucky."
"I used to lose time, when it was very bad. My body would keep going right on with whatever needed doing but I wouldn't...be there. I'd just be gone. Which is...not a metaphor. I think maybe I understand about - greyscale, though. And I used to want to die all the time. I only - really tried the once, if you don't count all my career decisions ever. And you saw Kel Gized stop me. I was so mad when I came here. But..."
He laughs, a little, rough and rueful. "Before you and Fives, I didn't really have a regardless of how okay things are baseline, did I?"
"So that's the thing that's going to be a learning experience. Things are going to be all right, for you, from now on, no matter what. But even within that context, you might still feel this way sometimes."
Rubbing a thumb over his brow.
"If that happens, we will make sure to take care of you, and get you help, and you are not judged, and you are not harmed."
"It was so bad when he died, Quentin," Jedao murmurs, hiding his face against Quentin's shirt again, dragging in his breaths. "He was - so happy the last moment, really at peace, and I felt him walk away and he was gone, right down in my soul where we'd been holding each other up, and I couldn't even hate him for it."
It shudders out of him, like the pain shook some keystone loose, and now the rest of it is falling in chunks.
"It was grief but it wasn't just - it felt like someone pulled a plug somewhere in the awful core of me, and everything I am was going to drain away, or tar seeping up through me, and I was going to be like that forever, if I couldn't get my balance back, if I couldn't stop it up. And I hadn't anything to do but sit and feel it but then there were the deaths and everything else needed doing."
"Yeah," he breathes, softly, and reaches up to rub his back, on the other side of where he bit him, "yeah, I can imagine. I can imagine, losing a bond like that. I wish I had known sooner. Maybe I could have done something sooner."
And, squeezing him a little tighter, just once.
"You are not alone, and the upshot to be brave enough to admit you need help is that you sometimes get it."
"I would have asked," he says, because he had thought about it, his mind always whirring along different contingencies. "You or Jean. But then it happened so fast."
"It's still there. All - hollow. Like the feeling when you lose a tooth."
But it isn't consuming him any more. He sighs and settles more firmly against Quentin.
"S'there anything you...need to check, want me to say?" He doesn't want to leave Quentin with any worries that he hurt Jedao in any way he didn't want, didn't need.
Admits Quentin, and tips them over a little, tucking the blanket tighter around their bodies.
"Hm." Thinking this through. "I guess I'd be curious to know if this changes how you'll think of me? I mean, I'm sure it must, some ways for good, some ways for different- some ways for bad, even. But as I struggle a bit to reconcile this all with myself, it'd help to know how you see it."
He huffs at this and rolls his eyes, muttering "Eyefox wept." And then....less grumpily, "I mean I've had a few punched out, but that's different and terrible, don't do that."
He sneaks a hand beneath Quentin's shirt, just to settle himself with the warmth of skin under his fingertips, mulling over the question he'd been derailed from.
"I don't know if I've...processed it for me enough to know yet how it'll come out when I process it about you. I think I won't be able to compartmentalize you as much. I don't think the...being able to give me the pain, or even liking it, doesn't change how I feel about you very much. I knew if you said yes, you'd give me what I needed. And you'd be lovely and tender and deliberate and searing, and you were. But being inside the magic like that, it was different than with the foxes. It was different than everything. I feel a little bit farther away from you and a little bit closer, at the same time."
He agrees, settled by this, because, his verdict is;
"I think everything you saw today was true. I behaved- differently with you, but not, I think, in a way that was untrue to myself or unfair or unkind to you, so now matter how the chips fall- you know more of the truth about me, and so, it so happens, do I. So that's okay."
"Yes. And there were pieces I - sort knew. But never got around to putting together with the rest of you? You're the only one of my mathematicians who ever made me sad I couldn't see it too."
He doesn't know that it's true until he hears himself say it, but there's a sweetness to the melancholy. He's been angry about that, bitter, resigned, but always for strategic, pragmatic reasons. This is just for the thing itself, and for him.
"And I feel a little bit like I maybe don't deserve you. But I'll probably get over that." He smiles, sleepy and cheeky, presses a kiss to Quentin's neck. While he's there, he whispers, "You still make me feel peaceful. More than ever."
The last gift he would ever have looked for, or imagined.
"That's funny, because a lot of the time I know I don't deserve you either."
He answers, a private little secret, an unconscious clutch of his fingers, which he tries to disguise by shifting them down so they can curl up, so Jedao can lie on his side and be spooned in safe while Quentin curls around him.
"Silly," Jedao murmurs, turning obligingly, although he knows Quentin too well to be really surprised by it. He laces his fingers with one of Quentin's hands where his arm is wrapped around Jedao, and tugs it up so Jedao can kiss his knuckles.
"My silly splendid darling. You deserve all the wonders your heart can hold."
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magician_king) wrote2020-01-12 01:19 pm
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"Did you - why did you pick that, for the end?"
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He says, and squeezes the nape of his neck, eyes closing, cheek resting against the top of his head.
"Didn't know in advance."
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He asks, and nuzzles the top of his head.
"It felt like it. Felt like the universe went just right."
suicidal ideation
He stumbles through it now, because they didn't just brush up against it, they slid right through it, perfect as threading a needle. Jedao's defenses are all as far down as they go, and Quentin has a right to whatever Jedao can tell him, to more than pinpoint confirmation.
"You almost saw once, with my gun - it's not hurting myself really. But it's calming too, sometimes. Just to - hold it, put it against my jaw. To pretend I might. Only it doesn't work as well, since I've actually died here. But then you - and it felt - it felt like everything."
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"So does your universe talk about depression? Or is it in the box with the other genuine fears and vulnerabilities?"
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cw mental health, depression
And, swallowing hard, kissing the top of his head.
"-do you like talking about this stuff now? We could wait a minute. The books say you're supposed to be pretty emotionally open for the few hours afterwards."
cw mental health, depression
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And he might. But for now then;
"So sometimes, regardless of how okay things are going for me, my brain and body just- fall out of step, I sometimes think of it, but that's not a very good metaphor. It's just out of nowhere kind of- greyscale, all of a sudden, and at first I feel terrible, and then I feel absolutely nothing, and like it would just be-"
He can't say it, but he gestures, in vague reference to what Jedao has said already. Put another way, then;
"-I really don't feel suicidal very often, which makes me lucky."
cw more suicide stuff
He laughs, a little, rough and rueful. "Before you and Fives, I didn't really have a regardless of how okay things are baseline, did I?"
no subject
Rubbing a thumb over his brow.
"If that happens, we will make sure to take care of you, and get you help, and you are not judged, and you are not harmed."
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It shudders out of him, like the pain shook some keystone loose, and now the rest of it is falling in chunks.
"It was grief but it wasn't just - it felt like someone pulled a plug somewhere in the awful core of me, and everything I am was going to drain away, or tar seeping up through me, and I was going to be like that forever, if I couldn't get my balance back, if I couldn't stop it up. And I hadn't anything to do but sit and feel it but then there were the deaths and everything else needed doing."
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And, squeezing him a little tighter, just once.
"You are not alone, and the upshot to be brave enough to admit you need help is that you sometimes get it."
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"It's okay now. You made it through it."
A little more water, then, one more candy.
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But it isn't consuming him any more. He sighs and settles more firmly against Quentin.
"S'there anything you...need to check, want me to say?" He doesn't want to leave Quentin with any worries that he hurt Jedao in any way he didn't want, didn't need.
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Admits Quentin, and tips them over a little, tucking the blanket tighter around their bodies.
"Hm." Thinking this through. "I guess I'd be curious to know if this changes how you'll think of me? I mean, I'm sure it must, some ways for good, some ways for different- some ways for bad, even. But as I struggle a bit to reconcile this all with myself, it'd help to know how you see it."
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This is much, much weirder than being able to play his nerves like a harp.
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He says, and kisses the top of his head.
"I don't remember losing my teeth, anyways."
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He sneaks a hand beneath Quentin's shirt, just to settle himself with the warmth of skin under his fingertips, mulling over the question he'd been derailed from.
"I don't know if I've...processed it for me enough to know yet how it'll come out when I process it about you. I think I won't be able to compartmentalize you as much. I don't think the...being able to give me the pain, or even liking it, doesn't change how I feel about you very much. I knew if you said yes, you'd give me what I needed. And you'd be lovely and tender and deliberate and searing, and you were. But being inside the magic like that, it was different than with the foxes. It was different than everything. I feel a little bit farther away from you and a little bit closer, at the same time."
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He agrees, settled by this, because, his verdict is;
"I think everything you saw today was true. I behaved- differently with you, but not, I think, in a way that was untrue to myself or unfair or unkind to you, so now matter how the chips fall- you know more of the truth about me, and so, it so happens, do I. So that's okay."
For better, for worse.
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He doesn't know that it's true until he hears himself say it, but there's a sweetness to the melancholy. He's been angry about that, bitter, resigned, but always for strategic, pragmatic reasons. This is just for the thing itself, and for him.
"And I feel a little bit like I maybe don't deserve you. But I'll probably get over that." He smiles, sleepy and cheeky, presses a kiss to Quentin's neck. While he's there, he whispers, "You still make me feel peaceful. More than ever."
The last gift he would ever have looked for, or imagined.
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He answers, a private little secret, an unconscious clutch of his fingers, which he tries to disguise by shifting them down so they can curl up, so Jedao can lie on his side and be spooned in safe while Quentin curls around him.
"And you make me feel strong."
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"My silly splendid darling. You deserve all the wonders your heart can hold."
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