"I'm - wary of - investing heavily without that lined up solidly? An advantage of dating people you could have kids with is that you don't have to separately finesse the two and juggle more compatibilities. But 'grey children' is in fact the objection I had. I mean, plus vague grey culture stuff that you don't seem infected with."

He nods. "Guaranteed one hundred percent infection-free. I can talk to Ohan about it, though, for sure."

"I also don't make enough money for a green credit, or a third of one, though, I'd been planning to aim for orange."

"I kinda... do. Enough to save up to one or two green credits, probably."

"Gosh. Well. It would be very early to start making any firm load-bearing plans but you have my blessing to probe your date on this."

He beams. "And on a positive, do I have a blessing to make our next meeting an actual date?"

"I'm still worried about adding constraints on my ability to look around, if I get attached to you and your green doesn't pan out and then I meet a compatible doctor who prefers monogamy I'm in a spot."

"I'm generally confident in my ability to talk people into things, but that's a reasonable worry. I don't want to pressure you, the decision is yours."

"I guess we can schedule it for after you next see your green and call it a date if that goes well?"

"Oh, yeah, that's what I meant earlier, we call it a date if Ohan tells me it's fine."

"Yeah, okay."

"Awesome," he says, grinning widely.

"You're awfully pleased."

"I might get a date with a celebrity! Also you're great and I lowkey already have a crush on you."

"I'm not a real celebrity."

"It counts anyway."

"If you say so."

"I do say so! I'm in your fandom!"

"When my mom calls it that I usually correct her to 'readership'."

"Different connotations."

"And different implied celebrity of central feature."

"Fair, fair," he shrugs, grinning. "And I think we're officially out of dessert, now."

"Yeah, I guess we are.'

"When should we see each other again? My date is next week, so possibly the weekend after that?"

"Yeah, that works. Hmmm... we've gone through my best restaurant recommendations... picnic?"