"Might try that. Not to refer to you, though, to refer to the person who wrote those notes, who - I really do want to read what you thought of that mess -"

Kib nods, and leads the way to where he keeps all his notebooks, and rummages through them, and finds the notes on the dance.

It is as he said: choice.

- entire society of animal-breeding aliens has elevated it to such a fucking art form they have stupid purity taboos about it, this probably isn't as bad as the hardline gender segregationists but then again I'd have a hard time spending such pleasant time unknowingly in the company of large numbers of hardline gender segregationists, how did I not notice, they're not that big on PDA I guess -

- they're fucking telepathic I don't buy for a second he didn't see this coming he's too sharp and they're fucking telepathic he could have warned me I don't even know what social ramifications I'm looking at -

- I can't even dance -

(Kib finds the next installment in the saga. It's all fluttery over Findekáno, such a sweetheart; it's self-deprecating about how long it took him to notice it was a date and then backpedaling because of course he didn't notice he'd just been told that was locally inconceivable -)

He buries his head in his hand and makes strangled noises.

"It improved from there! Obviously!"

Here is the part where Kib solicits an apology and speculates fruitlessly about why Maitimo was making such intermittently agonized faces and then pretending he hadn't done that! Here is the part where he goes on another date with Findekáno and they are walked in on and he literally falls off the bed and makes a noise (he has four different attempts at transliterating this noise, in three alphabets, and is unsatisfied with all of them) and his dismay at the implied disrespect from the both of them, he's not a fucking child and he is not stolen goods to be smuggled around and presented to third parties and why are they both so damned pretty it's unfair but he feels very clever for noticing the eight pointed star on the tapestry and remembering about Applicable Families-Related Facts.

Here's the part where he beats Maitimo at Governor. The game's tucked into the notebook; it's not long.

The look on his face. He looked like he was going to spontaneously catch fire. I wasn't even trying to flirt with him at first except insofar as I continued talking and didn't leave the room. (The fact that this sufficed: best.) And then he asked if I was doing this to him on purpose and I said I could start (one of these days I'm going to get myself into trouble saying whatever seems - cleverest? Aptest? Note to self consult thesaurus or osanwë somebody concept to see if Quenya has a word I suck at inventing words, outsource to Elves) (anyway) and he said "what the Halls would it look like if you were doing this on purpose" (eeeee) and I pointed out that I don't have to be trying to be brilliant and vain, I'm just like that all the time, and from there I was really pretty merciless but no complaints about the results {did Aly have the back of the neck thing, I guess there's no way to know since she was single} -

And he reads it, and is happy, again, it's almost suspiciously easy to be happy, visiting Valinor in Kib's voice, and he - 

- wants it to be real - wants a hug even if it's fake - wants to stop hurting these people, these lovely perfect people he'd built a life with -

He starts crying. He could, of course, make himself stop. He doesn't do that.

"I wish you could have him back."

"Have - you? Are you not sure whether you are real now, that'd be new."

"Hmm? No, it's just - I don't think I am ever going to be that and if I were you still could not trust it -"

"Mm."

Sigh.

Next page if I remember right is extensive minutiae about the sex, you probably want to skip that.

Do I? It seems vaguely appealing to have a memory, even secondhand, of how that goes when you don't force me...

Oh. Go ahead then.

It's not particularly designed to be titillating to read and more of the text is nonce words and onomatopoeia than usual. The sex was apparently hot and gentle and delightful and included lots of nibbling on Kib's neck and Maitimo's hair being soft (insert string of enthusiastic punctuation) and he turned down the telepathic projection of desperate want and ruminates for four paragraphs about whether that would have been confusing and how nice it might have been and the difference between knowing it was there and knowing what it was like and at the end of paragraph four concludes that he will probably want to try it sometime but sometime might be a while. It was annoying that the place was not soundproofed enough that he could scream, stupid Elf hearing, he thinks he would probably otherwise have screamed and is not sure how much of his attention not-screaming took or whether it made him less present in the experience.

There was cuddling.

Maitimo woke him from a bad dream - he lists the dreams, there were innocuous ones and then there was a pox one, somebody changing Aly's bandages - handwriting deteriorates briefly around there - there was more cuddling. Maitimo suggests that the next time awful things happen to Kib he could take a moment to remember that it is entirely possible that the experience is just a dream to his future self.

Had to sneak out the window. That was annoying.

"Is this moment just a dream to your future self?"

"Guess it could be. But sort of only by virtue of being both that and something that actually happened. I'd give away the ending for whoever my future self is but I don't know it yet. If I'm lucky I have my notes."

"You mean, whether we win the war?"

"Memories come in smallish chunks. This chunk is much more likely to leave him or her waking up wondering what happened to you. Although, hello future self, if you get a chance look into whether or not we have successfully killed the evil god who is fucking responsible for this thanks..."

"If the hallucination had the premise the Enemy were dead I'd be fine. There'd stop being so many things it was a bad idea for me to learn about. I could do things that mattered again.

And on the other side if we found proof this wasn't a hallucination, I'd be fine too, I could just swear you and Findekáno full access to my head and that solves the trust problem."

"...well, it would be sort of disturbing but I suppose..."

"Or just him, if it'd bother you too much. It would be preferable to having no way to persuade you I'm not relaying everything I see and hear straight to Angband."

"I don't actually think you're doing that. Just can't justify assuming you aren't, or won't start after some period of time, or something..."

"Yep. So, killing the Enemy is the most straightforward avenue to solving all our problems. Or figuring out something you want from me, but you've made it clear that's not a place you're at right now."

"I want things for you."

"Working on it."

"I know." I love you.

He sits there, quite still, looking at the notes over and over as if he hasn't already committed them to memory.