"It's close enough. If there's a little entanglement we'll notice if you do something wrong but it won't be that unpleasant and the effects will be very short-lasting."

Cam nods. I talked to your brother for values of 'talked' that include me writing my end.

"Are the prisoners better accommodated?"

The one is. Apparently making anything more comfortable has complications and he's concerned about being known to have nice dungeons and I didn't want to get into a whole conversation about prison conditions right then, it didn't seem like a good time.

"Because you feel guilty?"

No, actually, mostly because trying to get people to do things I want that they have reason to object to when I have just harmed them seemed like a losing move.

"Fair enough."

Anyway, I more or less already knew this but he convinced me that I should probably be having a conversation with you about our feelings like a grownup instead of awkwardly pretending not to notice that you have a crush on me, or actually he was characterizing it as 'in love with' but I am not sure on what basis.

"Oh, I told him. I wanted advice and was worried that I would offend you or something and it'd interfere with the project and I wanted him to figure out who he could substitute in if it did."

...blink blink. Well, I'm not offended, mostly I'm just awkward.

" - it would be pretty surprising if you didn't have a lot of experience with people falling in love with you. I guess the publication thing was secret."

As far as I know no one has ever fallen in love with me before! I barely have friends back in Hell!

"That's honestly very weird!"

I'm pretty introverted, don't publicize my major accomplishment, and am nothing particularly special on an interpersonal level to most tastes, I think?

"Well, lots of people here would want you so if you perceive yourself as not having a lot of options I think you should reconsider that."

I don't perceive myself as unable to find people to hook up with, I'm aware that I'm reasonably attractive, but 'in love with' is normally a different matter.

"I guess it's possible I am overestimating how obvious or how universally desirable your traits are but it sure feels like there should be a lot of people who notice this."

Nah, I've historically settled for people thinking I have nice shoulders or something when there's anything going on at all. Shrug.

"Okay, if you don't want - whatever - at least let me find you someone who thinks you're the best thing that ever happened."

Confusion about the nature of the whatever is why I have been being so awkward!

"I don't really know what humans do? Faeries usually arrange their projects so they can do them together and maybe move in together and stop tracking debt internally not that we can really do that and make long-term plans and are smug at other people about how well their life is going and... I could survey people and put together a list or something?"

...giggle. How does not tracking debt internally work?

"You just - stop worrying about being even and accept that you'll be entangled, which lets you have a lot more interactions that you couldn't afford otherwise."

Does it matter in which direction they're not even, though?

"Some people care about it, some people don't, some people need it to work one way or another for political reasons - harder to do negotiations if you visibly don't have the authority to follow through on anything -"