Sun-dark watches his alt lie there on the bed utterly insensate, consumed by agony. He can tell that it hurts more than he can even conceive of, and it's terrifying, and - the way Dawn-shining looked at Maitimo when he gave him his soul - he knew this was coming and he wanted it, looked forward to it -

"I want to learn how to do that," he says. He's obviously capable of that same depth of - strength, of acceptance-of-pain - and he has no idea how to get there and he really badly wants to and he suspects that it involves getting tortured until you don't care anymore and there's something so enthralling about the way Dawn-shining looks right now...

He looks up at Maitimo and - he just wants, without even any clear idea of what it is he's wanting. It almost doesn't matter.

(He takes Taliar's soul again so he has something to hold onto.)

And he picks up the new one and presses him to the bed the non-magic way and says you are definitely going to learn how to do that, you're a Taliar, you're a miracle, and kisses him.

Yes I am, he says, smiling into the kiss, and wow he's definitely still terrified and kind of starting to like it that way, and Maitimo is so beautiful and so - compelling, like a flame to a moth, and he very much feels like he has already caught fire.

And he starts singing to him, softly, the trust song -

It's lovely, of course, Maitimo singing is always so lovely.

And it's soothing.

...kind of suspiciously soothing actually.

Songs can do that?

Okay admittedly this feels fucking amazing but - "hey," he says with half-joking indignation, "give that back, I was having fun with it."

"Oh, I'm going to, just you wait. Give me your soul."

That sounds like a great idea.

A substantial part of the reason why that sounds like a great idea is probably literal mind control, wow.

"You can't have sprung this on him like this," he muses, "he has to have agreed to it, how the fuck did you manage that, you can't possibly have known ahead of time that it'd get us this high - did you? I'd be very impressed... wow. Wow. This is amazing. And I will never be able to look my emperor in the eye again if I follow objectively terrifying suggestions made while I'm high on artificial trust."

He takes his soul anyway. 

Soul contact on trust songs is amazing. He wants to stay wrapped up in this forever, this lovely warm-blanket feeling, it's so cozy, love and trust filling him up like sunlight...

He kisses him and holds him and stops singing.

...so that's what he meant by a cascade -

Fear and amazement and love and delight and confusion and back to fear, and the determination to win by not letting the fear take over, and all of these things going off like fireworks and feeding on each other and looping back around and chain-reacting and none of it ever goes away he can't handle this he's going to fall apart - he's a Taliar he's a miracle he will be okay -

He lets go. He waits for him to come back to his senses. He kisses him.

He notices, sort of distantly, that he's shaking a little.

Oh come on, he thinks, with affectionate half-joking disappointment, that was your one opportunity to talk me into something while I was high on trust songs without having known they existed beforehand, I can't believe you didn't even try -

I can talk you into anything I want anyway, and I. Care about consent now. It makes people happy.

You still picked up my soul, he points out. I love you.

And he has to be careful about loving him - he could easily let himself get carried away on the wings of that revelation, it's not like he couldn't have guessed but it's very different to hear him say it - has to keep in mind that there's another Maitimo out there who presumably does not have this quirk and might not ever and Sun-dark is going to go seduce him anyway because he is stupidly, dangerously, gloriously in love with this absolute marvel of a person.

You begged me to show you, I was taking that as stronger permission than 'my emperor would scowl at me' was dispermission. Anyway, I want to fuck you on trust songs, you'll like it, sound good?

Yes and that's exactly what makes it silly that you didn't try to talk me into it and now I'm never going to know how well I would've done. It's fine, I'll get over it. Please fuck me on trust songs that sounds amazing.

Oh, you're upset because you think you could have thought around it to refuse me? Kiss. Of course you could have. 

And he starts singing.

I actually think I could've thought around it to get a genuinely accurate idea of whether I would've agreed without the trust songs and then gone with that, which is much more impressive and also trickier to predict without trying it, he says, laughing softly. I love you.

Listening to the trust song and knowing what it means is its own kind of fascinating - he feels nervous and he feels the nervousness fade away and he is gloriously high on this, it's amazing, he wonders if it even is this good for Dawn-shining, who actually trusts Maitimo very deeply and entirely independently, whereas Sun-dark trusts him mostly by proxy, it's a much bigger jump from one state to the other...

Perhaps you'll have even more fun with one of me who you can't trust at all. 

And he tugs him closer and pins him comfortably and kisses him and stops torturing his husband.

Bet I will, he says dreamily. It's lovely, it's perfect, Maitimo is amazing, he actually can't imagine anything better than this... it's fascinating how he wants Maitimo right now, intensely but not urgently, his patience is infinite, he is content to just lie there and be kissed and touched, to move only when Maitimo tells him to move...

Well that's a lovely sight to wake up to.

Isn't it. This is such a nice arrangement.

Catch me up on what I missed, my love?

Besides, evidently, trust songs.

Your fork is disappointed I didn't try to talk him into sex on trust songs before explaining what they were, because he thinks he could have thought around them. He is as fun to torture as you are. He is trying very hard not to inconvenience us by falling in love with me.