When you're done eating I'll hold your soul again.

He sighs contentedly. That sounds lovely. You're being so nice to me and I love you so much. If I'd known all it'd take would be having Nahira flashbacks for a day straight I - well, wouldn't have done it because that would've been cheating in the worst way...

I know. That's - one of the reasons I feel like I can, you weren't trying for this, this wasn't a gambit to tame me or distract me or cure me -

I would never do that to you.

I know. I would have sent you home.

Snuggle.

It's - it would -

He gives up on words. Maitimo can presumably tell what he's getting at.

He can. Taliar has so firmly rejected any possible way of thinking where they are at odds that he'd completely fall apart if for some reason he had to. Well, fall apart until he'd found a workaround. He kisses the top of his head absently.

He smiles a little and snuggles him.

Is that the end of the food? That looks like it might be the end of the food.

He takes his soul again.

He is filled with love like sunlight, wrapped in it like a blanket. Maitimo is terrifying but it's all in the good way. He makes Taliar so happy. Being inescapably intimately surrounded by his presence is cozy and comforting, overwhelming but still so good. Something about it associates back to the time when Maitimo Yeerked him, and it's a very positive association, he inhabits it gladly. He loves Maitimo and loves being in his power.

Yeah, okay, eventually this is going to draw him in, isn't it. For now he leaves Taliar curled up on the bed and goes back to work.

Taliar of course cannot experience any significant changes of mental state while Maitimo still has hold of his soul. So he's just going to be here overflowing with reckless adoration until Maitimo decides to let go.

Couple of hours? He's unclear on how much duration affects his mental state afterwards.

He comes out of it slowly, a piece at a time - sight, sound, touch, memory, thought. And then he just kind of lies there feeling a weirdly comfortable mix of deeply traumatized and gloriously in love. The aftereffects of a straight day of flashbacks are still there, but more subdued, less intrusive, he can focus on nice things instead and it works.

That works. He has someone bring him food.

He eats. He gets up and walks around a bit. He considers his mental state and concludes that it's livable, he could go to sleep and wake up in the morning and go straight back to work and nobody not reading his mind would even be able to tell anything was wrong.

Not good enough. Get yourself okay.

...he grins. All right, I will. Love you.

Going to work like nothing's wrong is a way of starting to be okay, but maybe not the fastest. He can work on it.

Good. He still in fact has a great deal of administrative work to do.

He looks at his eidetic memory necklace.

He observes that he's terrified of putting it on.

Well, he wants to go back to work, and he works better with it on, so he'd better be ready to wear it.

He picks it up and puts it on and the whispers in the back of his mind gain an abrupt clarity, but he's still okay, he's still in control. He smiles with quiet satisfaction. He is going to be fine.

And a short time later he says to him do you know what the Internet is?

No?

It's a way of connecting all the computers in the world so anyone can talk to anyone else instantly, and it results in people putting lots of information on computers so everyone can learn from it. I don't know how it works but I want to have it. Set it up. You might need to summon a demon, I think part of how it works is things in space bouncing all the information around. You can only summon a demon somewhere Hell-adjacent, do you know how to get there from here?

All right, he says, you win this one. You are absolutely capable of holding me to my own standards.

No, he does not know how to get somewhere Hell-adjacent from here.

And he loves Maitimo so much.

He flashes him the jumps to get to Revelation from here. I'm looking forward to my internet. Do some reading before you summon demons, it's dangerous.