"Sorry. Should I wake you up?"

"Well, waking up from a Nahira dream with your hand on my soul is one of the best things I have ever experienced, so there's that," he says, smiling up at him with wry affection. "Definitely preferable to waking up from a Nahira dream into anything else. It'll be livable if you don't, though. And if I keep having them all night, which seems plausible, I genuinely don't know whether it'll be better for me in the long run to have a solid-ish night of awful dreams or a frequently interrupted night of awful dreams."

Nod. 

...Taliar wants a hug. Taliar isn't thinking about wanting a hug, but Maitimo was inside his head, Maitimo understands him very thoroughly - 

- Taliar is not consciously desiring a hug because that would be making demands.

That's interesting.

He hugs him.

Wow, he didn't know he needed that but he needed that a lot. He closes his eyes and leans into it, deeply comforted. I love you so much.

I know exactly how much. Get some sleep.

He keeps hugging Maitimo for just a little longer, one long slow breath, immersing himself in the experience. It's wonderful. He feels so cozy and so safe.

And then he lets go and snuggles back under his blanket. The cozy safe feeling lingers, fading slowly.

(He goes back to work.)

And he goes back to sleep, and it's almost an hour before he has another dream. Nahira uses her soul, this time, makes him unable to move, undresses him and pushes him into his bed, and all he wants to do is scream, and he can't.

Soul-tap.

Immense relief and gratitude and love. And then less immense but still all those things. He curls up and wraps himself in his blanket and wraps his mind in love of Maitimo, and goes back to sleep almost immediately.

He has four more nightmares before morning.

Well, hopefully a subtle artist can help. Have a safe trip.

Thanks.

He gets dressed and has breakfast and then comes to collect his soul again.

He hands it to him. 

Raika-seren puts on his soul and smiles adoringly at Maitimo.

And wants a kiss but isn't consciously thinking about this because that'd be demanding - 

Kiss.

He is delighted, and happily kisses back, and—

—this time he catches it, and connects it to last night's hug, there's a similar feeling of not having known he wanted something but clearly having wanted it anyway. Well. That's a thing his mind is doing, apparently.

You know me frighteningly well, he says, with another adoring smile. Should I disentangle that restriction, or keep it?

You have permission to want things; I'll ignore you if I don't want to give them. But it is kind of enjoyable knowing you better than you know yourself.

I love you.

He'll poke at it a little bit but not make a concerted effort to get rid of it, then. Maitimo picking up on his invisible desires and then sometimes fulfilling them seems to be enjoyable for them both, but Taliar would generally prefer to know what he wants rather than not.

Go figure out how the Internet works.

That's the plan! he agrees happily, and he and his trauma hop over to Nuime. He thinks he'll visit Esarkan first, see what he thinks of this Internet notion.

"Escaped already, I see," says Esarkan.

He rolls his eyes. "So how's the multiverse been treating you?"

"Uncommunicatively. I've been considering how long to wait and who to send asking after the crystal ball they promised."

"I'm on my way out there to acquire one of their conveniences anyway," he says, bouncing the concept, "I can do a little diplomacy on the side."

"Perfect. Find an appropriately diplomatic way to say that if I ask for a means of contacting someone, and they suggest one, and I accept, and then days go by with no word on the subject, this does not fill me with faith in their organizational competence."