Nodnod. Hug. Hugs are good for not having to look at people so they can't tell for sure that you're trying not to cry.

"'m not offended. You've said you think it's like slavery, of course that means asking is like 'hey, don't you want to sell yourself into slavery' -"

" - I guess so.

"I don't actually think it has to be horrible, or anything, I just - I have no idea what kind of judge of character I am and we are observably terrible at communicating, which - I guess I would naturally expect to also apply to communicating about - how marriages are supposed to be. If I were doing this according to conventional wisdom I shouldn't even really be talking about marriage at this point, but that seems like kind of a lost cause."

" - I do feel like you have some information about my behavior towards people who can't leave from the entire first month of our acquaintance but I guess you did spend most of it terrified and trying not to say or do anything."

"...yeah. I guess so. It's - possible that most of my existing strategies for dealing with people I can't leave might kind of require being a lot more emotionally distant than I at this point am."

Nod. “I - there might be something that’s not marriage that’d be okay? I’d need to think about it.”

"I'm not saying I don't want to get married ever. I might be saying that I have some kind of bizarre phobia of it, but - I don't think that's the same thing."

Hug. "Then maybe we will, someday."

Hug.

"Might not even mean that much right now. People're supposed to - my parents dated for like a year before they moved in together, and then another year before they had my sister, and then they got married. And - it's not that I want to do that, even, it's just - I dunno. ....I was going to say they probably didn't talk about marriage much at all before they moved in together, but I suppose this is also arguably true of us."

"I am not really sure we should be trying to do the Chelish thing. - or the Osirian thing, to be clear."

"Yeah. We should - figure out what a good thing is and do that. Somehow."

"I actually find it kind of reassuring that most of your worries are that maybe I'll start being horrible. Since I'm pretty sure I can avoid this."

Very small laugh. "I guess that does sum up most of it, yeah. Also worries that you will realize that I am horrible and regret all of your choices."

"Are you doing something horrible you haven't mentioned?"

"...Nothing that would be horrible in a random passerby? That I'm thinking of right now."

"Then that seems really unlikely."

"Might decide that I'm actually very annoying, then."

"I won't, though? I don't usually do that suddenly and I liked you even when you in fact had an opinion I found really annoying."

"Yeah, but that was before - I just feel like there are a lot of things about me that are more annoying in someone you're actually friends with than in someone who just, like, exists in the world in relatively close proximity to you."

"Huh, I think I think the opposite. In your friends it's a quirk, in a stranger it's annoying. Also I don't actually think there are a lot of things about you that are annoying? Like - what?"

"Kind of absurdly insecure about lots of things, simultaneously has too many and too few emotions about everything all the time, lack of ability to - believe stuff about you that you've already demonstrated multiple times, constantly wants stuff but mostly refuses to take any of the steps necessary to have it because I'm aware it's all stupid - "

"Those mostly sound like things that hurt you."

"Lots of people're annoying because of stuff that hurt them."

"Yeah. But - uh, you're insecure about things, that's not - something that's ...about me, aside from caring about you and wanting you to be okay? I don't see how I'd get to feeling annoyed about it? It's not, like, reflexively punching people in the face if awakened unexpectedly or constantly singing catchy songs out-of-tune. 

I think I'm not explaining this very well."

"Well, it could make people annoying. - this is sort of the shape of the worry, right, the idea that I won't be annoying as long as I'm worrying about it, and that if I ever feel like I have permission to stop, that'll - end."