" - huh. Well, since you want to figure out as soon as possible, you could try to be annoying now, and then if it's annoying we'll know now?"

"That sounds kind of extraordinarily terrifying.

" - also I'm not completely sure I do want to figure it out as soon as possible, it's - possibly that would be the smart thing to do, but I'm not actually going around looking for someone to marry and figuring that if it doesn't work out with you I'll move on and find someone else - "

- nod. 

"I...might be? I don't know, I'm not, like, in a hurry now and it seems like it'd be really bad for you for me to be in a hurry so that makes me not really want to have a timeline at all but I think if I actually think about it, I don't want us to spend ten years figuring out whether it'll work out, and I am okay with us spending two."

"I guess it's possible that I just don't want to deal with it while everything's - happening. But I'm not really clear on how long it'll be before anything settles down and there's, like - right now I can't really know what sort of future I should be preparing for, because most things about the future are really really uncertain."

"That makes sense. Well. I don't find you annoying at all. I - I'm going to be bad at words for anything I want to say about this, I think - uh, I was told that women are insecure and have lots of emotions constantly? And this hasn't actually seemed true of you but I don't think I would mind it?"

Hug.

"Well I'm annoyed with them. I did not actually use to have this many."

"You haven't had ...friends. I had less emotions before I had friends, too."

" - pff. I guess that makes sense."

"I wanna lie down and hold you, can we do that?"

"Yes please."

Oh good. 

Snuggle. 

"What do you mean by - you don't do anything to get what you want because it's stupid -"

" - most of the things I want are dumb and unimportant? Like - not things I want for Verita, or for other people, or for Cheliax, those all seem actually important, but - "

Sigh.

"Wanna give you things you want. Even if they're dumb. Also I'm not sure I'll think they are."

"Like it when you say stuff about me being important to you," she says, very quietly. "Like it when you kiss my forehead. Wanna feel safe and - sometimes I imagine we're still on Landru's world, because it was horrible and drove me crazy, but I felt so safe, whenever you were holding me, like as long as the most important thing was not dying and doing right by me in legible sensible ways there was no way you'd screw it up, and all of the feelings were allowed then because everything was horrible, and I wish they were allowed again, and I wish I could feel really certain you wouldn't give up on taking care of me, and I wish I could know that I wasn't being stupid telling you these things - if you make fun of that I might stab you - "

Hug. Hughughughug.

"I want - to get to give you all of that. For the rest of our lives. 's not stupid, not at all. I love you."

She nods and trembles and cries a little and snuggles him.

Forehead kiss. "If you were talking to, dunno, Cecelia, and she said she wanted to feel safe and wanted to know her fairy wouldn't give up on taking care of her, would you think she was being stupid?"

Snuggle. "No. But that's different, she has, like, reasons to believe that if she doesn't have that things will be awful."

"So it's - pathetic to want if you could walk away instead?"

"'S pathetic to desperately want things if you could get along fine without them."

"Huh. I desperately want you, is that the same sort of thing?"

"I dunno. I don't - actually think that's pathetic but I dunno if that's just because I like you."

"To me it feels like - it'd be pathetic if I for that reason used Osirion's laws to keep you, because I'd be - letting it override everything else. But it's just - good - assuming I'm decent about it."

"I guess so. 

"That kind of raises the question of what it means to be decent about wanting things."

"Just, you know, you try not to hurt people? I don't - know if there's an equivalent for women at all, really. I guess if you had Elizabeth do some magic so I couldn't leave you without my permission that wouldn't be decent."