Aaaaaaaa what is he supposed to do now - it was dumb to think he could hide anything from Maitimo for any length of time - it's going to be even more awkward because he's sat on it for weeks at this point...

"I am sorry," he says, looking in any direction except at Maitimo. "I am not– 'bothered' is not exactly it? I, just..." His mouth is not very cooperative when it comes to making words about it, this isn't a problem he's had in years. 

He holds his breath. :I accidentally read Findekáno's thoughts at one of the meetings, and you - have romantic feelings about me? I am not upset about it and it is actually very flattering and...: Some blend of twenty different emotions none of which are giving themselves helpful names. :I have just been very distracted, apparently. I am sorry: 

- oh. I'm very sorry, then, we absolutely don't have to talk about that if you don't want to. 

This is not actually the outcome Leareth wanted at all! Apparently! He can at least make a guess at that because his response to it is to feel upset. 

He covers his face with both hands. :No, I - just - I did not mean... I think it was silly of me to try to avoid saying anything, it did not help. I would normally ask you for advice for anything with this general shape, it just felt very weird and rude to in this case, and...actually I am just very confused...and I wish you could help me be less confused but also I would not like to hurt your feelings by being confused about this...: 

Leareth, most people I might want can't want me, most men are - normal. I don't have hurt feelings. I'm not going to have hurt feelings. I might have frustrated feelings but I have lots of those and I handle them fine. 

- would you like to come here so I can hold you.

:Yes, actually: Leareth moves over. :Thank you. I...: No, that thought is apparently not going anywhere either. 

- hug. Patpatpat. 

You don't know what you want? Or you don't know how people get what they want when the answer isn't international espionage?

Leareth can't help laughing a little, and relaxing a surprising amount as a result of that, and probably of being hugged. :A mix of both? I know what I have been thinking and feeling, I am just - not sure how that translates into wanting things, in this particular area: 

Although it feels a noticeable amount less confusing already. :...I must want something because otherwise it would have been very boring information and easy to ignore. Instead it was not easy to ignore at all! I am happy about it - well, I have many feelings but happy is one of them. From there I am still stuck: 

Okay. If you, uh, got teleported five years into the future, and woke up in my bed, and we had clearly figured out some kind of established thing, what things would you most urgently need to know about it.

Leareth's first thought is 'whether it's a good idea' but that feels dramatically underspecified. Whether it makes both of them happier and more effective, and doesn't have some other negative externality? That feels like still several levels more abstract than what Maitimo is trying to ask.

Honestly the thing he would actually want is his own future self to explain all of the things that actually change when you go from being close friends with Maitimo to in a romantic relationship with him, aside from 'sex', because probably that isn't the only thing and apparently he has paid almost no attention to this ever, or if he has he didn't make helpful records of it as a memory aid. 

I think that varies depending what people want, really. I certainly know some happy married couples who are well-suited colleagues who have sex. But - I want you to spend lots of your time thinking about me. I want you to be aware, when you're clever, when you're dangerous, when you're interesting, that I'm thinking about you. I want to make grandiose long term plans that won't be very reasonable until we've reached another dozen universes and solved the problems with those ones. I want to be in all of those plans. I want you to want me, and to do all kinds of things while you try to pin down what, exactly, you're reaching for and how to know when it's in your hand. 

It summons up some nameless emotion, which makes Leareth sharply draw in his breath, and shift in Maitimo's arms to hug him back tightly. 

It's - gods, there's something that he wants, even if he can only sense the shape of it vaguely from the corner of his eye. It feels lofty and impractical and miles beyond anything that's reasonable to reach for, except, well, he's here, isn't he? 

It's bizarre for him, wanting something without knowing exactly what it is. Leareth from before was extremely clear on his goals, and for five years he's been inching his way back to that, or so he thought anyway. But - in a way, that clarity came out of ruthlessness; it wasn't just his plans that he refined and pared down over centuries into something that would work, it was the entire layout of his mind, which emotions were useful, and pointless longing for something he didn't ever expect to find wasn't. 

For some reason the first actual words to come out of that are :Remember when I showed you the first sunset?: 

Yes, I do.

:I want - that: A thousand times in a thousand worlds, maybe not sunsets exactly but each world has to hold something unique and beautiful that Maitimo's never seen before, that will give him that rare uncomplicated delight, and Leareth didn't realize until now that he doesn't just want Maitimo to experience that, or even just to be there witnessing it, he wants to be responsible for it. 

:Probably I want a lot of other things: There's a dizzy spaciousness in it, somehow it feels reminiscent of being among the stars instead of just looking at them. Grandiose long-term plans, but - not carved down into the most coldly efficient shape, he's pretty sure Quendi can't live like that, and maybe he could and did, before, that doesn't mean it's the option he preferred all along, and he's seen paradise, now. Leareth isn't sure where that whole chain of thought is going, it's not very coherent yet, which is uncharacteristic and he feels kind of apologetic about it. 

Don't be. It's making me very happy. I noticed that, how narrowly you had shaped yourself, and I wanted - to be there when you figured out what else you wanted.

Aww. :I am glad: It makes him happy too, and that feels kind of circular, but - happiness isn't like firewood, that has to grow somewhere and once it's burned it's gone. Maybe it's more like sunlight, technically finite but no one's ever caught more than a tiny fraction of it and there's so much more he could be trying to grab– why are all of his thoughts trying to turn into poetry, whatever emotion he's feeling is having some odd effects. 

Anyway. :I think I am very glad that I found this out? And I am impressed that you managed to stop my finding out for - it must have been rather a long time?: 

It would've been a terrible time for it. It's - why I was worried about shaping you too much when you put yourself back together, you have to be sure of who you are first before you decide whether to expand it.

:That makes sense: It would have been a terrible time! He would have been just as confused, but with so much less of himself to point at resolving the confusion, and - he remembers how afraid he was, especially during the first year. How he kept trying to get Maitimo to give him answers, so he could be less lost, and...it must have been pretty irritating, really, Maitimo constantly having to nudge him back toward finding his own answers to the question of who he was. It would have done something very weird to his head if he had found out then that Maitimo wanted him this way. 

...All right, fine, it seems to be doing something weird to his head now, but it's an entirely different shape of weird and one he's not displeased about. 

It wasn't irritating. I couldn't possibly be annoyed, after what you did for us. But - yeah. Setting this down on the only path you could see to getting better would've been wronging you very profoundly. 

:Someone who was not you could have thought that it was right to help in whatever way I needed, after what I did for you, and still found it frustrating even if they set that aside. I think it is a fact about you in particular that you did not:

I'm not - doing things right, obviously, if I were I'd just get married, but - I want you to be yourself. And happy. And stronger for it.

As usual, it makes Leareth vaguely sad, that Maitimo thinks he's doing something ethically wrong by not going and marrying someone out of duty. And he's aware that it's sort of hypocritical to say he oughtn't, given - his own past choices - and yet...

:I keep wanting to say that if it were right for you to do that, you would have by now: he sends finally. :I know that is - not really a claim I have the right to make, it is your...you. But. I think you have not because it would damage you, and actually it is not right to trade that for whatever strategic benefit you expect to gain from marrying? I am not sure. But...I want you to be happy. That feels very important to me: 

He runs his hand down Leareth's back, lightly. 

I'm doing this, apparently. I tried not doing this and I didn't like it. I guess we will eventually figure out whether it is the right tradeoff, I'm worried it depends too much on what other worlds are like. But - there's not much point in steering the universe a place I don't even want.

:Exactly: Being touched in that way is - surprisingly nice, actually, just a few years ago most kinds of touch still made him panic, and before that he would have said he was totally indifferent. :...Damn it, Maitimo, I probably had plans for today, and now I have no idea what they are and honestly am not very interested in trying to remember: 

I hope you don't want an apology. He kisses him, lightly, on the forehead. 

:Not really, no: Snuggle. :If it turns out I told Vanyel I would do something for him and he gets annoyed, though, you are taking the blame for it: He's mostly teasing, Vanyel is pretty hard to annoy.