(Leareth is stupidly nervous, and he's trying to hide this and failing utterly.) 

"Well," Melody says finally, "I have to say I'm very surprised. And - it's certainly unusually delicate to even be attempting, right now. It makes sense that you want my advice and I'm glad you decided to tell me even though it's very private. Leareth, hmm, can you try to tell me some of what you've been thinking and feeling, around this?" 

Leareth can definitely try! There are a lot of disjointed sentences and long pauses and occasionally flailing at Maitimo for help, but he confesses having accidentally overheard Maitimo's thoughts, which made him consider his own feelings and whether they were romantic in nature. He tries to describe the things that feel good, here - how he's annoyed that literally all of his memories about sex are from Melkor and he wants to...try to reclaim some of that territory. How it's a way of easing into wanting more things and being assertive about what he wants and taking more actions on purpose, and feel very rewarded for it because Maitimo is inevitably proud and happy.

He finds it harder to talk about the difficult parts, which isn't surprising, but he can express that it's often scary for the same reason any other category of wanting things is, and because of all the specific bad associations even though they're trying to be very careful and slow and sidestep as much of that as possible. He says he feels confused about what he wants, a lot, but that he thinks this kind of makes sense. 

Maitimo will hug him but not help explain very much because he's suddenly worried that this will look to Melody like something he engineered, which would be an awful thing to do but how much more awful than falling in love with a man in the first place, really. 

Melody waits, very patiently, not interrupting even when it takes Leareth six tries to say something.

"I'm not going to tell you not to," she says, when he's done. She sounds a bit tired. "I think it's - risky, but you know that, I doubt I'm adding any new information here. And it sounds like you've been navigating things pretty sensibly so far and not expecting everything to just instantly work. I do want you to talk to me about what you're feeling, all right? Don't try to ignore your feelings even if they're being very inconvenient and in the way." 

Nod. "I know. I am trying not to." 

She smiles at him, and then meets Maitimo's eyes. :I assume you don't need to be told to be really, really careful with him?: 

I know. I'm really nervous about this, honestly, just - also nervous about telling him he can't have things he managed to notice we both want because he's too fragile -

:I know. I don't want to tell him that either, and - well, it's Leareth, he's usually pretty smart about things. If I think he's at risk of hurting himself, I'll make a case for it to him and hopefully get his buy-in on waiting. Anyway. I...just wanted to say, he seems to have a lot riding on this, it feels very high-stakes to him and I don't totally understand why. I guess he loves you a lot, that's a new experience for him, and he's probably pretty afraid of screwing it up: 

Okay. I will - try to make sure that doesn't happen.

:...I'm finding myself a bit worried that he's already pushing himself too hard, on some dimension. Knowing him, I'm concerned he'll fall back on just trying to override emotions he finds inconvenient rather than being patient with them, I don't think he's used to - his mind not always working the way he wants it to. I don't know what to do about it other than remind him a lot that it's normal to be finding this hard and he should be expecting things to take time. And making sure I check in with him. I should probably come by more often, for the next bit: 

I think that's a good idea. And - yeah, I would expect him to do that. I will try to make sure we don't - rush anything.

Nod. :It would have been better if this hadn't come up for a few more months, I think - or years - but it did. And - he loves you, I have no doubt of that, even if he wasn't thinking to call it that before:

I hadn't been planning to let him notice for - decades, if it seemed necessary - I really did not want - Sigh. 

:I know. It's not your fault: 

She says some more reassuring things to Leareth, reminds him in several different phrasings that it's very, very important he pay attention to his feelings and talk to Maitimo about it even if they're very unreasonable feelings, and then heads out. 

"You know I won't be upset if you abruptly change your mind about anything, right -"

"I know. I am - I hope I will not, but - I am sort of expecting that I will have weird unpredictable emotions about things, and be more scared sometimes." 

"And that's completely okay and I won't be disappointed and you shouldn't ignore it, it'll only make it harder in the long run."

Nod. 

"...I feel kind of scared right now. I think because - I know you and Melody were talking, just now, I am sure she just wanted to make sure we were - being careful and not stupid about this, but - I suppose I find it disorienting, when there is context I do not know about. You do not have to tell me if it is private, though." 

"Just that we were being careful, and that it seemed - really really important to you, for some reason. And the thing I just told you about not ignoring your feelings when they're inconvenient."

–Leareth goes still. He isn't sure why it's so terrifying for Maitimo to say that - for Melody to have brought it up at all...

Yet again his mouth isn't cooperating with saying words. :I - you are very important to me: he says. :You already were, even before this: 

Hey. It's okay. I'm sorry. I'm not - going to use it against you or something, I promise.

:I know: Hug? 

Hug. 

He's very tired again, even though Melody didn't do any actual Mindhealing this time. :I need a nap, I think. Could you sing the sleep song?: