"...the first things that spring to mind are all ritual-related and I'm not entirely sure I want to cross those streams... hmm, we don't do much working with the ancestral fae language anymore but we do have some books on it, I could look up the ancestral fae word for 'emergency'... I do want it to be something that definitely won't come up normally while we're having sex, and we're likely to be having sex in all kinds of bizarre fictional contexts so a lot of obscure words I could pick might someday be relevant to our worldbuilding. I guess in the interim before I have done my vocabulary research my safeword can be 'safeword' and we can rely on common sense to tell us when I am talking about the thing the word means and when I am using it."

She's so cute when she's being clever and knowledgeable about magic stuff. "As long as the word for emergency doesn't, like, interfere with anything else? That's probably really important, that you say the safeword and it doesn't accidentally activate some magical safeguard or something. But in the meantime... 'safeword' probably works in context and stuff. And hopefully we won't need it, we haven't needed it..." John remembers the time he went too far and then hangs his head. "Okay, nevermind. I guess we have needed it before. But um. I don't want us to need it again but it's really important that we have one, and hopefully it'll keep me from um, doing that again. So um, sure, that works for now." 

She reaches for his hand to give it a comforting squeeze.

Okay. Okay good. The hand squeeze is comforting and good. She's comforting and she loves him and it's going to be ok. Probably. "We could tell the house that if you say that and I don't stop doing bad things it can blanket burrito" small grin "me or whatever it thinks is best." Should he bring up the start and end thing also? Now is probably the best time... "And we can also maybe come up with start and end words if that'll help the house too?" Okay and now he just needs to say the rest. He can say the rest, he can. "It might also help us if you want so that I don't ever go too far without us, um, establishing that we're doing things together? That is, if it's a good idea to you." Is it? He looks up at her, she doesn't seem upset with him at least and that's always good, and the hand in his is still comforting and full of love. Okay. Okay good. 

"It doesn't necessarily have to be specific words to start and end things, for the house's purposes, just any kind of clear signal. I'm not sure what would make the most sense. And... hmm... I do like that we can sometimes be spontaneous, but maybe it is a good idea to have clear start and end signals." Handsqueeze. "If you want to, then let's do it. Nothing says we can't be spontaneous in a clearly signalled way."

John squeezes back and smiles. Her hand is continuing to be comforting and friendly. "I was thinking that if we're going to end up using the fae word for emergency we might want to use fae words for other two? For start and stop or something? I mean, unless you have something better but you said you didn't but... anyways, that's my idea. If you like it." The hand holding his is doing a lot to keep him from worrying so much that she's unhappy with him but he's still worried about it anyways. But it's fine, he can tell it's fine. 

"Hmm... I'm not sure. It makes sense for either of us to be able to end a scene but I think both of us should have to start one, if you see what I mean? So it should be—an exchange. Something where we each say something, not just a single word."

"Oh, so... both of us should agree to start one?" That actually makes a lot of sense, he shouldn't be doing things with her if she doesn't want to be doing them. "Okay. So what, like, we both should say the same word, then?" That seems kinda awkward... "Or wait no, what if, like, 'are you ready' and 'yes'. Or well, probably more complicated or less likely to do by accident than that, but like, I should be asking you if you want to do things and then you can agree. Or not, if you don't want to, of course! That's the important bit." 

"Yes, I think that works. And since it's more complicated than a single word, we probably don't need to resort to ancestral fae for it. We can think about it for a bit and see what we come up with?"

"Sure!" Okay but that means he needs to come up with something clever now, which is not really his strong suit. Ancestral fae would have been good because of... well, it would be like the other word, and also mean he doesn't have to think of anything clever, but he can't mention that now since she clearly doesn't want it. (Right? No, she said so! Not worth bringing up and making him look foolish or like he's not listening.) "Well..." he really has trouble coming up with anything sensible for himself to say that doesn't sound like he's being a dork. 'Let's do this' or 'are you ready' or wow, 'sex time now' (that one is horrible what is he thinking) are all just not good. But he can imagine Rosy's responses, and, well, he blushes. "I... I'm really not sure what I should say" because all of his ideas are bad and awful "but um, you could say something like 'of course, um, Master.'" He blushes more, having said it (approximately) how he imagined Rosy saying it. "Or, wait, actually, maybe that won't always work because you um, won't always be my, um, slave, right?" Even more blushing. "So it could be sir or we could come up with something else I guess, I don't know." He should have thought it through, damnit! And now he still looks foolish. 

"I'm not sure 'of course' is quite in the spirit of 'both of us should have to agree'. I do think it's fine if the term of address varies, though. One or two variants like that for good reason seems like the right amount of flexibility for this sort of thing. Hmm, so we want something that introduces the change in context and asks me for confirmation... and just a little more elaborate or specific than 'are you ready', because 'are you ready' is the sort of thing that could conceivably come up in other contexts... leaving examples aside, what do you think of my specifications?"

John winces when she explains that 'of course' doesn't work. Technically it could have, she doesn't have to say it she can say a different thing if she doesn't want to, she only has to say it when it's true, but, fine, okay, she doesn't want to say it and it was foolish to suggest it in the first place. She clearly is being smarter about this than he was being, thinking about solutions, and it makes sense to go that way even though he didn't think of it in the first place. Which he should have. "The specifications make sense," he says, holding back his frustration at himself and not really trusting himself to say more. 

...she squeezes his hand. "Are you all right? We don't have to figure all this out right away."

The hand squeeze is, as always apparently, helpful. John wishes it wasn't needed or anything, but he's still glad of it, more or less. "Do we not?" he asks. "Don't we need to explain things to the house before we um, do things here?"

"Yes, but if you want to go snuggle for an hour first we have the time, and if you wanted to make other arrangements for how to spend our first night together because the house turned out to be unexpectedly complicated that's also fine, and even if you wanted to have no sex at all tonight and put off the whole ritual until next month, the world would not in fact end."

John grins at that, a little sheepishly. But still. "That's true and all, but I want to do all these things with you. And I don't want to waste more time or anything" probably not the best phrasing but too late now "which means we have to figure it out now. Know what I mean?" Hopefully she does, he's not sure but he thinks so even if she's not really in agreement? 

"...I might see what you mean, but... I'm not sure I agree? If getting everything done today means rushing important conversations about the basic foundations of how our relationship should work, so much so that you feel like it would be wasting time to take a break and mull it over a little, then I would just rather put off the ritual until later. Not that I'm not excited for the ritual! I am very excited for the ritual! But we can do the ritual just about anytime we want to, it doesn't have to be today. I would like it to be today, but it doesn't have to be."

What? No! He fucked up, he clearly fucked up, he's clearly going about something the wrong way, he doesn't want to give this up when it's so close! He wants her to be his! And maybe he's being terrible and selfish about it but... okay. Okay, he needs to calm down and stop being silly and panicking about this and say something back! "I'm sorry!" he says. "Sorry, no, I... I can take time to rest and mull things over, I guess, I just, I'm pretty antsy about it all I guess. And I spent all this time preparing for today, all my homework and chores and everything, I don't want to spend any more waiting like this." His voice has been getting a little frantic, near to shouting (what is he doing, stop), he takes a breath to calm down. "But that's... that's not the right way of going about it, I guess. Right? An extra hour should be fine, and we should do this right, not quickly, right?" Even if it feels like doing all this is standing in the way with this, it should be done right, even if that makes him feel like shouting again.  

"...if you want to rush ahead, if that's really what you decide, I'm not going to stand in your way," she says, a little subdued. "But it would be..." She hesitates, searching for words. "...I don't think it would be relating to me the way you want to." She squeezes his hand again. "I really want us to do this right."

"I... I'm sorry," he tries. "I also want to do this right." He also wants to do this now (or in like a couple hours since setup needs to happen) but that doesn't seem like it's necessarily going to happen (though maybe it still could? Argh, why did he fuck up?!). He tries to catch his breath (he's not going to yell at her her or force her or anything like that again) and says "What... what do you think we should do?" He takes another deep breath. 

"I think we should calm down, and slow down, and maybe go back to the bedroom and snuggle, and think about what we want our signals to be, and—we don't necessarily have to decide today what they'll be forever, either, we can change our minds about them later. But we should think about them as calmly and unhurriedly as we can. And I bet by the time we've got something that seems like enough to be going on with, we'll still have plenty of time to do the ritual. But even if we don't, it'll still be okay." Handsqueeze. "Okay?"

Oh. Oh. That's... not nearly as bad as he thought. Okay. "That sounds... that sounds like it could work," he says, trying to let his frustrated feelings leave him. It's not entirely working (the hand is helping though). "Sorry about that, let's... go to the bedroom, I guess?" And hopefully he can calm down on the way. Or possibly when he gets there, it was very nice being in that giant bed with her. He can do both. It still feels like he wants to shout at her to hurry up but he shouldn't be doing that for so many reasons and won't. He'll calm down and talk over things sensibly and they'll still have time to do the ritual and have a good time. 

"Let's," she agrees, and gets up without letting go of his hand. "Thank you for the meal, house, it was lovely."

There's a hint of a reaction from the lights, just the barest trace of a blush, like the house is acknowledging the praise as its due.

John really wishes he could do that too, but he has other things to focus on right now. So instead of thanking the house as well (argh!) he simply stands up, making sure to not let his grip slip out of her hand (which he does appreciate, a lot, a lot a lot) and lets her lead him to (assumedly) the bedroom. (He's pretty sure he knows where it is from here, but not completely, and it's easier to let Rosy take him to the right place.) 

Yes, absolutely the bedroom. Cozy bedroom, cozy bed, cozy Rosy all aflomp therein.