John also flops, facedown on the bed, partly to keep from screaming, and to keep the frustration at bay. He still can't believe he nearly messed everything up like that! Apparently Rosy would have gone along with things anyways (why! Why is she so like this to him, he doesn't deserve it!) but as she said, he wouldn't have wanted her to. He could have just been sensible and patient and waited and just... talked things through sensibly instead of trying to push for things to happen faster. What's an hour in the grand scheme of things? And it's better to do things right, rushing things doesn't work, he just really should stop thinking with all this excitement and nervousness about what he's about to do and take like 17 deep breaths and do everything right for fuck's sake! Can he please calm down so he can have a sensible conversation with Rosy instead of practically wanting to scream? Screaming is not helpful at all. 

What if she wraps her arms around her turmoiling boy and gives him a continuous firm yet gentle squeeze, what if that.

Well then he will be well-squeezed and slightly comforted while not-screaming into the bedspread (and feeling slightly guilty about the fact that he's not calming down when she clearly is being so sweet and helpful). "Sorry," he says, his voice muffled and hopefully free of frustration and rancor. "Give me a second, sorry." He takes a deep breath. Rosy loves him. It's all going to be fine, it's all going to be fine. He takes another. It's... helping. Not as much as he'd like (as much as it should), but between the touch and the breathing, he is calming down. 

"Of course." The snug continues.

Okay, good. Snug is good, so is this bed, so is his breathing, so is his (soon-to-be, anyways, maybe, probably), Rosy. His (more or less, assuming everything goes well) Rosy loves him, still, even despite his silly freakout. And... she's going to go on and keep loving him. And... he probably hasn't fucked up all of their plans? Probably not. As long as he can get his act together, even if he'd much rather stay face down in this bed for a little while longer. But he has more important things to do than that. 

John turns so he's no longer face down, so he can face her (but he's still in the snug, the snug is still nice), and says, "Sorry about that. I... thought I'd messed everything up and fucked up our plans and it... I don't know, I guess it didn't feel very good. I'm sorry. I'll be better, and we can talk about the stuff now, if you want? The, the endpoint stuff, to be clear. The stuff we say at the beginning and end of stuff. You know what I mean, right? That stuff." Wow he is not being very good at talking at the moment. Great. It's probably okay? Rosy keeps being sweet and helpful even when he messes up like this, it will probably be ok. Even if he doesn't really deserve it, it'll be ok. 

His-soon-to-be Rosy presses a soft kiss to his forehead. "Yeah. Okay. So where were we? Some variation in term of address to account for whether I'm your vassal at the time, and a question-answer format that's along the lines of 'are you ready?' 'yes' but a little more elaborate and less likely to come up in ordinary conversation?"

Right. Right. Okay. John takes a deep breath. He can do this. He has his (or soon to be anyways) Rosy, his (more or less) Rosy is snuggling him, and... and loves him. Okay. "Yeah, that sounds about right to me," he says. "What did you have in mind?" 

"Well, I hadn't thought of any specific suggestions yet, I was still on... refining my concept of what things should look like."

"Oh." That makes more sense than what he's doing, potentially. Still though, they need to come up with ideas, don't they? And isn't that more or less what he was suggesting with what his ideas were in the first place? No, maybe she's just agreeing with him, essentially. (It's still hard to not feel like she's sitting there coming up with the things that he's already come up with, but he's clearly still all upset and shouldn't be listening to whatever part of him is thinking like that.) "Should I try to come up with more ideas, then? Or do we want to um, refine things further?" 

"If it's easier to come up with examples, feel free! It's easier for me to think in terms of general principles, so that's where I'm starting. But I think we work well together that way—having your examples to work with helps me figure out what parameters I'm looking for."

Oh! Well that helps, okay. That's almost as good as saying she's using his ideas to come up with her param... okay, no, she literally just said she's doing that. He's still clearly having too much trouble and needs to stop. He takes another deep breath. "Okay, let me think about this." Why didn't his first idea work again? Because 'of course, Master' was too... too required, or something? Even though she could say whatever she wants? No, he's getting worked up again. Maybe he can try from the other side instead? Of course, that's the one he was having trouble with before... fuck. "I don't know, how about..." fuck he has no ideas "would you like to... do... things..." he trails off. That's awful. "Sorry, nevermind. I'll keep thinking, I'm... I'll just keep thinking so I can give you some good examples." Since that's what she thinks he should be doing anyways, why is he doing this wrong. 

...this boy seems to need squeezes. She supplies them. Big cozy squeeze.

"No pressure!" she says. "You don't have to come up with the perfect idea right away. It's a process."

John lets himself be squeezed, and hugs her back in return since it's not really fair otherwise. (Also her hugs are nice. And comforting.) "Okay," he says. "That's fair." He should still be able to come up with something reasonable, though. 'Are you ready to fuck' is way too dumb and silly, or with any other word he could say... hm. Maybe from a different angle? "'Are you mine?'?" he says, making it clear from his tone that he's asking about the phrasing and not literally asking. He's pretty sure. "As like, an option to start with to be clear. Or, wait, no, that might not work because I um, might ask that anyways or something like that. I don't know, what about 'Are you ready to be mine?'? If like, that works." Is it a good idea? It sounds kinda dumb now that he's saying it out loud, but maybe it'll work well enough?

"Oh, I like that one! That's a good direction." Affectionate squish. "I think it might be at least good enough to serve as a working model until we come up with something better. I like how it's... not just 'are you ready', it's asking what I'm ready for, but in broad enough terms to cover all the bases? I think that's a good genre to be in."

Oh good! Maybe he's having good ideas. "Well, okay cool, and then after you can say, um," not 'of course' "um" fuck he has a good idea or at least um well he should just say it "um, 'as you command, Master'? And if you don't want to" since it's important to make sure the way not to is clear! "you can say, like, 'not right now' or something?" 

"I was thinking 'yes sir' or 'yes Master' as appropriate. 'As you command' still feels, hmm, how do I put this... okay, the thing I want to avoid is a situation where every time I say yes, I'm putting myself in the habit of thinking that what you want from me is to say yes, and not to fairly consider whether saying yes is a good idea and then give my true answer? And 'as you command' feels like it will do the other thing."

That's less fun but also fun doesn't matter given what she's saying. He's trying to give her options here but apparently it's not working the way he's thinking and he doesn't want her to say yes without thinking about it first. Thinking about it is very important! "Oh. Okay, no I... I don't want that. I don't want that at all. 'Yes, sir' or whatever like that is fine." It doesn't feel as special but if the specialness is the problem... well there's nothing he can do about it. "And do make sure you... I don't know, is 'not right now' something reasonable to say otherwise? Or no, I guess you want to have lots of options, don't you, I don't want to trap you or keep you from thinking or anything like that." 

Snug. "I appreciate that. I think 'not right now' is a reasonable default but if I need to say no I will say it in whatever way makes sense at the time. I don't think the affirmative necessarily needs to be 'yes'? I just... don't know what else to make it that doesn't do the thing."

"That makes sense," John says, with only a tinge of regret. He wants the better, more fun things, but if they trap her into certain lines of thought or whatever then they're not what he wants. Sadly. "If we run across anything that works better, let me know, I guess? But this seems workable for now." And that took hardly any time at all? He really really shouldn't have been worried, it was pretty dumb to be so worried like that. "I mean, as long as it works for you?" 

"I think so! We can snuggle a little more to see if either of us is struck by a brilliant inspiration?"

John wants to get started on... other things, right now, but given what happened last time he's not about to suggest it. And they do seem to have plenty of time. "Sure, that works," he says. (Also, snuggling Rosy still is nice. Very nice, honestly.) 

Comfy cozy snuggles. They don't have all the time in the world but they have plenty of time to be cozy together.

Cozy together! Cozy together is good. Cozy together is not telling the house about the things they're going to be doing and the words they're going to be using and stuff so it doesn't blanket burrito (still silly) him, nor is it preparing for the ritual that he really, really, really wants to happen... but it is soft and cozy. Even if he is antsy about it and wants it to happen now so things don't go wrong or anything. Again. 

"I think," she says consideringly, "that my main complaint about 'are you ready to be mine' is that it's a bit weird from a technically literal perspective. Whether I'm yours and whether we're having sex at the moment don't actually correlate all that well, even though it makes perfectly good metonymy. Do you see what I mean? I wonder if we can come up with a phrasing that solves that. —also we need a phrase to conclude things with, but that seems easier. 'Exeunt omnes'," she jokes.

John does in fact get what she's saying (and has been having his own problems with the phrasing but can't come up with anything more sensible) (if at the time she's actually his as she's going to be very very soon then technically it's not accurate and 'ready to act as mine would be more accurate but much more awkward phrasing) but is distracted by the (Latin?) phrase she just said. "Sorry, 'exunt omnes'? I'm not sure what that means."