"...I have been enjoying talking about the things we've been talking about but if you want to talk about something else we can?"

Meep. 

"I um." 

Fuck. 

"I um am trying not to think about hot things but I am thinking about hot things and I'm embarrassed about that and trying to make it go away and it's not working and so maybe talking about something else will make it go away so I can stop being embarrassed?" he says, all in one breath. And then digs a little deeper into her arms, feeling incredibly foolish. 

"Okay." Pet pet. "Got any more Disney movies for me? Or math? Or books?"

He's very much not really capable of coming up with things at the moment. "Um, The Little Mermaid?" he says, picking something he thought of earlier. And then immediately regretting it. (Wasn't this supposed to be a mistake? He's pretty sure it's a mistake.)

"I love the Little Mermaid! As you may imagine. Now there's a girl who knows what she wants and sets out into the world to get it. Also the songs are really fun. Though I will admit, the bit at the end where Ursula becomes an enormous tentacle goddess and Eric has to impale her on a boat gave me nightmares as a kid. Kind of in a fun way, though. Fun nightmares? Are those a thing?"

"I don't know if those are normally a thing, no," he says, relieved that she's not talking about, um, what she wears on the cover of the DVD case. (Since that's like half of what he remembers of the movie. It's been a while. That and the songs. The songs are good.) "What kind of fun nightmares? Fun how?" 

"Well, they were terrifying dreams about being menaced by an enormous tentacle goddess and having to defeat her with violence, and I woke up scared and upset from them, but... it was the kind of scared and upset that I look back on fondly? This is surprisingly hard to explain. They were like an adventure. A really scary adventure I didn't entirely want to go on but I'm glad I did."

"So... an experience that was scary but overall positive? Like, it made you into a better person or something? Or no, not a better person, but, you appreciate knowing what you could accomplish? Or something?" He's a bit spitballing here. 

"Maybe? I'd say more... I appreciate being someone who had that experience. Scary and upsetting experiences can still be rewarding. It's just harder to talk about because all the words are wrong. Like it's not exactly that I learned valuable lessons or became a better or more accomplished person, it's that I learned... what it was like to feel that way. I became someone who remembers fighting an enormous tentacle goddess and being really scared and upset the whole time. I guess maybe the valuable lesson part is in learning to cope with those feelings afterwards, but, I think I'd feel poorer, if I just got the valuable lessons without the harrowing experiences?"

"I guess it would be difficult to know that you could cope if you didn't have to cope?" John says, not entirely certain. "Like, it doesn't make a ton of sense to get the lesson or knowledge without having to have gone through the experience. That would be cheating, kinda, I guess." 

"I don't mind cheating if it's for a good cause or against rules I didn't agree to or both. I think if I learned valuable life lessons about coping with harrowing experiences and didn't get to keep the harrowing experiences I'd feel like I was cheated."

"Huh." he hasn't really thought about it that way. "I suppose it would depend on if the nightmares gave me nightmares, but, I think I see your point. Like. I don't know. I feel like at the very least having the knowledge and not being sure where it came from would make me feel hollow, I guess?" He's thinking of this in more of a "save a magical kingdom and then go home with your memory wiped" kind of way than a "nightmares" kind of way, but it's a similar deal, more or less. 

"I think I might just be weird in this specific way."

"I guess that's fair," he says, still feeling like he should try to relate to her experiences. In some manner. Since that's what he's supposed to do, right? 

"...is that okay?"

"I don't know, you tried to explain something to me, and I didn't fully understand it, and even if you are weird in that way it still feels like I should be trying harder to relate instead of giving up? Since we're, um" how do labels work "dating, essentially?" 

"I think it is okay to be dating someone who is not exactly like you in every way! And I think... you don't have to find a way to feel the same way I do in order to find a way to understand how I feel?"

"I'm not trying to be like you, I'm just... trying to find connection, I guess. You told me a thing, which means it was probably important, which means I should try and relate to it? I think? But maybe that's not something I need to do?" 

"Right, yes, that's what I mean, you don't have to relate to it. You don't have to try to find somewhere in your life that you've felt the exact same thing, because I think you probably haven't, and I think that's okay. I have very specific opinions about fun nightmares and they're definitely very relevant to who I am as a person but—you also don't feel the feeling that led to me offering you my vassalage, or the feeling that leads to me blissing out on being given orders. Right? And those are important parts of me too. There can be important parts of me that you only understand from the outside."

"That's... fair, I suppose," he says. He doesn't really want to feel the feelings she's describing (especially not the vassal-related one) but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to understand it. "But it's still important to know where you're coming from? And how that works? Especially with those feelings you mentioned, like, I want to understand them so that I know... what's going on, how they work, that I'm doing things right? If that makes sense, anyways." He thinks it does. (He hopes it does.) 

"Of course! And I'm happy to talk your ear off about who I am and how I work. But—I think these are the sorts of things where you'll understand me better by acknowledging you haven't had the same experience than by trying to find the experience you've had that matches. Do you see what I mean?"

"I know I haven't had the same experience, or same feelings," he says, "but I still want to feel what you're feeling, to get inside your head, so I can see where you're coming from and like," he's not sure how describe it "so I can do things right," he adds finally. 

"By all means get inside my head. You're very welcome there," she says, nuzzling him.

"Okay, but I'm not entirely sure how to do..." he pauses. "Is there a way to do that? For me to get inside your head or, um," he blushes. "read your mind?"

"I don't know any off the top of my head, but I could investigate! Would you like me to?"