"The ship can. She doesn't really...think in words, at all, but I can sort of understand her, because...that's not important. But it feels like it's tricky, she has to be careful, but that she knows how to do it. She'd be really sad if she couldn't get them back, and she isn't, I know that for sure," Jedao promises.
Half the tentacles wilt into nothing in a mix of shock and relief.
He can't think of anything to say. He's glad he's not in his body right now, because he's got the same chaotic mix of feelings that resulted in tears when he was with Hunter. Gods don't cry, shouldn't cry. Shouldn't care enough to cry, probably.
"Oh." The word is strange, strangled and hollow.
His brother is going to come back. His brother is going to be okay, and Arthur too, maybe, which means this possibly isn't his fault. But. But, but, but.
He is the King in Yellow.
His brother is going to be okay, and is going to come back, and is going to find out what he is. Find out they aren't brothers, not really. Find out that of the two of them, one really is the monster. And Arthur...
The pits. The man he killed there. That was Yellow's fault. He did that. He did that to them both. He made it so his brother had to relive that murder in endless round until the last of flesh was sucked from Faust's bones.
He reaches several tentacles out to twine them through Jedao's fingers and around his wrists. The idea of his father feeling what he's feeling right now is--
The idea of the King in Yellow having a father is ridiculous.
His grip tightens a little, possessive.
"Hunter let me read my file." It's low, a growl to try and hide what's underneath.
Jedao strokes his thumbs against the nearest strips of cloak-cloth, accepted the tight hold, returning measured, deliberate affection.
"Did you read something you didn't expect?" Jedao asks gently, mind whirling, heart clenching a little in worry. He remembers hacking into Shuos-Zho's files, not even sure there would be any record of Ruo there at all - only to discover that their friendship had lead Ruo to agony and ruin only months after they met. If Jedao One and the Admiral hadn't come to him then -
His mind blanks. It's like the universe around him has gone still, figuratively speaking. He's stuck in the question of what to say, how to say it, his whole reality filled with hissing white smoke. It means he's gone still, too, frozen in midair, still tangled around Jedao.
"Okay," Jedao says simply. It is, after all, one of the first things Edwin ever told him, quite insistently. He's not sure if the new information is actually about how Edwin and the King are connected, or if that connection just feels more dire now, after the file's revelations.
"But, counterpoint, you're also my sunshine." It's almost a name, or a nickname, as much as an endearment. "And it seems like this is really hard for you to talk about."
"No." It's an ugly chorus of voices, brief and subtle only in that the other tones are hard to hear under Yellow's own deep voice. His grip tightens little by little, more via emotion than intention. "Listen to me. Ḭ̸͈͓̾̕ ̷̪͙̥̻̼̘̂̍̕a̷͓͍͙͛̆̾m̸̧̰̯̲̮̲͆͋̈̅̎ ̶̡̗̱͚̑̆̆͝t̷̘͎̑̑h̸̢̙̰͕̎̎̑̔̕ͅe̴̞̬̟͕͗̒ͅ ̵͕̣̈́̓̓Ḱ̴͗̀͜į̶͈̰͊̋̾̈́͋ṉ̴̡̠̤̱̀̏͂͘g̶̟͍͖̀̌͜.̴̫̩͕͕͚͌̐̈̌̒."
"I'm listening," Jedao promises. There's no fear in him at the sudden escalation of voices, no flinch. He doesn't mind the tightening grip, either. Eventually it will hurt, but that's not important.
"Tell me how this is different from what you believed before."
Jedao isn't understanding. That's what it is. He had been so insistent before, even knowing he was-- even thinking he was only a piece, another broken bit, another version of John made different by circumstances.
Except it wasn't circumstances. Arthur was right. Arthur was right the whole time. Still, the undercurrent of awfulness leaves his voice as he keeps speaking.
"I'm not like John. I'm not a... fragment. A shorn piece. The part that was separated. I am what was left behind. I am the thing that hunts them. My memories were taken from me by the Dark World and the being who put me there. But I am not Edwin, or Yellow. I am the King."
Oh. Now it hurts, quite a bit. It's still not important, though.
"I'm not. I didn't love you for being a small piece or a big piece or because I thought you weren't an everything-but-John piece. I love you because of who you are now. Right now, right here, with me. Who you became when losing those memories gave you a chance to be new. But if you don't believe me, there's one easy way to prove it."
If the crown rests on Jedao's head, Edwin will know exactly what he's feeling. He won't be able to lie.
He lets go all at once and drifts back. Only a fraction, but enough.
"No. No, you'll trap me--" It's what Arthur would do, what he will do when he finds out. "You'll... You..."
Jedao got him out of Zero. Was kind before he knew anything about Edw-- Ye-- about the King at all. Loved him before he knew how to recognize it. Loved him all the more with every question, every doubt. "Arthur will kill me."
If gods can be in shock, that's what he's slipping toward. "Arthur is going to kill me, and he's going to keep killing me until it... sticks."
His overwhelm leeches the color from his tone. "It's what I would do."
"If I were willing to trap you, I'd have grabbed you already," Jedao says with a shrug. He uses a little mothpull to make the plush body fly into his open hands. He could do that to the crown, too. But he won't force Edwin to come to him any more than he would ever force him to stay. He climbs down into the pit with the pillow-like empty body cradled in one arm, and settles himself comfortably.
Sitting down, he told Edwin long ago, before Edwin even took that name, feels like committing to something.
"Maybe he'll try and maybe he won't. But I won't let him do it."
When Jedao tugs the plush into his hands, a little thrill of fear goes through-- whoever he is. But it vanishes all at once into a need to be held when Jedao makes that promise. He drops onto the curved top of the plush, sends the change to inky shadow rippling through it, and clings to Jedao's chest like an alien facehugger that missed its mark.
Jedao rocks slightly, holding him tight with one arm, stroking and petting his head and back with the other. He doesn't say anything for a little while, just stays with him, as though he could press his love into his baby by sheer will and touch alone.
He shudders a little, periodically. He doesn't lift his blobby face and hopes that Jedao doesn't catch that the strange thing it's making right now is tears.
"I am a monster," he says. It's matter of fact, a numb realization. Muffled by Jedao's sweater. "I'm not like you either. I'm not the disappointment made to replace the important one. I'm the monster. I'm the monster that forgot itself."
"For my maker, it was the fact that I'd forgotten, that made me so disappointing," Jedao says softly. "I was everything that was left of Shuos Jedao, after Ajewen Cheris stole pieces of him. But she only took memories. I'm...his soul, more or less. I could be just as monstrous as he was. I have all the same instincts. If I got those memories back, I think they'd drown me, and I'd just...I'd just be him. But I've decided I don't want them. I've decided to be me instead."
You have to give me a reason, he'd told Revenant, when it was begging him for mercy. The way he saw the most brutal openings, the way he could break things down -
"I still feel like we're the same. But even if we aren't, we don't have to be the same for me to love you."
He liked being the same as someone else, the same way he liked being the same as John. He liked being the same as the person who loves and chose him. "What do I do now?"
There are ugly feelings starting in him, too deep and too broad and too strong to figure out.
"When I found out...it wasn't finding out I was Shuos Jedao, I already believed that. But I was finding out what he'd done. Why my Kel flinched every time I smiled. Why they hated me."
His voice wobbles a little. It's old pain, but Edwin is worth being vulnerable for.
"I didn't want to believe I could be him, that I could do those things. And now I know I could, but. I don't. I worked hard to not do them, as much as I could avoid it. I started thinking of him as Jedao One and me as Jedao Two. And sometimes that hurt in a different way. But it let me say - look at my life. My life is different, and it matters. Even if his was centuries and centuries of blood I just have a few years, they're different."
He drops a little kiss on Edwin's head.
"Every day, you get to choose what you do, who you are. And it's hard and scary but you get to choose every day. And if the past is too big to deal with at all, it's okay to take some time to scream and cry and hide. It's okay to focus on what's in front of you."
Take time to scream and cry and hide... He can do that. He could. But it doesn't do anything, won't do anything, won't make the things that made him scream be anything less to scream about, and all at once he dreads the endless silent hours on board while most everyone else is asleep.
He shared them with John before. Even if they weren't together, he knew his brother was somewhere else on board, awake and alive.
"They have to come back." He starts to sink back into himself a little. His grip on Jedao finally slacks off as his extra limbs meld back into his form. "They have to come back. I can't do this alone, I don't know how."
Except he's not, he's not alone. "I was... I was scared, I was... scared you would-- I know what you said, about loving me regardless of... anything else. But I was still scared to tell you. I did... horrible, horrible things. So many horrible things."
"They're coming back, I promise." Even if the barge does lose them, Jedao will just. Go get them. He doesn't know how he would do that, but he has every confidence he can figure it out if he has to.
He pets Edwin's round 'back' gently.
"I understand," Jedao says quietly. "There are things I've done - and I mean, really really me, since I woke up without memories - that I'm terrified to tell people. Even if they say they'd still love me...part of me doesn't think they should love me. And they're good people with good judgement, so of course they won't. That's how it feels."
He gives Edwin another tight squeeze.
"I do, though. I love you so much. If you think those things were horrible, if you don't want to act like that anymore, that's good enough for me. If you want to tell me about the things you did as the King did back then, I'll listen and still love you. And if you don't want to tell me, I don't need to know. Because I know you now, and that's what's important to me."
He shifts, slowly, remembering what John told him about fluffing out his "fur" more like feathers so it will be softer.
"I wondered... sometimes... what it would be like to meet the King. What he would... if we could convince him-- But we won't, we can't, we don't need to. Because he's me."
He doesn't know what to do with all these contradictory feelings.
"It's hard to lose a hope," Jedao murmurs. "Even if parts of it are a relief, too. And it's hard to feel like...like there isn't anybody to tell you how to be the thing you are, when you're something different."
When Revenant left him - Jedao should hate him, for all their Kel he killed, for leaving him to take the fall, but he can't. Revenant was the only other moth who ever spoke to him. Part of Jedao still wishes desperately that it would come back, even though he knows it never will.
"You have John, but...he's still figuring things out, too. I get why you'd want the King to be someone you could talk to."
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He can't think of anything to say. He's glad he's not in his body right now, because he's got the same chaotic mix of feelings that resulted in tears when he was with Hunter. Gods don't cry, shouldn't cry. Shouldn't care enough to cry, probably.
"Oh." The word is strange, strangled and hollow.
His brother is going to come back. His brother is going to be okay, and Arthur too, maybe, which means this possibly isn't his fault. But. But, but, but.
He is the King in Yellow.
His brother is going to be okay, and is going to come back, and is going to find out what he is. Find out they aren't brothers, not really. Find out that of the two of them, one really is the monster. And Arthur...
The pits. The man he killed there. That was Yellow's fault. He did that. He did that to them both. He made it so his brother had to relive that murder in endless round until the last of flesh was sucked from Faust's bones.
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"Please, sweetheart? You sound like -"
Like something is hitting him really hard, anyway.
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The idea of the King in Yellow having a father is ridiculous.
His grip tightens a little, possessive.
"Hunter let me read my file." It's low, a growl to try and hide what's underneath.
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"Did you read something you didn't expect?" Jedao asks gently, mind whirling, heart clenching a little in worry. He remembers hacking into Shuos-Zho's files, not even sure there would be any record of Ruo there at all - only to discover that their friendship had lead Ruo to agony and ruin only months after they met. If Jedao One and the Admiral hadn't come to him then -
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"I am the King in Yellow."
Somehow it doesn't feel like him when he says it.
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"But, counterpoint, you're also my sunshine." It's almost a name, or a nickname, as much as an endearment. "And it seems like this is really hard for you to talk about."
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"Tell me how this is different from what you believed before."
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Except it wasn't circumstances. Arthur was right. Arthur was right the whole time. Still, the undercurrent of awfulness leaves his voice as he keeps speaking.
"I'm not like John. I'm not a... fragment. A shorn piece. The part that was separated. I am what was left behind. I am the thing that hunts them. My memories were taken from me by the Dark World and the being who put me there. But I am not Edwin, or Yellow. I am the King."
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"Okay. I still love you, though."
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"Don't lie."
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"I'm not. I didn't love you for being a small piece or a big piece or because I thought you weren't an everything-but-John piece. I love you because of who you are now. Right now, right here, with me. Who you became when losing those memories gave you a chance to be new. But if you don't believe me, there's one easy way to prove it."
If the crown rests on Jedao's head, Edwin will know exactly what he's feeling. He won't be able to lie.
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"No. No, you'll trap me--" It's what Arthur would do, what he will do when he finds out. "You'll... You..."
Jedao got him out of Zero. Was kind before he knew anything about Edw-- Ye-- about the King at all. Loved him before he knew how to recognize it. Loved him all the more with every question, every doubt. "Arthur will kill me."
If gods can be in shock, that's what he's slipping toward. "Arthur is going to kill me, and he's going to keep killing me until it... sticks."
His overwhelm leeches the color from his tone. "It's what I would do."
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Sitting down, he told Edwin long ago, before Edwin even took that name, feels like committing to something.
"Maybe he'll try and maybe he won't. But I won't let him do it."
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"I am a monster," he says. It's matter of fact, a numb realization. Muffled by Jedao's sweater. "I'm not like you either. I'm not the disappointment made to replace the important one. I'm the monster. I'm the monster that forgot itself."
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You have to give me a reason, he'd told Revenant, when it was begging him for mercy. The way he saw the most brutal openings, the way he could break things down -
"I still feel like we're the same. But even if we aren't, we don't have to be the same for me to love you."
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There are ugly feelings starting in him, too deep and too broad and too strong to figure out.
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His voice wobbles a little. It's old pain, but Edwin is worth being vulnerable for.
"I didn't want to believe I could be him, that I could do those things. And now I know I could, but. I don't. I worked hard to not do them, as much as I could avoid it. I started thinking of him as Jedao One and me as Jedao Two. And sometimes that hurt in a different way. But it let me say - look at my life. My life is different, and it matters. Even if his was centuries and centuries of blood I just have a few years, they're different."
He drops a little kiss on Edwin's head.
"Every day, you get to choose what you do, who you are. And it's hard and scary but you get to choose every day. And if the past is too big to deal with at all, it's okay to take some time to scream and cry and hide. It's okay to focus on what's in front of you."
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He shared them with John before. Even if they weren't together, he knew his brother was somewhere else on board, awake and alive.
"They have to come back." He starts to sink back into himself a little. His grip on Jedao finally slacks off as his extra limbs meld back into his form. "They have to come back. I can't do this alone, I don't know how."
Except he's not, he's not alone. "I was... I was scared, I was... scared you would-- I know what you said, about loving me regardless of... anything else. But I was still scared to tell you. I did... horrible, horrible things. So many horrible things."
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He pets Edwin's round 'back' gently.
"I understand," Jedao says quietly. "There are things I've done - and I mean, really really me, since I woke up without memories - that I'm terrified to tell people. Even if they say they'd still love me...part of me doesn't think they should love me. And they're good people with good judgement, so of course they won't. That's how it feels."
He gives Edwin another tight squeeze.
"I do, though. I love you so much. If you think those things were horrible, if you don't want to act like that anymore, that's good enough for me. If you want to tell me about the things you did as the King did back then, I'll listen and still love you. And if you don't want to tell me, I don't need to know. Because I know you now, and that's what's important to me."
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"I wondered... sometimes... what it would be like to meet the King. What he would... if we could convince him-- But we won't, we can't, we don't need to. Because he's me."
He doesn't know what to do with all these contradictory feelings.
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When Revenant left him - Jedao should hate him, for all their Kel he killed, for leaving him to take the fall, but he can't. Revenant was the only other moth who ever spoke to him. Part of Jedao still wishes desperately that it would come back, even though he knows it never will.
"You have John, but...he's still figuring things out, too. I get why you'd want the King to be someone you could talk to."
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