He deposited me onto the couch, then crouched in front of me, his expression focused. He checked my wrists and ankles first, thumbs pressing lightly, watching my face more than my skin.
“Any tingling? Sharp pain?” he asked.
“No,” I mumbled. “Just sore. Not really… um…there, though.” I couldn’t meet his eyes.
He hooked a finger under my chin, raising my head. “Youpromise you’re just sore in those places? I know I checked your hole last night, but you need to tell me if anything feels wrong.”
I nodded, flushing.
“Aside from down there, are you sore anywhere else?”
“My um… my throat a bit.”
“That makes sense. Did the hot chocolate help at all? I can make some more.”
“Maybe in a little bit, please,” I said. “It did help, but I’m too full right now.”
“Okay,” he said, sitting beside me on the couch.
For a while, we didn’t talk. He put on a nature documentary—one of the calm ones with the soothing narrator I’d become a fan of—and rested his arm along the back of the couch so I could lean into him if I wanted.
I did.
His hand came down automatically, fingers stroking slow, absent patterns through my hair.
My thoughts began to wander again, and eventually, I spoke without really planning to. “You said we’d talk today,” I murmured.
“I did,” he replied, not stopping the motion of his hand. “Do you want to now, or later?”
I thought about it. About last night. About how safe I felt right now.
“Now, please,” I said softly.
He shifted so he could look at me, still close, still petting my head. “All right. What are you thinking about?”
“You.”
He chuckled lightly, a small smirk pulling up the corner of his lips. “I figured that, baby boy.”
“I don’t know where to start,” I admitted, my brow creasing.
Jace watched me for a beat, then nodded like that answer made sense. “Then I will,” he said calmly. “I don’t experience things the way most people do. Empathy, fear, guilt—they’re… conceptual for me. I understand them intellectually.”
“That’s so… sad.”
“What?” He looked confused.
“It’s sad. I mean, it might be nice not to feel certain things so deeply like I do. I’d like to not be so afraid. I’d like to be able to just not care about some things. About Father. When I’m upset, my whole body feels it. It’s hard,” I murmured. “But I think not being able to feel the warm joy of when the flowers bloom in Spring, or the excitement just before doing something you love, or even the melancholy that comes over me when I think about the times I enjoyed as a child. Isn’t it sad? To live in shades of grey instead of a rainbow?”
Jace didn’t interrupt me. He just listened, really listened, his head tilted and a thoughtful look in his eye.
“Only you could hear what I said and feel sad on my behalf.” He laughed softly, then added, “But you’re assuming I don’t have any color at all.”
I looked up at him, surprised.
“I don’t feel things the way you do,” he clarified. “That part’s true. But it’s not empty. Well, not all the time.” His thumb traced a slow line along my hairline. “It’s… selective.”
“What do you feel?”
