Krouse lifts Noelle's picture off his lap and gingerly sets it face down on the coffee table, meticulously not looking at Fabian as Krouse takes in all of that. He feels like someone just handed him one of those AI babies from Moorecroft, except this one is also a bomb, and he is now apparently partially entrusted with defusing this complicated bomb-baby-thing that's both hideously fragile and even more hideously volatile.
But this time, he's not hoping he can pitch the bomb-baby-convoluted metaphor out the window and replace it with a substitute egg from the grocery store. He's going to be responsible with it. Real fucking responsible.
"I mean," Krouse says, swivelling towards Fabian with an internal experience of somehow doing it in slow motion, at a distance, "It'd be fine. If you were. Or just, you know. Open-minded."
That is, in a revelation that would have startled Krouse at sixteen and doesn't make him do more than blink once at nineteen, the least of what's going on here.
"Or, uh - okay. Fuck. Let me just," Krouse scrubs his face with one hand, making a low humming noise in the back of his throat like a modem trying to dial up a connection to his own brain. "Are you, like, okay, man?"
Krouse pivots properly on the couch, pulling his leg up to tuck his socked foot against his knee as he takes Fabian's posture in. Hesitantly, he reaches out to give Fabian an awkward part on the shoulder, feeling like the multiverse's biggest tool as he does it.
"I mean, though, hey - who among us has not had a weird hard-on at a really fucked up time?" He posits, and yeah, he's going to blow up this imaginary metaphor baby for sure. Fuck.
cw: talk of dubcon, nsfw
But this time, he's not hoping he can pitch the bomb-baby-convoluted metaphor out the window and replace it with a substitute egg from the grocery store. He's going to be responsible with it. Real fucking responsible.
"I mean," Krouse says, swivelling towards Fabian with an internal experience of somehow doing it in slow motion, at a distance, "It'd be fine. If you were. Or just, you know. Open-minded."
That is, in a revelation that would have startled Krouse at sixteen and doesn't make him do more than blink once at nineteen, the least of what's going on here.
"Or, uh - okay. Fuck. Let me just," Krouse scrubs his face with one hand, making a low humming noise in the back of his throat like a modem trying to dial up a connection to his own brain. "Are you, like, okay, man?"
Krouse pivots properly on the couch, pulling his leg up to tuck his socked foot against his knee as he takes Fabian's posture in. Hesitantly, he reaches out to give Fabian an awkward part on the shoulder, feeling like the multiverse's biggest tool as he does it.
"I mean, though, hey - who among us has not had a weird hard-on at a really fucked up time?" He posits, and yeah, he's going to blow up this imaginary metaphor baby for sure. Fuck.