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[castaside]

Leave a message for MacaqueYou know how this works.

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[forgingfires]

"Lotta grooming and simple sounds, 'parently. Which is hard. I can't purr on command and if I moo, he's gonna be...be so weird about it," he said. He's absolutely going to coo about it being cute or something and Red Son WILL die.

He makes another small whine and buries himself further against him. Curling up against him. At least he seems to have stopped going for the bottle. "I didn't wanna hurt him..."

[castaside]

Oh, Red.

"Do you want me to teach you our chirping? If you can't make the sounds, you could make a device that creates them for you." If that would make him feel more secure...

"Beyond that, just have faith in him. You love each other. If you tell him that it's important to you that he express his hurts, he'll try his best."

[forgingfires]

"...I could make a device. I am very good at getting those tinny sounds out," he murmured.

"I do. I love him so much. Its stupid. He makes me stupid," he said. To a maddening degree, some days.

As evidence by all the bottles.

[castaside]

"You're smart enough to counter the stupid. We can approximate the monkey stuff. Build a nest together, rather than using his all the time. Make the device with chirps on it with his input. Make sure that if you're talking, you're holding him or grooming him. And a lot of things that he might suggest, too."

"It's not as complicated as you're making it, Red. You're upset and you have a right to be, but there's a difference between that and despairing. You want to be better for him, so do something. You're good at doing things."

[forgingfires]

"We did build his nest together in his room...don't know how often he has other people in it," Red Son muttered. With Macaque's scent all over them both and how much of Wukong is on MK, it can be hard to say where the scent is coming FROM. "Maybe a special nest...do finally have spare room expansions now. Maybe another present like his art room..."

"Maybe...maybe try to make the noises and...adjust. In a program. Since his noises might not work the same? Like talking to yourself. Unless he can self soothe that way. Maybe that's a thing, he does talk to himself." MK can be very chatty to himself sometimes.

"I do. I just...I don't know how to help him right now," he said. "Since a bunch of that I...can't really fully utilize." Not until MK is okay with touch.

[castaside]

"You can make the chirping device, I'll bet he'd get a kick out of it. But maybe the point is less to do something that you've devised will help and more just... spending time. You don't have to be talking about heavy issues every moment to be helping him."

[forgingfires]

"Do you really think just...spending enough time will help?" He asked, idly picking at his shirt.

[castaside]

"I really do." He kisses Red on the head, sticky mess and all. "It always helps me. Even now."

[forgingfires]

"I'm a drunk mess," he said, but leans into the affection all the same.

[castaside]

Another quick kiss, then. "I said what I said. And it takes a special kind of affection to be happy just being with you while you moon over someone else."

[forgingfires]

"You could moon over your people. We bonded over you trying to not moon over Wukong," he said. Bitching about your ex while still being super into your ex.

[castaside]

"I'm not especially in the mood to talk about Wukong, and you're not in a place to hear about him." And while Macaque could talk about how hard he's crushing on Wash, then it could come out that Macaque is more comfortable talking to Wash and that ends nowhere good.

[forgingfires]

And then there's MK, which may just getting him crying again. "Could talk about your kids. Cole. You seemed friendly with the Soldier," he said.

[castaside]

"Things are odd with Cole, the pillar thing really messed with me. And Wash... friendly is one way to put it."

And his kids he's not sure what to say about. He loves them, he'd die a thousand times for them, they're perfect, no notes.

[forgingfires]

"Hmm...too drunk for...pillar," Red Son muttered. "Friendly one way? He's not territorial over the kids, is he?"

[castaside]

Mmkay, then.

"Friendly as in we went on a date, and I hope there's more. He's a proponent of taking things slow. Not my specialty, but it's fun."

[forgingfires]

Red Son would be for pillar talk, but his brain is a hot mess of potentially not helpful to potentially harmful when he's like this.

"Ooooh, so there is an option for mooning," he said.

[castaside]

"Hey, you asked. Dodging would only make it more obvious."

[forgingfires]

"It was a very dodgy first response," he said. "And a new experience. You deserve it, they're fun even when they're lowkey terrifying."

[castaside]

"Nothing terrifying about it, thankfully. It's just nice. And strangely easy."

[forgingfires]

"Oh? The taking it easy, or just being with him?" Red Son asked.

[castaside]

"Just being with him is what I meant. I'm certainly fine with hard-fought relationships when they're worth it," MK and Wukong are proof enough of that, "but it's nice to not feel like I'm swimming upstream. It's like how things happened with you, that kind of easy."

[forgingfires]

He hummed and nodded his head against his chest. "That's good to hear. You deserve easier relationships," he said. Macaque deserves to have all the good things.

[castaside]

"Mm. The one thing I have to adjust to is that without all the physical stuff, or at least without most of it, I'm getting a lot less reinforcement than I'm used to. It'll be good for me to learn to open my mouth and ask if things are okay, I guess."

[forgingfires]

"It is a pretty good habit to develop," Red Son said. "Hopefully he is responsive when you ask things?" He IS giving the affirmation Macaque looks for them, right? The fact things are easier, he would hope so.