[ the hypothetical doesn't really matter — it is the concern of a different him, perhaps, somewhere else in time and space, but not this him.
this him is free to think that the way octavian accepts his returned compliment is very cute and charming — and the fact that he doesn't try to respond with the empty reassurances or platitudes most others would, a but that's not true or surely more people think that way; instead, he accepts viktor's words and yet finds a way to flip them inside out, shine a light on everyone else and say, look at them, they don't understand us, and that is fine because we understand each other.
quietly, he thinks that he is exceedingly lucky, to have been able to meet octavian.
out loud, he says, ] Was that under any doubt?
[ dryly said, in the tone of his deadpan jokes, in the way those jokes aren't actually jokes at all... because, ugh, people. ]
no subject
this him is free to think that the way octavian accepts his returned compliment is very cute and charming — and the fact that he doesn't try to respond with the empty reassurances or platitudes most others would, a but that's not true or surely more people think that way; instead, he accepts viktor's words and yet finds a way to flip them inside out, shine a light on everyone else and say, look at them, they don't understand us, and that is fine because we understand each other.
quietly, he thinks that he is exceedingly lucky, to have been able to meet octavian.
out loud, he says, ] Was that under any doubt?
[ dryly said, in the tone of his deadpan jokes, in the way those jokes aren't actually jokes at all... because, ugh, people. ]