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It wasn't so much that Finn was avoiding the discussion Borr had told him to have so much as he was waiting for the prime opportunity to bring it up. Or so he told himself - the truth was somewhere in-between. He knew he'd ******** up, but that didn't mean he was hugely eager to have this conversation - and he doubted Aleksy was either, given how long he'd let this go.

He showed up at Aleksy's after his shift, Thai food in hand, and waited until they were settled on the couch and tucked into their respective curries before saying anything.

Finn cleared his throat awkwardly around a piece of tofu.

"Um," he said. "I talked to Borr the other day."

Finn narrowed his eyes slightly at Aleksy, trying to determine whether he was being deliberately obtuse or not. Probably or not, he decided - Borr had made it clear that Aleksy had gotten very drunk over the course of their conversation, and it was entirely possible that he didn't even remember it.

"He said," said Finn, putting a hand on Aleksy's calf, "That you're still really upset over the thing with Tate. More than you let on to me. And that I should talk to you about how I'm sorry for being a piece of s**t."

Really. Truly.

Finn frowned. Like, yes, he could understand where Aleksy was coming from, but to him the comparison seemed like apples and oranges. Like, yeah, Aleksy was pretty well aware of his own shortcomings, but he also seemed completely blind to all of his sister's. Like how Tate was fickle, how Tate could change her mind at the drop of a hat, that having a conversation with Tate was less an equal interaction and more just trying to amuse her until she decided to eat you alive. Finn felt like he was more her plaything than her peer.

"I'm a piece of s**t," replied Finn, who certainly did not see himself as anything worth fighting over. "But I like you. A lot. And Tate's... Tate. I haven't seen her in years. She wants me because you have me and the instant we see each other in person she'll probably be bored of me."

It was fatalistic, but, he knew, also probably true. He knew Tate.

"I made a mistake," he said. "I was trying to impress her. She's the kind of person who other people want to impress. Doesn't mean I'm going to go running into her arms."

He'd make that decision when he got to it.

Finn snorted. "Yeah, right," he said, finding it very hard to believe that Tate's veneer of barely-contained derision lifted for anyone, even someone she'd shared a womb with for eight and a half months.

"It was one time," he reiterated. "Not gonna do it again. It's not worth it."

All he was doing was giving Tate ammunition for antagonizing her brother, anyway.

He put his food aside and leaned over to Aleksy, settling his hand over his shoulder. "I don't want anyone besides you. Really."

He bit his lip.

"You want people besides me," said Finn, realizing why he'd brought it up. It was a constant point of contention. "I mean. Okay. We can talk about this."

It was true that Aleksy did do that sometimes, but Finn wasn't sure he wanted Aleksy to go find that with anyone else, either. At least with him, he could be sure Aleksy was safe -- but Aleksy was a grown man who could make his own decisions.

And besides, relationships required compromise.

"Okay," sighed Finn. "Yes. We can try that out. Just, like, follow basic safety precautions? For my nerves?"

"Introduce them to me... like in a sexy way?" asked Finn, a moment before realizing that was probably not what Aleksy meant.

He turned beet read.

"I mean," he said vaguely, "If you want to."

Finn considered the hole he'd dug for himself. "I don't think I would want to go out and find people myself," he said after a moment - he'd just spent most of this conversation convincing Aleksy that he didn't want anyone else, and he wasn't about to waste that hard-won grace.

"But if you wanted to. Um."

He was blushing to intensely that his ears had gone red.

"Yeah," said Finn. "That probably sounds like fun. I trust your taste in guys."

Finn slipped an arm around Aleksy's narrow shoulders and hoped that this was the end of the sexting with Tate fiasco. "Yeah," he agreed. "It would be. We're good?"