"What went terribly? Just- dating in general?"

"My ex and I had incompatible needs," says Brian. "And like, that's not that weird, people have incompatible needs all the time, but the whole thing made me feel like she had reasonable needs and I had unreasonable needs and that the solution was to go to therapy till I didn't have unreasonable needs any more, since I didn't know Jackson existed, but then it turned out he did."

"Ah. That, um, makes sense. I was like that for a while, before- before I was with Leo."

"Awwwwww," coos Jackson.

Xan grits his teeth. The effort of not punching Jackson in the face audibly pops several knuckles. 

Jackson looks alarmed. Brian pats Jackson on the head, looking concernedly Xanward.

Xan breathes in.

Xan breathes out.

"Sorry. That just... came off... kind of condescending. I don't like people thinking I'm... cute."

"Sorry," says Jackson, wide-eyed.

Xan closes his eyes exhaustedly. "You had no way of knowing my issues. And I didn't want to... scare you. Or whatever's happening now."

"You had a kinda scary look on your face," Jackson says.

"Yeah, that happens when I get angry. I always look kind of angry anyway, so when I'm actually mad..." He makes a vague hand gesture. "Scary face."

"Gotcha," says Jackson. "Resting angry face."

"People tell me I look like a sloth but I don't think there's a sloth emotion," says Brian.

"There's a cardinal sin, at least. That's like an emotion. But illegal for Catholics."

"I'm a Methodist," says Brian.

"There you go, then."

"I think I have resting desperate face," says Jackson.

"I think someone said that to you three years ago and it's not true any more," says Brian, scritching his head.

"I haven't noticed anything like that," Xan agrees.

Jackson leans his cheek on Brian's knee. "Do you not wanna talk about your sub since I said 'aww'?" he asks.

"Nah, I'll talk about him. He's... nice, really genuinely nice. He's got all these sisters, he's one of seven, and they're all alphas, it's crazy. We met in kindergarten, I pushed him over and he started crying so I told him to punch me so we'd be even and he never did it. He loves books, not even just magic books, his room's full of them. I dunno, it's hard to just describe someone."

Jackson visibly restrains an awwwww.

This is... acceptable. Yes.

"How does dating even work if you do three things instead of doms and subs?" Jackson asks.

"Alphas and omegas do pair off most of the time," Xan says. "And you don't see alphas with alphas or omegas with omegas a lot. But otherwise pretty much anything's kosher. Betas get along with everybody."

"But like are the alphas basically doms and the betas basically switches and the omegas basically subs...?"

"Mostly. You do get exceptions, like Leo's an alpha sub by your system, but mostly it shakes out that way."