"You know, when you asked if you could get on this topic or whether it would make me uncomfortable," Octavia told him, raising her eyebrows, "I didn't think you were going to make me uncomfortable."

"Little late for that now."

That was the discomfort talking.

It was there in the way she folded her arms over her chest, too.

"All this time I've been talking about one thing," she continued. "Not all of sex, just one thing. Was that not clear? Because it really feels like you've just jumped straight to thinking you need to prove I have preferences about other sex stuff."

Octavia stared at him.

"How was I supposed to make it clearer than by saying several times it was about 'one thing' and even repeating what the one thing was? Especially when you know about my preferences better than anyone?"

Because he saw a side of them no one else was privy to. (Wasn't supposed to be, anyway.)

"... How do you not realize when I said so?"

"The argument that you just -- went straight into without telling me we were suddenly supposed to be talking on a wider level."

Just to be clear.

"Well, you probably also shouldn't have said it's because I'm 'always like this about Duke'."

Sorry, that part was only now starting to sink in.

"Apparently," Octavia replied, exasperated but not really at him. She sank further back in her seat. "Why?"

"Lucifer, that's dumb."

... Hold on, she was going to find her way to something a little more reassuring than that.

"For one, why would you ever think I would be the model for how to do any of this shit properly?"

"Yeah, I think we both know that's not true."

(Or maybe she was mixing up loving people with managing to treat them the way they should be treated.)

"Okay, well..." Tiny shrug. "None of that actually relates to anyone's preferences in the sack."

"Then I guess one needs to learn to listen," Octavia replied mildly. "Or better yet, ask."

"You made me feel pressured to pick a favorite out of things I don't have a favorite one of right now," Octavia replied. "Your insecurity made me feel like you thought I was doing something wrong."

Octavia gave him a (still slightly exasperated) nod, like 'yes, thank you'. Sometimes bruised feelings needed her to go digging for an apology.

"You never asked why, but I'm gonna tell you anyway," she said. "I don't have sexy preferences right now, because they change, they come and go, they're based on -- whatever I feel like at the time, whatever was hottest most recently, that kind of thing. And I don't... That's a distant thing right now. There's nothing anchoring me to any preference, right now."