"You are sexually frustrated."
Lennox could only stare. "W-what?!" he finally exclaimed. "I'm not!"
"Sexual frustration describes the condition in which a person is in a state of agitation, stress, anxiety due to prolonged sexual inactivity and/or sexual dissatisfaction," Ironhide quoted from somewhere. "And you are sexually frustrated."
"I'm not! What makes you come up with such a crazy idea?!"
Will could almost feel the pointed look he got, even though his friend was in his vehicle form.
"Just because I don't get laid doesn't mean I'm frustrated!" he added almost defensively, then felt like hitting his head repeatedly on the steering wheel. "Why are we discussing this?" he asked resignedly.
Why am I discussing my lack of a sexual life with a giant alien mechanoid? Lennox added in his mind.
Because that was the bulk of his social contact nowadays. A group of alien visitors, Sam Witwicky, maybe even some of his team, though they had pulled away. Will was becoming too alien himself. He had always been faithful to Sarah and even when they had been separated, his sex life had been rather monogamous. Now he was divorced, had been declared dead by his own government, and he had no more obligations toward faithfulness, but he didn't go out and look for simple pleasures.
He didn't go out at all. Period.
Will groaned softly, clenching his hands around the steering wheel in frustration of another kind.
"Humans seek release. It's a biological imperative," the Autobot now said.
"It's not a must, okay? And even if I were looking for it, which I'm not, we men have found a good companion in our right hand."
He could almost hear the thought processors clicking and whirring. Ironhide was probably looking for reference material.
"And before you go suggesting any kind of activities for me, don't. Just don't."
"I'm only trying to help."
Another groan. "You're not."
Lennox had actually felt no drive to satisfy anything lately. One look at him and any hooker, well-paid or simply desperate for money, would turn tail. And it wasn't like he wanted a hooker. A girl-friend would probably end in a catastrophe, though he would have to go through the whole dating process first to get to the steady girl-friend part. That this would end up in a disaster was a given, too.
A third, but also the hugest problem was the fact that he felt rather… strange when it came to accidental or not so accidental touches while he was training his shape-shifting. Even though he looked like a protoform Cybertronian and his skin deflected gun fire, it was still sensitive on a deeper layer. That one energy transfer from Ironhide had been enough.
Will had felt like a bucket of cold water had been dumped on him when the realization had set in: he had been aroused. On a different level than what he had felt as a human being when Sarah had been in bed with him, but it had been close. A really close match.
So having Ironhide talk about sexual frustration was… not good.
"Can we leave it at 'I'm not'?" he asked.
Ironhide huffed. He didn't believe him and the scan he felt running over him didn't help. Runes and glyphs flared.
Great. Now Ironhide could even see how distracted, pissed off and disturbed he was.
What a way to end the day.
He should have taken his own advice and not faced Ironhide so soon after the revelation that he reacted to the mech. Will was confused down to his very human soul and when Ironhide had set up another training exercise, he should have said no. Should have lied, found other things to do, something important.
Instead he had said yes.
Treacherous brain!
So when Ironhide managed to once again wipe the floor with him, he should have called it quits sooner.
He hadn't.
And he had ended up in the dust, feeling bruised even though he was in a supposedly mechanoid form, and it didn't help that Ironhide looked rather smug.
Bastard.
Lennox pushed himself up and glared at the taller mechanoid. "Game over," he growled.
"You are distracted today," the weapons specialist remarked and hunkered down. "Are you okay?"
"Don't start, Ironhide, okay? Not a word about any kind of frustration!"
Will pushed up and stumbled, feeling tired and worn. Damn. It was the same feeling as before. He recognized it as being low on energy.
How Ironhide ended up grasping his arm, fingers sinking between the ridges on his forearm, touching connecting tissue, was beyond him.
Things blurred.
He felt the energon transfer, the rush, his body arched a little and he knew he gasped, maybe even embarrassed himself with a moan. Nerve endings screamed, then things whited out.
Will came around to Ironhide's face very close, the other's hand still buried deep in the shielded forearm of his mimicked form, and the blue optics were bright. Brighter than they had ever been.
Something clicked inside him.
Something terribly unsettling washed over him.
Memories were sketchy, but one was very clear: the rush.
"Oh hell!" he exclaimed and shot to his feet, dislodging the hand.
Ironhide rose more slowly, not saying a word, but he regarded Will with a very intense expression.
Will lost all thought of being a fifteen foot protoform and his 6'4" human frame was alive with cosmic code running all over him.
Panic raced through him.
He had… gotten off. In a mech sense of the way. Not like having sex, but something that could only be compared to that.
Shit. Shitshitshit!
Ironhide had done nothing more than… and he had… and now… Shit! Hell!
Will ran shaky hands through his already tousled hair. He moved away from Ironhide, terribly confused and at a loss as to how to explain this to an alien life form that had no concept of procreation through a rather enjoyable copulation. Ironhide could google orgasm all he wanted, get all kinds of nifty explanations, and he would never truly understand it.
Lennox screwed his eyes shut in humiliation. Good gawd, he had gotten off while mimicking a mech form! How could his day get any worse? There had been no inappropriate touches. He doubted he had the necessary equipment to truly get one up, but the simple touch had been like the best sex ever. A touch to his forearm, for crying out loud! Touching the muscle cable underneath the shield!
"Will."
The dark voice let him flinch and he stared at Ironhide like a trapped animal.
"I… that… Ironhide, I'm sorry. I didn't… this wasn't…"
"I expected it," Ironhide interrupted him.
"What?!"
"I was surprised it hadn't happened the first time."
"WHAT?! You… you expected it? You bastard! You wanted this to happen? What the hell were you thinking?!"
Lennox's anxiety and embarrassment had seamlessly turned into fury. The glyphs reflected it as well. Was this some way for Cybertronians to get off?! Energy transfer to the point of overload?!
Ironhide knelt down, looking a lot more calm and serene than he had any right to be, in Will's eyes.
"I noticed it before I decided to share with you. I was surprised you didn't react sooner."
"Share? Like…? No way!" Will shook his head. "No fucking way! I'm human! I can't share! It's impossible!"
Ironhide smiled. "There are different ways, Will. True sharing can only be achieved by a spark bond. We don't need these bonds to procreate, so relationships are formed through different means. We have friends and comrades and allies. We have commanders and subordinates. We share with those who are like-minded, who we find are a match to what we are ourselves. I found a similar interest in you."
Lennox blinked. He had lost Ironhide somewhere around the first sentence. "I… I'm not…"
Had he somehow made Ironhide think he was… attracted to him? That he was interested in sharing more than a very close friendship? He couldn't be sexually attracted to a giant alien robot! He hadn't had wet dreams or anything! He didn't get the same sensation around Ironhide as he had around a woman.
But he felt something else. It was a sense of rightness, of belonging, of wanting to be here. He had consciously chosen this life. He liked spending time with Ironhide. And when the mech had touched his skin, it had been… there had been… not like he was about to shoot off, but something else. Ever since the accident his life had steadily changed, and now things were more complicated than ever before in his life.
Fucking Allspark! Lennox thought angrily. His emotions were all over the place because of something mechs saw as natural. Will was a hybrid and whatever his feelings were now, they corresponded to what a mechanoid thought was the intent to be closer.
He liked Ironhide. He liked being around him, close to him. Sure, there was something like a common ground for them, an understanding as warriors and soldiers. Sometimes no words were needed, despite them being alien to another.
Double fuck.
"This is too much," he managed. "Damnit, Ironhide! You can't just dump this on me! I don't even understand it! You're attracted to me? I'm not even your own kind!"
"You only need your own kind if you need the offspring to continue your line. We don't."
"So how many interspecies relationships are there?" Lennox asked sarcastically.
Silence.
"None, right? Taking Sam and Bumblebee aside, there's none! How do you know that this is anything at all?"
"You reacted."
Simple as that. Of course he had reacted. He hadn't been able not to. The energy discharge had been… arousing. Will groaned to himself.
"I'm not a mechanoid," he moaned. "I'm human. I mimic you, nothing else! Humans react to electric discharge!"
"Do they always find it arousing?"
"Not when it's several thousand volts, no!" he snapped. "It's deadly. It hurts!"
"Did I hurt you?"
Lennox was close to strangling the black mech. The questions were getting to him.
"You didn't and you know it. Whatever happened, for whatever reason, it felt good, but it can't be! I'm not… sexually attracted to you!"
"Since my kind doesn't have sex…" Ironhide started.
"Oh shut it!"
From Ironhide's reaction Will knew his eyes had started to glow again. Just great.
"Can we go home now?" he asked, feeling mentally exhausted, though his thoughts were racing.
"Of course."
And that was the last that was said between them for that day.
Lennox spent the next day in his living area, staring at the ceiling, the wall or the computer screen. His mind was whirling with what had happened and he had no idea how to handle it.
Ironhide had given him something mechs called 'sharing' and while he understood that human sex was totally different, it had felt the same. His very human body had interpreted it correctly and reacted according to his chosen form, the protoform.
Will hadn't had wet dreams of big alien robots in the past years. He hadn't felt like he was about to come in his pants while sitting in Ironhide's cab. He could confess to a rather strong friendship. He trusted the alien robot, he liked his dry sense of humor, his trigger-happy, weapons-obsessed personality. They could sit together for hours and not talk, and it still felt like the best conversation ever.
They were friends. Close friends. He had spent the past years at the base, always with Ironhide… He liked him.
Will shook his head.
And still… would he have reacted if there wasn't some small part that had wanted this? Ironhide didn't strike him as someone to push this on a partner. Sharing was voluntary.
Hello, subconsciousness? A little help here?
He hadn't had any sexual contact in the last, oh, millennium, as it felt to him. Ever since his divorce, and even before that, he had been here at the base and there had been no one to interest him.
So now he had found relief with Ironhide?
Damn.
Finally leaving the loft-like structure, Lennox looked for someone, actually the only one, who might be able to help.
He found Sam coming out of Optimus Prime's office and raised a questioning eyebrow. "Got a minute?"
The younger man shrugged. "Sure."
"Coffee?"
"Always."
And so they found themselves sitting outside the hangar, coffee mugs in hand, and Will wondered how to ask the one question, the burning question, without making himself look like some pervert.
::It happened::
Sam sent a silent question through the link at Bumblebee's remark.
::Ironhide and Will::
::You sure?:: he asked back, astounded.
::Well, something happened. Ironhide's been rather… silent the whole day. And Will keeps to himself. I think something happened and it's something I've been expecting::
::You think he's got feelings for Ironhide?:: Sam wasn't sure he could get that picture into his head.
::Yes::
Plain and simple.
Looking at the former Army Ranger, who was not looking at him at all and instead staring at his coffee, Sam wondered. His own relationship with Bumblebee hadn't been head-over-heels at all. It wasn't even the same he had felt for Mikaela. It wasn't like a human relationship at all, but at least he had the technopathic understanding of the matter. He could feel the pulses from Bee's spark, he had the uplink. Will had nothing of the like.
"Will?" he now asked out loud.
"Hm?"
"You wanted to talk about something?" And how stilted did that sound? Great, he was sixteen again and had a crush on the high school sweetheart.
"Something happened in training yesterday. Actually before that. I was exhausted, Ironhide gave me a jumpstart, so to speak. Something jumped, all right."
Sam blinked. Okay…
"You were in protoform?"
"Yeah."
::We can transfer energy from one to the other if the need arises. Medics do it all the time. They have a surplus of energon on their bodies to keep a wounded mechanoid functioning:: Bumblebee explained helpfully. ::I could do it, too. A small energy charge can go a long way::
::It did with Will:: Sam thought and almost laughed at that.
"Yesterday he did it again. I got off on it, Sam."
Now those were some plain words.
"And?" Sam asked openly.
"And? You're asking 'and'?" Lennox exploded. "Hell, kid, I got off on something shared between machines! I'm human! I'm not attracted to giant robots!"
Will stopped, then ran a palm over his face with a groan.
"That didn't come out right. Sorry. This isn't about you and Bumblebee…"
"No, it's about you and Ironhide. He's your friend, right?"
"Yeah."
"He protects you."
"Kinda."
"And he shared."
"Yes! Okay, he shared, but I'm not…" Lennox stopped, shook his head, and started to pace. "I'm not into kink, all right? I'm not having sex with a robot!"
Sam had to laugh, unable to stop himself. "Will, it's not sex!"
"It damn well felt like it!"
"You weren't even human."
"I'm always human, Sam!" he hissed. "I'm not the Allspark!"
Sam held up his hands as if to ward off the anger. "Didn't say that. But you mimicked an alien form and you reacted like a hybrid, right? I know their understanding of relationships is different from ours, but affection is the same. Ironhide showed his."
"By getting me off?"
"Yes."
The former soldier slumped against the wall. "Great. Alien robot sex then."
"No. Sharing."
"Same thing to me."
"It isn't," Sam contradicted. "Sex is… a lot more physical, but sharing is, too. Just different." He groaned. "That sounds totally strange."
::How can I explain this to him?:: he sent to Bumblebee.
::There's nothing of the like on your planet:: his friend and partner replied. ::Will is trying to understand it in human terms and ends up at biological reproduction. We can receive pleasure from a partner, even one not bonded to us, but the concept is not like yours::
Sam tried to get exactly that across as he said out loud what Bumblebee had told him. Lennox's expression was a mixture of doubt and despair.
"And they don't have genders, Will. Maybe you think of this too much in human terms," he tried something else, something that had occurred to him.
It wasn't like he hadn't thought about it in the beginning with Bumblebee, too.
"Because I am human," came the growl. "It's all I understand, Sam! I'm not a technopath! I don't look into their minds!"
Sam knew he had a big advantage here. He would probably have been as freaked as Lennox otherwise.
"Well, the question now is: do you want to do it again?" Sam asked openly.
It got him a wide-eyed stare and the runes that Sam had learned to ignore, flared more brightly. While he could read Cybertronian, the ancient glyphs evaded a translation. Still, this was clear.
"I… well… it was nice," Will answered lamely. And he looked embarrassed.
"No harm, no foul, right?"
"Sam, it's not that easy!"
Sam frowned. "Why? You're a free agent. No 'don't ask, don't tell'."
"I doubt it ever applied to robots," came the dry remark.
"See?"
"Sam…" Lennox groaned. "This really isn't easy!"
"I never said so."
"Great," he muttered. "Just fucking great. Just heap the shit on me! Why me? Why not someone else?" He banged his fist against the wall behind him.
There were no easy answers, if there were answers to some of these questions at all. He was in for it now and he had to live with it. Not like Ironhide was fawning over him like some love-struck teen. It was more of a subtle way, something where most of the context was lost in translation and both parties were trying to handle it how they had been raised and taught to.
"Any pointers?" Lennox asked resignedly.
"Nope. I'd say go with the flow, but you need a translator for that, too. Talk to Ironhide is my advice," Sam answered.
"Planning to, believe me."
Will had thought he was past that stage when it came to relationships.
Relationships!
Now he was starting to even think of it as such. Was he attracted to Ironhide on that level? Or was there even a level at all? What was their friendship anyway? What was Ironhide interpreting into it? What was Will reading in the mech? Not much, actually. Ironhide was rather controlled, like Optimus, and it was difficult to discern something from there.
They had to talk. So not Lennox's strong point.
Birds and bees and giant alien robots. Oh my.
He caught a hold of Ironhide out in the back hangar two days later. The weapons specialist was tinkering around with something or other, but he had stopped and met the human's eyes without evading.
"We need to talk," Lennox heard himself say the words.
That had always been Sarah's territory. 'We need to talk' stood for 'I'm gonna read you the riot act, William Lennox, and you're going to listen and apologize'. Most of the times he had to because he had been an ass.
Today it meant something different.
"About what happened," he added lamely. "The energy rush."
"Rush?" Ironhide asked, frowning as much as a robot could.
"Please don't tell me it wasn't meant to happen as a rush!" Lennox exclaimed.
Ironhide placed his tools down and looked at the smaller human. "You were quite receptive, Will. I wasn't sure how you would react, but it was a lot more intense than I expected."
He quickly held up a hand. "Don't you even mention sexual frustration, okay?" he demanded.
"Then I won't."
"Ironhide!"
Was that a smirk? Damn, it was a smirk!
"This doesn't happen when I'm human, right?"
Ironhide tilted his head. "I don't know. I wouldn't advise sending electrical currents through you, Will."
"Of course not, idiot! I was talking about…" He stopped and nearly banged his head against the next possible, hard object. "Forget it. Human concept. Human thinking."
"You were thinking about sex," his friend stated.
"Aw, hell, 'hide…"
"You were. I looked into the subject matter and a human body can be stimulated by touch."
The runes swirled around Lennox's arms and he felt himself tense. Great. Birds and bees. Sex versus sharing. Who would win? Place your bets.
His head started to ache.
"Yes, it can," Will ground out. "We're organic. We have nerve cells. They get stimulated by all kinds of things."
"Are you stimulated now?"
"No!"
Could this get even more embarrassing? He wasn't thinking sex with Ironhide. The rush had been intense and great, but he wasn't getting a hard-on thinking about it now. He wasn't about to have wet dreams about a shape-changing GMC truck! Will's mind was unable to come up with the appropriate scenario where this was even remotely possible.
"Listen," Lennox tried to grope for normalcy, "this whole thing… it was incredible. I never felt like this. But I don't feel the rush when I'm myself."
Blue optics regarded him calmly. Will was reminded how old Ironhide was, how much he had seen. He had probably had his sharings before.
And no, he wasn't jealous! Jealousy came from feeling something, anything, and resenting the rivals. There was nothing to resent and there were no rivals of any kind. Past companions were just that: past. And he wasn't looking for some kind of steady date. No!
But what about feelings? Did he have them? As a human or as a hybrid?
The massive form went down on one knee before him.
"Sharing like this, without a spark bond, is an expression for us," the mech explained. "An expression of what you might call 'affection'. There is really no human equivalent for the Cybertronian term. It can be casual; just once. It can be repeated and still casual. No bond is formed. And it can be solely with one person, still casual, but as you would say 'faithful'…"
Will felt his jaw hit the floor. Good gawd… Hell… shit!
"So you have feelings for me? Beyond a friend?" he stammered.
"I cannot differentiate your terms, Will. Friendship and relationship… you place more value on one or the other. You say that friendship is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more humans. Relationships are defined by connections between two people. These definitions are very confusing. You can share with a friend, but not be in a relationship, but you can also have relationships among business partners, without a personal connection."
Will sighed. He knew humans were complicated when it came to Cybertronians trying to understand them. He had been raised to understand the difference. How could he explain it to someone who hadn't been on this planet for that long?
"You place a lot of value on the sharing we experienced," Ironhide added. "I never meant to confuse you."
"I am confused. More by the difference between our races," he confessed. "Because I want and need to understand this, and I can't. I have this urge to put what happened into a handy shelf space and be done with it, but it's not like this. Sam understands because he can uplink to you guys."
He raked his hands through his hair.
"I'm not getting this, 'Hide. Not at all. I don't know where I stand!" Lennox stopped, then hissed in frustration. "I… is this casual for you? What do you expect me to be?"
"Everything you already are."
"That's so helpful!" he gnashed. "So if I give you a pat on the hood that's not something of a come-on?"
"Casual touch is a concept of your world, Will. As you said, you have nerve cells that transmit the touch. Our skin has receptors, but their density varies. Jazz's skin has a microfine sensor net. Mine has the normal array of receptors."
And that left them where? Lennox thought desperately.
"Your touch is transmitted," Ironhide added. "It can never set off a sharing, though."
"Okay. Cool. Fine. It's just the Protoform then."
"Compatibility is not a matter of outside appearances."
Compatibility. It was affection. In a way. Lennox wished he had a way into Ironhide's mind like Sam had. It would make things so much easier!
"We're compatible," he murmured. "Okay. I can handle that."
Ironhide was silent, waiting out Will's thought processes. Lennox in turn felt himself turning the question 'What now?' over and over in his head. Did he want it to happen again? Part of him, a very large part, was enthusiastically nodding its head.
"We take this slow," he finally said. "My pace. This isn't easy for a human to handle, Ironhide."
There was a long silence and the blue optics narrowed a little. Will met them with tension and hope. This was an experiment. A huge, unique experiment. He and Ironhide were compatible, like Sam and Bumblebee. It wasn't sex. It was…something different, something new. Like a friendship with a few perks.
"You are willing to share again?" Ironhide asked finally.
"Yes. I confess I liked the feeling. Maybe because I hadn't gotten any lately. Maybe because of the compatibility. Maybe because I'm part Allspark and that's helping. My mind's just dealing differently than my body. The body loves it, the mind's confused…"
"And you only experience it in your protoform," Ironhide stated.
"I really, really hope so." Because wouldn't it be embarrassing to shoot off as a human because of Ironhide?
"Would you change now?" the weapons specialist asked matter-of-factly.
"Uhm?"
"Will?"
Lennox closed his eyes. Would he? Now? He knew what Ironhide was suggesting and the thought gave him a little thrill. He had told the truth when he had confessed to liking the sharing experience.
"I would," he finally said.
He initiated the change and let his body go with the flow as it increased size and mass, like the Allspark could do. The runes shifted over his skin, disappeared beneath it, and his body underwent a complete metamorphosis. Ice blue optics met Ironhide's.
The more massive and taller mech waited for a moment, then reached out. Will tensed a little, but the touch was careful, almost explorative. The fingers rested on the exo-skeleton, then slid between the strands of solid metal and connected with the muscle tissue of the protoform. The connective tissue wasn't organic in the mechanoids, but Will wasn't like them. His outer shell was metal, but underneath there was himself. Ironhide was touching organic tissue.
The optics reflected that realization, that knowledge, and Will shivered a little. This was so completely new, he was so totally out of his depths. A string of runes flitted over his exo-skeleton, around Ironhide's fingers, like a surreal piece of wrapping or string.
"How do you feel this without me doing the same to you?" Lennox managed, voice a little rough.
"Backwash," Ironhide explained. "My connection to you is both ways. I feel what you feel, your echoes."
Oh gawd…
"Your emotions are alien, but they are received. You feel intensely," Ironhide stated.
"Humans usually do."
"It's addictive," the mech stated, throwing Will in a loop.
Ironhide's finger tips opened and Will felt them connect. It shot tiny rivulets of pleasure through him.
"Each protoform has multiple interface points," Ironhide continued, optics never leaving Will's face. "When we take on our final camouflage form some are very heavily shielded."
Gazing at the bulk of armor on Ironhide, Will guessed his friend had such heavy shielding. And then the world started to wash out as energy trickled through the connection, as everything was just this wild rush that tore him along, gave him a high like nothing else ever had. It was so brief, a single moment, nothing like the encounter between two humans could ever be, however short. For a machine it was incredibly long, but his human mind counted seconds. He thought he felt the limitless energy of everything, of the spark Ironhide shielded inside his body, of the pure power it was. It was beautiful, wonderful, and strangely warm and familiar despite the alienness.
Lennox came down that high, that rush, and realized he still stood there, though on very shaky legs. Nothing had changed. Ironhide's optics had dimmed a little and his grip on Will's arm was tighter.
"Whoa," he whispered.
Ironhide's fingers pulled out of the intimate depths, the tips closing again.
"That was… incredible."
A weak word for something Will had a hard time understanding. The shift back to human was almost automatic as his body required rest, and when his legs finally did give way, he was caught in a gentle hold. Ironhide's optics regarded him quietly.
"I can't be what another human would be," the mech said softly and raised him to his eye level...
"I know."
"This will complicate things for you."
Will shrugged. "I doubt it. I'm not human, Ironhide. Not any more. No other human would get close to me without thinking I'm contagious and I'm not into hooker sex. This… sharing… something inside me… responds. And we all know what's inside me."
Ironhide's thumb rested with gentle pressure against his stomach and Lennox touched it. The runes seemed to coalesce around his fingers.
"I'm kinda trapped between two worlds," Will went on, not looking into the optics watching him closely. "I'm organic, but I can shift to be closer to you guys. Inside me I carry the heritage of the Allspark, but it doesn't show."
"I can accept that," Ironhide told him, voice very serious.
"Because we are compatible?"
"Because you are my friend."
"Thanks, 'hide."
"Can you accept our limitations?" the mech wanted to know.
Because Ironhide was larger. Because there were no affectionate touches, aside from what Will unconsciously did in that regard when Ironhide was in vehicle form. Because there was no physical closeness like there was between human partners. Because there was just that, what they already had. For all its briefness, sharing was more intense than anything he had ever experienced.
Will smiled slightly. "I don't think of it as a limitation," he answered softly. "And we can start experimenting."
Ironhide mirrored the smile. He lowered Lennox back to the ground and Will felt one finger caress his back, then the mech straightened.
"This'll be interesting," Will mused.
"Definitely."
"Thank God I'm dead and don't have to introduce you to the parents," he laughed.
Ironhide's expression was priceless and Lennox just knew that he was accessing his internet link to look up the references. The mechanoid rumbled a little and Will grinned more. He knew this would be complicated. He knew it would need a lot of adjustment from both parties involved.
But it might just be worth it.