"It's complicated," Claude agrees, smiling. "But so far, it's been more than worth the trouble for me. I honestly never thought I'd have a single person who'd love me the way...any of them do, really. And somehow I've managed to find four of them. I'd say I don't know how I got so lucky, but..." And his smile becomes more of a grin. "Well, frankly, I put in a lot of work on things being the way they are now. If I pretended otherwise, I'd be venturing right out of humility and into outright lying. But that was definitely worth it, too - and not just for what I got out of it. They all deserve everything I've managed to offer them, and a lot more than anyone can ever give them."

He winks at Steven. "For what it's worth, I promise not to be offended by any crushes you develop for me." This is mostly joking; Claude's usually a pretty good judge of when someone's interested in him, and he hasn't gotten much of a whiff of that from Steven. "But this mutually agreed on person must be someone else, since Thace and I have definitely talked. Can I be nosy and ask who it is?"