[D'Artagnan makes a small amused noise at those listed hobbies, not because he sees something such as knitting as unbefitting as perhaps interpreted, but because he'd been given a book on leatherworking as a recent gift, and he intends to take up needle and thread himself. He sobers instantly as Wash addresses something of far more importance to D'Artagnan, words piercing deep inside him in a way that allows him to breathe through what he'd felt a stifling restriction for far too long. The simplicity of it, the truth of it, gives him something to hold onto almost desperately, for no one has ever implied, let alone told him outright, that only he can determine whether or not his thoughts, his fears, are founded and rational. That he's not dismissed as unwell or unstable, not seen as out of control independently to what he's able to direct and regulate. He's not mad, it's the others who can't see or understand him, and that's not his fault. Though he'd been able to stop his tears before they came just moments earlier, they arrive now, without accompanying hitch in his breath, simply sliding down his cheeks and he doesn't seem to notice, no attempt made to wipe them away.]

Thank you.

[His voice is low and even, nearly whispered, and the gratitude palpable, if arguably misplaced in his own interpretations of rather benign statements. He continues as if that didn't happen, that slip, no regard to the fact he's still crying, focused then on Wash's assessment of bondage that had also been his.]

I see it that way too — aggressive, violent, domination that is... not to be lauded. Asking it of me, I... I want to see it differently as you have. I don't want my perceptions to hold me back when I might be able to give... some form of solace to someone else, even if I don't understand it.