Right, yes. As for friends, Dave does really like Victor a lot -- in some ways he reminds him of Rush. He's not as, um, perky and zen as Rush can be, but there's some of the same really charming... small-town simpleness to him that David finds really refreshing, and that makes him easy to talk to. Which is not to say that Victor is Dave's Rush-replacement or anything, just that there are similar appealing things there.
As for the claws -- Dave's really good at relating to non-humans in camp because he's used to them being present, thought of as equals, etc etc. With mutants it feels like there is... still an "other"-ness, to them, one that Victor is aware of but that Dave keeps... sort of forgetting. So Victor has a carapace and claws and that's just part of who he is -- it made sense to encourage him to use/work with those features. Less of "I am making out with a human who would be normal except for those dangerous bits" and more "I am making out with a person who has natural dangerous bits". He would feel so bad about that if he knew Victor was still worried about that, and would say so if it came up again, because he really did mean it about being good with not. He suggested it, it was denied, and so he considers the topic closed, and he's okay with that.
The last is really a function of how we characterized both Dave and Rush while we played the game -- devoted to each other but also very casually poly (because so many of your side characters make starry-eyes and adorable noises at both Rush and Dave throughout); So Dave is fine with having one main relationship/person he devotes most of his attention to... and then around mistletoe (or, in the case of ZEX, just whenever) making out with other people. Having Victor not be okay with that set up makes David a little :(, because he does really like Victor a lot, just ...does not want to stop doing thing with ZEX, mainly for the reasons he said to Victor. We'll see. He's sort of turning the idea around in his head and poking at it from all angles. Rush showing back up in camp would make things super complicated, but since he isn't here, right now that's... not an issue and Dave is only going to kind of think about it.
...I really should stop tl;dring at you and essay in my own journal it's looking like, but ultimately David does really want to do things with Victor -- he's just not used to having to explicitly state that. He's marquis. He does things because he wants to (and, in the cases where he's doing them because he HAS to in canon, I feel like he makes his displeasure pretty known). He is also very used to people wanting to do things for him because THEY feel like they have to. As such, he's going to be way more about "if you'd like/if you want me to" than stating his own wants.
blah blah blah
As for the claws -- Dave's really good at relating to non-humans in camp because he's used to them being present, thought of as equals, etc etc. With mutants it feels like there is... still an "other"-ness, to them, one that Victor is aware of but that Dave keeps... sort of forgetting. So Victor has a carapace and claws and that's just part of who he is -- it made sense to encourage him to use/work with those features. Less of "I am making out with a human who would be normal except for those dangerous bits" and more "I am making out with a person who has natural dangerous bits". He would feel so bad about that if he knew Victor was still worried about that, and would say so if it came up again, because he really did mean it about being good with not. He suggested it, it was denied, and so he considers the topic closed, and he's okay with that.
The last is really a function of how we characterized both Dave and Rush while we played the game -- devoted to each other but also very casually poly (because so many of your side characters make starry-eyes and adorable noises at both Rush and Dave throughout); So Dave is fine with having one main relationship/person he devotes most of his attention to... and then around mistletoe (or, in the case of ZEX, just whenever) making out with other people. Having Victor not be okay with that set up makes David a little :(, because he does really like Victor a lot, just ...does not want to stop doing thing with ZEX, mainly for the reasons he said to Victor. We'll see. He's sort of turning the idea around in his head and poking at it from all angles. Rush showing back up in camp would make things super complicated, but since he isn't here, right now that's... not an issue and Dave is only going to kind of think about it.
...I really should stop tl;dring at you and essay in my own journal it's looking like, but ultimately David does really want to do things with Victor -- he's just not used to having to explicitly state that. He's marquis. He does things because he wants to (and, in the cases where he's doing them because he HAS to in canon, I feel like he makes his displeasure pretty known). He is also very used to people wanting to do things for him because THEY feel like they have to. As such, he's going to be way more about "if you'd like/if you want me to" than stating his own wants.