What levity the night had gained slowly faded when they returned home. True Name explained that she had barely slept the night previous and needed to do so urgently, and as soon as the door shut behind her, May’s shoulders sagged and she dragged em off to the bedroom. It was still early for them to be going to sleep, but then, ey was plenty tired enough.
They settled into bed, not talking, just resting forehead-to-forehead while Ioan pet through May’s soft fur. There didn’t seem to be anything that either of them needed to say, or if there was, not yet something they could.
Eventually, though, they shifted to their usual spots, May tucked back against Ioan’s front, and slept straight through until morning.
Ey woke to the quiet sounds of True Name rustling around in the kitchen, mugs being pulled down from the shelves. Ey grumbled, wondering why she hadn’t thought to set up a cone of silence, then realized she’d almost certainly left it off intentionally as a subtle way to let them know that she was up. With her memories from End Waking, she almost certainly could be quieter than she was.
Ey carefully slid out of bed, tucking the covers back over May to let her continue to doze.
“Good morning,” True Name said quietly, bowing to em and holding out a mug of coffee. “Black, yes?”
“Morning,” ey said, accepting the coffee with a nod of thanks. “Caught up on sleep?”
She shrugged. “A little, perhaps. Unnerving dreams, unnerving memories coming to the fore.”
“Hopefully that lessens over time.”
“It should, yes. It is already less overwhelming than it was yesterday afternoon.” She shook her head. “But I am sure you are tired of that topic after the last few days. How about you, my dear? Did you sleep well?”
“Well enough, I guess. I certainly needed it.”
“Coffee,” May mumbled, stumbling out of the bedroom, looking disheveled. “You did not bring me coffee.”
Ioan snorted and shook eir head. “I just got up, too, May. I’ve barely had a sip, myself.”
“No excuses, only coffee.”
“It is on the counter, May Then My Name. I promise I did not leave you out.”
The skunk mumbled her thanks and retrieved her mug, lapping groggily.
As if on some hidden signal, they moved to the dining table to drink their coffees, all apparently too tired to do much else.
It was True Name who finally broke the silence, speaking quietly, more down to her coffee than anything. “I find myself caught off-guard by the sudden ending of the merge. I have never experienced that with any other merger. Perhaps it is down to individuation.”
“How do you mean?”
“I remember going to sleep here, but I also remember going to sleep with Debarre in my arms. I remember waking up with him, working with him through the day, even while I remember us talking to each other, and then I remember your message, May, and then everything stops.”
May’s ears flicked back and she ducked her snout, looking abashed. “I did not think of that. I am sorry. I will apologize to them as well.”
True Name lifted her gaze and smiled faintly to May. “I do not think you need to worry too much, my dear. We– they discussed it a few nights ago. It was something as a shock to be used to sleeping alone and also to not have someone in bed with me.
“I think May would explode without someone in bed with her,” Ioan said, hoping to keep the mood light.
“It is not not true. I do not sleep well alone.”
“I have not experienced a relationship as True Name in…some years. Even then we slept in separate beds.”
May’s grip on her coffee mug tightened and she slouched down further in her seat.
“I didn’t know you were in a relationship,” Ioan said. “Did you, uh…well, I mean, is that what you two talked about a few days back?”
Both skunks nodded.
“I don’t mean to pry,” ey added. “Sorry if it’s too personal.”
After a long silence, True Name sighed. “No, I think you will eventually learn about it anyway.” When May’s ears flattened, she hastened to add, “At least in part.”
Ey stayed quiet. Ey wasn’t sure how much to push or back off, whether or not there was some boundary ey should be aware of. It seemed more complex than simply keeping the relationship secret.
“I met a young fox some centuries back.” The skunk spoke slowly and carefully. “Red fox, that is, rather than a fennec like Dear. Furries tend to clump together, and I suppose I am no exception. We quickly became friends, then trusted confidants, and then occasional lovers. I did not let us become more than that. There was romance between us, but I was not comfortable becoming romantically entangled in my position.”
“That makes sense. I don’t know why I thought that wouldn’t be case, actually.”
“I have said in the past that you — that all of those in the clade who have formed lasting romantic relationships — have done something I was never able to,” she said. “That remains true. Zacharias and I never quite rose to the level of relationship. Lovers, yes, and perhaps even in love, but never partners. It was always in private, always alone. I had an image to maintain, and that did not include having a boyfriend.”
“Did you want one?”
“Pardon?”
Realizing the sensitive nature of the question, ey held up eir hands. “Sorry, I asked that without thinking. I was wondering if you wanted a partner, even if you felt your image wouldn’t allow that.”
Another long silence followed before she spoke again. “Had you asked me that prior to the merge, I do not think I would have been comfortable answering, but in the context of the memories I now share of Debarre, I think that has changed into a solid ‘I do not know’. I do not know if I wanted a partner, because it was more important for me to think about maintaining my image than it was for me to think about love, on some subconscious level.”
Ey finished eir coffee and toyed with the empty mug, rotating it first this way and then that on the table while ey thought. Eventually, the two skunks fell into quiet, polite conversation, talking about something ey was too distracted to care about.
They both agreed to more coffee, so ey tasked emself with making another pot, hoping that breaking out of the context would give em more room to think.
That True Name felt such a strong need to maintain her image was more than a little alien to em. However, when it came to her not knowing whether or not she wanted a partner, ey felt an almost unnerving level of concordance with eir own life prior to meeting the Odists, and perhaps even prior to meeting May. Ey did not have an image to maintain, simply a lack of social awareness that kept em from remembering that having a partner was even a thing that ey could do. Ey and True Name always seemed to have something that kept them from thinking about love until something — May for em and this merge (or perhaps even this conversation) for True Name — suddenly forced the issue.
Ey didn’t know what part of em was in charge of making such predictions, but the thought that May might try to merge down with True Name forced itself into eir mind and wedged firmly in place. They’d talked about how each of the three skunks were good people some nights back, but in the face of the last two days, ey couldn’t think of why, what reason eir partner might even have to do so. A need to force her to experience her own resentment? Or to feel that desire? A desire to help her become a better person? A fit of pique?
It made no sense, and yet this sudden image of True Name as the type of person who might have a relationship, who now had decades of memories of dating Debarre in the form of End Waking seemed to have set off a runaway train of thought.
“Ioan?”
Ey started out of eir rumination. “Mm? Sorry. Was I mumbling?”
May grinned. “A little, but also you have been standing there for quite a while and you promised us coffee.”
“Oh! Shit, I’m sorry.” Ey laughed as best ey could to banish any look of the panic ey felt from eir face. Ey brought the pot of coffee over to the table along with the cream and sugar for May and True Name so that they could top up their mugs accordingly.
Ey drifted in and out of the present moment after that, surfacing now and then to do a bit of work or, at one point, to run another sweep of the house at the behest of True Name, in case she’d brought any hitchhikers with her. She hadn’t, but it was probably a good idea all the same.
The relatively pleasant morning fell again into a vague sense of tension within the house. Ey was sure that ey was the cause of at least a part of it, what with the way May kept checking in on em.
The rest seemed to fall back to True Name, though, who, after coffee, had sagged in her chair and mentioned that she’d been holding some demanding memories at bay. “I need to deal deal with these or I am sure I will unwind like Michelle,” she had mumbled on the way to her room, leading May to put down her work and curl up on the beanbag.
Ey joined her, despite all of the distractions whirling around in eir head. Ey couldn’t sort any of them out now, but the least ey could do was comfort eir partner.
All that crying these last few days, I wouldn’t be surprised if she overflows soon, ey thought while petting over her ears. And who knows how that’ll work with True Name.
A simple dinner of pasta was shared with more polite conversation, and then they broke off to their own spaces again, True Name requesting the location tag for Arrowhead Lake so that she could go for a walk “somewhere with fewer right-angles”.
It wasn’t until they were getting ready for bed that ey pulled eir thoughts together into a coherent enough form to ask May the question that had been nagging at em all day.
“Do you think you’ll merge down, May?”
The skunk paused in the middle of tugging off her shirt, leaving just her snout-tip and midriff exposed. “Let me think on that for a moment, please.”
They both finished undressing and climbed into bed, em settling back and her with her head on eir chest.
“Okay. Now. Why do you ask, my dear?”
“I’m not actually sure. Maybe a little because you had a hand in End Waking merging down, but I think mostly the talk this morning about Debarre and, uh…Zacharias, was it?”
She nodded.
“I think that made me think of it because until this point, it’s all been happening at one layer of remove for me. She’s my friend and I like her as such, but she’s not my cocladist or coworker. I’m not in a relationship with her. None of this has been happening with her as someone I’m super close to.”
“But if I merge down, she will remember having been in a relationship with you. You will be more directly involved.”
“Yeah.”
They lay in silence for a bit. Ey didn’t know what May was thinking about, but ey kept cycling over just how much ey and eir partner had shared over the last few months alone, all those little bits of affection and physicality when True Name had expressed on more than one occasion that such simply wasn’t for her, all the private conversations they’d shared with the understanding that they’d remain such.
“I will admit that I have been thinking about it,” she said, then lifted her snout to dot her nose on the underside eir chin. “But after the last few days and coming to terms with what that would actually mean for her, I am feeling much more cautious about the prospect.”
“Okay,” ey said carefully, not wanting to jostle her snout too much. “Can we make sure to talk about it more if you do decide to?”
“Of course, my dear. You and I never shut up.”
“Mmhm, best that way,” ey murmured, then added more seriously, “I mean the three of us, though.”
“We will, Ioan. It would be unfair to all of us not to.” May lowered her snout again and tightened her grip around eir middle. “Do you want me not to? You are allowed to say yes.”
Ey sighed and placed a kiss atop her head. “I don’t know, May. I need way more time to think on it.”
She nodded. “I will give you all the time in the world.”
“Thanks, May.”
They settled in for sleep, letting the topic drop and trusting that there would be time enough to discuss it, just focusing on closeness and comfort.
“Ioan?”
“Mm?” Ey’d nearly dozed off, and sleep was still tugging at em.
“I love you. You know that, right?”
“‘Course I do. I love you too, May.”
That, at least, was a pleasant note to fall asleep to, one made for pleasant dreams.