I know you would not actually let me do anything I would later be uncomfortable with. I, just - I would be a little embarrassed if you said I had tried to push you on it repeatedly or something. He trusts Maitimo, at least here and now, that's not the part that's in question. 

No. Hug. Honestly you were too distractible to be insistent about anything but also you remembered you shouldn't.

Good. He relaxes. Then I think I liked last night. I would not want to do that very often, I think, it is a bit uncomfortable being that impaired. Not at the time, he'd been perfectly content with it at the time, but now. But I am glad we did it and - I think maybe it helped, for me? I am not sure with what. It feels obscurely like there's some weight he's been carrying, and finally realized he could set down. 

I'm really glad. It's - really good that you feel safe enough you can do it. 

I think so too. I think - if I can mostly trust myself not to do stupid things when I am that level of absurdly impaired, I do not actually need to worry very much about the times when I am not intoxicated. He pauses, thoughtful. I think it is probably much easier to make wise decisions when one has not recently inherited one's brain from a teenager. 

Seems pretty likely. And when under less extraordinary stress, and when no one is trying to get you to make bad ones.

Nod. Then I think I am more comfortable with - not worrying very much that I will accidentally do something that hurts you. And - even if I do I trust you to stop me, and leave if you have to. That feels very, very good to him, actually, another weight he can set down. 

Yes. I don't think you need to worry about that at all.

Then he can finally stop being scared. Or try, anyway, it's a deeply-engrained habit and it might take longer to break fully.

I love you. I am so glad to be married to you, and that you are here now and we can be together, and - we have so much future...

We do. Forever and ever ... until we find something even bigger and even worse out there.

Sigh. There are not going to stop being problems. Not for a very, very long time, if ever. But - this, where we are now, is better than I could have imagined twenty years ago. Even taking into account the part where you spent a while trying to murder me. 

I was thinking about that, last night, trying to imagine the Leareth I first met ever letting his guard down that much -

I absolutely would not have! I think even now, I would not do it with anyone except you. 

I am glad that you trust me. It feels unearned - or, I feel very distant from the person who earned it - but you are not wrong to. 

It's not the same trust, Telumë thinks. It's - causally related, of course, there's a reason he tried so hard to find a way of trusting this Maitimo, he wouldn't have for a stranger. But it still feels to him like a new thing that they've built - are still building - he's not sure how to point at it better than that. 

- nod. He's - mad, sort of, that the old thing was lost, it was a good thing, but - but it's nice to have something he is building as the person he is now. 

And he wants to kiss Telumë but they haven't negotiated anything about today at all. Ethics are terrible.

He’s still pretty upset about everything they lost - all of it was good - but, well, he’s also a pretty different person, it would need to be different anyway.

I think I need some time alone after this to think, he says. He's happy but also feels kind of off-balance. Are you free tonight, though? Or tomorrow, if that is preferable. 

I am free tonight. And tomorrow.

Then I think tonight, but can I confirm with you later this afternoon? 

Of course. And he hugs him and heads out.

Telumë putters around his house for the rest of the morning, takes a quick nap, and once his head is less fuzzy, wanders out into the city. Remembers dozens of times, when this house or garden or statue was built, years ago, how he would think about someday showing it to Maitimo.

He has a broader foundation now than he did at the beginning; it's not just held together on Maitimo. But he is sort of still, metaphorically, a house that was originally built around loving Maitimo, so all their interactions poke him pretty deeply. He needs to walk around and metaphorically touch all of the other things that a Telumë is built on, find his balance again. 

He feels a lot steadier by midafternoon, and is starting to miss Maitimo. He reaches out with osanwë. So, tonight? 

If so I think you had better announce what's on the menu right now.

I have been considering whether it even makes sense to keep doing the strict precommitments here, Telumë admits. I think perhaps it does not? It was very helpful for - helping me calibrate on whether and how much I can trust myself, but I feel fairly calibrated on this now? And I trust you. And thinking about the limits beforehand when I am not sure what mood I will end up being is difficult and takes a lot of attention. 

That works too. Whatever is good for you, really, so long as - you feel sure you chose it.

I have spent most of today thinking about it, and I am quite sure from my side. I wanted to make sure it would not make anything feel more difficult for you, changing it at this point.