Because of the implication

“Are we having some kind of… cards on the table moment we weren’t planning on?” Curry asked after neither of us said anything else right away.

“I don’t know. We might be?” I replied, after considering it, and trying to decide how I felt about it if we were. “Why, what’ve you got?”

He shrugged heavily. “I’m not excited to live out my days with only my left hand for intimate company. If I suddenly insist on only having sex with people I like.”

“The hells—you use your left hand?” I asked.

“That’s your takeaway. From that statement.”

“No, I just—I'm shocked, I've known you all these years and I guess I must have figured since you’re right-handed you had to be a right-hand wanker.”

“I have no idea what I’m meant to say to that,” Curry said, hiccupping a little. “Um. You talk instead.” He gave me a little nudge to show he wasn't annoyed but please do take the stage.

“I guess I’ve been feeling unsettled lately,” I said. “There’s a bunch of stuff I decided for myself when I was really young and then never really examined again and now I don’t know anymore how I feel about most of it.” I paused. “Hey, now it's your turn not to take this for something it isn't, yeah?”

When he nodded I rubbed his arm affectionately and continued. “I settled on that never-getting-married thing not too long after Lydell. I know we were just teenagers, but I couldn’t see it being worth it. Well, I mean, with anybody but you, and since the watch meant that wasn’t an option, it wasn’t going to happen. I still don't think it's my natural bent exactly, but if things were different possibly you’d have gotten me comfortably on board with the idea eventually.”

“Oh, Fuzzy.” Curry looked almost pained.

“I mean, waah, sure, but also, haven’t you done almost the same exact thing? Maybe Bag had the right of us after all. You know?”

When he shrugged I went on. “Maybe I’m questioning the worth-it part. Maybe my bar is too high. I mean, I don’t exactly want to die alone with only undisclosed-hand for company, any more than you do.”

“I find it perversely funny. We have simultaneously swapped our adolescent views on intimate relationships,” Curry said after a moment. “Right? The last decade and a half convinced you maybe it’s time to settle, and it convinced me maybe it’s time to stop trying so hard to settle.”

“I mean—if you really want to cut to the heart, I guess—really the question we're dancing around is—do we want to reconsider the career stuff and everything else we always said was most important, so we can take each other for a spin?” I said. “Right? We’ve never really allowed ourselves to talk about that like it was a real option either of us is allowed to consider. Even that time after you were sick. But it’s not... I mean it's not actually impossible. If we were willing to pay the price for that freedom.”

I felt Curry considering his next words very carefully. “I mean… we’ve both secretly thought about it before. Yeah? We know we make a good pair no matter what we’re teaming up on.”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling my cheeks flush unexpectedly. “Sure, I guess so. Here or there on occasion. Except I don’t know any way to reconcile how important it feels to stay watch partners, with any kind of alteration to our fundamental relationship. They feel too tied to risk changing anything that might sink the whole ship.”

“I get it. Like something I really truly love about you,” Curry said, “is what a great detective you are. I don’t know how to give up the joy of seeing my favorite person be so clever at work every day.”

“Aw. Back at you.” I leaned in and kissed his shoulder. “Not to mention, what if we gave it a whirl and we weren’t compatible? Like, what if we fucked and then you spent the rest of our lives thinking with faint disappointment, so glad I risked everything for this bitch who’s so hopelessly bad at sucking cock.”

“Far more likely,” Curry disagreed, “that we’re wildly compatible. Gods save us. Fucking then what?”

“Option one,” I announced, “hello, dashed hopes and ambitions. Hope the sex stays good enough to make it worth ruining our careers over, right on the cusp of those exciting middle aged years! Not to be overshadowed by the possibly even more hideous option two: hello, fleeting discovery of perfectly blended sex and emotional intimacy, immediately followed by total, indefinite abstention, while we reassure ourselves until retirement that our prestigious career path in the watch guard is definitely worth sacrificing that!”

Curry did something that was half-laugh, half-shudder. “By the way,” he said after that, “in that incompatible sex scenario I definitely wouldn’t call you a bitch in my head and I also wouldn’t ever be so uncharitable toward you. Just saying.”

“Oh, that’s a moot point,” I said airily. “Objectively I’m an unparalleled cocksucker. I’m just throwing out an example of one way a person might embarrass themselves sexually.”

He laughed again, then subsided. “I think the thing that’s been getting me down lately,” he said after a moment, “is how I have never once taken up with somebody who made it feel possible to have conversations like this one. When it was like that from the start, with you. I didn’t understand how rare that was with other people, back then. I met you young and I thought that meant relationships like us just came along if you wanted them. You knew better.”

“Well, and now I’m reconsidering some of those thoughts. So don’t attribute a ton of wisdom to me. I just spent the last fifteen years being an outrageous slut because if I wasn’t going to have a romantic relationship I might as well fuck my way through everyone who caught my fancy. I mean, granted, a lot of it was pretty fun. But is it making me happy?”

“All this at the same time that I fucked my way through a likewise not insignificant number of women because surely soon I would find my sex-capable Fauzia analog.”

“Don’t apply sex-capable to her,” I advised. “It implies an unfavorable contrast between me and her and I promise you, I don’t appreciate that implication.”

He giggled again, then considered. “Sex… accessible?”

“That suggests disability. Implies disrespectful contrast with people who have disabilities. You know they be fucking too.”

Instead of answering that he leaned over and kissed me on the head. “I love you. Thanks for being the kind of person where we can actually talk about stuff that feels off-limits even to think. You make it a lot less hard.”

“On the heels of this sex-intensive conversation I really resent the implication that I make anything less hard,” I replied.

He snorted and gave me a drunken little swat on the shoulder.

“I meant, I love you too,” I amended. “And you’re welcome. It was a really good talk for me, too. I feel less untethered, or something.”

“Me too. Hey, to be clear, we just evaluated whether we want to turn our lives upside down and possibly fuck up our careers so we can see where things might lead if we started having sex? And the answer we settled on was, still no. Right?”

“I think so,” I said. “But tell you what. When we retire—if you still haven’t found somebody I’ll give it a go with you. It’ll be our next adventure.”

I felt the good-natured laugh rumble through his chest as he looked down at me. “It sure will be if you’re as good at sucking cock as you claim.”

I snorted. “If that apparent skepticism is you trying to goad me into proving myself, I’m far too smart for that,” I informed him.

Curry laughed hard at this, the loud, ridiculous, belly laugh I loved best, and which probably woke several of my neighbors. “You are very quick tempered, though. I still don’t hate my odds.” He yawned huge.

“Look at you, dummy—you’re about to fall asleep,” I told him. “Do you want to sleep like this since we’re cozy? Or settle into the proper bed even though it’s cold and needs warming up?”

“Proper bed,” he said immediately. “We’re too old to sleep in stupid positions like this. Ruin us both for a week.”

“Isn’t that the fucking truth,” I said, and reluctantly left my spot tucked snug against him, so I could pull the covers back and rearrange the bed to be comfortable for us both.

“Would you stay with me tomorrow when I’m probably the most hungover I’ve ever, ever been?” Curry asked as I removed his belt for him and set it on the night stand.

“Yeah. If you’re not too big a baby about it. I’ll even feed you, if you can keep anything down. Scoot this way.”

When he did, turning over to curl up facing the center of the bed, I positioned a pillow under his head and pulled the covers over him before shucking off my dressing gown and pulling a sleep shirt over my head. I expected him to be asleep by the time I came back from the privy, but Curry stayed awake, barely, until I came back and climbed into bed, shivering with the chill since we hadn’t spent the last hour warming that side with our body heat. “C’mere,” he told me, and I slid over and let him tuck his arm around me.

“Thanks for not being upset about your little rook. I was really sad about losing it,” I said as we settled in. “I’m still sad about losing it. But I feel better.”

“It’s only a thing,” Curry said sleepily, shrugging against me. “Not worried about it. Love you.”

I reached up to squeeze his arm with my free hand. “Love you too.”

There was a deep intake of breath that made me think for a second he was going to say something else, but then I realized it was only the heavy breathing of somebody very drunk, who had just fallen asleep a moment before. I shifted to soak up more of his comforting warmth, and closed my eyes.