You insulting-adjective insulting-noun

“It makes enough sense,” I said. “But I won’t lie, that sounds a little alarming.”

“Yeah. I know. And it’s not just my life, I have you to think of.”

“Well. I’d be bullshitting if I pretended this didn’t make me even more curious what these things are you’re afraid to think too hard about,” I told him.

“I’ll talk to you about it. But promise you won’t think that just because something crossed my mind, means it carries real weight. Tonight I was doing a lot of thinking about outlandish possibilities I’m pretty sure we’d never do. It was one of those times even all the most unfeasible ideas get hauled out for evaluation ‘cause you’re already on your hind legs by the time you get to them and you lost track of what’s not an option because it’s actually a bad idea, and what’s not an option because you’re scared of what it would really mean to make and act on decisions that change everything.”

“Yeah. Can’t pretend I’m unfamiliar with that panic spiral, I suppose.”

He cut me a little half smile. “I know. It’s the only reason I can bring myself to say any of this shit aloud to you.”

“So what are your outlandish possibilities?” I asked, feeling none of the apprehension I should have, from the most important person in my life proposing a parade of challenges to his own status quo.

“I guess first—after we discussed getting a place a few weeks ago—I felt happier recently than I have in ages. I was thinking tonight and realized I really want to do that, even though everything you said was completely true. People will talk shit. More rumor mill crap to fend off. How the fuck do we meet people when we live together—leading to sidebar, are we still trying to meet people—and on and on. I’m positive this will guarantee that stupid fucking oh my gods is Inspector Bersk pregnant with Inspector Curry’s little tusky baby chestnut will resurface again every time you retain a little water during your period. Ugh.”

“Yeah. I feel the same way, though. I liked the idea. Even though all that shit.”

Curry sighed. “I think maybe the reason I just couldn’t stop belting down whiskey tonight is—I don’t know how to put it other than I’m so fucking sick of having sex with people I don’t like as much as you. This is the part where I don’t want you to think I’m suggesting shit I’m not,” he added quickly. “What I’m wondering is—does this person even fucking exist? Why do I keep looking? I’m really tired of trying out different people and all of them being either awful or boring as shit. And I’m intensely aware of how weird and dysfunctional it feels to know we both slept with other people tonight, and still I came to your place in the middle of the night to get the companionship I wanted, ‘cause I didn’t figure out fast enough I don’t even like the person I fucked.”

“I’m sorry that my dramatic thing a few weeks ago made you worry about your own life,” I said.

Curry shrugged. “I think all it did was bring stuff to the surface that I’ve been trying to avoid thinking about.” He looked down at me, squinting a little. “You don’t look like you’re panicking about the stuff I said. But reassure me you’re not privately panicking. I don’t want you to think this is some confessional shit when it’s a thought experiment at most.”

“I’m not panicking,” I told him. “Really, I’m impressed with you for articulating these thoughts so well right now. You remember the time after you had fever, when I had the unholy tantrum and screamed at you and Bag came after me? The shit he said to me—I mean it was almost a decade ago and I never told you all the details because—I don’t know, it might unravel a whole lot of things I was scared to tinker with?”

He sat up a little straighter and looked at me. “Well, now I’m the very curious one. What kind of stuff that oughtn’t be tinkered with?”

“I might be overstating it. But he lectured me at some length, about what he felt was my appalling misunderstanding of our entire relationship dynamic. He did his thing where he says, ‘Here’s a fact extremely evident to me, which I’m outraged you must be told aloud. New sentence. You insulting-adjective insulting-noun.’”

Curry giggled. “You irremediable juvenile.”

I squeezed his arm. “You hapless misfit.”

“You unweaned brat.”

“Not that it wasn’t kind of justified after the evidence fuckup that prompted the outburst, but I actually felt sorry for Greeley, when he said that,” I said. “In front of the captain, I mean.”

“I know,” Curry said. “To say something so cutting to a fourteen year old. Harsh.”

I snort-laughed so hard at this it brought tears to my eyes.

“I’m really keen to know,” Curry said to me when I recovered. “What did Bag have to say concerning your profound misinterpretation of us? What even was your profound misinterpretation, dare I ask?”

“Some of it was rather astute, in ways I could never have explained to you at that age. He intercepted me before I could succeed in impulsively letting that —probably ten square foot—bedsit in Littletown—you know that bit already, I know—and after he escorted me out of there and scolded me about that, I was sobbing about how you laughed at the priest calling you my husband, and this meant you were going to marry some pretty elf who would turn you against me and then I’d have nothing at all worth living for! I was feeling maybe a bit dramatic at the time.”

“We’ve both had our moments.” He squeezed my shoulder.

“Bag launched into this whole lecture. We argued about how outrageously insulting I thought he was being to you and me both. I told you a little of that part too. I didn’t share all the details of how we tangled over him saying I was an idiot to think you’d ever settle for marrying somebody other than me. His take was, it was totally immaterial who we met our sexual needs with, because neither of us was about to give up the functionally-married emotional commitment we have to each other. So unless we decided to add sex to our thing, there was no scenario where either of us was getting a total package with another person.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”