“Is it that bad?” Molun asked gently.
Perian shrugged. “I feel silly admitting it, to be honest. He has scarcely been gone a full day. And I also keep repeating this, but I really do mean it when I say I’m proud of whoandwhat Brannal is. We probably wouldn’t have met if he wasn’t like this, and I don’t even know if I’d be alive without him. But I guess I got really used to being with him and enjoying the closeness. I didn’t give a lot of thought to when we wouldn’t be together, and I haven’t had to navigate that in a relationship before, mostly because I haven’tbeenin a relationship before. So I’m a bit of a mess, even though I realize people face this sort of thing every day. I’m totally blowing it out of proportion and being ridiculous. I just feel… off.”
Molun came all the way around the table to pull Perian into a hug.
“You arenotbeing ridiculous,” Molun told him emphatically. “It’s totally normal to feel really connected and really intense at the beginning of a relationship. Actually, if you’re lucky, you feel that through your whole relationship, but you also figure out how to navigate some things a little bit better, get a bit of perspective.”
“I am severely lacking in perspective,” Perian agreed, voice muffled since he was pressed to Molun’s shoulder.
Molun finally released him and offered a kind smile. “Perspective is overrated.”
Perian huffed a laugh.
A little more practically, Arvus said, “That’s totally normal at the beginning of a relationship, too. It takes work to meld two lives together when they used to be separate. You can get swept up in the emotions of it, but there’s also a lot of prosaic things to figure out. You’re taking someone else’s likes and dislikes and preferences and living arrangements, and you’re trying to meld them with your own when they might be quite different. It takes a lot of adjustment, and some of the shine at the beginning of a relationship is probably to help us get through what would otherwise be a really annoying period.”
Molun leaned in and stage-whispered, “I leave cups of tea and water lying around.”
Arvus looked mildly annoyed. “How many cups does one person actually need? Can you drink more than one at once? Yet they show upall around the room.”
Perian pressed his lips together and tried not to laugh at them too hard. Apparently, every couple had its issues.
Molun squeezed his arm reassuringly. “You’re still in those beginning stages. It’s totally normal to want to be together all the time, and totally normal to miss your partner when they’re not here. You shouldn’t feel like you’re doing anything wrong.”
Perian blew out a breath. He hadn’t thought about it quite like that, but there was part of him thathadbeen thinking he must be at fault, that it was easier for everyone else, instead of just acknowledging that this was how he felt.
Quietly, he admitted, “I think I feel like I’m letting him down a bit, not being able to cope with this.”
He could onlyimaginehow Cormal would react to the knowledge that Perian couldn’t even manage a single day of being away from Brannal.
Arvus intervened to say very firmly, “You are absolutely not doing that. Brannal will be saddenedfor your sakeif you’re not doing great when he returns, but he will absolutely not be disappointed by any of your behavior.”
“Unless you do something truly heinous like kick kittens,” Molun added.
“Except for then,” Arvus agreed seamlessly.
Perian grinned at them. “Thank you. You two are very good friends.”
“We are the best,” Molun agreed.
It definitely felt better to be laughing with them than sitting around an empty table in Brannal’s room feeling sorry for himself.
It grew later, however, and eventually it was time for bed. Although they renewed the invitation for Perian to stay with them—“Totally without pressure, we promise!”—he decided to head back to Brannal’s rooms. They’d made him feel somewhat better, but it still seemed to him that he should be able to manage sleeping on his own.
He got ready for bed, climbed under the covers, and drew in a deep breath, smelling the scent of Brannal that was thankfully still trapped in the bedding. It made him feel simultaneously closer to the man and further away because this was the best Perian was going to be able to experience right now.
But it would be worse without it.
And then, just like he’d said this morning, Perian curled up in the blankets and hugged Brannal’spillow as he tried to pretend it was the other man with him.
It didn’t work. It took a long time for Perian to fall asleep, probably in part because he was used to the two of them tumbling into bed together, having sex, and dropping off into a thoroughly sated sleep. He could jerk off, had done that for large portions of his life, but the idea of taking himself in hand because Brannal wasn’t here was not at all appealing.
Perian eventually managed to doze a little, then woke too early, feeling like there was something missing. He knew exactly what, of course. He just had to make it through six more days.
He went to join the Warriors because training seemed better than staring at nothing and being an idiot, but it became clear quite quickly that he was dragging. He wound up being knocked to the ground multiple times in rapid succession, smacked on a number of body parts with several practice swords and knives, and finally pulled to the side by Onadal and told to, “Watch the pretty people for a little while—you like that, don’t you?”
Periandidlike watching pretty people, and he tried to get lost in the enjoyment of muscles and displays of strength and agility. It didn’t work quite as well as usual, but it was probably still better than getting bruised because his concentration was completely shot.
There were some snide comments from a few of the Warriors, but Perian ignored them. He was neither interested in nor concerned with their opinions.
