Élie is not even panicking a little bit about how Naima probably wants a divorce! Maybe a little bit. Just a smidge. A smidge which he can acknowledge is completely irrational. Look at how much progress he's making. 

"Of course. Is anything wrong?"

Well. 

"Actually I lied, I don't want to have this conversation at all, but I'm going to anyway!" That's got to be one of the least reassuring things she could have said, whoops. "Nothing's wrong. I mean, nothing's really wrong, in the sense that I guess technically something is wrong, but this time I'm trying to do the thing where you say words before we both hare off in stupid directions and decide that we don't like each other, when the original problem was actually very minor and not a big deal at all and certainly much less of a big deal than the stupid directions themselves."

...maybe she should have planned this beforehand.

"Anyway! This is very awkward but I don't think you can reasonably criticize me for talking about it after how not talking about it went last time, so! I have noticed that we have not gone back to having sex. I think this is totally normal after having a baby, but it's been a couple months and we both have rings of sustenance so neither of us are sleep deprived, and I got everything fully healed up right after the baby was born, so I think there are not any actual reasons to delay anymore if we both want to do that, except I guess I don't actually know whether you do, because I haven't asked, apart from this conversation, which I guess sort of obliquely counts as asking? And I know what I would normally do about this, but whenever I think about doing that it feels impossible, and if you were a different person I would figure this was fine, right, because probably you would take some kind of action about it yourself at some point, except based on your past behavior I really don't expect that to happen, so instead I'm trying to have a conversation about it, which I realize is probably not strictly speaking the ideal thing to do, but I can't really think of any more straightforward ways of handling this, if you're not going to and I'm not going to, so."

She kind of feels like seven-charisma people should be drowned, sometimes. Oh well.

Oh. That. Yeah, Élie's been thinking about that. 

"I'm sorry. I've missed you. I didn't know when you'd feel ready for sex again, and I thought you'd tell me – and now that I'm saying that out loud I see where this went wrong."  

"That does seem like it has historically never happened."

"You didn't actually say that you want to start having sex again. Just that you didn't know if I wanted to. And – if you're not comfortable being naked around me yet, are you sure – ?" 

" - well I don't want to now, now I'm busy dying of having said all of that. Sorry, that's much more confusing than I meant to make this. I had about half a step of a plan that was supposed to end in that, but the plan failed to account for the sheer level of awkwardness of this conversation. Ugh."

"I don't know why it should be so awkward – I'm not blaming you for it, I'm just as bad. But we're ostensibly two married people and both of age. We've got a baby. One we made in the traditional manner, even." 

"I know! One would really expect to have figured something out by now!"

Sigh. Maybe she'll just flop down beside him and see if snuggling makes this conversation less awful. She thinks it does, actually, having some channel for reassurance that isn't blocked by her general incompetence at personal expression.

"Okay. Proposal, open to counterproposals. I will tell you what I want, with the understanding that anything I say about this will be said about as artfully as one really ought to have expected, given the manner in which I proposed to you, and you can think less of me for it anyway, but if you do you'll be being at least as ridiculous as I am. And then you have to tell me what you want, too."

Oh, that's nice. He pets her hair. 

"I wouldn't think less of you. I like that you're blunt. It reminds me that you couldn't lie to me."

Aww, hair pets are nice. She leans into his touch and tells herself that people mostly don't give hair pets to people who they are totally neutral about touching.

"I think there's a difference between bluntness and whatever this is? But since you presumably mean the thing that you have observed me to do, that does in fact make me feel better. You still have to actually agree to this proposal before I go ahead with it. Or suggest something else that you think is better."

"I like this one. ...I'm worried I like this one too much. Since it puts all the burden of the asking on you." 

"Oh, sorry, that wasn't a general proposal for solving this problem entirely. That was a very specific right now proposal for continuing this conversation, in which I agree to give you even more context on what I am feeling, which I assure you will be even more embarrassing, so come to think of it I'm not even entirely sure you want it, except you pretty much said you did, so you probably do? And in exchange you agree to give me some amount more context on what you are feeling, because I do not feel like I have a particularly clear enough picture of it to be getting on with, right now. One of the things that I am feeling is that expecting both of us to always be able to rely entirely on my signals, and, apparently, failing that, my conversational flailing, seems like it is probably a deeply inefficient system on multiple levels. You can have that one for free."

It's possible that they could be closer together. Élie should fix that.

"That sounds agonizing. Let's do it." 

"Okay!" she says brightly, and then snuggles up as close as she can, because it does, actually, sound agonizing.

Snuggle.

"I love you very much, and I believe that with patience and effort we will one day have an intimate conversation in a manner befitting rational adults." 

"Okay."

Deep breath.

"I think I actually mostly want to know that you want to have sex with me. Like, I will then want to have sex with you about it, but I think mostly what I want isn't specifically the sex itself, and more the part where I get obvious evidence that I have not metaphorically transformed into an annis hag, or something, yes I'm aware that it doesn't actually make sense to expect you to think that, and that you still think I'm really pretty and are happy about getting to be with me, not just because of all of my objectively impressive qualities but also because you think I am, additionally, incredibly physically desirable. But you don't do that unless I'm already acting like it has to be true, and acting like it has to be true when I don't feel like it is sounds - hard. And kind of unpleasant. I am deeply unclear on how reasonable any part of this is, except the part about being an annis hag, which I guess is not literally true, but exaggerating makes it easier for you to contradict it, you know, in the case where there's a grain of truth to the feeling but the feeling is taking the grain and running with it in a direction where the truth is being exaggerated into something obviously ridiculous."

He is going to bury his face in her shoulder, how about that. 

"In the first place, I don't think you're anything like an annis hag. Except for the sometimes disguising yourself by wearing other creature's skins – sorry. Not relevant.  I've always found you beautiful. I didn't know that I was – " 

– and as he says it he realizes that it isn't strictly true – 

"– no. The truth is, I did worry that you'd be hurt if I never showed that I wanted you. But then, you seemed happy, and things were working, so I convinced myself that I didn't need to do better. " 

I can try to explain why I think I'm like this, but it's stupid and shameful and I'm having trouble saying words about it with my mouth. 

Maybe Élie should get hair pets, too, if he's actually worried about this. Is that weird? She probably can't really be expected not to do weird things sometimes. Hair pets seem appropriate.

Mind words are fine. You're hardly going to scare me off, love.

Ohhh, hair pets are nice. Naima should keep doing that.

The truth – and you really have to promise you won't laugh – is that it frightens me. I'm not afraid of you, it isn't that. There is simply a small, treacherous, unreasonable corner of my soul which has the fixed idea that if I ask someone to sleep with me I'll – lose. Give them power over me. They'll know I want something from them, and use that to extract something I value more. 

I wish I had a more rational explanation. I've never worried you'd do something like this. I do want you. I don't actually feel any particular aversion to telling you I want you. I don't mind asking for other things. I could blame my upbringing, but there are thousands raised just the same who don't suffer from this particular brand of cowardice. It is a failing for which I have no excuse, and which I owe it to you to correct. 

Cowardice seems like a strong word.

I'm doing something that hurts someone I love because I'm afraid. 

That's - a technically accurate but very dramatic way of putting it? I'm not exactly experiencing any great suffering, here. I just... have noticed that I want something, and you want something, and we're not getting it, and it seems like this should be a fixable problem.

I don't suppose it's at all helpful to point out that I do in fact want various things from you and mostly already try to tell you about them? ...although I guess I can't claim that I've been successfully telling you about this, which I suppose is how we've ended up in this situation. Just, in terms of extracting other things, uh, the sane way to get those is - asking, right? I don't see why I'd pull some complicated scheme where you don't get to have sex unless you trade me something else. Also that sounds vanishingly unlikely to work on you in particular. I think I'd have a much higher chance of success if I just made sad faces at you.

I'm sorry, I know you already know all of this, it's just the first thing I thought of. Hm.

If I thought you were likely to try something like that I wouldn't have married you. It's – actually, do you have an Owl's Wisdom?

Not prepped. I can if you want to wait fifteen minutes, I've got very little to do with spells down here.

I can do it in a minute if I just get my spellbook, but that would require getting up and no longer having my hair stroked. 

He does so, very reluctantly.