# Ioan Bălan --- 2350

Ioan awoke, arms empty, asleep on eir front. Ey was not a front-sleeper, so this came with a stiff neck that ey knew would dog em throughout the rest of the day.

At some point during the night, May had apparently slid as carefully as she could from eir arms, bundled herself up in a second set of covers, and curled up at the far edge of the mattress. A muffled sniffle showed her to be awake.

"You okay, May?" ey asked, sitting up beside her.

She shook her head.

"Alright. Can I hug?"

A pause, and then another shake of the head.

"That's okay," ey said, doing eir best to keep disappointment out of eir voice. "I'll go get some stuff pulled together for while I'm out. Want a cup of coffee?"

She nodded before pulling the covers up and over her head.

That was probably a good enough sign for em to get up. If the skunk was already to the point of being nonverbal, it wouldn't do either of them any good to try and keep talking, regardless of how much ey wanted to address her every need.

Coffee was a good first priority, though, and easily sorted. It was something ey could start and finish with little thought and which had a tangible outcome, a little bit of success rather than some ill-defined end-state.

While waiting, ey pinged Douglas to let him know what was going on and to request a spot to sleep. After a moment's hesitation, ey sent End Waking a quick message, as well. Ey received simple acknowledgements from both.

Ey doctored the skunk's coffee to her liking and returned to the room to set it down on the bedside table closest to her, taking a cue from True Name and moving noisily enough that she'd know ey was there without being obnoxiously loud.

A moment's thought was spent on shifting the weather in the sim to something warmer, more springlike. Ey'd heard enough kvetching about the snow the last few days to figure that might help as well.

From there, ey spent half an hour queuing up some meals for her, working in a cone of silence. Things that she'd mentioned as comfort foods in the past, all things that ey could cook emself or create in-sim through something acquired on the exchange. Chicken soup, mashed potatoes, more poor-skunk's-risotto.

While ey was prepping and stocking the food, another thought occurred to em. It was unlikely, but True Name might need to come back to the house, either to create more goods or to sleep or just to get out of the elements. To keep this from bothering May while she took the time she needed, ey shifted the ACLs of the house to be owner-only, so that those trying to enter would have to specifically request access, then stepped just inside the other bedroom's door and created a new entry-point for True Name so that she could go just to the bedroom without entering the rest of the house.

True Name sent a curt ping of acknowledgement when ey sent the information over via sensorium message.

Ey tried not to let it rankle. Everything felt so confined and restricted. So much of eir circle of friends was out in the world and so few of them came over with any frequency that to suddenly have even those ey was closest to --- romantically in the case of May, and by friendship and sheer proximity in the case of True Name --- requesting eir absence felt like ey was being cut off from everyone.

"Which isn't true," ey mumbled to emself while packing up eir notes. "Security's one thing, but it's not like everyone's inaccessible. Keeping everyone safe doesn't mean cutting off contact for yourself, Ioan. "

Ey looked down to eir small stack of notebooks and the three-pen case resting atop it and sighed. "And talking to yourself doesn't count."

With that, ey peeked in the bedroom one last time. May had sat up and was staring dully down into her mug of coffee, blanket worn like a hooded robe. Her cheek-fur was already streaked with tears.

"I'm going to head out, May. Douglas's, as usual. Be safe, okay?"

*Okay,* she signed.

"Need anything else before I go?"

*Hug.*

Ey nodded and stepped further into the room, leaning in to get eir arms around the skunk. She didn't return the gesture, but did at least push her snout up under eir chin momentarily before leaning away. Given the tightness in her face, ey suspected an onslaught of emotion was only just being held at bay.

"Love you, May. Lots and lots."

She managed to sign an I-love-you before pulling the 'hood' of blankets down enough to hide her face.

Knowing she'd only resent em if ey lingered or touched her again, ey clutched eir notebooks to eir chest, waved, and quickly stepped out to the field of dandelions and grass. The light and heat were a shock, and ey stood, swaying, for a moment, simply squinting out to the horizon.

Ey queued up a message to Douglas and murmured, "I'm here, but going for a walk, first," before heading away from the house.

There was nothing out there. No destination. No variance in the rolling hills of well-tended grass and the yellow suns of dandelions. The only break at all in the landscape was Douglas's house, and ey kept that at eir back.

As ey walked, ey considered what it meant to overflow. Was it just an Odist thing? Certainly some aspects of it were. The way that Codrin described Dear's manic forking, each instance left with simply a shard of its personality, felt very Dear. May, End Waking, and True Name's overflowing all sounded uniquely them, as well, and A Finger Pointing mentioned that hers was different still, though had declined to expand on it.

But here ey was, feeling like all of the stress of the last day, of the last few weeks had filled em up to overflowing. Presented with the sudden silence and stillness of the field, ey realized just how much ey'd been running on desperation and borrowed time.

With the slightest break in the pressure, that loan was called due.

Realizing that ey couldn't see the subtle rises in the land for the tears in eir eyes, ey simply sat down in the grass and cried. *If I am overflowing,* some remote part of em thought, *then I can certainly see the appeal to it. Catharsis indeed.*

Though there was certainly nothing ey could have done to stop it, ey decided to just own it and let it take its course, hollering curses into the cone of silence ey had the presence of mind to set up, clutching at the grass to keep emself anchored to the ground. Ey'd watched a good friend (for that's what True Name was, wasn't she?) nearly get assassinated in front of em, had dealt with eir partner's lingering resentment towards her down-tree instance come into conflict with her constant presence, had watched May push True Name to near catatonia after encouraging her to accept a century and a half's worth of memories from End Waking. Ey had watched both overflow in the span of a few hours.

And when ey stopped cycling over the last two weeks, ey simply wept for the sheer relief it provided.

When ey'd cried emself out and cleaned emself up, ey levered emself up off the ground and trudged back toward the house. The least ey could do was say hi and get another cup of coffee.

Douglas Hadje was sitting on the stoop of his house, waiting for em.

"Hey, Douglas. Sorry about that."

He stood and offered em a hug, which ey accepted gratefully. "No worries, walks are good too. How's May?"

"She's...well, she'll get by. I just hope it doesn't last too long. Thanks for letting me stay. Please tell me you put coffee on."
