DISCLAIMER: Adult language and themes. One of them doesn't have much clothes.
Koth and V'ro's Weyr, Xanadu Weyr
It's on the cliffside facing the beach. Think rock.
Under normal circumstances, F'yr is one of the last individuals to come walking into someone else's private space without a clear invitation. Considering that he has yet to issue an invitation to V'ro to come to his homestead and almost certainly considers his own invitation to V'ro's rescinded, he really shouldn't be here. And yet, with the explosion in the Council Chambers the day before, these are not normal circumstances. He comes dressed in his riding leathers of warm browns with darker brown accents, delivered by his own obnoxious dragon no less. Fortunately, Glori doesn't stay. Unfortunately, he doesn't take his rider with him when he goes. F'yr's greeting to the green who calls this place hers, if she were there, would have entailed a simple, "Hello, Koth. I need to see him." Otherwise, V'ro's first warning is the bronzerider's voice calling ahead as he walks the familiar path, "V'ro? It's F'yr. I'm coming in." And so he does. He probably comes slowly enough that V'ro could grab pants if he doesn't have them on and cares.
Koth is there when Glorioth lands, tucked away in the depression of her wallow. She greets the bronze, warbles at the bronzerider, and doesn't seem particularly bothered by their presence. Not even when Glorioth abandons his rider there. But she must not warn her rider, because V'ro is sitting on the floor in a pair of undershorts, propped up against the frame of his bed, with a bottle of booze and a handful of darts that he's been wasting time throwing at the board across from his bed until the firelizards decided it wasn't a fun game anymore. Maybe he ran out of food to bribe them with. "No one's here," he calls back, making it pretty obvious that he is, indeed, here.
By comparison, F'yr looks unfairly put together. Perhaps he's looking to even the score as he pulls the cord from where it held his now rather longer than chin-length hair back. Did that help? Probably not so much, but he does move his way over to V'ro, into his personal space at the risk of being unpleasantly impaled by a dart, and crouches. Does it help that he looks over the greenrider's face as though it's the first sign of spring after a bitter winter? There's hope there, but just a little, more importantly there's contained relief that has his Adam's Apple bobbing visibly. After a moment, he can muster words. "Are you okay?"
The greenrider doesn't try to get up or move or anything when F'yr approaches, but he does largely avoid making eye contact with the big bronzerider when he crouches down to look at him. It takes V'ro longer than it probably needs to for him to say in a small voice, "No." He's really not okay. But he's not exploded or anything, either, so that's something.
Oh, poor sweet V'ro. If he'd just said yes, F'yr would've nodded, drunk his eyeful and gone. As it is, there's almost a little something of relief in the breath that escapes him, his eyes closing a grounding moment before that crouch becomes sitting, facing V'ro and the bed frame, but next diagonal from him, rather than directly in front of. "I'm not okay either." Then, the really, real, most important question as he looks at the greenrider, seeks those green eyes with his blue ones. "Can I help?"
"I don't know," murmurs V'ro, green eyes flickering over the bronzerider when F'yr sits. After a moment, he reaches for the darts, but only to push them under his bed rather than to throw them at the other man. Instead he offers F'yr the bottle, and seems otherwise uncertain how to proceed.
F'yr will take the bottle, if only for a token drink and then hand it back. "I've been trying to think, since that day on the beach, if there's something I can do to help. If there's something I could have done, to make it not… what it is." One hand comes up and rubs his face. "Explanations feel useless, even if I think you have things wrong right now, it doesn't matter because maybe they'll be right one day because I'm probably not going to be less me for trying to be someone else. I can't go back to trying everyday to be someone I'm not, like I was back on the farm." He pauses, looking away from the frame of the bed to V'ro's face. "Do you want me to go?"
The greenrider takes back the bottle and sets it aside, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, holding himself. It's certainly not so he can tilt his head against his knees and hide the tears in his eyes. "I've never asked you to be someone you aren't, F'yr. I'm just fixing my fuck up for falling in love with someone I'll keep hurting. Someone who'll just keep hurting me." The latter is maybe secondary. V'ro gets himself hurt all the time, after all. "I don't deserve you. And I don't know how to change. You're better off without me."
"I don't want to hurt you." F'yr's voice comes quietly, the bronzerider sighing in the next moment and then scooting just a little closer to the greenrider. "Is there any way I can be me and not hurt you? I… I don't want to keep hurting you," his brow furrows not at all unsure about that, but perhaps uncertain about the implications of that being the highest want, highest need. "But I don't want to give you up." He flinches slightly, "I'm sorry. That's… selfish." He starts to move like maybe he's going to get up. Maybe he's going to go? But, of course, even if he does get up, his dragon is gone.
When F'yr starts shifting like he might get up, V'ro reaches out to stop him, and his wet eyes look up at the bronzerider. "Don't go. Not yet. Please." Whether he was going to or not, he really can't now. I mean, look at the pathetic greenrider. How could you say no to that face? "I… I don't know how to make this work." It's not an answer. It's the opposite of an answer. "I don't know."
No, F'yr won't say no to that beloved face. He really looks like he wants to do something about that face and after a breath, he reaches for V'ro. If the greenrider will have it, F'yr's going to drawn him into his lap and wrap his arms around him, tight and sure and like he has been maybe drowning a little for a few sevens. If we want to talk about pathetic faces, we can talk about F'yr's because he's looking helpless now. Too selfish to let V'ro go so they don't hurt each other, but not sure how to do anything else and make it come out right? Could it even be considered right in a world where they don't have some kind of connection? Probably not in F'yr's opinion. He doesn't have words, but he can have all these not words - the one in his embrace, in the way he buries his face against V'ro's neck and breathes him in. It's fine, when F'yr's shoulders shudder and he draws that ragged breath it doesn't mean that wetness against V'ro's skin is actually tears, right?
V'ro doesn't resist F'yr pulling him into his lap, and once he's there, the greenrider presses in against him like it's the best place in a home he hasn't been to in entirely too long. "I love you," he murmurs, soft like he's not sure about saying it, especially while they're both already upset. It's something he's been reluctant to admit when he's not proddy, and it certainly doesn't help their situation now, because where do they go from there? V'ro doesn't seem to care about that so much as being in this moment with F'yr's strong arms around him.
He doesn't waver, even if his body shudders a little in response to those words. The embrace tightens a little more and even if V'ro wanted to pull away just now, he's not going anywhere. F'yr takes his time gathering himself, his thoughts, his everything and takes a long, deep breath before pulling his head back enough and loosening his hold just enough that he can look at V'ro and V'ro can look at him. "I was scared to tell you," that probably doesn't help, "how I felt," past tense— ouch. Ouch? Is this what he means? Is he just distracted? "Because I don't know if feeling what I feel for you means the same thing as when you say it. I don't know if I'm capable of matching your capacity for that. I don't know if that means there's something wrong with me or if I'm overthinking things." Beat. "I didn't want to tell you how I did, when I did, but when you said you were thinking about leaving…" He swallows hard and his eyes pinch tightly closed. "I don't know. It made me crazy. Crazy with grief because I might lose you, crazy with regret because I hadn't told you and I knew you wanted me to say it, and then I said it and I fucked it all up." THIS IS HIS FAULT, SEE? If V'ro wants to claim blame, he's going to have to fight F'yr.
"You didn't fuck it all up, F'yr." Nothing the bronzerider can say is going to change V'ro's mind about that, either. "I knew you cared about me, anyway." He relaxes in those arms, but there's something resigned about it rather than hopeful, trying to soak in every moment that he can while he can. "You don't think it might be better… easier if I just went somewhere else? This is your home. But the only thing that makes it a home for me is you and Koth." And Koth can go anywhere. He can find a new home. If only he didn't sound so miserable suggesting it.
One of F'yr's arms moves so his hand can come up and catch V'ro's chin in his wide palm and long fingers, demanding his gaze. "I love you, Khavro." The words are not only soft but fierce at the same time. "I don't know that what I have to give will ever be the right thing, and if you need me to leave you alone so you can be happy, then I'll do that," NOT HAPPILY, "if I can," because there's a chance he's really just too selfish for that, "But don't you know that you're part of what makes this home for me? You're here." Not here, but his hand moves to grab up V'ro's hand and press it against F'yr's chest, just over his heart. Oh, and is he crying? Damn, that dust from the explosion really goes a long way. It's not just glassy eyes like when he came up from V'ro's neck in the first moments of that embrace. It's tears escaping because apparently that's how F'yr rolls when he's feeling overwhelmed and really big feelz. "If you need to go… I can't not fight that. I can't not fight for you. But I don't know if I'll ever be what you need me to be." There's so much helplessness there, all tinged with apology.
V'ro studies the face he's forced to look at, his expression some strange combination of miserable and adoring. There are thoughts turning over behind those heartbroken eyes. And then a decision. The greenrider offers F'yr a smile that still can't quite manage to not be sad. "I don't want you to go. I don't want to go." His hand slips out of the bronzerider's to reach up and rub tears away from the blond's cheek, then he's leaning for a brief press of lips to lips.
Of course, F'yr kisses the greenrider back, even with the gesture being brief. He even chases those lips for half a heartbeat before he's tipping his head to place forehead to forehead, eyes sliding closed. "I don't want you always hurting. I want you happy. I don't know if I can make you happy." V'ro may not have believed it before, but there's really quite a bit of proof in the anguish on display for him that the former farmer is quite genuinely distraught about all this. "Is there anything I can do to make it better?" He means, without turning his personality on its head, of course.
"No," says V'ro. But it's not a final no. It's not a 'we're done' no. There's just nothing he can think to do to make that part of it better. "But I'll figure it out." Because of course he's going to put the full responsibility on himself. They're his issues, after all.
"Please," F'yr's voice is soft. "Please, Khav. I know—" he stops. He gathers his breath, his words, because the first escaped him without his meaning for them to. "I know this sucks. I know it's hard. I don't know if I can help. I know half the time you hate me." It hurts; that's there in his voice because he cannot help it. "But I'm in this with you. Figure it out with me. Let's do it together. Like we figured out everything else." He means all those stolen moments where they figured out how to cope with Glorioth's unreasonable dragonny opinions.
"I've never hated you, F'yr. You're one of the best things that has ever happened to me." Obviously Koth is up there somewhere, too, but dragons are a given who probably don't need to be explicitly mentioned. "I could never hate you." V'ro shifts in the bronzerider's arms, to straddle his lap and face him, to search those blue eyes with green. "Where do we even start?"
The way that F'yr's eyes close briefly reveal the depth of his certainty (and relief) about being hated (and finding it not true). He draws a long sniffly breath and releases it, opening his eyes to meet the green ones, his arms loose around V'ro but still there. "Probably with a lot of painful, honest, probably sucky talking. Which might still be better than all this painful sucky not talking." He reaches up a hand meaning to stroke across a cheek and slip into through the greenrider's hair. "We could probably do it with alcohol. Maybe sex." Maybe.
"I feel like we've done plenty of talking," murmurs V'ro, leaning slightly into the stroke of his cheek. As F'yr's hand moves into his hair, the greenrider's hands move down between them, pulling up the bronzerider's shirt to get his hands on skin of his own. "Definitely sex," he amends, because obviously, they're both hot-blooded young men and F'yr is very good looking.
Despite being a red-blooded young man, F'yr is not so readily convinced, for all that he has plainly and deeply missed V'ro. He should probably know better than to ask the greenrider, but he does anyway. "Sex won't make things worse before we figure out how to make it better?" There's a brief pause as F'yr moves to trap the hand against his skin, not stopping V'ro from touching skin, but keeping him from pressing onward until this is addressed. Blue eyes search green. "You know I love the sex, but you know the sex isn't the reason I love you, right?" It's just some kind of bonus.
"Of course I know that," says V'ro like he's confused by the clarification, eyes shifting more directly to F'yr's face, but then away. Is he missing something? "Do you think it would make it worse?" He starts to pull his hand away, starts to shift away to slide out of F'yr's lap, maybe put a little bit of space between them.
"No," but also, no, as in F'yr is keeping V'ro in his arms. Maybe, just maybe, he even had a subtle edge of panic to the word. "Yes. Maybe. I don't know." What he does know is that he doesn't want any distance between them, thank you, so if V'ro will just oblige those insistent strong arms and stay here, it would help things immensely. Maybe. Then, quieter, the concern behind the question finds a voice, "What if we can't find a way that works? What if it will just hurt more to have done more?" Note that he's still keeping the man he loves, in spite of that fear.
V'ro doesn't resist his entrapment. Rather, he relaxes, sinking bonelessly against F'yr, head tilting toward the bronzerider's shoulder with a sigh of submission. "We don't have to do anything. I just wanted to, I don't know, feel like I was yours." Is that the right way to say it? Regardless, maybe just being in F'yr's arms is basically the same thing.
"Oh, Khav," F'yr sighs, pulling the greenrider back into his arms. "You're mine. I'm yours. I don't… I don't know how to make that make sense for you." Because, of course, F'yr is also other peoples', somehow. If the former trader hasn't pulled away, the bronzerider's lips are finding his throat. "I have missed you, all of you. And I will tell you that any way that you'll believe it. Believe me." There's a wound there, of course, but at least this doesn't seem to be causing any fresh damage… yet.
"I believe you." In whatever way that V'ro is capable of believing these things from anyone, really. He doesn't say anything for several moments, enjoying the feel of the bronzerider against his throat. Then, evidently, he's had enough. He wants more. "Please fuck me, F'yr. Maybe it will make things worse. Maybe it will hurt. But it will feel good right now. I don't want to think, I just want you. Please."
There's the slightest hesitation from the bronzerider, because maybe it will hurt, but there are too many reasons to do it to fight for long against the few to not. "Of course, baby." The words fall from F'yr's lips helplessly because showing V'ro how he feels is important to him here. So he'll give the greenrider just what he wants, and how he wants it, starting with a possessive plowing into his mouth with the kind of fervor that affirms his words: they belong to each other.