Only Happy When It's Complicated
Dragonsfall Weyr
Amber Hills Hold
Vintner Hall
Healer Hall
Hidden Meadows
Dolphin Cove Weyr
Dolphin Hall
Emerald Falls Hold
Harper Hall
Printer Hall
Green Valley Hold
Leeward Lagoon Hold
Barrier Lake Weyr
Sunstone Seahold
Citrus Bay Hold
Writers: Duskdog
Date Posted: 3rd August 2024
Characters: M'kayre, B'kul
Description: M’kayre gets a late-night visitor who isn’t pleased about his dinnertime conversation with the Weyrwoman.
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 8, day 22 of Turn 11
Notes: Mentioned: Saibra, K’reyel (by title only)
Takes place the same night as, and shortly after, “Can’t A Girl Just Have Dinner In Peace?” Warning: Heavy innuendo, implied kink, and some internalized homophobia. Nothing explicit, we fade to black.
}:Vigurth comes,:{ Bhelth warned from his ledge out of the blue, talons scraping on stone as he shifted to make room for the stocky brown dragon to land on his weyrledge.
M'kayre smiled. He’d been in the midst of undressing for bed in front of his wardrobe, back to the entrance, halfway through the motion of grasping the hem of his undershirt to pull it up over his head, but he paused. He waited for the heavy sound of B’kul’s boots to clomp their way from the ledge and into the inner weyr before resuming, pulling his shirt up and off, treating the brownrider to the flex of lean muscles in his bare back as soon as he entered.
The only response he received was a non-commital grunt, which was about what he had expected. But it never stopped him from trying.
“B’kul,” he greeted, turning around, pleasant smile on his face. It wanted to turn smug despite itself, and M'kayre fought not to allow it. “What a pleasant surprise.”
The brownrider gave M'kayre’s bare chest only the most cursory of glances, frown and glower etched into his features as if they were the only expression his face were capable of. “Cover up.”
M'kayre laughed, light and breezy. “In my own weyr? Never.” He turned and made his way over to the stove, still speaking as he went. “What brings you so late tonight? I was just about to have some soothing tea before bed. Would you like some? Come have a seat.”
“Stop playing,” B’kul warned, making no move to follow him, let alone sit, nor any indication that he would even be removing his riding jacket anytime soon. “You know sharding well why I’m here.”
“No, I haven’t the faintest clue,” M'kayre hummed, pouring himself a cup. “Use your words, dear.”
“What. Was. That. Display. Tonight?”
“Everything I do is a display. You’ll have to be more specific.” He nonchalantly added a hint of sweetener to his tea.
“In the Dining Hall. With the _Weyrwoman_.”
“Oh, that.” The bronzerider crossed one leg over the other, pausing to take a sip. “Mmm, this is lovely. You really should have some.”
“_M'kayre_.” The growl was there -- the hiss of impatience, of impending violence.
Something in M'kayre’s stomach fluttered excitedly in response, but he pushed the feeling to the back burner of his mind, concentrating instead on addressing B’kul’s… _concerns_.
“You know what it was, B’kul,” he said with a frown, all (or mostly) serious now. “The Weyrleader is out, and I’m a bronzerider with drive and experience. I’ve a chance to reclaim the wingleader knots I lost and more. I’d be a fool not to try to seize any possible advantage, wouldn’t I?” He took another sip of his tea. “It’s the way of things. You know that. If Vigurth were bronze, you’d do the same.”
Except that he knew that B’kul wouldn’t. He’d be equally ambitious, he suspected -- as it was, it was hard to tell, as he was a brownrider who didn’t appear to have bronze envy, and his rock-solid self-assurance was part of what M'kayre enjoyed most about him -- but if Vigurth had, indeed, hatched bronze, he couldn’t imagine someone with so much raw masculinity settling for anything less than anything and everything that he could seize with his own two hands and his dragon’s wings.
But B’kul was not a man who schemed, or played games. He wouldn’t pursue any other possible avenues, seek to gain any other advantage. He would not flirt, or encourage his dragon to woo his gold. He would rely on pure determination, pure force, to take what he wanted. There would be no other path than Vigurth outflying, taking, and winning.
_Faranth, to be that goldrider._
“I don’t like it,” B’kul growled, arms crossed, but there was the slightest lessening of tension in his jaw, the faintest relaxation of stiff, pent-up shoulders. “Did you have to do it out in the open like that?”
M'kayre laughed again. “B’kul. _Dear_. Where else would I speak with her? Are you suggesting I let myself into the Weyrwoman’s quarters? Accost her in a storeroom, perhaps? I’m certain she would be _thrilled_ to think of me as her Weyrleader after I lurked after her down the halls of the Lower Caverns like some sort of tunnelsnake.”
“Why not? _You_ would like being stalked.” The brownrider’s eyes were intent on M'kayre suddenly, icy blue pinpoints in his scarred face. M'kayre loved every square fingerlength of it: that granite jaw, that low, jutting brow ridge, that crooked nose, that wild, windblown greying hair, and yes, every single scarred-over Threadscore that marred what had not even been a handsome face to begin with. He didn’t think he loved the _man_. But he loved the body, and his willingness to maintain the secrecy that M’kayre required, and that was enough.
“I would,” M'kayre breathed, the air nearly catching in his throat under that gaze. “I’ve never thought about it until just now, but I _would_.”
He abandoned his tea on the table abruptly, crossing the room to slip behind B’kul. Long fingers crept over the shoulders of the brownrider’s flight jacket, squeezing suggestively, _seeking_. “I didn’t touch her, B’kul,” he murmured in his ear. “Not even her hand. It was a simple dinner conversation. She certainly wouldn’t invite me to her bed after that, and that wasn’t what I was seeking, anyway. The woman has a weyrmate. Even if Bhelth catches Chioneth, I’d be nothing to her but a necessary evil, and she’d be nothing to me other than a prize upon my shelf.” He brushed his lips against the nape of B’kul’s neck, the barest whispering touch. “I like to think we’d be pleasant, for no other reason than keeping our days uncomplicated and running the Weyr as smoothly as possible. But no more than that. I’d not touch her seeking pleasure. You _know_ this.”
And he knew that B’kul _did_ know. B’kul was perhaps the only person who did. Others might speculate about him, as it was a poorly-kept secret that he liked to linger after greenflights if the men were warm and welcoming. But only B’kul _knew_: he could perform for women, and often did, but he had no actual desire for them. The male greenriders who accepted the dominance that he pretended for the sake of appearances were much better, but also not his actual preference, either. Hiding that part of himself, living with the shame of it, was a betrayal of himself and his typically easy pride that he could barely stomach; if it had only been himself at risk, he’d not have bothered. He’d have fully embraced it, himself and _proud_, and opinions be damned.
But deep inside lurked the terror of somehow inhibiting Bhelth with his own nature -- his strong and beautiful Bhelth, who deserved to be every inch the dominant and commanding bronze that he was meant to be, with a rider who could match him in every way and do nothing to damage his virility or bring speculation upon his worth as a bronze.
B’kul told him often that this was stupid -- that Bhelth would be the same no matter what his idiot rider chose to do in the privacy of his bedroom, or who knew about it, and that M'kayre himself was no less masculine for his preferences.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think you’re as much a man as I am,” B’kul had said more than once.
But M'kayre’s fears persisted, except in the very heat of the moment, when his enthusiasm made it easier to ignore. At least temporarily.
“I don’t care to watch it,” B’kul said, but his eyes closed, and his shoulders relaxed beneath M'kayre’s skilled fingers, even through the heavy jacket.
“I didn’t realize you were there to see it,” M'kayre said, kissing his neck again, this time more tangibly. “I’m sorry for rousing your jealousy.”
“No, you aren’t.”
M'kayre’s lips quirked into a smile against his skin. “No, I am not,” he agreed easily. He tugged at the shoulders of B’kul’s jacket. “Come. Get this off. Let me rub all the tension out of you, as a way of making it up to you.”
For a moment, it seemed as if B’kul would capitulate. He exhaled heavily all at once, leaning his head back against M'kayre’s shoulder, allowing the other man to reach around him, sliding hands up beneath his jacket, splaying against his chest and rubbing slowly for a moment before grasping the lapels and pulling them apart so that B’kul could step forward again and shrug out of it.
“Do you think I'm letting you off so easily?” B’kul asked instead, his voice soft and tense with the promise of _danger_, head still lolled back deceptively against M'kayre’s shoulder.
M'kayre’s hands paused, just a hint of tremble in his fingers. “Yes…?”
B’kul tensed again suddenly, head whipping up, turning in M'kayre’s arms and reaching up to grasp the taller man’s throat in one smooth motion that someone so square and solid should not fairly be capable of.
“_Walk_,” he ordered, stepping forward so that M'kayre had no choice but to step back. Another step, and then another, until M'kayre was being walked backwards across the room towards his bed, held by the throat. B’kul’s hand did not crush, or even bruise -- his grip was a firm but controlled squeeze, _present_ but not painful or cruel.
When M'kayre bumped into the foot of the bed, he stumbled backwards and B’kul let go and allowed him to fall onto his back on it, bent at the knees, legs hanging over the end long enough for his feet to still touch the floor. He lay there, still shirtless, with the coolness of the outer blanket beneath him and his heart hammering and fluttering in his chest and his breath coming in short gasps -- from the light choking, and from the excitement and anticipation building within him.
B’kul still stood at the foot of the bed between his knees, shrugging out of that blasted jacket at last and tossing it aside, untucking his shirt and pulling that off, too.
M'kayre laughed, breathy but wild and soft and happy, too, spreading his arms out across the blankets. “Do whatever you want to me.”
“I fully intend to,” said B’kul, unbuckling his belt.
Last updated on the August 29th 2024