Can't Live With'em...

Writers: Bree, Eimi
Date Posted: 3rd July 2006

Characters: D'cal, Dyaera
Description: D'cal and Dyaera discuss their relationship with their usual level of success...
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 12, day 15 of Turn 3

"So I suppose I should get up and find us some breakfast. After all, I think we kind of forgot about dinner." A smile curled his lips as he thought about the satisfaction they had found to appease another kind of hunger. He leaned over and kissed her bare shoulder lightly. Food was highly over rated.

Dyaera squirmed back against him, making a highly pleased noise. "That would mean you'd have to get out of bed. I don't think that's a good idea." She didn't know who he'd been sleeping with on the side, but he'd learned a couple of tricks that made her all too willing to spend the morning, afternoon and evening with him.

"I suppose you're right," he replied which a dramatic sigh as his fingers began tracing lazy patterns along her stomach. "I think you and I spend _far_ too little time in bed as it is."

"I've spent more than enough time in bed," Dyaera retorted in an amused voice. "I might not have minded as much if you'd been here too, though..."

"I think I would have hampered your recovery," he grinned down at her. The sound of growling stomachs broke into their gentle flirtation. "Uh oh. Was that you or me?"

She returned his grin. "Whoever it was, they're hungry. I suppose we could eat."

"And I suppose that means I should go find something for us, huh?" he sighed, truly loathe to the idea of getting out of bed and venturing into the world outside.

"Mmmm." Rolling over, Dyaera dragged the covers with her and burrowed back into her pillows. "I'll take a nap. Someone woke me up in the middle of the night."

D'cal wrapped an arm around her and nuzzled her neck. "Well, I guess I'll just have to wake you up again when breakfast is ready." Reluctantly he rolled away and picked up a hastily discarded tunic from the floor and slipped it on, followed by his trousers, grinning from ear to ear.
He loved mornings when he woke up beside Dyaera, he mused as he put on foot in front of the other. It was a bit of a chore. He hadn't spent much time on the open water for quite some time, but a wild night with Dyaera sure made him feel like he had his sea legs again. The though made him chuckle as he walked towards the table of forgotten food.

He grabbed a plate and began filling it with fruit and bread rolls. The klah unfortunately was cold, but that was alright. Turning back towards the room with his burden he watched as a piece of citrus fruit slipped off the plate. He set the plate and the pitcher back on the table and bent down to pick up the run away. It was then that D'cal realized the tunic he wore was not _his_.

D'cal's happy mood suddenly soured. Well if it wasn't his... how else could a man's tunic have made its way to Dyaera's sleeping room floor. "Oh shards..." he whispered, closing his eyes as he felt a stab of pain. How had he been so sharding _niave_ to believe that Dyaera still wasn't seeing all her other lovers. Here he had been hoping that she had finally seen that he was something special, but it seems he was just another man, just one of her lovers.

**This is a Weyr... She's doing nothing _wrong_..." he reminded himself.
Swallowing hard he placed the fruit back on the plate and picked up the pitcher of klah. As he walked back, every brush of fabric from the tunic felt rough and irritating. He just wanted to rip it off his body and throw it down in front of her and demand an explanation. But there was no explanation to give. He had come to her freely, and she had accepted freely. And she was just as free to chose someone else whenever she felt the need...

He set it on the table beside her. D'cal sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled the tunic off and bunch it up in his hands. "I found breakfast,"
he finally said, trying to sound more cheerful than he felt.

Dyaera rolled over and peered at him, her eyebrows drawing together in confusion. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," he nodded. D'cal reached over and tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear. "Just thinking is all. There's fruit and bread. The klah's cold, I'm afraid..."

Shrugging, Dyaera leaned over to pick up a piece of bread. "That's fine... I don't like klah all that much anyway."

Was the tunic J'darin's? Or J'tak's? That brownriders? Or some lover he has yet to discover... "You know... I'm not all that hungry, and I need to go back to my weyr and get clothes and take a bath before I report for duty..."

Her smile fading, Dyaera spent a brief moment trying to read D'cal's expression before dropping the bread back to the tray. "Shards, what did I do _now_? I thought everything was fine for once!"

"Nothing, love," he quickly reassured her, reaching out to take her hand.
"You've done nothing wrong. And I love you and I want to be with you whenever you have... time for me." Faranth, but it hurt to think that he would have to _schedule_ himself into her life, around her other lovers...
But he tried to smile, to squeeze her hand. **Don't ruin this...**

Dyaera yanked her hand away. "I'm not an idiot, D'cal. If you're going to just sit there and lie, then you might as well go." "I'm not lying," he protested. "It's just... You and I have made no promises to each other, and I know that. I... accept you need that. But its still a little hard for me to think of you spending time with other men.
It's just going to take some getting used to is all."

"What are you _talking_ about?" Dyaera demanded. "You had _better_ not be getting bent out of shape about my mating flight, or I am going to slap you!" She threw up her hands in frustration. "Shards, D'cal. Just _leave_. I don't have the energy to go through this _again_."

"I don't care about the sharding flight. Look, I'm _trying_ to make this work," D'cal said, frustration edging into his voice as well. "I'm trying to do things your way because I want want you to be happy. I want you to be happy with _me_. But I can't be the only one trying here. Sometimes we have to talk about things and make it work no matter how unpleasant it is."

"What?" Dyaera's voice had risen sufficiently to illicit an annoyed rumble from Tilarth's couch. She moderated her volume slightly, though she sounded no less angry. "I'm the only one who _tries_ to talk about the unpleasant things! I ask you what's wrong and you pout and act like a baby! If there's something wrong, then _tell_ me next time." "And then when I told you, you were ready to kick me out of your weyr because you don't have the energy for it. Well, you certainly seemed to have energy for everything else."

Dyaera planted her foot against his hip and shoved him toward the edge of the bed. "You didn't tell me _anything_" she snapped. "Except for whine about the fact that I've slept with other men in the past, which is annoying _and_ pretty damn stupid, all things considered!"

"Past, present, future, what's the difference, Dyaera? It still works out that I'm not the only man in your life," he shot back. "At least I'm making an _effort_ to understand how you feel. What, does that mean nothing to you? I can't let go of eight-teen turns of my life in eight months, Dyaera, but at least I'm sharding trying for you. But it seems that's just not enough, is it."

Dyaera's voice rose again, this time increasing in volume right over Tilarth. "_What other men_? Other than that _sharding_ terrible flight, there's been no one but you since I got better! You know better than anyone how tired I still get! I have physical therapy, I spend time with you, and I sharding _sleep_!"

"Then whose is this?" he asked, holding up the shirt that was definitely not his own.

"It's B'ram's shirt," she replied hotly. "He lent it to me. But you don't want to hear that, do you? Wouldn't it be so much more fun to make up excuses to be miserable!" "Stop putting sharding words in my mouth, Dyaera," D'cal growled as he threw the shirt to the floor. "It would be so much more fun for me if I _knew_ I was the only man in your life! It would be so much more sharding fun for me if I knew that you cared for me like I cared for you!"

Dyaera froze, staring at him with a look that bordered on panic in her eyes.
"What do you mean?" "I mean that you're the first thing I think of in the morning when I wake up and the last thing when I close my eyes to sleep at night," he said, turning to look her in the eye. "I don't want to be with any one more than I want to be with you. Shards, I would be with _only_ you. I know this is a Weyr, but there has to be a place in it for feelings like mine."

It was one thing to spend time with only D'cal because she didn't want anyone else. It was another thing entirely to spend time with only him because she wasn't _supposed_ to be with anyone else. The difference made her heart pound in panic. "I'm barely seventeen," she said in a small, terrified voice. "Shards, you talk like I'm asking you to go /between/ for me or something,"
he muttered as he stood up to look for his own shirt. "Is it really so sharding bad to just be with me? Am I just that _lacking_ in your eyes that I alone can't satisfy you?"

Dyaera shook her head numbly, wondering how everything had turned so horrible so quickly. _Again._ "We're going in circles, D'cal. Why do we keep having the same fight?"

D'cal shrugged a shoulder helplessly. "I don't know. I guess because we can't both be happy in this relationship. But I know I can't be happy without it either. There are just things that... we just can't talk to each other about. If I'm bothered by something you just... shouldn't ask. Then I can't ever bring it up."

"That's not a relationship," Dyaera retorted. "If I can't even ask what's bothering you, then we're just having sex. But I wouldn't even want to sleep with someone who I can't _talk_ to!" The bluerider sighed as he bent down to pick up his shirt. "What does it really matter, Dyaera. You don't need a relationship anyway - you're just 'barely seventeen', right? And now I really do have to go. I'll be back later to wash Tilarth."

Dyaera watched him leave blankly, unsure if she wanted to laugh, cry, or scream. Burying her face in her pillow, she decided to do all three.

Last updated on the July 3rd 2006

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