Making It Work (Or Not)

Writers: Bree, Eimi
Date Posted: 24th July 2006

Characters: D'cal, Dyaera
Description: D'cal and Dyaera try to work things out...
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 12, day 16 of Turn 3

D'cal hoped that by then they had both had a chance to calm down. He certainly was not feeling good about the way their last meeting had ended, and he had some time to think about it. There was really no way for their relationship to work unless one of them changed, and it was obvious that someone was not going to be Dyaera. He was just going to have to learn how to see relationships in the way she did. He was just going to have to learn that monogamy was not an option, and the best way to do that, he realized, was to embrace the freedom of the Weyr and see what all it had to offer. The bluerider had a feeling it was easier said than done. But for now, he just had to face Dyaera and see if they couldn't salvage what was left before it was too late.

Dyaera met his arrival with a tired looking expression and a weary sounding greeting. "Are we going to fight again?"

**With a greeting like that, it certainly looks that way...** "I don't want to fight with you, Dyaera," he said as he sat down on the sofa beside her.
"But I think we should talk."

"Oh?" Dyaera didn't even look at him. "Did I do something _else_ wrong?"

He decided to ignore that question before they really _did_ get into a fight. "You know, there's really only one thing you and I have ever disagreed on. It's just when it comes to seeing other people... I still just can't think like people in the Weyr do. I was brought up all my life to believe that when you love someone... When you want to have a relationship with someone... Well, that they are the only ones you want or need, and there _isn't_ anyone else, and its not even a question. Right now, it doesn't matter if you slept with that brownrider or not. What matters to me is that I know you could have, and if you were interested at all in sleeping with him, you _would_ have."

"Maybe," Dyaera replied, not ashamed to admit it. "But maybe it _is_
important that I didn't sleep to with him, then. Because that means I didn't want to. I would think that would mean more than if I didn't sleep with him because I thought I wasn't supposed to."

"But that's the thing, Dyaera. I don't _know_ when you sleep with someone and when you don't. And I know that it could happen, and probably some day will. The only way I will know for sure is if you tell me, and I really don't _want_ to know when you are sleeping with another man. I don't want to think about anyone else touching you. I wanted to believe that..." he shook his head in frustration. What good was it what he wanted. "It doesn't matter. For this relationship to work, something has to change, and since you won't change, then I have to. I want to make this work."

"What do you mean, since I won't change?" Dyaera demanded angrily. "Since you came back, you've been the only person I've been with! But if you want it to stay that way, you have to make me _want_ to be with you instead of making me miserable every time you think someone else might have been in the same sharding _room_ as me!" "I'm trying not to fight here, Dyaera. Please, just calm down and let me finish." He tried to keep his voice calm, but her getting upset wasn't helping any. "I'm trying to say that I know this is a Weyr, and I know that my way of thinking just... doesn't fit here. So I am going to try to find a way to make myself understand all this, because I know you're not doing anything wrong Dyaera, it's me. It's my thinking that has to change."

"But I still don't understand why you're upset over something I _haven't_
done," she protested. "Don't you see how that's confusing?" "Don't you see that its easier to _assume_ that it's happening? I mean, shards, its only a matter of time. Even you didn't deny that. I can't just believe that you're not sleeping with other men, because one of these days I would be wrong. I don't want to be hurt like that. But listen, it doesn't matter, because I can't be angry at you if I'm doing the same thing. So I think... I'm going to start sleeping with other people too."

Dyaera gave him a confused look. "I thought you were already."

"No," he said shaking his head and looking down at his hands. "No, I haven't slept with anyone outside of a flight since you and I... decided to try to make this work."

"Well, neither have I," she retorted. "And I'm probably not going to as long as it _is_ working. I mean, it's not like I have a lot of energy _or_
mobility. I work with the healers, and I swim, and I sleep. The rest of the time I spend with you. But I don't care if you sleep with other people.
You're a bluerider. Maybe you want to spend time with a man sometimes and I can't really help you with that." Her indifference just made it that much worse. Shards, she just didn't understand, and he just didn't know how else to explain it to her. 'Probably won't' still left a lot of room for 'possibly will'. D'cal just couldn't take that chance. She just didn't understand how much it hurt him to know that she had been sleeping with L'tak and J'darin, how much it pained him to walk in on her and B'ram and _see_ her... He couldn't just believe that he was enough, because he had never been enough for her before. "All right.
But I don't want to talk about it. If I sleep with someone else, or if you sleep with someone else, I just don't want to talk about it."

"Fine! I'll keep my mouth shut about all the men I'm not sleeping with."
Though she was sorely tempted to go out and find a few, now. Shards, D'cal was going to start making _rules_ about what they could talk about? D'cal just wanted to hit something or scream at the top of his lungs. He could feel Aosorath's concerned crooning echoing through his mind as well as hear it on the ledge he was sharing with Tilarth. "Shards, Dyaera, sometimes I feels like you don't even _want_ to make this work."

"You're too confusing, D'cal," she said wearily. "You're confusing and you can't make up your mind, and you get upset at the _idea_ I could sleep with other men when it's not even happening. I can't understand it, and you can't explain it. And if this isn't going to ever be anything but fights, I don't see why either of us should want to keep doing it!"

"This is the only flaming thing we ever fight about, so if we just don't _talk_ about it, how can we fight about it?!" His calm was gone. "And I would want to keep doing it even if we kept sharding fighting because I think you're worth it, but if you don't think I am, just sharding say so!" Dyaera's temper snapped. "I thought you were, but maybe I'm starting to think differently!"

D'cal felt as though the wind had just been knocked out of him. He had been trying to hard to find a way to make things work between them, and she didn't even sharding care... It was annoying how he could feel tears of hurt and frustration begin to sting his eyes. "So is that it then?" he finally asked in a painful whisper.

"I don't know," she replied, her voice still angry. "I don't want to spend all my time afraid that you'll see something or hear something that will make you upset. I spend enough time in pain already, D'cal. I don't need any more!"

He just wanted to scream! After all, what else had he been doing here if not trying to trying to find a way to avoid just that! Covering his face with his hands, he tried desperately to calm himself down. She obviously didn't get it, and she probably never would. So he could assume that she was sleeping with other men, and she didn't seem to have any problem whatsoever with his sleeping with whoever he wanted. He was pretty sure it was inevitable that this whole relationship would fall apart, but he just wasn't ready to give up on it yet. "All right," he finally muttered. "Let's just forget it ever happened and start over. I won't say anything about men you _might_ be sleeping with ever again."

"Fine." And since he was going to convince himself one way or the other that she was sleeping with other men, she might as well find some to sleep with.

Last updated on the July 26th 2006

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Making It Work (Or Not)