Call and Response (Azzy)

[Azhdarchid]

"I know. You just like me." L'xon slung his arms over Newtollen's scarred shoulders, embracing him belly-to-belly. "You're so quick to excite." Talking about that defensiveness, of course. He pushed back the swatch of wet hair from the Candidate's forehead, kissing the revealed skin from temple to cheekbone. In from there, he made a trail of soft, moist touches till he was licking the corner of what could be a smile. "No one has ever liked just me before," he murmured, hands diving for the water's surface.

One was caught. L'xon raised the undamaged counterpart back up, tracing Newt's spine with wet fingers, steamy drops falling from the tips. "He did a better job with the impulse than the plan. The healers said that will be gone inside a sevenday." Though as he looked at it, sidelong, his fingers started clutching where Newtollen had exercised wise restraint, bringing the red lash closer to its raggedly healed partner. Then he unlaced, and reached past Newt for the bin of bandages. He had to walk Newt back a few steps to reach it, pushing him up against the wall of the bath. "The face, they don't know." Laying his arms out over the Candidate's shoulders, he tied himself a new, dry hand cover. He did not bother with the crescent of punctures dug into his wrist, just made sure his palm was bandaged clean.

And stuck that hand back underwater at once, only it failed to rise from the depths this time. The muscles of his arm twitched in the dance of minor exertion, and the dragonrider raised his half-lidded eyes from his occupation to the boy's matching browns...

...just in time to receive a question about the fetishizing of illicit activities with Candidates. The blond grimaced, hand freezing in the cookie jar. A pink flush he had not worn for ages ripened in his cheeks.

He will be so sad if you lie to him, the dragon interjected, to no response. L'xon did not need to be a winged empath to see that.

"That you are too much for me was made very clear to me already." He reached past Newt for the pot, conveniently stashed next the bandages. He wasn't sure if the contents would stick to his fingers underwater, but found the vital oily slick maintained till he transferred it elsewhere. He just had to use all of the rest, his own share last. He performed that duty with his free hand on the rim of the tub, his head of blond hair hanging in front of Newt, quiet as he suffered his own methodical preparations.

And Newt's words still drained him. There's so much in there that I want. Do you secretly like the sneaking? He never held hope that two-toed freaks would not come up eventually, and did not allow the Candidate's charming pledge to sway him otherwise. "Tell me again please," he managed when he finally looked up, shimmying more than stepping through the final distance- since there wasn't much of any. It was just positioning, and what to pin back with his arms. His cheeks were still bright. "About how you want me. And...what part you want. And where you want it. Please..."

[Cathaline]

"Well, I know that isn't true," Newt said immediately. "Halventh liked just you. It's not the same thing, of course." A telepathically-bonded cross-species soulmate could never be the same as a human relationship, in various ways. Virtually all of them, in fact. "Nobody's liked me either. Not the way you do. Not people like you." People like Letorin, sure. Or handlers who appreciated his adoration of their whers. People he could connect with on a scientific level, which, so far as he was aware, pretty much ruled out any kind of romantic or sexual bond. But Lex liked him...wanted him, even though he didn't understand half the chatter that came out of Newt's mouth, even though Newt was broken, maybe forever.

"Oh, you're not going to keep it?" Newt shivered at the touch on his spine, aware of L'xon's fingers passing over every vertebrae. "That's good. It would be kinda weird, huh? A matching set." But not matching, not from the same source. Scars with different names. Neither one of them should have to carry Jafask on their bodies; only Newt should have to carry him in his mind. "What about - mm." He let the rider press him back against the wall, and reached up to trace the edges of the facial bandage while L'xon dealt with his palm. "Your eye is okay, though? They don't know about the scars but it's not going to mess with your eyelid, is it? Or your vision? Would be funny if you needed specs. But horrible."

He made a squeaky sound when he was gripped tight, instinctively rising up on his toes before he settled back, pushing one elbow back to hold himself up while the other arm slinked around L'xon's neck. "Well, I won't try to be any less, so you'll just have to deal with it," he said cheekily. Then he bit the inside of his cheek to stifle a moan, and watched L'xon's bowed head with hooded eyes. So lovely, so necessary, so amazing. He didn't even know it, did he? He really didn't.

"Well, I want all your opinions and all your stories, and I want those moments when you say something you didn't mean to say and look shocked with yourself, and I want..." He ran his fingers through L'xon's hair and closed the distance between their mouths, their bodies already pressed tight together, slick with water and oil. He nipped at L'xon's lip, kissed the corner of his mouth, found his way to the crook of his neck. "But," he said, low, "that is not what you mean."

His fingers inscribed curving patterns on L'xon's back, and Newt put his mouth to good use - everything else was clean, so he tested out his ability to be dirty in other ways. He had tried before, when he offered to describe what he was feeling in excessive detail, but that wasn't like this - that wasn't orders framed as suggestions and as begging. By now he had figured out precisely what he wanted and what he had to say and do to get Lex to give it to him, raw and crude and blushing a little, and when words finally failed him and left only panting and moans behind, he latched his legs around L'xon's waist and kissed him fiercely, fingers tangled in his blond hair.

Afterward, he rested against the wall of the pool for several minutes. "I guess I have to go," he sighed dramatically. He felt a little more capable of walking now. Was it because of the water or because he hadn't stopped standing up? This required further experimentation, parts of which he could perhaps undertake in - what, two days' time? New specs and new conclusions drawn for his secret, sneaky hypotheses. Perfect.

Blinking up at L'xon, he added, "You're excellent. Really. Exquisite? Astonishing. You make me want to become a Harper. I could learn to rhyme. I can think of a great one that rhymes with Lex."

[Azhdarchid]

It was not the same thing, though Lex only blinked at hearing that acknowledged by the bondless Candidate. At first he was going to dismiss Newt entirely, but he recalled, somewhere between pettings, that the Candidate had already savored the first flirting touch of a bond. It was with a wher, and it hadn't been finished- so the divide was not so much between him as a rider and Newt as another piece of fodder for the Sands, but between Newt and the rest of the world. The bondless might have flimsy context to describe dragonrider's lives with their mates, but no one on Pern could describe what Newt had been through.

After, he waded past Newt and planted himself on a shelf of stone easing out of the wall, the water swallowing him to the neck, coating his much-abused throat. He tapped his fingers on the socket of his hidden eye.

"It's fine," he answered, since he hadn't time before. Touching the bandages over his cheekbone, he drew two lines at a mild diagonal to his jawbone. A bellow rolled through the air and water: the dragon. "I think he wanted to keep me capable of watching his little show." The rider sighed, glancing at Newt and then holding his arm over the space next to him on the underwater bench. The Candidate did have to vacate the premises, and no amount of sighing would win him out of it.

Besides, he would not deprive himself of the pleasure of watching Newt climb out of the stone wellspring, dripping everywhere. His lips tucked into a simper of appreciation as the boy praised him, but it turned grin and he turned his face away in a laugh he did not want anyone to see. "I can't believe I have never heard that before." Smiling back at Newt, he waved, and sort of splashed, the Candidate on his way. "Go on now. It's my bath so I can stay as long as I want, but you need to get back to your 'Masters."

He waited till Newt's wet footsteps had disappeared from hearing. Then his face relaxed to its usual posture of sharp concern, and he leaned back into the wall of the bath, tipping his head back on the rim and breathing slowly through his mouth. After a few seconds his lips twitched, breath escaping in a soft ha. His chest hitched with suppressed laughter a few more times before he finally crawled out.

I am tired now, Halventh said, so belated in his sleepiness that Lex had to smile. The mirth didn't last. You do not want to hurt him, do you?

I will not do anything till I get those specs. He will be happy to have them. He needs them.

If you are sure.

...I have to think about it some more.

L'xon toweled himself off, and dropped the towel on the floor rather than walking across the room to deliver it to the laundry chute. Returning to the bedroom, he stared at the top sheet. A shudder iced his body from the hips up, and he grabbed the sheet corners, peeling it off and throwing it to one side. He eyed the next layer for a moment, then tipped away from the bed and went to his wardrobe. At the bottom, in a wide drawer, were his winter bedfurs. He pulled one big cinnamon saber-hide out and piled as much of it across his arms as he could, only a little dragging as he proceeded out to the dragon's den.

Halventh clacked his jaws together rapidly, chittering high in his throat, the kind of shameless display he was allowed in the middle of the night when no one was looking. He rocked up from his side to his belly, sticking his snoot out to snuffle and prod at his oncoming rider, L'xon having to dodge him just to advance. He made his way to the juncture of the dragon's shoulder and his chest, a kitty-corner formed by the depressed side of Halventh's elbow.

He flung the fur down on the cold stone with little fanfare, but got even less himself as Halventh's paw knocked him over, across the great, warm arm and the fur. Halventh pulled both his arms in, broody as a queen till his rider yelped, indicating that suffocation was imminent. The blue relaxed, and cocked his head to keep the blond's own preparations in view. L'xon pushed himself off the arm, though not before giving the dragonflesh a kiss.

He smoothed out the fur, then laid down and worked his back into the confluence of draconic surfaces. He turned on his side, arms folded aside his chest and face in loose prayer, knees tucked a little ways up toward his stomach. Halventh's head dropped, and the dragon's cinnamon breath jetted across his bare skin, evaporating whatever water had hidden from the towel. The front edge of Halventh's lips tousled his rider's hair, working over the spot Newtollen had spent so much time seizing and pulling. L'xon's eyes were already closed. Asleep might not have been the word, but he did not both pushing the investigating drake away.

Halventh sniffed at him a while longer, then wound his neck around the sleeping spot, resting his head back toward his ribs. His right wing creaked open in the dark, barely translucent by the starlight, and he folded it down over head, neck and rider all. Even in the dark of winter, L'xon could have gotten by with just the one fur to coat the stone his feet rested against. Life under a dragon's wing was cozy indeed.

[Cathaline]

"It was a good show," Newt said, though a little uneasily. "I mean - he didn't actually kill anybody..." Yet. Some people were still in danger of dying of their wounds. It could be several days before everyone was cleared, because infection was a risk - he still remembered his fever, after Ausk's hatching, it had not been so long ago.

He grinned back at L'xon's reaction to his fumbling attempts at poetry, and heaved himself out of the bath, wincing a little at the strain in his injured arm and chest, to say nothing of the protests of overworked muscles. Most of him would be much worse tomorrow. But tomorrow, after sleeping on it, it would be easy enough to claim the pain came from the sands. Who would guess that he'd been here? Although he did have to be prepared for what would happen if somebody did guess.

"Be safe," he said, and reached over to tousle Lex's hair before he found his discarded clothes and tugged them back on. It was obvious enough he'd come from a bath, they didn't need to know which bath, obviously...

He took the long way round to be safe - not direct to the entrance to the lower caverns, but swinging through the communal baths just in case somebody saw him in the corridor and happened to mention to a Candidatemaster which direction he'd been coming from. I would be an awesome spy, he thought, and focused on sneaking until he'd made it, cool as a cucumber, across the wide, dark Bowl and into the barracks. Jazz caught him immediately - she looked worn out, exhausted, but there was no sharpness in her tone, and Newt lied with ease. Did she buy it? Hard to say, but there would no doubt be harsher scrutiny on him for awhile. He accepted the extra chores for his disappearance and not letting anyone know where he was. Chores weren't bad. Not as bad as being kicked out if she knew how much his rulebreaking had escalated.

The room was dark, empty, cold in a way, even in the last dying days of summer. Newt sighed and got out of his damp clothes, and crawled into his bed, the familiar emptiness creeping in through every tiny crack. He was alone - Letorin was in hospital, maybe because of him, and L'xon was off-limits, for reasons that were understandable even if Newt was inclined to justify them away. And Newsk was dead. That one would never change, the way the others might.

I don't want to feel like this, he thought, reaching for recent, warm memories, of secret smiles and catching breath. But a person could not simply decide not to feel grief or trauma or pain, and though he wore enough bone-deep, aching reminders of L'xon, he wore reminders of Jafask too - and Jafask reminded him of Newsk, had set out to do so, in fact. It wasn't fair, but that was life. He was human, and a particularly smart human at that - he did not have the draconic luxury of forgetfulness. He knew about carrying scars, didn't he? He just hadn't known about carrying them on the soul.

"Ugh," he muttered after a little while of tossing and turning. Couldn't go out for a legitimate walk after already getting in trouble for the fake walk. What was he supposed to do?

Well, I could compound my awfulness by finding some fellis or alcohol, and - nah. Can't hide that. His lips twisted a bit. Was that really the only reason he was going to avoid the damage of addiction, because it would screw up his candidacy?

Yes. Because if they keep you off the sands, it will kill you, faster than drowning, more completely than leaping off a cliff. Kalesk said so, apparently. Though not as eloquently.

People wanted him. He had to hold to that. L'xon wanted him, and so did Halventh. Kalesk wanted him, and also Audren. Letorin had been kind of out of the loop because of the drugs he was allowed to have, but presumably he didn't blame Newt for any of this. Someday a wher would want him too. Someday...

He blew out a sigh. He couldn't sleep in here, it was stuffy and horrible. So he grabbed a pillow, spoke briefly with Yuri, now on duty, and went to bed down on the roof.

He'd slept in worse places. Even when it started to rain. And if he faced a certain direction, he was sure he could, when the sky began to lighten, pick out once specific cavern yawning open in the walls.