Chapter 15 - Confession
9th month, 36th Turn of the Present Pass
Naturally, having made a decision to talk to D'min the following morning, B'lee found that he had no opportunity. D'min slept late and B'lee had no time to speak to him before leaving to see to Aurieth. When he got back, with news that Aurieth's wounds were already showing signs that healing had started, he found Berchar with his patient, taking his time over the dressing and muttering dire imprecations if D'min so much as thought of getting up. As soon as Berchar had finished, D'min was visited by several of the other riders, including K'lon and G'lin, both of them former lovers and so potential threats in B'lee's eyes. The last thing B'lee wanted was for D'min to take up with one of them again, but there was nothing he could do - or, to be fair, would do - to stop it if D'min wanted to.
He gritted his teeth, smiled at them and forced himself to leave the room, hoping that his bad temper wasn't too visible. Once outside in the corridor he found himself at a loss. His thoughts had been so thoroughly taken up with D'min and Aurieth the last couple of days that he was unsure what he could do for the hour or so until the noonday meal.
He decided to visit Tamina, who usually had a calming effect on him. She had visited D'min briefly that morning and had had a long discussion with Berchar on the merits of his treatment. B'lee had listened, but most of his attention had been on the sleeping man in the bed, and he had barely said hello to her.
The weaving room was noisy with voices and the sound of the looms. Tamina was busy with a particularly intricate piece of her tapestry, and once she had ascertained that he hadn't come to give her any dire news, her attention kept drifting back to the tapestry. B'lee contented himself with a smile and a hug, and decided to leave her in peace.
He called in on P'tan and checked the Threadfall time and fighting plan for the next day, and was waylaid by some riders in 4 Wing and others, all of whom wanted to know how D'min was getting on. He had to describe the extent of D'min's wound several times, and was alternately alarmed and reassured by their conflicting predictions about D'min's recovery.
He ate a hurried lunch in the dining hall, gobbling his food so quickly that everyone around him warned of indigestion, but he didn't care. As soon as he saw that K'lon and G'lin had entered, he pushed his plate away and stood up. He had to get back to the infirmary and talk to D'min.
Unfortunately for B'lee's plans, D'min seemed to be exhausted after the lively discussion he'd had with the other riders, and was picking at his lunch listlessly. He was soon asleep, and remained so for much of the afternoon, not even stirring when D'ran came in. B'lee gave D'ran a brief update on his son's condition, and promised to let him know if anything changed. Then he returned to his knitting, stopping only when he ran out of wool.
He slipped out to visit the dragons before D'min woke, hoping that he'd be back in time to help Berchar with the dressings. At the Hatching Ground, he found that Margroth had hunted for two, and Aurieth was crunching the bones of a fat wherry and looking much more like her usual self when he arrived. Her wing needed more ichor, and the neck wound had to be cleansed and then have fresh numbweed salve applied, but all in all she was doing much better than her rider.
Once Aurieth had settled comfortably back onto the warm sand, B'lee returned to the infirmary, determined to talk to D'min and spend as much time as possible with him before Threadfall the following day.
D'min was awake, and looked a little better than he had earlier in the day. He wasn't quite as exhausted, and his eyes had a little sparkle in them. Berchar even allowed him to sit up for a while after the dressing, against a bank of pillows. B'lee took that as a good sign, and as soon as they were alone he decided to broach the subject that had been on his mind for the last few days.
"D'min," he began, rather tentatively.
"Hmm?"
"I need to talk to you about something."
"Is it Aurieth? Is the wound not healing?"
"No, no, it's nothing like that. She's fine - I told you before, she'll be well long before you will. No, it's ... something else. About you and me."
"What about us? We're still friends, aren't we? I mean, I know I was stupid to let this happen, but I never thought that you'd want to stop being my friend." He looked a little agitated, and B'lee hurried to interrupt him before he could work himself into a frenzy of worry.
"Don't worry," he said, reaching forward and taking hold of D'min's hand. "It's nothing like that. We'll always be friends - at least, I hope so - and your injury has nothing to do with it, except to remind me that I should have said this before, and I'm sorry I didn't."
He took a deep breath. This was not going to be easy, and he could only hope that D'min would hear him out. "I've been an idiot, D'min, I know I have. Worse than an idiot, and you'd be well within your rights to tell me to go away. Only I would really rather you listen to me first, and then you can decide what you want to do."
D'min started to look alarmed. "B'lee, what are you talking about?"
B'lee shook his head, and continued speaking - he didn't dare stop, not now, not after having finally plucked up the courage to speak. "Listen first. I wanted to say that I'm sorry I've been so horrible to you. I'm sorry I didn't listen to you more and try to understand.
"When I met you ... I knew when I met you that you were someone special, but I just didn't realise what was happening to me. I ... you know I was Hold-bred, I never even heard about men sleeping with other men until I got to the Weyr, and I didn't know it was possible to fall in love with a man. I still liked girls and I thought - I honestly thought - that all I felt was friendship, and you kept wanting more and more, and I didn't know what to do. I know I pushed you away a couple of times, and I'm really sorry about that. I know - I know now - how much that must have hurt.
D'min looked worried and a little sad. "It's all right, B'lee," he started. "I never expected you to switch sides, you know. It was just teasing ... mostly."
B'lee still held D'min's hand in his, and his thumb was rubbing over the back of those elegant fingers. "I know that. But sometimes I thought it might be something more, and that worried me. Then, a few months ago, I started having these dreams ... dreams about being with a man. It scared me at first, and I wondered if I was turning homo. I tried to ask you about it, but it all got mixed up, and then I tried to ask S'been, and he took it the wrong way and tried to kiss me, and I ended up talking to Healer Berchar, only he told me it was just because I hadn't been with anyone in a while."
D'min snorted with amusement and exasperation, and B'lee had to smile. "Yes, it was stupid. But I knew it wasn't just because I hadn't had sex in a while. I knew it was something more, but I still wasn't really prepared to work it out. Then I started seeing the face of the man in the dream ... and it was you, and I realised I wanted you."
He swallowed, and shook his head again as D'min opened his mouth. "When Margroth flew Aurieth and we lay together ... that was the most intense I'd ever felt anything in my life. It wasn't what I thought it would be. I really thought I would die from it. I wanted to tell you how much it meant to me, but you were so quiet and then you fell asleep, and I got up to take a piss and when I came back you curled up against the wall and I wasn't sure whether to get back into bed or not, and I think I made the wrong decision, because I went back to my own bed.
"You ... it wasn't because you were ashamed of it?"
"No! It was ... it was unbelievably good. It was just a shock, and I wasn't sure how you would react."
"I wasn't sure how you would react, either. I thought you'd be really disgusted with me."
"No. I thought you were amazing. I had no idea that you could be so wonderful ... so giving. Just the memory of your face ... I kept thinking about that, and I wanted more. I tried to tell myself it was just the sex, but it wasn't. I wanted you. The next day I tried to explain, but you were so adamant that it was just dragonlust ... I wondered if you had found someone else and didn't want me getting in the way."
D'min shook his head.
B'lee shrugged. "Well, I didn't know that. All I knew was that I kept thinking about you, I thought I might love you and you didn't love me back." He shrugged. "So I thought I'd try to be a friend, still, only you kept on pushing me away. I couldn't understand why. I just knew I had to keep on being there for you in case you needed me."
"B'lee," said D'min. "Billee ... is it true, what you're saying? You're not just leading me on?"
"No," protested B'lee. "I mean, yes, it's true. I wouldn't lead you on. Never."
"I thought you didn't mean it. Shells, B'lee, you'd been telling me for two years that you didn't love me, how was I supposed to know you'd suddenly changed your mind? I thought you'd fallen for H'tan!"
"No! I know you thought that, and I'm sorry. But that was just the guys making a story out of nothing. It was you I wanted all along, only I thought you'd moved on and were in love with someone else who was treating you badly. I've been nearly out of my mind trying to work out what to do. Then, when you were injured ... I thought for a moment you were going to die, like S'gan, and I couldn't bear it. I knew then that I had to tell you, as soon as I could, and let you decide."
"Decide what?"
B'lee took a deep breath. "If you still want to be friends. I love you, D'min. I've loved you for a long time, and I'm so sorry that I couldn't - wouldn't - see it. I know I hurt you, so many times, just because I wouldn't let myself see how much you meant to me. I'll always be sorry I hurt you. But I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But it's up to you to decide now, if you want to us to be friends, or something more. Or less."
D'min was silent for a long time, and B'lee wondered if he was upset, angry, shocked or simply asleep. When he dared to look, D'min was staring at the far wall, his expression set so rigidly that B'lee had no idea what he was thinking.
The silence stretched from natural to awkward, to downright embarrassing. Finally B'lee could take it no longer and said, "I'm sorry. I'll just go." He was halfway to the door when D'min's voice stopped him.
"Don't go."
He turned around and saw D'min watching him. The blank, expressionless look had gone, replaced by panic. B'lee wasn't sure if that was much of an improvement, but at least D'min didn't want him to leave.
He stook by the door, not sure if he should stay there (in case D'min was angry and was going to shout at him, in which case the further away the better) or to move back to the bed.
The D'min tried to reach out with his injured arm and winced at the pain, and B'lee found that his body was quite happy to make decisions without any conscious input from his brain, because the next moment he was there beside D'min, supporting him and saying "You shouldn't move that arm. It hurts you."
"I know it hurts," said D'min, letting B'lee take some of his weight. "It's my bloody arm."
B'lee put his arms right around D'min and hugged him, trying not to let his hands anywhere near the injury.
"Did you mean any of that?" asked D'min.
"I meant all of it."
"You really love me?"
"I really love you. But it's all right if you don't love me back."
At those words, D'min pulled back and looked right into B'lee's eyes. "B'lee, you are a fardling idiot. If I had any sense at all I'd throw you out now because there's no way I could be in love with anyone that stupid."
Bemused, B'lee looked at him, unable to conceal the hope that had sprung up at D'min's words. "You ... you do love me?"
D'min snorted. "Of course I love you. I've loved you since the day we met."
"Oh," said B'lee, faintly. "But I thought you'd moved on. You were so ... so distant the last couple of months. I thought it was just my bad luck to fall in love with you at the same time that you got over your crush on me."
"I'll never get over you, idiot," said D'min, fervently, and kissed him.
B'lee went rigid. In spite of D'min's words, he was still shocked by the unexpected kiss.
D'min pulled back immediately. "Are you sure about this?" he asked, his voice stern and his eyes suspicious.
"Yes! Yes, I am," replied B'lee, frantic that he might have jeopardised everything with his reaction. "Sorry. I just didn't expect you to kiss me."
"It is the normal thing to do after a declaration of love."
B'lee shrugged. "When have we ever done anything the normal way?" He sighed. "Try it again. I'll be ready this time."
D'min huffed, which B'lee considered was a step up from a snort, but his eyes were smiling as he reached behind B'lee's head with his left arm and pulled him close. This time, the kiss was everything that was desired. The touch of D'min's lips started a tingle in B'lee's gut, one that deepened and spread as the kiss progressed. When D'min's tongue started lapping at his lips, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to open his mouth, and the sensation of D'min's tongue sliding into him sent a jolt through his body that ignited every nerve.
They made small adjustments to their positions, inching closer and wrapping their arms tightly around each other's body. The kiss deepened, and B'lee found himself pushing his own tongue into D'min's mouth, setting off another jolt. He touched lips, teeth and palate, all the while thinking how much better, how much more satisfying this felt than anything he had ever done with a girl. Even the small sounds that D'min was making in his throat were amazing.
They had to separate to breathe, but B'lee felt D'min's lips trailing over his cheek and jaw and finding an incredibly sensitive spot just under his ear. He shuddered and inhaled sharply, and heard D'min laugh triumphantly beside him.
"I can't believe you just said that you love me," said D'min. "Are you sure you're not just making fun of me?"
"I do love you," he said, firmly. "I wasn't making fun of you, and I wasn't teasing you. I've loved you for a long time, but I was just too stupid to realise it. You always did tell me I was terrible at noticing things."
"I thought you liked girls."
"So did I." He shrugged. "And I did like girls - I never lied about that. But I was never able to find the right one. I kept telling myself I'd know her when I saw her, but I was only looking at girls. It never crossed my mind that the 'right one' was going to be a boy. If I'd been a little more open, a little less Hold-bred,” he squeezed D'min's waist for emphasis, "I might have recognised what I felt a bit sooner. I just thought we were friends - good friends, best friends, but still friends."
"We are friends."
"I know we are, but I want us to be more than friends."
D'min grinned. "B'lee, I've just had my tongue down your throat and you didn't object. I think I can safely say that we are more than friends."
B'lee felt his face reddening - D'min was laughing at him so he knew it was visible - but he managed to nod.
"Oh, B'lee, I love you and all your silly Hold-bred inhibitions."
"Well, I and all my inhibitions love you back."
"Kiss me again."
So B'lee took D'min in his arms and kissed him until they were both breathless. And it felt right, and good, and there was no little voice in the back of his head telling him that he ought to be kissing a girl. It felt like coming home.
* * *
By the time that B'lee was chased out of the infirmary to go to dinner, he and D'min had talked over many things that had troubled them both over the previous few months. They had also kissed enough that their lips were swollen and red, and Berchar had smiled knowingly and warned B'lee that D'min was still a patient and was not to be mauled about until the wound had healed.
D'min pouted, which B'lee, in his love-addled state, thought was adorable, and sneaked an additional kiss while Berchar wasn't looking. Then he left, promising to come back straight after the meal. Then he had to promise that he wouldn't keep D'min awake by talking or kissing or doing any one of the several things that B'lee urgently wanted to do, now that he knew that D'min loved him.
He wandered through the corridor in a daze. He didn't really feel like eating, but he'd missed breakfast and had barely eaten lunch, and it was just vaguely possible that the light-headed and dizzy feeling he had was due to hunger as well as to the fact that he'd just been thoroughly kissed for an hour by the most attractive man in the Weyr.
D'min loved him. D'min had said that he'd loved him for ages.
He felt like hitting his head against the wall ... repeatedly. He really was the stupidest man on Pern, without a doubt. All this time D'min had been moping around, it hadn't been because of some anonymous rider treating him badly, it was because it was B'lee he loved, and he thought that B'lee didn't love him. D'min had been breaking his heart over the one man who was desperately in love with him but too afraid to show it because he thought that D'min was in love with someone else!
He bumped into someone, and apologised before looking up. It was K'lon, but instead of glowering, as he had earlier in the day, B'lee smiled at him.
K'lon was visibly startled. "What's got into you? You look like you've met the girl of your dreams."
B'lee laughed, and almost bounced up and down on the spot. K'lon wasn't a threat any more, and he'd probably want to know that D'min was happy. "I have. Only it's not a girl."
"Not a girl?"
"No. It's D'min."
"You and D'min?"
"That's right."
Before he knew what was happening, B'lee found himself being hugged and spun around. "That's fantastic!" cried K'lon, beaming as he set B'lee back down on the ground. "I told him he ought to tell you, but he was too scared."
"Tell me what?"
"That he's been in love with you since Impression, of course." Then K'lon stopped, a worried look on his face. "Did I get it wrong?"
"No, you didn't. But I was the one who told D'min - I said I loved him and then he kissed me."
"Good for you. And good for D'min."
"Thank you."
"Ah well, I'd better go and tell M'ken the bad news."
"Bad news?"
"Well, it will be to M'ken. He was convinced you'd switch one day, you know, and he thought he'd be in with a chance when you did."
"Sorry."
"Don't be. You and D'min belong together. Anyone with sense can see that."
B'lee nodded. "We do. We do belong together."
K'lon smiled.
"K'lon, would you mind not telling M'ken - or anyone else - just for the moment? Its going to take a bit of getting used to, and I'd rather no one knew until D'min's up and about again."
K'lon looked a little worried, and B'lee hastened to reassure him. "I'm not changing my mind. I do love him. It's just that I want us to get used to it in private before everyone else knows. That's all."
K'lon nodded, though he still didn't look convinced. "All right, I won't tell anyone. But I think you're making a mistake. D'min's popular, and he'll have a lot of randy riders around him if you're not careful."
"I'll keep them away. Don't you worry about that," promised B'lee, almost growling.
K'lon laughed. "Maybe you will. You've been like a dragon with one egg for the last few months anyway."
"Was it that obvious?"
"It was to me, and maybe a couple of others. But it wasn't common gossip."
"Well, that's a relief."
"Go and eat," K'lon told him. "I'll visit D'min tomorrow and tease him a little, but I won't tell anyone. All right?"
"Thanks."
And with that, K'lon took off down the corridor again, towards the stairs that led to the weyrs on the south wall. B'lee watched his retreating back for a few more seconds, then hurried to dinner. He didn't want to spend a moment longer than necessary away from his weyrmate.