Faolan, who has been pretending he doesn't notice any anticipation from Dima and possibly acting as though he forgot, lets the hours sort of...drag out? until it's well past dark.
[note: Dima Keeps Looking At Him. Trying to play it cool nbdnbd.]
Eventually, he rises from the campfire, stretches, yawns as though so terribly tired - then catches Dima's eye and starts to laugh, knowing he's not really fooling anyone. He'll hold out a hand in invitation, and if Dima accepts, he'll - without any shame at all - put on the Goggles of Night so he can lead his mate back to the spring without having to take a different form.
<.>
Gods, how he adores this man.
Fae's laughter draws a huffed laugh of Dima's own, and of course he accepts Fae's hand; hasn't he been anticipating it all evening?
Rising, he cocks an eyebrow, a crooked smile— Attempting wryness, unable to contain its warmth. "A very daring look, my Dearest."
And yes, Faolan is getting a kiss to the jaw before they head off anywhere. And yes, Dmitri keeps his hand, letting the sounds a night's creatures, night's breeze, and the approach of falling water drift around them.
<.>
"Less daring than stumbling around in the dark," he murmurs with a lopsided smile of his own.
He's quiet until they approach the spring; it seems almost as though their twined hands hold all of his focus, and occasionally his thumb brushes a slow arc along Dima's skin.
He doesn't stop at the water, but rather follows it around to the rockface where the waterfall has formed. Before they reach the cascade, before his voice can be drowned out by the minor roar of water, he asks, "Do you remember what we talked about on the dock that night? The places we'd been, the stars and waters we saw?"
He doesn't wait for an answer; picking his way carefully over the sand and stones, he leads Dima to the waterfall itself - and behind it, where the rocks form a natural opening, barely four feet high. They have to stoop to pass inside.
The way the cave has formed, the waterfall's roar is muted, distant, as though they've stepped into a different, parallel world.
Faolan takes off the goggles.
Dima can see why immediately: this is the cave Faolan spoke of: dotting the walls and ceiling are thousands of spots of blue light. In the water, glowing fish swim in lazy spirals.
<.>
He feels Faolan's touch like incandescent shimmer, a light that guides him truer than his own sight. There's no pause as Fae heads toward the water; no doubt that Puppy knows precisely what he doing, where he's going.
And here, Dima can feel the misting spray just as he'd conjured it, earlier, in mind. Here, with the roar of water crashing louder every step, with Faolan speaking of memory, and of course Dmitri remembers; he'd thought of that night while he thought on the mist reaching them now, and his smile - a little daft; a lot grateful - suggests as much.
Fae moves toward the waterfall, and though Dima's head cants briefly curious, still he doesn't hesitate. Feels a thrill rising chirruped in his chest; an understanding that Faolan is sharing something with him. One of the places he saw and held dear, perhaps. One of the locations spoken into velvet skies above the dark, written forever into Dima's knowing.
He recognizes the image from Fae's telling as they step through. Feels briefly that he's walked into a dream conjured by his Faolan, because the world's shifted entirely, turned not alien but astonishing, illuminated softly by the lights contained with in. By creatures, organisms, breath of life among the water's muffled sound.
Dima's smiling - an expression complicated but joyous; humbled, perhaps, to witness both the beauty of this site and the meaning to Fae's sharing - and he speaks, voice not quite steady: "Like the sky and stars brought down around us, or we, rising to their tier.
"Oh, Faolan—“
Dima draws closer. Places a hand on Fae's bicep, curls near against him. There's a space of time before he speaks. Time in which his hand runs its caress again, again. Time in which he leans his head against Fae's arm and settles, nuzzles.
Finally, eyes catching Fae's, and catching the reflections of that luminescent blue: "It is as you said, my Fae.
"As you said, and more astonishing still, in the presence of my mate."
<.>
Faolan holds Dima, arms wound around him in a loose, possessive embrace. This is what he wanted: himself, and Dima, and a cave lit all around as if by stars.
The last time he came here, he'd been grateful to have a secret all to himself. He'd shared far too much, been too exposed. Piece by piece, he'd won privacy back. Secrets, beautiful rather than scandalous. He hadn't wanted anyone else to know. Even when he'd told Dima about it on the docks, he had questioned himself.
Why share it with someone he knew would be gone so quickly?
(Had he known even then, though, that Dima wouldn't leave him? That Dima wouldn't allow him to flee into the woods again?)
"Nothing special happened to me here," he remarks softly. One hand trails up Dima's back, searching in the half-dark to card through his hair. "I don't have a story about it. I just...found it, and saw how lovely it was.
"But that means it's a place where something can happen to give it meaning, and nothing else can share the space of that meaning. Does that make any sense?"
He thinks maybe he isn't giving the right words to what's in his head. Educated as he had to become in his former life, he still finds himself faltering, clumsy when trying to explain something more than the work of his hands or a hunt or the ruin he finds in the world.
He draws his hand down to Dima's cheek, palm cupped and thumb sweeping tenderly. "I'm finding meaning in so many things lately. I'd like to have more of that; to take you to every beautiful place I've seen and let it be a place I saw with my mate.
"I'd like to hold my past up for reckoning against what you are to me. Maybe I'll find the meaning is that I was moving towards you."
His smile in the dark, visible still to Dima, is a complicated one. And then it isn't so complicated.
"Nothing happened here for me; there wasn't any meaning. But then I showed it to my mate. My - " Faolan falters, but there's no sorrow, no shame in the pause. Only dumbfounded speechlessness at his own good fortune. (To be here, surrounded by glimmering points of light, and held in Dima's arms.)
"My Dima.
"This is where I told my mate I love him." Not complicated a smile at all. Only softly radiant, shy, full of hope he doesn't show anyone (except, except.) "I love you, Dima. So much that I want to show you every beautiful place I've been, every perfect thing I've seen, and let it be meaningful because of you."
He pauses, then huffs a little laugh. "I practiced all that and still can't get the words just right. But what's important - the part where I love you? I managed that much. I'll always manage that much."
<.>
He kisses his love, for a start.
Draws inward and upward, his hand carding its path through Fae’s hair. Dima tipping up on his toes to reach nearer, kiss with greater, tender pressure. Hears his breath halt again, again, again.
And whispers between breathes: “My mate. Oh, love.”
He lingers here with words knocked from his lungs; lingers again upon the sight of Fae when the kiss has turned to locking eyes above effulgent smiles. It’s Fae’s smile that brings Dima back to his voice, puts breath behind his crescendoing need to speak. Because it’s worth all the world, to witness hopefulness in Faolan; to see hope freed - even if only in brief spaces; even if it takes time to cultivate - from wariness. To see Fae’s gentle, his daring, his assured heart drawn from hiding.
Dima speaks, feeling the deft-spun strength of every word: “My mate.
“My Fae.
“Oh, my love—“
There’s a soft laugh, a moment to restore himself to speech, because that word alone almost undid him again. He presses a hand to Fae’s chest, as if asking his forbearance and, yes, simply wanting to touch his lave. “Forgive me, Puppy; I’ve thought upon three words since almost first we met. Words I never understood before I found you, and you found me. Words I’ve come to know like burning in my chest; words clear to me in every breath.
“Words brought to truth for me, brought to my understanding by the fact and light of you.
“I love you. My Fae, of course I do.
“How fortunate I am, to have found you. How favored beyond the will of gods, to hold you in this soft-light sanctuary - this cavern, ah, this den—” There’s a pleased smile from Dima, and a nudge of his nose inward, against Fae’s throat before he finds his mate’s eyes again, continues speaking, “How favored I am, to hear ‘love’ from your tongue, and know it blessedly, finally upon my own.
“Here, where my love once found some peace from execrable climes. Where you found protection, before I could shield you."
“Here, where my mate drew me in moonlight and in mist, to share with me the vision of a secret first shared upon the docks - a night forever written on my soul - to let this secret be ours, shared, and to impart a dearer secret still—
“That my mate knows the consonance between us; the call of our hearts, each to each.
“That my Puppy trusts Daddy to help guide him; to preserve him.
“That my Fae knows his love is sacred to and shared ardently with his Dima.
“That my Faolan can smile with such hope; that we might resurrect the world together yet.
“Love, I admire you, adore you. I know excitation at the sight of you - vicious, deadly, tender - and know deepest peace held in your arms. You are everything to me, my Faolan. Every joy and every name.”
There’s a brief moment in which Dima’s speech hangs suspended, and could turn one way or the other. Because in part he thinks he should be cautious, doesn’t want to bring too much upon his love. And then in part - larger, more clamorous part - he yearns to say this, offer this; give it as an option, grant his Fae this token of Dmitri’s sure intentions.
He chooses, or feels the choice slipping into itself. He speaks—
“And if you’re ready, my Fae.
“If you can accept one more name—“ There’s a soft laugh and a shake of his head. “One more name for the moment; I expect I’ll never cease in finding names for you.
“You needn’t accept it now. My mate, I won’t be upset. I want this for you, as one part of the life we share— But in your time.
“We have all the world ahead, don’t we?”
He has, yes, slipped his hand into a pocket of his robe. Deftly. Smoothly. And when he raises his hand, there’s a ring held between two fingers, carefully, presented to the vision his love.
“My world; my Dearest and my Love. Faolan and Fae; my Puppy and my mate. Let me give you another name—
“I’d like to call you ‘husband,’ too.”
<.>
Standing in a cavern full of starlight, his lips feeling beestung and warm from Dima's kiss, (thinking the word 'den' again, again, but not here, no, somewhere warm and dry and safe, a place for himself and his mate-) Faolan realizes he's not at all surprised.
Of course Dima would choose here, and this moment.
Of course there's already a ring.
His first instinct - the first rising emotion - is sorrow. As it climbs upward in his chest, he comprehends something about himself: he's gotten in the habit of feeling sorrowful. He's learned to anticipate the oncoming ruin and strangle whatever hope he might feel for the future.
In this case, a future that might ruin Dima's life. (A future that sees him once again alone, retreating to the woods with a broken heart, a shattered soul.)
(But Sen said.) (Sen had a point.)
But.
What if.
He can't hope, but he can say what if.
What if he just...tried. For as long as he can, with all his will, what if he tried to make Dima happy? What if he could do that so well, whatever was lost along the way simply didn't measure up?
He's fingering the ring without taking it, contemplative.
He could say, You know this will only end badly.
Or. Please, it's enough to be your mate. Let's not talk about this.
Or. Dima, there's no future in this.
What he says instead, very carefully, very softly, is, "Would it make you happy?"
He draws a sharp breath, thinking maybe Dima won't understand why he's asking. Maybe Dima will think it's the only reason he might agree. His hands cover Dima's and the ring, and with the same careful, low tone, he adds, "If the world were perfect - or if I knew for certain you would never regret this moment...or me. Know I want you, Dima. I want to be everything to you, and if I could promise a life free of regrets, I wouldn't hesitate.
"But I don't know, and I can't promise - and you won't let me avoid it, will you?" His smile's a rueful one, lopsided and without accusation.
"I can't protect you, and I can't escape you. So - I suppose I'll just try very hard to bring you a blissful life. Will it make you happy, Dima, to be my husband?"
no subject
Faolan, who has been pretending he doesn't notice any anticipation from Dima and possibly acting as though he forgot, lets the hours sort of...drag out? until it's well past dark.
[note: Dima Keeps Looking At Him. Trying to play it cool nbdnbd.]
Eventually, he rises from the campfire, stretches, yawns as though so terribly tired - then catches Dima's eye and starts to laugh, knowing he's not really fooling anyone. He'll hold out a hand in invitation, and if Dima accepts, he'll - without any shame at all - put on the Goggles of Night so he can lead his mate back to the spring without having to take a different form.
<.>
Gods, how he adores this man.
Fae's laughter draws a huffed laugh of Dima's own, and of course he accepts Fae's hand; hasn't he been anticipating it all evening?
Rising, he cocks an eyebrow, a crooked smile— Attempting wryness, unable to contain its warmth. "A very daring look, my Dearest."
And yes, Faolan is getting a kiss to the jaw before they head off anywhere. And yes, Dmitri keeps his hand, letting the sounds a night's creatures, night's breeze, and the approach of falling water drift around them.
<.>
"Less daring than stumbling around in the dark," he murmurs with a lopsided smile of his own.
He's quiet until they approach the spring; it seems almost as though their twined hands hold all of his focus, and occasionally his thumb brushes a slow arc along Dima's skin.
He doesn't stop at the water, but rather follows it around to the rockface where the waterfall has formed. Before they reach the cascade, before his voice can be drowned out by the minor roar of water, he asks, "Do you remember what we talked about on the dock that night? The places we'd been, the stars and waters we saw?"
He doesn't wait for an answer; picking his way carefully over the sand and stones, he leads Dima to the waterfall itself - and behind it, where the rocks form a natural opening, barely four feet high. They have to stoop to pass inside.
The way the cave has formed, the waterfall's roar is muted, distant, as though they've stepped into a different, parallel world.
Faolan takes off the goggles.
Dima can see why immediately: this is the cave Faolan spoke of: dotting the walls and ceiling are thousands of spots of blue light. In the water, glowing fish swim in lazy spirals.
<.>
He feels Faolan's touch like incandescent shimmer, a light that guides him truer than his own sight. There's no pause as Fae heads toward the water; no doubt that Puppy knows precisely what he doing, where he's going.
And here, Dima can feel the misting spray just as he'd conjured it, earlier, in mind. Here, with the roar of water crashing louder every step, with Faolan speaking of memory, and of course Dmitri remembers; he'd thought of that night while he thought on the mist reaching them now, and his smile - a little daft; a lot grateful - suggests as much.
Fae moves toward the waterfall, and though Dima's head cants briefly curious, still he doesn't hesitate. Feels a thrill rising chirruped in his chest; an understanding that Faolan is sharing something with him. One of the places he saw and held dear, perhaps. One of the locations spoken into velvet skies above the dark, written forever into Dima's knowing.
He recognizes the image from Fae's telling as they step through. Feels briefly that he's walked into a dream conjured by his Faolan, because the world's shifted entirely, turned not alien but astonishing, illuminated softly by the lights contained with in. By creatures, organisms, breath of life among the water's muffled sound.
Dima's smiling - an expression complicated but joyous; humbled, perhaps, to witness both the beauty of this site and the meaning to Fae's sharing - and he speaks, voice not quite steady: "Like the sky and stars brought down around us, or we, rising to their tier.
"Oh, Faolan—“
Dima draws closer. Places a hand on Fae's bicep, curls near against him. There's a space of time before he speaks. Time in which his hand runs its caress again, again. Time in which he leans his head against Fae's arm and settles, nuzzles.
Finally, eyes catching Fae's, and catching the reflections of that luminescent blue: "It is as you said, my Fae.
"As you said, and more astonishing still, in the presence of my mate."
<.>
Faolan holds Dima, arms wound around him in a loose, possessive embrace. This is what he wanted: himself, and Dima, and a cave lit all around as if by stars.
The last time he came here, he'd been grateful to have a secret all to himself. He'd shared far too much, been too exposed. Piece by piece, he'd won privacy back. Secrets, beautiful rather than scandalous. He hadn't wanted anyone else to know. Even when he'd told Dima about it on the docks, he had questioned himself.
Why share it with someone he knew would be gone so quickly?
(Had he known even then, though, that Dima wouldn't leave him? That Dima wouldn't allow him to flee into the woods again?)
"Nothing special happened to me here," he remarks softly. One hand trails up Dima's back, searching in the half-dark to card through his hair. "I don't have a story about it. I just...found it, and saw how lovely it was.
"But that means it's a place where something can happen to give it meaning, and nothing else can share the space of that meaning. Does that make any sense?"
He thinks maybe he isn't giving the right words to what's in his head. Educated as he had to become in his former life, he still finds himself faltering, clumsy when trying to explain something more than the work of his hands or a hunt or the ruin he finds in the world.
He draws his hand down to Dima's cheek, palm cupped and thumb sweeping tenderly. "I'm finding meaning in so many things lately. I'd like to have more of that; to take you to every beautiful place I've seen and let it be a place I saw with my mate.
"I'd like to hold my past up for reckoning against what you are to me. Maybe I'll find the meaning is that I was moving towards you."
His smile in the dark, visible still to Dima, is a complicated one. And then it isn't so complicated.
"Nothing happened here for me; there wasn't any meaning. But then I showed it to my mate. My - " Faolan falters, but there's no sorrow, no shame in the pause. Only dumbfounded speechlessness at his own good fortune. (To be here, surrounded by glimmering points of light, and held in Dima's arms.)
"My Dima.
"This is where I told my mate I love him." Not complicated a smile at all. Only softly radiant, shy, full of hope he doesn't show anyone (except, except.) "I love you, Dima. So much that I want to show you every beautiful place I've been, every perfect thing I've seen, and let it be meaningful because of you."
He pauses, then huffs a little laugh. "I practiced all that and still can't get the words just right. But what's important - the part where I love you? I managed that much. I'll always manage that much."
<.>
He kisses his love, for a start.
Draws inward and upward, his hand carding its path through Fae’s hair. Dima tipping up on his toes to reach nearer, kiss with greater, tender pressure. Hears his breath halt again, again, again.
And whispers between breathes: “My mate. Oh, love.”
He lingers here with words knocked from his lungs; lingers again upon the sight of Fae when the kiss has turned to locking eyes above effulgent smiles. It’s Fae’s smile that brings Dima back to his voice, puts breath behind his crescendoing need to speak. Because it’s worth all the world, to witness hopefulness in Faolan; to see hope freed - even if only in brief spaces; even if it takes time to cultivate - from wariness. To see Fae’s gentle, his daring, his assured heart drawn from hiding.
Dima speaks, feeling the deft-spun strength of every word: “My mate.
“My Fae.
“Oh, my love—“
There’s a soft laugh, a moment to restore himself to speech, because that word alone almost undid him again. He presses a hand to Fae’s chest, as if asking his forbearance and, yes, simply wanting to touch his lave. “Forgive me, Puppy; I’ve thought upon three words since almost first we met. Words I never understood before I found you, and you found me. Words I’ve come to know like burning in my chest; words clear to me in every breath.
“Words brought to truth for me, brought to my understanding by the fact and light of you.
“I love you. My Fae, of course I do.
“How fortunate I am, to have found you. How favored beyond the will of gods, to hold you in this soft-light sanctuary - this cavern, ah, this den—” There’s a pleased smile from Dima, and a nudge of his nose inward, against Fae’s throat before he finds his mate’s eyes again, continues speaking, “How favored I am, to hear ‘love’ from your tongue, and know it blessedly, finally upon my own.
“Here, where my love once found some peace from execrable climes. Where you found protection, before I could shield you."
“Here, where my mate drew me in moonlight and in mist, to share with me the vision of a secret first shared upon the docks - a night forever written on my soul - to let this secret be ours, shared, and to impart a dearer secret still—
“That my mate knows the consonance between us; the call of our hearts, each to each.
“That my Puppy trusts Daddy to help guide him; to preserve him.
“That my Fae knows his love is sacred to and shared ardently with his Dima.
“That my Faolan can smile with such hope; that we might resurrect the world together yet.
“Love, I admire you, adore you. I know excitation at the sight of you - vicious, deadly, tender - and know deepest peace held in your arms. You are everything to me, my Faolan. Every joy and every name.”
There’s a brief moment in which Dima’s speech hangs suspended, and could turn one way or the other. Because in part he thinks he should be cautious, doesn’t want to bring too much upon his love. And then in part - larger, more clamorous part - he yearns to say this, offer this; give it as an option, grant his Fae this token of Dmitri’s sure intentions.
He chooses, or feels the choice slipping into itself. He speaks—
“And if you’re ready, my Fae.
“If you can accept one more name—“ There’s a soft laugh and a shake of his head. “One more name for the moment; I expect I’ll never cease in finding names for you.
“You needn’t accept it now. My mate, I won’t be upset. I want this for you, as one part of the life we share— But in your time.
“We have all the world ahead, don’t we?”
He has, yes, slipped his hand into a pocket of his robe. Deftly. Smoothly. And when he raises his hand, there’s a ring held between two fingers, carefully, presented to the vision his love.
“My world; my Dearest and my Love. Faolan and Fae; my Puppy and my mate. Let me give you another name—
“I’d like to call you ‘husband,’ too.”
<.>
Standing in a cavern full of starlight, his lips feeling beestung and warm from Dima's kiss, (thinking the word 'den' again, again, but not here, no, somewhere warm and dry and safe, a place for himself and his mate-) Faolan realizes he's not at all surprised.
Of course Dima would choose here, and this moment.
Of course there's already a ring.
His first instinct - the first rising emotion - is sorrow. As it climbs upward in his chest, he comprehends something about himself: he's gotten in the habit of feeling sorrowful. He's learned to anticipate the oncoming ruin and strangle whatever hope he might feel for the future.
In this case, a future that might ruin Dima's life. (A future that sees him once again alone, retreating to the woods with a broken heart, a shattered soul.)
(But Sen said.) (Sen had a point.)
But.
What if.
He can't hope, but he can say what if.
What if he just...tried. For as long as he can, with all his will, what if he tried to make Dima happy? What if he could do that so well, whatever was lost along the way simply didn't measure up?
He's fingering the ring without taking it, contemplative.
He could say, You know this will only end badly.
Or. Please, it's enough to be your mate. Let's not talk about this.
Or. Dima, there's no future in this.
What he says instead, very carefully, very softly, is, "Would it make you happy?"
He draws a sharp breath, thinking maybe Dima won't understand why he's asking. Maybe Dima will think it's the only reason he might agree. His hands cover Dima's and the ring, and with the same careful, low tone, he adds, "If the world were perfect - or if I knew for certain you would never regret this moment...or me. Know I want you, Dima. I want to be everything to you, and if I could promise a life free of regrets, I wouldn't hesitate.
"But I don't know, and I can't promise - and you won't let me avoid it, will you?" His smile's a rueful one, lopsided and without accusation.
"I can't protect you, and I can't escape you. So - I suppose I'll just try very hard to bring you a blissful life. Will it make you happy, Dima, to be my husband?"
<.>