Chapter Twenty
Zyr
Robin’s heartbeat. His breath. His voice.
Dragging him back to himself. Requiring his presence. Naming him.
Zyr.
He was more than need. More than pain. He, too, had breath and heart and voice.
“I’m present, Treasure,” he said, voice hoarse, throat dry. The aftermath of burning. “Are you?”
He paired the words with a tug at Robin’s leg, scales sliding over skin. He lacked the human’s tricks for providing gravity. But he could try.
“Yeah,” Robin sounded just as rough. “Back down to earth, with you. Wrap your arms around me?”
Zyr acquiesced with a soft sigh, relieved at the permission to hold on. Both of them slick with sweat, the remains of Robin’s climax drying between them.
Beg me. Beg me to come on you.
Even as the fog cleared, his memory of what had passed remained immediate and sharp. Zyr preferred it that way. Better than wondering.
Use me.
He cleared away the mess with a trickle of magic, still holding onto Robin, fingers spread to touch as much of him as he could.
Give me what’s mine. Everything.
The words weren’t a problem. He would not have minded being told to beg. To give Robin everything. But it hadn’t been Robin asking. It hadn’t been Zyr begging to be used. And that was … unsettling.
Yes.
“Would you lie beside me? I am–” he went quiet, spinning through Robin’s wheel and finding no words for what he wished to express. “I’d like to lower my head, Raven-Robin.”
Tuck against Robin’s chest properly. Close his eyes. Hold onto him and think through this. Talk through this.
“Sounds good, beithir,” Robin said, his grip easing on Zyr’s horns. “Especially with you asking like that. Water first. Two, please?”
Typical Robin, speaking as if Faerie stood beside the bed.
“My thanks,” Zyr said, taking a long drink.
The water was just this side of ice, the glass wet with condensation. Brutally cold after the heat of before, and Zyr welcomed it. It was real, and it was a choice, and that felt important.
Once Zyr returned the glass, Robin stretched out beside him.
“Head down. Eyes closed.” And Robin’s hand on his horn, guiding him. “Tell me if you want to count. You don’t need to ask.”
“Please.”
Darkness. Robin’s voice, ascending to nine, and breaths between. The comfort of settling into a space that was sought, instead of imposed upon them. He was quiet, after. Ordering his thoughts. Robin didn’t rush him.
“Had you thought it becoming to slit my throat, I’d not have had the will to stay your hand,” he offered, picking up the first thread in the knot of his thoughts and feeling his way along it. “I would be far more than merely unsettled now, were it not you beside me.”
“I thought the same thing.” Robin’s hand wrapped tight around Zyr’s horn, a settling pressure. “That it'd be … that I wouldn't be coping as well, if it was someone else.”
Dangerous, the game the lidérc had played. Later, it would be necessary to tease out the why of it. Not now. Robin’s voice, his grip, those were more important.
“I felt I was no one at all. Simply a vessel for pleasure and pain. I dislike the sense of being … anonymous within the act. I want it to matter to you, that you are with me.”
“What’s under your skin is my favorite part of you,” Robin murmured, fingers moving through Zyr’s hair. “It matters a lot to me that it’s you I’m with. That you're you.”
Zyr sighed quietly, the reassurance as settling as Robin’s touch. And still, there was more. Each word heavy. Difficult.
“It’s more than that. I want to matter to you. Which is selfish. But I so enjoy your company, Raven-Robin. Even had you not set yourself in the center of my universe, if you weren’t the tether of my soul, I would seek to be near you.”
“I’m not sure what part of that was selfish, beithir.” Robin’s fingers never stopped moving. “Wanting to be near me. Enjoying me as a person. Help me understand how that’s selfish.”
With every word, every touch, Zyr settled further. The fire had left his skin and now the ash fell from his soul. It wasn’t the first time someone had tried to burn Zyr out of himself. But it was the first time he’d had someone to hold onto in the aftermath.
“Not that,” he answered. It helped to talk.
To set it all out, order it, and put it back again.
“Hypocritical, I think may be a better word. To refuse to waver in my own feelings, while seeking influence over yours. You’re yourself, clever bird.
Even when faced with an irascible dragon with his feet on the table.
I cannot ask you to be, or feel, other than you do. ”
“How do you think I feel about you?” Robin’s words were quiet, as if he understood the difficulty of the question. “I’m asking because I want to know. There’s no wrong answer.”
“You’ve said you like me. I’ve no reason to doubt your words.
I’ve tried not to assume further.” It seemed an inadequate answer, but Zyr wasn’t sure what else to give.
“When you spoke of aftercare, you mentioned submissives. I suppose I placed myself with them. Someone you’ve chosen to take care of. ”
“That’s not how I see you.”
Robin had gone tense in Zyr’s arms, tone fierce. Unsure of how best to respond, Zyr pressed more firmly against his chest, holding on tighter. Said nothing, until Robin started to relax again.
“I read books better than people,” he offered, into the silence between Robin’s breaths. “Will you explain?”
Robin tugged at his hair, stroked his horns. Said nothing. But Zyr had never minded silence. Like this, with his eyes closed and his arms around Robin, he welcomed it.
“People act like love is everything, but I don’t get that.
You can love someone without liking them.
” Quiet, measured consideration had replaced the fierceness in Robin’s voice.
“Desperately want them to love you back, even though if you didn’t have those feelings, you’d not want to be in the same room as them.
People that have you on edge just talking to them for a few minutes can be the same people you cry over at night because they aren’t proud of you.
You can obsess, and not enjoy them as a person, refuse to see them as a whole.
“Liking’s different. Liking someone takes work.
Harder to do, to know a person’s humor and flaws and dislikes and still want to spend time with them.
To enjoy their company. Most people have me wanting to scrape my skin off.
I don’t like people. I tolerate them. There’s maybe, fuck, five people I’d say I like being around.
And now there’s you.” Robin’s hand tightened and eased on Zyr’s horn as he spoke, like an unspoken count. “Tell me if I’m making sense.”
“You are.” It was a chain of logic that Zyr couldn’t fully comprehend, but it did make sense. A human sense. “I haven’t had that experience, of love without liking.”
He’d loved Gena, he supposed. But that love had grown out of mutual respect. And it’d been a complicated, muted thing between them.
“I don’t recommend it.” The wryness in Robin’s voice made Zyr wish, almost, to open his eyes. “I’m just … really glad you like my company. And not only because of the universe-tether. Not that I’m calling those unimportant.”
Glad Zyr liked him? For a moment, Zyr was struck silent by the impossibility of the statement. That Robin might think…
A gulf in understanding. In nature. In who they were and who they were capable of being. How many careful, measured conversations had they had without fully understanding each other?
“Treasure,” he said. Quiet, though not soft. Not gentle. “I enjoy your company, as I have no other. That is what tethers me.”
“Oh,” from Robin. And, “Huh.”
No rejection, so Zyr allowed himself to keep talking. To explain. Robin was not fae.
“A dragon fixates. But our fixations are as individual as we are. They reflect us. What we … like.” Such a small word, for what he felt. But it mattered to Robin. “As I like you.”
“I like you, too,” Robin offered. “Genuinely.”
Zyr’s slow, measured breaths became less so, as Robin spoke. That little bit less steady. Sharper. It was what he wished to hear, that he mattered to Robin. Terrifying. To want such a thing. To be given it. Even bonded, Zyr had only ever relied on himself. Only ever sought his own approval.
But here they were. There were worst ways to live out the loss of your allotment and the probable end of the world than madly infatuated with a human who liked you, and desired that you like him in turn. Regardless of what came, they had now.
He let go of Robin’s calf, reaching to drape his tail over the human’s waist instead. Draped, then tugged, pulling him in closer. Because he could. Because Robin might allow it. Or he might not. And Zyr would be pleased with either reaction.
Immediately, Robin tightened his grip on hair and horn, and pulled right back. “You, ask. Just because I’m sweet on you doesn’t mean that changes.”
Zyr flicked Robin’s spine with the tip of his tail before raising it, hovering above Robin instead of curling around him and taking in the heat and nearness of him as he wanted to.
“May I?” he asked, there in the dark, with Robin’s tight grip on his hair. His horn. Such a pleasant sensation. “I like the way you feel against my scales.”
“I’m not sure what you’re asking me for,” Robin’s voice held a smile. “You should rephrase that with more specifics.” A tug at Zyr’s hair. “The question mark was well done, and the why of it.”
“Cruel bird.” Words said like a compliment, because they were. “May I lay my tail over your waist and pull you closer? You’re warm, Raven-Robin. Warm, and you smell like salt and sex and me. I want to be as close to you as you’ll allow.”
“I like how you ask, beithir. My beithir, because you said so, and I want you to be.” Robin emphasized his statement with another tug at Zyr’s hair. “You may lay your tail over my waist and pull me closer. Because you’re Zyr, who explains his why. And tell me how strong your tail is. I’m curious.”