A/N: A random, depressing fic that popped into my head. Not beta-ed , so any mistakes are my own. If you see any, feel free to let me know. Warnings: Suicide, m/m pairing (not graphic).
The Weyr is left numb, and all of the sound is smothered under layers of emotion. The Healers and dragonhealers go about their work in near-silence, almost whispering to apprentices and drudges for what they need.
The Weyr had been horribly unprepared for the Fall, no warnings from the watchdragons, no timetable information. Simply a firelizard message for a minor hold, "Thread is falling. Where are you?", alerted them to the destructive rain.
In a rush of riders grabbing gear, dragons chewing 'stone, healers and the lower caverns woman collecting and making the numbweed, the riders left ill-prepared for their task, and it shows now.
The only sound is the screams of agonised riders, sobs from injured ones and the animal scream of a threadscored dragon.
T'mel sits alone, quieter even than the rest of the Weyr. His arm stings, but he can hardly feel the burned flesh. To his barely-registered horror, he is barely thinking of his own green dragon, Armanth, who is probably one of the ones screaming, her side and leg pierced by the cruel threads. His eyes are on the figure of J'dan, his Weyrmate.
J'dan's blue, Marianth, was the only dragon not to survive the fall. Others may die from their injuries, but Marianth never had a hope.
Tears in his eyes for the pain of a lost dragon, T'mel replays the scene in his mind.
'Manth, tell Marianth to tell J'dan I'm going down, he tells his dragon. A few seconds later Armanth replies.
He says to be careful. T'mel smiles.
The rider or the dragon? He should know I'm always careful, he replies.
T'mel and Armanth dive, flaming, after a tangle of threads. Armanth dives between as a cluster falls close to them.
T'mel hears a scream from above, him, both human and dragon. He looks up, and wishes he hadn't. Marianth is screaming, tossing his head from side to side, his neck and head covered with threads.
T'mel, terrified, screams, "Between! Go between! " He carries on screaming, but Marianth is panicking too much to know what he is supposed to do. The blue dragon rolls midair, trying to shake the threads off.
His straps burnt through, J'dan falls, screaming as his own body is burned by the threads. T'mel dives after him, catching his semi-conscious body on Armanth's shoulders. Wheeling carefully, T'mel and Armanth watch Marianth fall, so fast, and yet the time seems to last so long. Before he can hit the ground, he is between.
Roused from his dazed state, J'dan screams, screams so terribly, worse than his dragon had. To T'mel it sounds as though he is tearing his throat out.
Armanth slowly glides in to land, behind the front of thread, being careful of their precariously balanced passenger, who is clinging to the fighting straps, sobbing and screaming against the green dragon's back.
When they land, J'dan doesn't move. T'mel walks around and has Armanth crouch whilst he physically pulls his Weyrmate of his dragon. J'dan collapses against T'mel, and almost pushes them both over.
When they returned to the Weyr, J'dan walked off alone, and everybody left him that way. Everybody sorry, acing for his loss, but guiltily glad it wasn't them.
J'dan is sat now, leaning against the rough stone of the Weyr, hunched over, his face hidden in his arms.
T'mel just watches him, wishing he could do something, but knowing he can't.
"Talk to him." A half-whispered voice comes from behind him.
T'mel looks up to see Lyeta, the headwoman. "I can't." He says, his voice half-choked with held in tears.
"He needs you." She says, her voice calm and steady, reassuring in the whirlwind of emotion T'mel is feeling.
"I can't see him like this. I can't do it."
Lyeta's tone becomes strict and commanding. "He loves you, T'mel. He's lost everything else he had, apart from you, and you sit here, staring at him. Talk."
T'mel looks up at her, then across at J'dan. He is still J'dan in T'mel's mind. Jeardan is the candidate boy J'dan was, a child, not this man who T'mel would trust his life with.
T'mel stands up slowly, bone weary and aching. He earns an approving nod from Lyeta.
He walks slowly over to J'dan.
J'dan seems unaware of his presence as he crouches down slowly. He rests a hand on J'dan's shaking shoulders, and J'dan looks up. He is not crying, no tears left. His whole body is shaking, his face is pale. He leans into T'mel, who cradles him for a while.
Lyeta looks at the two, knowing she was right to get T'mel to support his Weyrmate, knowing that this is the last they will share together. J'dan will not stay in the Weyr. The dragons around are too hard to bear. And for all he may love T'mel, T'mel is a dragonrider, and a constant reminder of what he has lost.
But now, at this moment, T'mel is a rock to J'dan. She goes into the kitchen and fetches a skin of whiskey. It's good stuff, strong, and will be wasted on the two, but they need it more than the Weyr will.
She hands the skin to T'mel who smiles up at her gratefully, J'dan clinging to him.
The next day T'mel wakes up in their bed, his head pounding. J'dan is still asleep, and he drunk easily twice as much as T'mel last night.
T'mel tries to guard his face from the light, from the strange angle of it. He suddenly realises that he isn't in his own bed, instead in one of the lower down Weyrs. Armanth? He calls out to his dragon.
T'mel?
Nothing. How are you feeling?
Tired. I was sleeping. The dragon complains. T'mel realises how lucky he is to have he, and begins to smile to himself. He is shaken out of his thoughts when he remembers that the man curled up next to him has lost all of that.
A quiet moan comes from J'dan. Jeardan.
T'mel pushes the other man's hair back from his face, and smiles weakly as J'dan's eyes flicker open.
"T'mel." J'dan groans.
"How are you?" T'mel asks, carefully, almost politely, as though he and J'dan have not been Weyrmates since barely past Weyrling status.
J'dan looks up at him with those eyes that T'mel fell in love with. They are empty. "What kind of question is that?" J'dan asks, almost plaintively. T'mel suddenly realises that J'dan's eyes are empty through suppressed emotion, choked back screams and tears.
J'dan, with surprising speed, almost flings himself out of the bed, lurching out onto the ledge. T'mel can hear him vomiting loudly, and waits a few seconds, wondering whether to go out now or get some water first.
He suddenly realises he has no idea how high up they are, and if there is one thing dragonless riders are famous for, it's suicide. He jumps out of the bed nearly as fast as J'dan did, running out into the ledge.
He freezes, just past the doorway. J'dan is on the very edge of the ledge, staring down at the ground below.
"J'dan?" He asks, trying to bring the ex-rider's attention back to him.
"I'm not J'dan any more. It's Jeardan."
His voice is emotionless, dull. T'mel walks slowly up to him, and looks down as well. He knows J'dan wants to jump, and he needs to think of a way to stop him, and fast.
"It's not high enough." He says, trying to stop the tears. "Please, J'dan. If you're going to do it, don't risk the pain of this. Come back to the weyr."
A horrible, horrible plan has formed itself in T'mel's mind. He doesn't want to think of it, but he likes the thought of J'dan lying, broken, not dead on the ground below, even less.
"Come back. We can do it painlessly. Please."
T'mel begs, trying to convince J'dan to take one step back, just one. J'dan does, he steps back and turns to face T'mel.
"Please?" T'mel asks, one more, time, fighting tears harder than he has every fought them before.
J'dan nods, just once but that is enough for T'mel. He leads J'dan back into their weyr, pushing him down onto the bed.
"I'll be gone ten minutes. Don't do anything stupid. Please." His voice breaks on the last word, and the tears fall, slowly. "Please." He begs again.
As T'mel runs down the weyr halls, tears stream down his face. He runs into the kitchen, where Lyeta is supervising the cooking. When she sees T'mel's tears, she looks scared.
"He hasn't-" Her voice breaks off, leaving T'mel's mind to fill the gap. He shakes his head.
"Not yet."
She looks up at him, puzzled. "Why are you here?" he asks, finally.
"Can you-" His voice breaks again, and he lets out a single sob, before gaining control again. "Can you get me some fellis juice?"
She catches his meaning almost as soon as she hears the words. She leads him out of the kitchens, asking as she goes, "How much?"
T'mel starts to sob again. "I-I don't know. I thought you would. I don't want it to hurt him. Just… go to sleep."
Tears in her own eyes, Lyeta nods.
Reaching up into a cabinet fixed to the wall, she pulls out two flasks. "All of this should do it. It won't hurt him." Her own voice breaks, and she hesitates before handing the bottles to T'mel. Could she hand a man his death sentence? Could she do what T'mel was about to do?
"I don't know if I can." T'mel whispers. "I love him. I can just-" He can't finish the sentence, he can't say that he is going to kill his Weyrmate.
"If you love him, you know he wants it."
"But people have got through this before. I'm just not strong enough to get him through it. I wish I could."
She nods. "Go." She says, gently, but dismissively. She knows that if he doesn't do it now, he'll never be able to.
Carrying the fellis, T'mel walks back up to his weyr. He ahs been longer than ten minutes, but J'dan is still sat on the bed.
"Do you really want to do this?" T'mel asks, knowing and dreading the answer.
J'dan looks up at him, slowly. "I can't stay, T'mel. You know I can't."
T'mel nods. "I know."
He opens the seal on one flask, and hands in to J'dan. J'dan goes to drink it, but stops. "I don't want to. Not like this." T'mel looks up, almost in hope, almost in dread. "Is Armanth strong enough to fly us to the Star Stones?"
T'mel nods. "I think so. She got a little scored yesterday. She can still fly."
"That's what I want to do."
T'mel is about to refuse, about to scream that he can't let J'dan do that. But he was willing to let him poison himself. What difference was it if he helped him jump. He nods, and call Armanth to the ledge.
The are on the star stones, on the very top. T'mel has no doubt that this, this is high enough. The weyr ledge probably was too, he was just trying to stop this. But now he sees it's inevitable.
J'dan turns to him, embraces him, kisses him softly on the lips. "I love you." He whispers.
T'mel, can only nod, choked by his tears. Eventually he finds the voice to say, "I love you too."
J'dan drinks half of a bottle of fellis juice. He wants to jump, to feel the air rushing past as his dragon must have done. He doesn't want to feel the ground.
He closes his eyes, and opens them again. It's a beautiful day. The sun is bright, the top of the mountain warm. But he feels none of it. Taking T'mel's hand, he squeezes it once, and then lets go.
A deep breath, a step, another. Closed eyes, and one last step.