Mojave recoiled in shock, not expecting to be met with such aggressive pushback. Oh-Uhm-I mean- The calm he'd been feeling was momentarily disturbed by a pang in the heart, having had his confession responded to with nothing less than hate for every sentiment within it. A look of hurt nearly made its way on his face, but Mojave clenched his jaw, trying to force a poker face. He shouldn't have said any of that, really, it was his fault for letting his words out so loosely (speaking of which, he was having trouble rationalizing anything in a proper manner- someone must've put something in this flame, because ever since he got a proper whiff of its smoke, things had felt weird in his mind and body...) His eyes broke off of Rancor, falling down to the floor in shame. A few times, he opened his mouth to respond, but he had nothing to say.

He may have stayed that way until he finally found the will to muster some sort of apology, or even some sort of angry response of his own, if it weren't for what Rancor said next; the smaller male's words completely threw him off again. I'm sorry? he blurted out. Did Rancor think he'd just-? After what he just said?

His clarification threw Mojave off again. He hadn't thought it was meant in a gay way until Rancor said that. A little spark of hope flittered up from within, but was quickly stamped out. There was no way Rancor felt even remotely similar to him. He'd made that much clear.

... but if it meant Mojave wouldn't lose him again... and with the fire doing most of the thinking for him... U-Uhm, yeah, sure. Okay. I'm- I didn't mean any of it, really, I think there's something in the fire that's messing with my head. Sorry. He didn't even sound like he believed his own lies, only mumbling them out to try and convince himself. To no avail, obviously.
Mojave stood up, finding that his legs were a little more wobbly than he'd remembered. Surely he wasn't also tired... they hadn't walked that much to get here, had they?
Still uncertain, the tan wolf stepped back into the mix of slush and snow to get over to Rancor, settling down behind him. He did his best to keep their contact to a minimum- not wanting to trigger another hateful reaction- but in order to reach his shoulders, Mojave'd need to lean against him a little bit. Lifting a paw and wondering why in the world he was doing a favor for this guy, Mojave did his best to massage Rancor, pressing into the fur of the other with noticeable effort.

I, um. You can just forget about. Everything. I just said. Stars, he felt stupid. Stupid and dejected and upset. And very, very confused, and maybe just a little bit helplessly hopeful that he could fix things.