November 2014
London, England
It was Thursday, November twentieth, and Sören Sigurðsson had just finished up his latest long shift at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, where he was a neurosurgeon, employed by the NHS. When he'd come to the UK from Iceland in 2010 he'd specifically wanted to work for the NHS rather than going into private practice, not just because the NHS would sponsor his visa, but also because he'd learned in Iceland that a social safety net was important - he was a firm believer in socialized medicine, especially hearing horror stories about what went on in places like the United States. But on days like this he rather understood why the NHS tended to bleed neurosurgeons into private practice, run ragged as he was. He was in that place of being too exhausted to really be functional, yet not so exhausted that he would go right to sleep when he got home.
He was also in a bit of a funk. His thirtieth birthday was coming up on Tuesday the twenty-fifth, and it would be a particularly unpleasant date this year. Indeed, this entire weekend coming up would be unpleasant. At his break, a couple of colleagues he was friendly with were going on about some charity auction happening on the night of the twenty-fifth. Pamela, one of the neurosurgeons, a pretty redhead in her thirties, had convinced Colin, a young Black neurosurgeon, and Ed, a fortysomething, bald and stocky neurologist, to participate in the bachelor auction.
"Come on, mate," Ed said to Sören, "don't let us make arses of ourselves all alone."
"You'd be a hit," Pamela said.
"I... I don't know about all of that." Sören frowned into his salad.
"It's for a good cause," Colin said. "The Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital."
"Yeah," piped up Amy, one of the nurses, bottle blonde. She folded her hands and batted her eyes, her best innocent face. "Won't someone think of the children?"
"Exactly," Ed said. "It's for the kids."
"More like the kids you think you'll be fathering on your date," Sören snarked.
"Ohhhhh, shiiit," Colin said, laughing.
Ed rolled his eyes. "I doubt that. Most of these dates don't go anywhere. I've done it before. The ladies just want to look, not touch."
"Speak for yourself," Colin said, elbowing him.
Sören frowned again and shook his head.
"Well, if you change your mind, you have until Monday afternoon 2 PM to sign up," Pamela said. She wrote down contact info on a piece of paper and passed it onto Sören. "It would look really nice, the more blokes from our hospital who sign up."
Sören had a mind to throw away the paper right away, but not with so many eyes on him, so he tucked it into his pocket next to his cell phone. And promptly got so busy with the rest of his shift that Sören mostly forgot about it.
He was renting an upscale studio apartment in Holborn and was within walking distance of a few cafes. He had food at home, but in the chilly rain he wanted a hot drink to warm his bones and also a jolt of caffeine in his system so he could do some art to unwind. Art had been his safety valve as long as he could remember but he'd had a dry spell for most of the past year and suddenly, he felt inspired again.
He ducked out of the rain into the coffee shop and got in the queue. He took his hands out of the pockets of his leather duster and flexed them, rubbed them together to get the blood flowing. His took his nape-length mop of dark curls out of the man bun he wore at work, not wanting to wait till he got home to make the transformation. He knew he looked like hell, he could feel the fatigue on his face, and having his hair down would offset that a bit. He rubbed his beard as he looked at the menu, which was force of habit even as he'd been here dozens of times already. And it was part of shifting gears mentally out of brain scans and the operating table and case reviews, back to the real world. He could still hear Rush - his preferred music to operate to, along with Led Zeppelin, Tool and Dream Theater - in the back of his head.
When he was right in the middle of the queue, with four people still ahead of him, he knew what he wanted and looked around the coffee shop - again force of habit. People who weren't doctors or patients, everyday people going about everyday business.
And then he heard a deep, commanding voice call his name. "Sören?" A voice he hadn't heard in just over a year.
Sören froze, and his eyes followed the direction of the sound. He'd know that voice anywhere, and he'd know those green eyes anywhere. Across the coffee shop, at a table by himself near a window, there he was. Anthony Hewlett-Johnson, his ex-fiance. Anthony had his laptop out, a briefcase and a stack of paperwork, his leather trenchcoat open over a dapper pinstripe Brooks Brothers suit. His short dark hair was a little unruly from the wet but he still looked put together. As he always did.
If Anthony was still in the flat where he and Sören had been living together, in Kingston upon Thames, he was a bit of a ways out, unless he had just come from Lincoln's Inn. Judging from the laptop and his briefcase and papers, he was meeting a client here or someone relevant to a client's case, and they either hadn't shown up yet or had just left.
Whatever it was, Anthony seemed to put all work aside as his classically handsome features broadened into a smile and he rose from his table.
"Oh god," Sören said, heart racing. This was exactly what he did not need today, today of all days.
"Brown Eyes." The voice was warm, honeyed as it spoke the pet name for Sören. Anthony held open his arms, inviting Sören to go over there and give him a hug.
As if the past hadn't happened. As if they hadn't been done for a year. And for the first few months after it was over, Sören had prayed for a moment like this, where he could run to Anthony and be held and everything would just be fine, somehow. The ache had never really gone away, but Sören had given up the hope of such a moment, and had gotten to a place where even if the moment presented itself, he had too much pride to go there.
It was Sören's pride that wanted to turn away now, to ignore him and look at the menu again, get his damn coffee and dash off to his flat without one look or one word, to hide away and forget what he'd seen, like Anthony didn't even exist. And it was that gnawing ache in him - the torch he'd carried, and still rather did, despite everything, the feeling that his prayer had finally been answered but it was too damn late - that set Sören into a panic, heart pounding, breath in a gulp.
He got out of the queue. Anthony was still waiting, and Sören ran, not to him, but out of the coffee shop altogether. This was a bad idea with his asthma, and already he was reaching for the inhaler in his leather duster, as he kept running, not wanting to give the longer-legged six-two barrister a chance to start after him. Sören cursed the traffic light that made him wait, looking over his shoulder, hoping Anthony wasn't going to follow him. Not because he was scared of Anthony, but because he was scared of how he felt. He needed to get far away from the temptation.
As soon as the light changed, Sören gunned it across the street, and it was then that he puffed from his inhaler, letting himself breathe as a large bus rolled past. He walked the rest of the way to his flat, and then began the march upstairs, where Sören once again cursed himself for taking a third-story apartment with his long shifts being on his feet, and his asthma.
The tears didn't come right away. First Sören "scrubbed in", force of habit as a surgeon where he was washing his hands constantly. Then he started his own coffee maker - the appeal of the coffee shop had been something faster, something with a more exciting flavor. Then he took off his duster, his Doc Martens boots. His scrubs came off in the bathroom, and he took a very quick shower before putting on a pair of flannel pajamas, and his bunny slippers. Before he left his bedroom, he grabbed his stuffed tiger.
His tiger's name was Tony, and it had been a gift from Anthony Hewlett-Johnson about a month into them living together. There were plenty of other gifts Anthony had given him over the nearly two years that they'd been together that Sören had rejected and left behind on that final final day, most notably the Rolex, nor did he have the platinum-and-diamond engagement ring, which he'd thrown at Anthony just before he stormed out. But he still had Tony. Sören carried him now like a small child dragging a doll around.
When he came into the open plan living area and kitchen, his coffee was ready to be poured and fixed. He took the coffee over and flomped on his couch, curled up in the fetal position, holding Tony as he waited for the scalding coffee to cool. The tears came now, quiet at first, then loud and ugly.
Just before he could take a sip of the coffee, his cell phone went off - not a call, but a text.
Sören grabbed the phone and cringed when he saw the number. Cringed again when he saw the message. I miss you.
Sören shot back with a poop emoji.
Anthony sent another text: Your birthday's coming up soon.
"No shit, Sherlock."
You shouldn't be alone on your birthday.
"Oh, and you assume I'll be alone? Typical." Sören snorted. But of course, Anthony knew him as intimately as anyone ever had, knew Sören's habits... knew that Sören was unlikely to rebound so quickly, with his seventy-two-hour workweeks, being an introvert, and the wariness that came naturally after something like being cheated on.
"Like you give a shit," Sören mumbled. He knew as soon as the words were out of his mouth that Anthony did, in fact, still give a shit. They both had. Too much. That was why it still hurt a year later.
Why the wound was still raw, his anger as strong as his love. Sören made a reply of another poop emoji, this one flanked by three knife emojis, hoping Anthony would get the message.
He sipped his coffee and hugged Tony again. He wasn't in the mood to sketch or paint now, at least not for awhile yet. He felt rattled to his core.
He and Anthony had planned their wedding for Friday, November twenty-second, 2013. Sören's twenty-ninth birthday would have fallen during the honeymoon - Anthony had planned a trip to the Swiss Alps. If they'd gone ahead with their wedding - if Sören had not been sent home from the hospital sick with the beginning stages of flu that fateful day in late October, when he'd found Anthony and another man in their bed - they would be having their one-year wedding anniversary this weekend. Today would have been their three-year relationship anniversary; Sören and Anthony went on their first date on Saturday, November nineteenth, 2011 and had mutually decided the next morning, a rainy Sunday where they'd woken up in each other's arms to make slow, sweet love, that they wanted to be together. It seemed rather bitter coincidence that Sören would happen to run into him today. Almost like fate was wagging a finger: You guys should try it again.
Sören scowled. No.
It wasn't even the sexual infidelity that bothered him - Sören wasn't a fan of monogamy and had considered several times broaching the subject of an open relationship, not that he'd thought either of them had any time with their crazy schedules. It was the dishonesty, and putting them both at risk of disease in said dishonesty.
It was what came out in the end.
"No, I don't love him. I love you. I want you. But you're never around. You're always working, or too exhausted from working. And when you're not, you don't want to go out anymore. You want to stay home and draw or paint. I don't mind that sometimes, but I mind it being all the time. It feels like a rejection. You love your art more than me. I have needs, and you're so fucking self-absorbed."
It had stung - Sören felt like he was the opposite of self-absorbed, running himself into the ground to take care of everyone but himself, constantly. He had tried so very hard to keep from drifting apart from Anthony, to express love, affection. They'd had a very hot, passionate sex life, when they had time for it. Going out to pubs and schmoozing had been trying even when he wasn't so perpetually exhausted, as an introvert, but he didn't like the superficial "elite" crowd Anthony ran with, or the dramatic change in Anthony's personality in public. Sören loved his Anthony, the one behind closed doors. He couldn't stand what Anthony became when he was out there trying to be suave and sophisticated, wearing a sort of mask or persona. That wasn't his partner, that wasn't the man he'd said "yes" to marrying.
And Sören had lashed back. Oh, how he'd lashed back. And Anthony's sharp tongue was finally turned against him. Sören knew he could and did use it as a weapon against others. He knew that Anthony the barrister was a shark, watching for signs of vulnerability and weakness in the opponent, drawing blood, because that was literally his job. He never expected the man who bought him a soft toy and built blanket forts with him and ate ice cream with him from the carton as they played video games in their pajamas or watched bad sci-fi movies and went into hysterics with snarky commentary, the man who he trusted enough to share his body with, to surrender deeply enough to hit the heights of passion to multiple orgasms, would use love as a weapon against him, in the end.
Anthony had never been abusive. It would have been easier if he had. Sören wished he could hate him, see himself as better off without the man. But in that last hour, Anthony's mouth had finally gone off, for the first and last time.
"What does he have that I don't?" Sören's eyes narrowed.
"A bigger cock, for one thing."
It was such a shallow insult, and Sören knew at eight inches he was far from small, but it had been the going-for-the-jugular insult to his manhood and what it represented, more than the actual words of the insult itself. If Anthony couldn't respect Sören enough to tell him "I need more sex than what you can give me with your schedule", and that disrespect was enough to tank close to two years by throwing in the insinuation that Sören wasn't "man" enough compared to this guy he supposedly wasn't even in love with, it was just sex... well, Sören didn't need him. He didn't need anyone.
And so it was that Sören had been alone for a year. Single. Celibate. Pent up. He had a wank once in awhile... fantasizing about past encounters with Anthony, which always made him come hard and made him feel a little dirty afterwards, wishing he wasn't still so hung up.
You shouldn't be alone on your birthday, Anthony's words came to him.
"You're goddamn right."
He found himself getting up and walking towards the laundry hamper. Pulling his scrub bottoms out, fishing in the pocket for the slip of paper with the contact info Pamela had written down, regarding the charity auction. It was early evening now, Sören didn't know if the office would be closed, but he'd try and worst case scenario, leave a message.
Three rings. "Hello?"
"Hi, yes, I'm calling about the auction you're having next week. I'm interested in being one of the bachelors auctioned off to benefit the children's hospital?"
"Oh yes. Name?"
"Sören Sigurðsson."
"Your age?"
"Thirty next week."
"Happy birthday, dear. Profession?"
"Neurosurgeon, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery."
"Fabulous. Will you be bid on by women, men, or both?"
"Both," Sören said. He had far less experience with women than with men, on the more gay end of bisexual, but he was open to dating women, and he doubted anything would come of this date anyway.
He was asked about his vital stats, what sort of outfit he wanted to wear and if he had a song in mind for "showing off assets". He already felt like he was going up on the meat market, and part of him couldn't believe he was agreeing to this, but here it was.
After some more exchanges of information, he was told where to be and what time for Tuesday, and that he'd need to be an hour in advance of the auction's start so their "style expert" could do a once-over in case "adjustments needed to be made". The date also wasn't happening right that evening, so though Sören wouldn't be alone on his birthday in the sense that he would be surrounded by others, the date wouldn't be happening earlier than Friday the twenty-eighth, contracting to get the date done sometime that weekend.
When the phone call ended, Sören reeled a bit in shock of what he'd just done. But he needed to start getting over Anthony, somehow, and this seemed like a start in that direction. If fate had answered his prayers months late with Anthony showing up out of the blue with open arms, this had to be dropped into his lap as well.
Sören got up to heat up leftovers, and grabbed his tablet. He thought about putting on music to help him unwind, but for now he was content to listen to the rain fall.
chapter 2 | return to Learning To Fly | return to Other Tolkien Fic | return to index