A week later, when Dooku arrived at Southwark Park, it was a crisp day befitting the end of October - if anything a bit too breezy; Dooku's cape billowed around him dramatically as he walked towards Sören, who had a blanket spread out on the grass, a few large, comfy-looking pillows, a sketchpad, a portable mp3 player with speakers, and a basket.
Dooku was carrying a smaller basket - though it was full - and a bottle of wine. Sören's face lit up when he looked away from his sketching and saw Dooku approaching.
"Good afternoon," Dooku said, before he sat down on the blanket.
Sören's response was to lean over and hug him.
Dooku was not used to hugs, apart from Leja, but he welcomed it rather than pushing the younger man away. Instinctively, his arms went out to hug Sören back, and Sören's response was to squeeze him tight. It felt good, enough that they lingered for a minute, and when they pulled away, Dooku could feel his face flushing again, and he didn't know what to say.
Sören shoved a grape into his mouth.
Sören had brought sandwiches of different varieties, fresh cut fruit and vegetables, and a cheesecake for dessert. Dooku had brought a pot of tea - still warm - with a tea service, and he'd spent a lot of time cooking the night before, and heated it up just before he was ready to go out. Sören's eyes widened as Dooku took it out of the basket. There were stuffed cabbage rolls, stuffed peppers, stuffed eggplants, and fishcakes, a salad of greens and garden vegetables, and assorted cheese slices and fancy crackers.
"Where did you buy all that?" Sören asked.
"I made it," Dooku said.
Sören pursed his lips. "Wow, I feel stupid with my sandwiches now... I'm not much of a cook."
"It is quite all right," Dooku said. "It's not stupid at all, it's the thought that counts."
Sören was wearing jeans, his usual Doc Martens, and a long-sleeved dark blue shirt, with a Nine Inch Nails T-shirt over it. His nails were black, again, this time with green sparkles. Dooku felt somewhat disappointed that Sören wasn't wearing short sleeves, intrigued by the ink on his forearms. Then he felt sheepish about wanting to see that.
They ate quietly as they listened to music - Sören had a metal playlist, which Dooku enjoyed. They didn't have room to finish everything, and Dooku insisted Sören take the leftovers he cooked to heat up later.
"Are you very sure?" Sören asked.
"Positive," Dooku said. Then he smiled and said, "One of these evenings, I shall have you come over and I'll cook for you."
"I would like that," Sören said. And then, "Have you hung the paintings yet, or are you still wanting me to give you input on where they would look best?"
"I'm still waiting for that input so perhaps we should plan another visit... you come over for dinner, and help me hang the paintings."
"That sounds good." Sören smiled.
"What you had in the gallery... that wasn't all of it, was it?"
Sören snorted and shook his head. "Leja will be putting another five of my paintings in the gallery soon. And... I have more besides that. I've been painting for years. This is the first time in a very long time I've had my work shown anywhere."
"Really. I find that hard to believe, with your talent."
"It's difficult to make it in the art world, and a lot of making it depends on who you know," Sören said, and then added, "sometimes... often... in the biblical sense. I've had people offer to patron me or show my work if I fucked them. I'm an artist, not a whore."
That hung there, and Dooku felt almost like it was a rebuff of any interest that might have been showing, much as Dooku didn't want to admit he was somewhat interested in the younger man. Dooku cleared his throat and looked away awkwardly, and when Sören's eyes compelled him to look once more, Dooku said, nervously, "I bought your work because I wanted to, not because I'm expecting..."
"I know." Sören nodded, and Dooku relaxed a little. "The people who offered to patron me or show my work in exchange for sex didn't give a fuck about my art. But you get it. There's a genuine connection here."
Dooku breathed a small sigh of relief. He noticed then that his knee was pressing against Sören's thigh, the way they were reclining on the pillows, and Sören had made no motion to move away. Warmth flushed through him again.
"I wonder," Sören said, "how much of this is because of... well, that thing." Sören glanced around nervously to make sure they weren't being watched, and then demonstrated by using the Force to lift up his pencil from the blanket, hands-free.
"I'm sure some of it is because of that," Dooku said. "We don't know much about each other at all." He gave a small, nervous laugh. "I don't even know how old you are."
"Old enough."
The earlier statement had not been a rebuff, then. Dooku wasn't quite ready to take whatever step that offered, however, and he said, "How old? Nineteen? Twenty?"
"Thirty-two."
That was significantly older than Dooku thought - Sören looked young, despite the facial hair. Sören noticed Dooku's surprise, and nodded. "Yes. I get disbelief quite a lot, but I can show you my identification if you need it."
"I believe it." Dooku smirked. "How old do you think I am?"
"Late fifties, perhaps?"
"Late sixties. Sixty-eight, to be precise."
"Oh."
"I'll be sixty-nine in December."
Sören tried to keep a straight face at this, and failed. Dooku didn't understand why Sören found that funny, and Sören realizing Dooku didn't get it made him laugh aloud.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but are you still a virgin?" Sören asked.
Dooku cringed. He wanted to yell "what kind of question is that" and "why are you even asking", but instead he said, "Yes and no."
"What? Either you are or you aren't."
"Just before my twenty-first birthday, some of my classmates found out I hadn't had sex and paid for a lady of the evening for my twenty-first birthday. I received oral. I didn't enjoy the experience and didn't care to repeat it."
"Oh. I'm sorry." Sören shrugged. "Some people are asexual, and it's OK if you are. It's perfectly valid -"
"I'm not...?" Dooku couldn't believe he was even having this discussion. "I think it's taken me this long to admit to the fact that I play for the home team, so to speak. I work in a rather conservative establishment and times are changing now, where people are more accepting - I myself have never seen it as my business to judge what consenting adults do in their private lives - but when I was of a younger age it wasn't safe for me to try to question any of this. I would have risked my job if I spent my time working, and indulging my hobbies, rather than trying to pursue sex or relationships. But that wasn't so much because of lack of interest or lack of want... it was more fear."
"So you're gay and you've just... never been with a dude."
"Probably, and yes."
"I'll change the subject, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." Sören shifted his position, but now their knees were touching instead of Dooku's knee against his thigh. "What day in December is your birthday?"
"Twenty-first."
"Ah, you're a Jól baby... and a Sagittarius."
Dooku snorted. "I don't believe in astrology."
"Neither do I, but I still habitually look at my horoscope for shits and giggles." Sören smirked. "I'm also a Sagittarius."
"Also December?"
"Late November. Twenty-fifth."
"That's coming up soon."
"Já, it is."
"Do you have plans?"
"I... don't know? Probably not?"
Dooku made a mental note to plan something for Sören's birthday.
Dooku realized then the wine hadn't been opened yet. He poured them each a glass, and Sören drank his quickly, Dooku more slowly. After a second glass of wine, Sören began to sketch, and Dooku looked at a novel he brought with him but his attention kept turning to Sören, pencil flying over the sketchpad, tongue poking out between his teeth, eyes present yet faraway. With the Force, Dooku suddenly saw into Sören's mind, saw visions of things Sören wanted to paint, colors dancing, worlds exploding into life...
...and then Sören felt Dooku there, witnessing the birth of creation, and shoved him out of his head, hard enough that Dooku rolled as if he had been pushed, off the blanket, into the grass.
Dooku sat up, breathing hard, and brushed himself off. "My apologies," he said. "That was invasive... I didn't mean to..."
"It just happened," Sören said, "and that's what scares me. We just..."
"My teacher called it a Force bond," Dooku said.
Sören gave Dooku a puzzled look. "Force? What? And your law professor knew?"
"No, it wasn't my law professor." Dooku sighed. "This is why I felt we should talk about this. When I was a boy, I began doing things I can do now... moving objects without touching them, feeling what others are feeling, sometimes even seeing what others are thinking. I learned very quickly to hide this."
Sören nodded. "My brother, my sister, my cousin and I all have it, but we learned to hide it from people who weren't us."
"It happens that people with this gift, can often tell when other people have it, though not always, because some people are better at hiding it than others. When I was a teenager - twelve, thirteen - I had a job, running errands for a frail elderly neighbor, a little person, from India. His name was Yodha. I found out some months after I'd been working for him that the frail part was an act and he could do what I could do, but much stronger. He called it the Force, so that is the word I use, and others I know with this gift have picked it up because it's a convenient way of describing it." Dooku winced at the next part. "He was also not human. He was an alien who had arrived here a long time ago, used the Force to disguise himself as a very short human, and moved from India to the United Kingdom when people were starting to ask too many questions."
"Where is Yodha now?"
"He's passed on," Dooku said. "That I can verify, I was with him when he died. Leja and her brother Lúkas were also there - they got to meet him, when they were children; they called him Grandfather."
"You realize," Sören said, "you're sitting here telling me about aliens. There's weird shit..." Sören used the Force to float his pencil again. "And then there's that. That's a whole other level of crazy, and there's a part of me that doesn't want to believe you and wants to run away from the crazy man."
"I understand," Dooku said. "I also doubted my own sanity many times over the course of my association with Yodha." Not the least of which when I dealt with his eccentricities.
"Well, I know you're not lying," Sören said, "and I know..." He shook his head. "You learn something new every day, I guess."
"You do." Dooku smiled. "Yodha taught me that, as well. 'Never too old to learn, are you,' he said."
"I imagine he found the existence of humans as shocking as we would find the existence of his people."
"Indeed," Dooku said. "And his people are almost entirely Force sensitive, so being on a world where most aren't... it was difficult for him. He was happy to find another like himself, and I learned many things from him. He taught me meditation as a tool to refresh and recharge and better tune into the Force; I meditate daily. He encouraged me to take a martial art, and learn to use a weapon to defend myself if I ever needed it. So I have studied fencing and judo. I continue to practice, even at my age."
"That explains why you're in great shape." Then Sören blushed, and Dooku felt himself blushing again, also.
"And he helped me to control and hone my abilities. We would practice things at his home; he had a room dedicated to targets and... safe explosions." Dooku chuckled, fondly. "I could do a lot of damage, for example, if I were in a situation where my life or that of others depended on it, without lifting a finger. He also taught me lessons in his garden, and out in wild nature. I have some minor healing ability, and a bit of a green thumb. Animals and children usually like me." Dooku frowned. "Most importantly, though, he helped me to understand that the Force makes us... sensitive. Attachments are particularly problematic, because of how intense they can be for us."
"And I assume that was part of why you haven't gone looking for a partner."
"Most people aren't Force sensitive," Dooku said. "Leja has had experience being with non Force sensitives and has described it as being like picking up a phone and someone's on the other line but they can't hear you. It's very one-sided. Some people can deal with that. I'd always find myself feeling... unsatisfied."
Sören nodded. "All of my partners thus far have been non Force sensitive and I can verify the 'unsatisfied' feeling. And it's also like something's off - the pitch, the rhythm - and you don't quite know what it is. You just know you feel sort of alone, even when you have someone else."
"Meanwhile, the friendships I've had with other Force sensitives... they run deep. Leja has said that intimacy with another Force sensitive is very powerful, and that intrigues me and scares me at the same time."
Sören gave a small frown, nodding. "You and Leja are the first Force sensitives I've known outside of my siblings and cousin."
"I haven't known many," Dooku said. "But what happened with us just now... we're starting to form a Force bond, as Yodha called it. The more we're around each other, the stronger it's going to get. The more we're going to have moments like that. So with that information in mind, we can either continue... this... or go our separate ways."
"I'd like to see you again," Sören said. That shy, but radiant smile that seemed to light up the entire world. "I'm not going to turn down a free meal."
Dooku laughed.
Sören and Dooku walked into the gardens, and sat for awhile, pointing out things in the scenery, or just sitting in silence. Sören resumed sketching again, and then he stopped, and just lay on his back in the grass.
"You ever just... watch the clouds?" Sören asked.
"No," Dooku said.
Sören used the Force to shove Dooku onto his back in the grass, and then Sören pointed up at the sky. "That cloud looks like a tree."
"That one looks like a rose."
"And that one is a unicorn." Sören smiled.
They played the game of identifying cloud shaped until the first golden rays of sunset began to tinge the clouds. It would get dark quickly. Upon learning that Sören had taken the bus from his flat in Greenwich to the park, Dooku once again insisted on driving him home.
"You don't drive, do you?" Dooku asked Sören.
"Uh, I don't drive here, no, because you drive on the wrong side of the road. We drive on the right in Iceland."
"It's we Brits who have it proper, the rest of the world has it backwards," Dooku scoffed.
"Well, whatever, but my brain doesn't like the adjustment. It's fine, I take the bus or Tube anywhere I need to go."
"If you do need a lift anywhere in the evening, I might be able to take you."
"I'd feel bad asking you to chauffeur me around."
"I'd feel bad if you got mugged on the Tube."
Sören rolled his eyes and snorted. "I've lived in the UK for two years and taken the Tube at least three or four times a week and never had a problem. Are you really so posh that you think everybody gets mugged on the bloody Tube?"
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't need to." Sören shook his head. "I live in a flat above the coffee shop where I work, my roommate is one of my co-workers. Before you bought all those paintings I worried about how I was going to make ends meet next month with rent and utilities. Like I worry every. Single. Fucking. Month. Because unlike you, I couldn't handle university and having a high-powered, important job. A 'career'." Sören sneered when he said the word "career". "That Force sensitivity you talk about... it's made my life bloody difficult. I broke down during my clerkship because I saw too much and felt too much when people were hurting, people were dying and I couldn't fix it, even if I used the Force, and using the Force came with its own set of problems. I came from nothing, I am nothing, I'm just a barista living in a low-end part of Greenwich, I'm an idiot for thinking I'm ever going to make a living from painting and I still do it anyway because I fucking have to, it's the only thing that's kept me sane all these years... and you... you think what, I live surrounded by gangbangers and hoodlums and my life is constantly in danger just because I'm poor? If you didn't know me from my art, if we just bumped into each other in the city and all you knew was that I'm some poor bastard from the wrong side of the tracks, would you think I was trying to mug you, Mr. Rich Man?"
"...Now you're over-reacting."
"No, I'm not." Sören's voice shook. "We come from two different worlds. You may get my art, but you don't know me at all and I was an arse for thinking this could work."
"What? No... Sören, please..."
"Pull over and let me out."
"You're not anywhere near your neighborhood -"
"I said pull over and let me fucking out!"
Dooku did not, and Sören's response was to duck out of the car immediately, running into the middle of traffic. A car slammed ahead, about to run Sören over, and Dooku waved his hand and used the Force to throw Sören several meters past the car, so Sören spilled onto the sidewalk - fallen, but safe. Dooku drove back and forth on the same block, only leaving when he saw Sören get up, and begin walking.
Dooku came home and cried. He waited for Sören to call him, and cried. When he went to bed, he called Sören, no response, and he cried some more.
I'm a bloody damn fool. Dooku had never been so ashamed in his entire life. He took the half-full bottle of wine from the picnic, drank the rest of it, and then proceeded to raid his liquor cabinet and get very, very drunk. He was going to regret it the next day, but he already had so many regrets.
chapter 5 | return to Northern Lights | return to Other Tolkien Fic | return to index