That feeling of everything hurts returned as Dooku and Sören returned from dinner at Qui-Gon's house.
It had been pleasant enough - Qui made arroz con pollo and he and Dooku took time to get caught up, including Dooku meeting Qui and Obi's cats, who were quite taken with Sören and proceeded to climb all over him, much to Sören's delight. There was flan for dessert, as well as scones with homemade jam, and Qui insisted Dooku take home some jam he'd made from his garden over the summer; Qui also made Sören take a jar.
Despite having not been in contact much over the last several years, falling back into conversation with Qui felt natural. Like old times. Dooku knew he'd missed Qui, but hadn't realized until then how much. And now he had a son-in-law, in Obi, and seeing the two of them happy together warmed Dooku's heart.
It made him crave that same kind of happiness with Sören.
It was all too much, at once, letting people in after holding them away for too long. Letting himself feel. Letting himself care, and be cared about.
Because it was already after nine PM and both Dooku and Sören had to work the next morning, Dooku had intended to take Sören straight home. But when they were halfway there, Dooku felt himself fighting off tears, and at last he let out a little shuddery sigh without meaning to, and that and his body language must have given it away.
"Nico," Sören said. "Let's... stop at your place first."
"You're quite sure?" Dooku heard a slight rasp to his voice, indicating he was close to tears.
"Já."
They drove to Dooku's house, in silence, and didn't say anything for the first few minutes, as Dooku made some tea - against his better judgment since it was late, but it felt like a good time for tea. When Dooku brought it in the living room, Sören had Dragos on his lap, and didn't look at him, at first. Then Sören finally looked up, and Dooku saw Sören's own eyes were too bright, like he was ready to cry, himself.
"Are you all right?" Dooku asked.
"No," Sören said, "because you're not, and I can feel it."
Dooku took a deep breath. He should have realized that through their Force bond, Sören would be able to pick up on things. Dooku said nothing, but sat down next to Sören and proceeded to pour them tea.
"I knew you weren't all right over the weekend," Sören said, "when I was painting the room and you took a nap, but I didn't press it then. I'm going to press it now."
Dooku sighed. "I don't even know how to talk about it."
"Well," Sören said, "you need to try. Not just because it's not good for you to hold things inside, but if we're going to..." Sören gestured at Dooku, then himself. "...go forward... that depends on open, honest communication from both of us."
Dooku sat back in his seat, rubbed his face with his hands, and then used the Force to put the teacup in his hands and just held it, noticing his hands were shaking.
Finally, words came. "When I was younger, I was Qui-Gon's mentor for law school. He eventually dropped out and became a veterinarian. I wasn't entirely pleased with this, but I still tried to maintain a friendship with him, as we had become close - like a younger brother or even a son to me. And so we still got together from time to time, still kept in touch regularly... until about twelve years ago. Then things became strained, and we talked maybe once or twice a year. This is the first time I've visited Qui-Gon at his home since then."
"Wow." Sören raised an eyebrow. "Did you guys fight, or...?"
"Not exactly."
Sören sipped his tea, pondering that.
Dooku also sipped his tea, finally, and then he said, "So seeing Qui again, finally... hit a bit of a nerve. It was good to see him again, and I'd like to be less of a stranger. But it also..." Dooku closed his eyes. "I've closed myself off a lot over the last twelve years. Not just Qui. Indeed, I've always had a hard time letting others in, but the last twelve years in particular have been rather solitary. Letting you into my life... and letting Qui back into my life... it's a lot at once."
Sören nodded. "If I may ask, what happened twelve years ago?"
Dooku sighed, gave a nervous laugh, drank more of his tea, put the teacup down, and said, "It's a bit of a long story, and to give you context on that story, I shall need to go further back in time."
"All right."
And Dooku found himself beginning the story that he didn't like to tell, and somehow, amazingly, trusted Sören enough to tell. "When I was fourteen, I was sent to boarding school, which was the norm in those days for young men of my class. It still is, to a point."
"All male?"
"Yes."
Sören's eyebrows both went up, and Dooku gave a small nod, confirming what he knew Sören was thinking. "Yes, there was a lot of that going on there. I didn't engage in any of it myself, but I would be lying if I said I didn't develop certain curiosities during that period of time that never truly went away."
Sören nodded. "Luckily for me."
Dooku chuckled, and then he sobered quickly. "Well, this is relevant to my story. When I was attending boarding school, I had a roommate, named Lorian Newhouse. He and I were friends. I had unrequited feelings for him, which I never told him about, but it's also difficult to live with someone in close proximity and not be able to tell. And I think he knew enough to know he could take advantage of me in different ways - no, not sexual - but, for example, financial; we would receive living stipends from our families and he was well off, of course, as everyone was there, but he could persuade me to buy things for him. Or do favors such as cleaning his half of the room before an inspection. That sort of thing."
"OK, so...?"
"Lorian was not a good student - he was in this school because his family had paid his way in, but he was certainly not Oxford material. He was barely avoiding flunking out of school. I tried to tutor him, but it wasn't working - he was much more interested in sports. One time, in our last year of school, we had a rather important exam coming up, and Lorian stole the answer sheet from one of our teachers. I found out he had it, and I told him he needed to do the right thing and give it back. He told me that if I told anyone he had it, he was going to report me for... inappropriate... behavior. Which I'd never done, but it wouldn't have mattered, if he reported me. I would have been expelled, and that would have ruined my plans for my life."
"So you didn't report him?"
"Oh, I did. Because the mere fact that he'd threatened me with something like that, told me that he was going to make false charges against me anyway, because he could. I was not exactly popular or well-liked at this school - I was at the top of my class, and my peers were jealous, and I was subject to routine bullying. Lorian was my friend in private, or 'friend', I should say... but he was in good enough standing with our peers that he couldn't associate with me freely in public, and lately he'd been getting more pressure to join the bullying. I had no doubt that he would do this just to make an impression on our classmates." Dooku pinched the bridge of his nose. "The problem was, time was of the essence. Lorian was waiting for me to report him within a specific time frame, so he could intercept the report and make false charges first. So I created a distraction by setting off the alarms, so I could see the teacher in question quickly and make the first strike, which resulted in our room being searched and the evidence found. Thus, anything Lorian could say after the fact would just make him look worse."
"Good. I hate bullies." Sören frowned. "I was bullied too."
"It's a common experience of the Force sensitive," Dooku said. "Even when we try to hide it, to suppress it so others don't find out, there's still something about us that stands out, makes us different... something that makes us easy prey."
"Well, also, people are assholes," Sören said.
"That too." Dooku gave a rueful smile.
"So," Sören said, "you said this ties in to whatever happened twelve years ago."
"Yes." Dooku nodded. "Lorian was expelled, but he... retaliated. His friends beat me -" Dooku gestured to his nose. "And he broke in to the school and set our room on fire, when I was sleeping. I escaped as soon as I smelled smoke, but I lost everything I owned, that I had taken with me to that school." Dooku frowned. "At least I knew enough to leave my teddy bear behind at my parents' house, I knew bringing that with me and being seen sleeping with a stuffed toy would end in disaster."
"Still." Sören shook his head. "I'm sorry that happened."
"So am I." Dooku winced as if in pain - it was painful to relive those memories. "So, when I started Oxford, I was fairly traumatized from all of that. I wasn't keen on making another 'friend'. But I did, nonetheless - one of my peers in law school was a man named Sayyid-Diya Ahmadi. He was Iranian, and this was the late 60s into 1970s - when Iran was secular and modernized. There wasn't Islamophobia on the scale that there is now, but nonetheless, he did get some disparaging remarks from some of our peers due to his ethnic background. I wasn't like that, and I was one of the only people in our class who was genuinely interested in his background and culture, because I find these things fascinating. We became friends. In fact... he was directly responsible for 'trying to get me laid' with a woman of the evening on my twenty-first birthday."
Sören laughed.
"He was also the only one of our schoolmates who'd been in on that... nonsense... who knew truly what had happened. I think he put two and two together then, but he didn't remark on it, and... there were reasons why I never tried to explore the interests sparked when I was at boarding school. The 1970s was not a good time to be openly homosexual or bisexual, and indeed, in the 1980s the AIDS crisis hit, and I was paranoid, not simply of catching anything myself, but being in a conservative establishment during the Thatcher era and possibly being outed. I had never forgotten Lorian's threat, and the fear of being outed and having my life ruined has hung over me all these years."
"Fuck," Sören said.
"In addition to my fear of... being hurt. Not wanting to complicate my life. But I'm getting off track here. Sayyid-Diya and I were close friends. I was the best man at his wedding, and the godfather of his son and daughter. My friendship with Sayyid-Diya also thawed me out enough to make another friend - Bolli Ornasson, Leja's adopted father." Dooku finished his tea, and folded his hands. "Some years into my friendship with Sayyid-Diya, I found out that he, too, was Force sensitive. It was something that he hid very well. It's something that you have to hide very well, to get along in this world."
"Já, and it sucks."
"And that is where this story is leading up to."
Sören folded his arms and leaned forward in anticipation.
"Sayyid-Diya's son moved to the United States, and... got a job working at the Twin Towers, in New York City." Dooku pinched the bridge of his nose and then rubbed his face again. "He... was one of the casualties of 9/11."
"Oshit."
Dooku nodded. "Sayyid-Diya was fairly devastated by the loss, and angry and agitated by the Islamophobia that started in the wake of the attacks, because now he and his family were experiencing more prejudice, even though his son had been a victim of the terrorist attack. Sayyid-Diya's emotions were running high, and one afternoon, several months after the death of his son, we had a falling out."
"What happened?"
"Sayyid-Diya said that... if his son had been able to use the Force publicly instead of suppressing it, he might have been able to save himself or others. He went on to say that if there had been any Force sensitives aboard a plane the terrorists were on... they could have stopped what happened. And I told him I doubted that, because there are limits to what one Force sensitive can do. At my full strength in the Force, I might be able to pick up a car, but I would have to be in peak physical and mental condition to do this, and I would be spent for days if not weeks afterwards. I would not be able to re-direct a plane AND fight physical attackers at the same time. But he not only wouldn't listen to that, he said that... we should all come forward, out ourselves to the government, and be registered, so we can use our abilities to fight terrorism, fight crime. And while that is a nice idea in theory, it really isn't in practice. There have been a few individuals who've exposed what they can do, over the last few decades. They were all taken into government custody and never heard from again; there are reports that experiments were conducted on them until they spent themselves and either died from giving themselves aneurysms, or being... terminated. The problem is even if a group of us came forward at once, we would still be outnumbered by an army. Even dozens of us, hundreds, using our powers at once... we would not be able to stop them coming for us. Rather than being able to protect others from danger, we ourselves would be in danger, and unfortunately we would also be endangering every associate and family member we had, as well, including those who are not Force sensitive."
Sören nodded. "As much as it sucks to hide my abilities, I know the alternative is far worse, so I don't disagree with you on that."
"He did. And he stopped talking to me."
Sören reached out for Dooku's hand and squeezed. "I'm so, so sorry."
"It gets worse. A little less than four years later, I got the strange, sudden urge to call him, and see how he was doing, and possibly try to reconcile with him - even though my position on registration still stands. I stopped myself, and I'm not sure why. The date I got this urge? Was July sixth, 2005."
Sören's eyes and Dooku's met, finally, and Dooku continued, "Sayyid-Diya was one of the people killed on the London Underground on 7/7."
"Ah, shit." Sören threw his arms around Dooku. "That was twelve years ago."
Dooku accepted the hug, and found his arms going around Sören in return. "It was. And... after I read his name in the list of casualties, I felt tremendous guilt, and pain. I shut down. I became much more reclusive, feeling like I had failed my best friend - like there was something I could have said or done, and didn't say or do. Feeling like I was somehow responsible for his death, even though I understand, now, I wasn't. Feeling like I should have tried harder to salvage the friendship. Feeling like I failed at every human interaction I had - after all, things had been tense between Qui and myself after he dropped out of law school, as well. So I... withdrew. There's been occasional contact with Qui and Leja, occasional meetings, but there's also been a lot of distance. I haven't been the same since 7/7."
"And that's why you made that remark about me riding the Tube, that night," Sören said.
Dooku nodded, and then he broke down crying, at last.
Sören pulled Dooku close, rocking him as he wept, petting him, making soothing noises. Dooku cried into Sören's chest for what felt like an eternity, and at last, Dooku lifted his head up, and Sören dabbed at his face with a handkerchief.
"I'm sorry," Dooku said.
"For what?" Sören asked.
"Falling apart like that."
"You needed to," Sören said, and reached out to stroke Dooku's face, tenderly. "This is the first time you've been able to get it out. You've needed it. And I'm honored that you trust me with your heart." Sören's fingers trailed down to Dooku's chest, resting on his heart.
The touch made him start crying again.
After a few minutes of crying, Dooku felt Sören pull him off the couch, and marched him down towards the bedroom. Sören gently pushed Dooku to sit on the edge of the bed, and used the Force to pull off Dooku's shoes. Then he used the Force to pull out Dooku's cell phone.
"I need you to do something for me now," Sören told him.
Dooku gave Sören a confused look.
"I need you to call Qui-Gon and tell him what you told me. Visiting him tonight was the first step towards letting him back in your life. But if he doesn't already know what's been going on with you for the last twelve years... you need to tell him. Now."
"I... can't..."
"Yes, you can." Sören frowned. "And you should do this while it's still fresh. Like a shot in the arm, do it, get it over with, so you can keep moving forward with recovery."
Dooku shook his head, weeping harder.
Sören gave a deep, long sigh, like he was dealing with a frustrating child. "Is it all right if I call him, then, and explain this to him on your behalf?"
Dooku nodded.
Sören patted Dooku's knee, and then took Dooku's cell phone and started walking down the hall. Dooku could hear the rise and fall of Sören's voice, the lilting Icelandic accent, nervous laughter and the occasional sad, sympathetic sigh. At last, Sören came back into the bedroom, still talking to Qui on the phone, and he approached Dooku and said, "Qui has something to say to you."
Dooku took the phone. "H-hewwo?" And he was immediately embarrassed that he'd been so overcome by grief and this sudden wave of anxiety that he couldn't even pronounce "hello".
"I want you to know," Qui told him, "that I forgive you, and I have missed you very much, and I love you very much, and I really appreciate you coming by tonight and I hope we'll be seeing each other more often."
"We will," Dooku said, and then he started crying again.
It was obvious on the other end of the line that Qui was crying too. "I'm sorry, on my part, that I didn't try to press what was going on. That I just assumed you... thought I'd failed you in some way... and your withdrawal was out of anger or disapproval, rather than... this."
"I wish I'd been able to tell you," Dooku said. "I'm... not good with feelings."
"Well, that I know. But you still have them, and... it seems like you have someone who can help you navigate them, now."
"Thank you." Dooku cried some more, and Qui did too.
Finally Qui said, "All right, I should let you go, it's late and we both have to work in the morning."
"Yes. Take care, and... call me this weekend, we can schedule dinner again for next week if you like."
"I would like that. Good night."
Dooku flipped his phone closed, and then used the Force to put it on the bedtable next to his bed. He looked at the time and grimaced, because he felt too tired to get up and drive Sören home.
But Sören was already in his closet. "We're roughly the same size... you have a pair of pajamas I can borrow?"
"You..."
Sören glanced at Dooku over his shoulder. "Well, do you or don't you?"
"Yes. They're all... black. Towards the back, right hand side."
Sören smiled. "Black has always been my color."
Sören took a pair of pajamas, let himself in the bathroom, and returned wearing the pajamas. Then he used the Force to throw a pair of pajamas at Dooku.
"I take it this means you're not going home tonight," Dooku said.
"No," Sören said.
"I'll... set the alarm to take you home on my way to work, on time. But... Sören." Dooku hung his head. "I hope you're not expecting that... tonight. It's not that I'm not interested ever, it's that tonight would be too much -"
"I'm not," Sören said. "I just want to hold you, is all."
For the first time in sixty-eight years of his life, Dooku shared a bed with another person. No sex, just laying in Sören's arms, being held, being petted, being comforted. Sören was so warm, like a living blanket, and it soothed and relaxed him. The rhythm of Sören's heartbeat eventually lulled Dooku to sleep. In the middle of the night, Dooku woke up and there was a moment where he was startled at the presence in his bed, then he relaxed and rolled into Sören again, whose arms tightened around him, and their legs entwined. When Dooku woke up to the sound of the alarm, Sören was spooning him, stroking his face and his beard. Dooku rolled over to watch Sören shut off the alarm, and then he sat up and they just looked at each other for a few minutes.
"Thank you," Dooku said, reaching out to take Sören's hands, and squeeze them.
Sören brought Dooku's hands to his lips to kiss them, and then climbed off the bed, to take his clothes into the bathroom.
Physically sleeping with another person was the most intimate act of Dooku's life thus far, and he felt shy as he drove Sören to the coffee shop. They lingered, when they got there, giving each other a long, meaningful look. Dooku half-hoped Sören would kiss him, but he was nervous enough to tremble visibly, and he could tell in the Force that Sören didn't want to cause him any further anxiety.
"I'll see you on Saturday," Sören said.
"You're not coming tonight?"
"I promised Frankie I'd spend some time with her. I don't want to turn into that guy who ditches his friends because he has a boyfriend."
He called me his... Dooku's heart raced and his face flushed, his stomach turning flip-flops. He felt himself smile, and Sören's smile in return dazzled him.
Sören patted Dooku's hand. "I'll see you Saturday afternoon. I'm making good progress on the room, and I might actually have the mural finished by Monday if I work on it all weekend."
"Do you... want to spend the weekend?"
"I do, but... I don't want to rush you into anything you're not ready for. We can just sleep together without, uh, sleeping together."
"I appreciate that." Dooku took Sören's hands. "You're a gentleman."
"Well, I'm a gentleman for now. I don't make any promises about later, once you're ready." Sören's eyes twinkled.
Before Dooku could make incoherent flustered noises, Sören blew him a kiss and bolted out of his car.
chapter 9 | return to Northern Lights | return to Other Tolkien Fic | return to index