Rise: Chapter 15

"As you know, Sören, that doesn't go with anything in our house."

Sören shrugged. "Who even said that dishes had to match the dining room decor? Who the fuck invented that rule? For that matter, who even decided that all dishes on a table had to match? Why can't people have different color plates and mugs and different designs of silverware? Taste the rainbow, bitches."

"Probably because it would take away too much from the artistry of the food. Too busy. Too distracting."

People were starting to stare at them now, and finally Sören glared at the starers and said, "Yes, we're gay."

Nicholas facepalmed, but he couldn't help laughing - it was a terrible stereotype but they fit it for the moment. Nicholas put an arm around Sören and kissed his cheek. He was normally quite reserved about public displays of affection, after a lifetime in the closet - a decade as a priest - and his face was on fire, but it nonetheless felt right to give Sören that little kiss now...

...and a discrete swat on the bottom. Sören took a couple of steps forward and shook his ass so only Nicholas could see it.

Nicholas looked around at the collections of dinnerware and cookware and sighed. "Anyway, everything here is so... commercial."

"Jæja, we're in a store."

"Indeed." Mark and Anthony were having a night to themselves, and then this weekend they would trade off, with Nicholas spending some alone time with Mark, and Sören and Anthony having couple time. It was good and healthy to do things in pairs as well as the four of them together... so Sören and Nicholas were doing a bit of shopping before their dinner reservations at Balthazar in Covent Garden. They were at a boutique specializing in housewares, but everything felt too sleek, too modern. "I think perhaps we should go elsewhere."

"Elsewhere?"

"There are antique shops in the area." Nicholas hadn't been antiquing in Covent Garden since they'd moved to Blackheath, but it had been a hobby of his; almost all the furniture and housewares and decor he'd owned in his old flat was vintage.

Sören laughed softly. "You're such a hipster, Ñolo."

They visited a few different shops, looking at furniture, china, vases, and statuary. Nothing really seemed right until they came across a tea service, black, painted with fiery phoenixes and flaming roses like the tattoos Sören had. Sören's eyes lit up and Nicholas smiled - it was perfect. He was loath to use the Wedgwood tea service Anthony's grandmother had gifted Anthony except on very special occasions, and the regular tea service felt too plain. This was just right.

The price tag did make Nicholas hesitate, however - it wasn't that they were hurting for money, but Nicholas disapproved of the way so many well-to-do threw money around like it was water, spending on lavish, ostentatious items that served no real purpose but to show off. It was a beautiful tea service, to be sure, but he had been living modestly since his priest days and he still felt a touch of self-consciousness about spending so much on a tea service that they didn't actually need. If it had just been for Sören, Nicholas wouldn't have minded - only the best for the man he loved - but this was slightly different, enough to give him pause.

It wasn't a hard no, however. "How about we visit one last shop to see if there's anything there we like better, and if not, we'll come back and buy this?" Nicholas asked, and Sören nodded.

That one last shop was called Curious Goods, an antique shop that had been in Covent Garden at least four years, but that Nicholas had never visited before now. As they approached the shop, Nicholas noticed Sören's shoulders heave with a deep sigh, and when they came to the door, Nicholas held the door open for Sören and he hesitated.

Nicholas furrowed his brow. He really didn't want to have an argument with Sören, especially not over a tea service and wanting to think about something and consider options rather than act on impulse. "What?" Nicholas asked, trying to keep his tone neutral and non-accusatory. "Is something wrong? If you really insist on that tea service, I'll buy it, but I thought it would be nice to do one last bit of looking -"

"It's not that," Sören said, and then his jaw set before he gave a dry chuckle. "I'm not insisting on anything, Ñolo. But -"

"But."

Sören took a deep breath and lowered his voice. "I don't like this place. Bad vibes."

"I see."

There was a pause, and then Sören shrugged and reached out to pat Nicholas. "Well, I suppose it doesn't matter. It's our anniversary and you wanted to come here and look around, so we will, já?" Sören tried to smile and stepped through the door.

Little bells rang as the door closed behind them. The first thing Nicholas noticed as they walked in was that the shop was colder than outside, as if the air conditioner was on even though it was the middle of February. The next thing Nicholas noticed was how dark the inside of the shop was. He was used to stores erring on the side of bright light - even a bit harsh and glaring - so one could really observe all the details of an item. The lighting in this store seemed deliberately low, and the walls were painted black, which made it seem even darker.

Dark corresponded to the store's items, as well. Furnishings in heavy dark wood and wrought iron. Rugs and tapestries in black and deep violets and reds, with no lighter or cooler colors. Stern-faced statuary like gargoyles and sword-wielding angels. Nicholas could see why Sören didn't like this store - it was like whoever owned it was trying too hard to be "goth" or "emo", as the youth called it, and it felt quite a bit pretentious. And a bit unsettling, as he walked through the middle of the store, and noticed four gargoyles were positioned on pillars to make a rough diamond shape around the middle of the store, watching.

Before Nicholas could take Sören's sleeve and quietly march him out of the store, a very tall man - taller even than Nicholas - sauntered forward. He had warm golden-white hair down to his waist, and wore black sunglasses, indoors. He had high, sharp cheekbones and features reminiscent of a Renaissance painting or a statue. He was dressed with the same dark, dramatic flair of the items in the store - a long black tunic of a silken fabric, embroidered with violet lotuses, and violet pants that matched the same shade of the flowers. Tall black boots, leather, expensive-looking. There was a ring on his left index finger of a stone that looked like black opal, but with much more flash, and it was set into a spider's back.

Nicholas had a brief flash of recognition - this had been the other man to bid on Sören at the bachelor auction in 2014. It was quite a coincidence to run into him again, even though Nicholas knew the man was probably local to London.

"Good evening," the man said, his voice deep and resonant. "Are you looking for anything in particular?"

"We're just looking," Nicholas said, his heart beating a little faster - a twinge of anxiety, even though he normally didn't react like this to strangers. "Or, we were. We're on our way out, I'm afraid -"

"So soon?" The man chuckled. "You've been in the store less than five minutes."

"It's... not really our style," Nicholas said, and Sören nodded vehemently.

"Are you sure about that? You haven't seen everything." The man's voice was almost a purr. "Come around to the back with me, I've got some things that might change your mind."

Against his better judgment - and feeling annoyed with himself for having that judgment - Nicholas followed behind the shopkeeper. Sören waited, and Nicholas glanced over his shoulder at Sören with his arms folded, looking annoyed.

I'll only be a minute, then we can leave, Nicholas spoke into his mind.

The back room of the shop was even darker than the main storefront. Beeswax candles burned in wrought iron candelabras and stained glass votive holders. The items for sale in the back seemed to be mostly occult paraphernalia. There was a glass display case of Tarot decks by different artists, which made the dim lighting all the stranger, surely one would want to get a close look at the art. There were two long shelves along the left and right walls made of knotwork-carved rosewood, and on the top shelf of each were small mirrors, each in a unique frame of carved wood, wrought iron, or sculpted pewter or copper. Between each mirror was a crystal ball, some glass, some stone - one looked to be rainbow obsidian. On the shelves below the top shelf of mirrors and crystal balls were curio boxes, glass and wood and stone and metal, each handmade, each unique. Along the back wall were mounted several swords, and a larger mirror made of black glass in a frame of pewter spiderwebs, with a large jeweled spider on top of the frame. Below the mirror was a table of chalices and bowls, and a grey marble statue of Baphomet.

Nicholas shuddered. None of this was anything he wanted. He wasn't a priest anymore - he saw Christ and the Devil as both products of fiction - and yet, the Valar and Eru were real, and something felt very sinister, very off about this place. He once again thought about the coincidence of running into this man again, years after the bachelor auction. Before he could turn and head out the door and drag Sören with him, the man was ushering him towards a dragon carved of rosewood, resembling ancient Viking designs. The dragon's eyes were made of the same fiery black stone the man wore in his ring.

"What do you think about that?" the man asked.

It was lovely craftsmanship and yet it still felt as wrong as everything else in the room. And then, before Nicholas could step away, the dragon's eyes seemed to flash and Nicholas froze, like a deer trapped in headlights. For a brief instant he felt as if a sticky cobweb had been thrown over him, with a musty ammonia smell like an old catbox. Nicholas recoiled in revulsion and took a step back, and before he could bolt, the man's left hand, the one with the ring, was on his shoulder. Nicholas startled - the touch was like burning dry ice, even through the thick wool of his trenchcoat.

"Well?"

"I..." Nicholas blinked. His mind drew a blank, not able to make words - he just wanted to run; even if it was his mind playing a trick on him because of the horror movie-like atmosphere of the shop, he was still spooked and wanting to get away as fast as he could. Something in Nicholas pushed back and he wrenched free of the man's grip, but his shoulder felt pins-and-needles, most unpleasant. "I don't think any of this is my style, really, sorry." Nicholas tried to give a polite smile.

Before he could step away, the man's right hand pushed a business card into one of the pockets of Nicholas's trenchcoat. "In case you change your mind."

Nicholas gave a curt nod, and then he walked away as quickly as he could without making a scene by running - he didn't like that he was having this reaction, it felt like the people who claimed to see the Virgin Mary in their toast, he didn't want to be rude. Sören was waiting by one of the gargoyles, and as soon as Nicholas was there, he put an arm around Sören and started pulling him to the door.

When they got outside, Nicholas took a few deep breaths. His heart was pounding, and as he looked into Sören's eyes, his heartbeat slowed.

"Are you all right?" Sören frowned and put his hands on Nicholas's shoulders.

Nicholas nodded. "I'm fine. Just a little unsettled, is all."

"Jæja, now you know why I don't like that place. We're gonna buy the tea set now, já?"

"Yes indeed." Nicholas cursed himself internally for not buying the phoenix-and-roses tea service to begin with, price tag be damned.

They went back to the antique shop with the tea service and Nicholas purchased that, and then they went to Balthazar for dinner. Over a good meal of Beef Wellington, with Sören flirting, Nicholas's anxiety subsided some more, and he chalked his reactions in Curious Goods up to the creepy atmosphere of the shop and the equally creepy demeanor of the shopkeeper. But on the drive back to Blackheath, Nicholas's mind replayed the encounter in the back of the store, the all-too-real flashing eyes of the dragon, the way he froze as he briefly felt that cobweb-like energy, briefly smelled that foul smell... the way the shopkeeper's touch felt like dry ice even through his layers. He normally wasn't one to hallucinate, and he had learned over the last few months that reality was far stranger than he'd given credit - if reincarnation was real, and the Valar were real enough to curse them, it begged the question of what else Nicholas had dismissed as superstitious nonsense, that was actually real. Nicholas had been trying to avoid that question, avoid digging too deeply. But now he wondered if he'd detected the presence of something evil, something demonic, and that not-quite-right feeling both he and Sören had was their intuition - the part of them that had known things all along - warning them.

Nicholas shivered, even though the heat was on in the car.

"You all right?" Sören cocked his head to one side and pursed his lips.

Nicholas gave a nervous laugh. "You keep asking me that."

"Jæja, you keep acting like something's wrong."

Nicholas didn't want to get into a deep discussion of spiritual fact and fiction, what was real and what was fantasy, and especially not on Valentine's Day, their anniversary. He didn't want to lie to Sören either - Sören wasn't just his partner but a doctor, Sören had been trained to observe discomfort. Nicholas took a deep breath. "I'm still a little shaken up by that creepy shop. I feel a bit ridiculous saying it, like a child afraid of monsters under his bed -"

"It's OK, Nick, I get it." Sören reached out and patted him. "I told you I don't like that place either, even though it's just a store and a weird pretentious dude. I felt like it would be stupid to tell you not to go inside, so it wasn't really about feeling forced." Sören shrugged. "At least now you know."

Nicholas nodded. "We shan't go in there again."

"No." Sören's lips quirked. "And I don't think you're silly or stupid for being creeped out. It's a creepy place. It seems like the sort of place you'd expect vampires to have a club, or something."

"Indeed."

As Nicholas pulled back onto the road, Sören chuckled. Nicholas raised an eyebrow and Sören said, "Oh, nothing."

"What?"

Sören grinned. "You'd make a good Dracula."

"As you know, I do not wear costumes."

"Too bad. That could be some fun kinky roleplaying." Sören wiggled his eyebrows. "Bite me, Daddy Dracula."

Nicholas tried not to laugh, but his belly shook as he continued down the road. "If you keep that up, young man, I just might."

Sören attempted a wink that was more of a clumsy blink - Nicholas always found that awkwardness endearing and a bit sexy. "Promises, promises."

As soon as they got home, Nicholas slammed Sören against the foyer wall and bit his neck with a growl. After several deep, fierce kisses, Sören took Nicholas's hands and led him towards the master bedroom, not even bothering to stop to take off his coat and shoes. "If you're going to bite me, you might as well go all the way and eat me."

Nicholas laughed again, leaning in to nibble Sören's neck at the bedroom door. "With pleasure."








A slow, sensuous sixty-nine, followed by Sören riding Nicholas's cock, was exactly what the doctor ordered to chase away the residual discomfort of the visit to Curious Goods. After two orgasms and some sweet cuddles with Sören, Nicholas fell asleep with a big smile on his face.

But when his alarm went off the next morning, Nicholas felt himself scowling so hard his face hurt. All of him hurt. It hadn't been the sex, or the walk, both of which he was used to. Every joint in his body ached, and he had a dull headache. He was a little too warm, and this was after stripping down to just a sheet, sleeping in the nude.

Sören was already at work, or Nicholas would have asked Sören to bring him his phone. Nicholas sat up, head pounding, and groaned as his body protested with little twinges. As he went over to the dresser where his phone charged overnight, he started to shake, warmth replaced by chills. It seemed that even though he'd had a flu shot at Sören's insistence when flu season began, it wasn't 100% effective. Whatever it was - cold, flu - Nicholas knew he wasn't going to be capable of coming into UCL today, nor did he want to risk spreading whatever it was he had to others.

As Nicholas waited through the rings to reach the campus, he felt himself starting to doze again, startled awake by the secretary's voice. He explained that he would need the rest of the week off - it was Thursday, he very likely wouldn't be a hundred percent on Friday - and when the call was over, he set about putting on pajamas. Just the simple act of dressing himself felt like a marathon. He was almost ashamed of how exhausted he was, and this after a full night's sleep.

Tobias hopped up on the bed and made a concerned "Prrp?"

"I know," Nicholas said, hearing the raspiness in his voice. He could use some water, but he felt too worn out to even attempt to make the short walk to the kitchen. He made a mental note to call Mark's cell later. First, he got under the covers. Maybe a bit more sleep would do some good. Tobias settled next to him, kneading and purring, and made another concerned whine. "I know, little one. It's as if the life has been drained out of me, isn't it?"

And then Nicholas's mouth opened, his mind's eye once again replaying the visit to Curious Goods. The dragon's jeweled eyes flashing. That cobweb-like feeling. The smell. The way that man's touch was freezing and burning all at once. It had to be just a coincidence that his mind had played tricks on him in such a manner and now he had what appeared to be a cold or flu - viruses were going around, after all.

Nicholas shivered, and pulled the covers up tighter around him. Tobias climbed up on the pillow beside him and began grooming his whiskers until Nicholas laughed and gently moved aside. He held out his index finger, and Tobias wrapped his paw around it, kneading, purring harder. Nicholas closed his eyes, stretching - it felt so good to stretch, even as much as he hurt everywhere - and he let himself fade, drifting away and away from the what-ifs, away from anything at all.

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