Both Sören and Anthony took time off from work starting Friday, even though neither of them had flu symptoms - they didn't want to take the risk of carrying it and spreading it to others.
They both expected to be back to work by Monday, with the worst of Nicholas's symptoms gone, but by Monday he was still running a fever at 38.3 C, and despite their best efforts to get fluids into him, and ibuprofen to bring down his temp, he wasn't drinking as much as they'd like. He was also sleeping very deeply, enough that Anthony worried it was a coma and periodically poked or shook him to make sure he was still responsive.
On Monday afternoon, after Anthony called work to let them know he'd be out the rest of the week, he saw Sören standing out in the garden, watching snowflakes fall, and he put on his coat and stepped out to join him. For a few moments they stood there side by side, snow falling softly, silently. Anthony finally took Sören's hand in his and cleared his throat.
"I think he should be admitted," Anthony said.
Sören sighed, and then shook his head vehemently. "That's a bad idea for a few reasons. If he gets worse, yes. He's not getting better, just yet, but he's not getting worse. If he goes to the hospital, he could get worse, being exposed to other people's viruses and bacteria. I've known of people who've gone to the hospital for flu and ended up getting pneumonia in the hospital and dying. We also need to reserve beds and staff for people who need it. The NHS is always strapped."
"He's not getting worse, but he's still very, very sick, and it's been five days. He's at an age where the flu is possibly deadly. It could well turn into pneumonia here at home." Tears stung Anthony's eyes - he wasn't ready to lose Nicholas. Nicholas had been remarkably healthy, in good shape, for his age before this happened. Anthony had expected another five, ten years at least before they had to worry about the decline. It felt too soon, especially when Anthony was still grieving his father, who had died suddenly last year.
Sören's own eyes were too bright too. "I still think we should wait and see before we make that call. I'm worried too - this is worse than the flu he had three years ago - but I don't know that sending him to the hospital would be the right decision. And, there's also -" Sören's voice trailed off and he put his hand over his mouth like he was about to say the wrong thing.
Anthony raised an eyebrow. "And there's also what?"
Sören looked off to the side. "Never mind."
Anthony scowled, but he decided to not press it. Not just yet.
Sören and Anthony curled up on the couch together watching TV as Mark made dinner. Sören started to cry, trying to keep it silent, but Anthony noticed him crying and that made Anthony cry too, once again torn apart with the fear of losing Nicholas... and hurting for Sören, who had been with Nicholas longer, knowing how much it would destroy Sören. Mark made grilled cheese with tomato soup - nothing fancy, but it was Sören's comfort food. Anthony didn't have much of an appetite due to the stress, but made himself eat anyway. After they ate, Anthony and Sören brought dinner down to Nicholas, trying to wake him up to eat or at least drink something, but Nicholas was sleeping too deeply. And still burning up. Sören took his temperature with an infrared thermometer and shook his head - 38.3 again.
Anthony helped Mark do the dishes, needing to distract himself before he had a meltdown. He heard the shower running down the hall and a couple of minutes later the sound of Sören sobbing in the shower. Mark put his hand on Anthony's shoulder. "You should go to him," Mark said softly.
Anthony let himself in the bathroom, quietly undressed, and opened the glass door to push in his shower chair, then maneuvered with the support bars and sat in the chair. Sören cried harder, and Anthony reached out and grabbed Sören's waist, pulled him close, held him tight as the water rained down over them. Anthony cried too, weeping bitterly, feeling like his entire life was falling apart.
When they had prune skin, Sören helped Anthony out of the shower. They went down to the bedroom to get their pajamas. Once again, Sören and Anthony tried to get Nicholas to wake up and drink. Nicholas made a noise of protest and rolled over, then he started shaking, his teeth chattering. Sören sighed and gently shook him. "Nick, come on, elskan. Drink this and you'll feel a little better, OK?"
Nicholas made another grumble and turned away.
Sören sighed. "He's going to get dehydrated if this keeps up. If he isn't already."
"And this is why he should be admitted, Sören."
Sören glared, and then composed himself, as if he understood right away lashing out at Anthony was not what anybody needed right now. Sören got up and started down the hall. Anthony followed as quickly as he could, and before Sören could reach the stairwell and start the climb - presumably to his studio to be left alone - Anthony called out, "Sören, wait." It was time to press what he hadn't pressed a couple of hours ago.
Sören paused.
Anthony caught up to him. "OK, look." He exhaled. "Earlier, when we were in the garden, talking about your reasoning for not wanting him admitted, you started to say 'and there's also'. Then you stopped yourself. From the context, it sounds like you have an additional reason for wanting to hold off on admitting him besides not wanting him to be exposed to germs that would make him worse, besides not wanting to take up a NHS bed and staff and resources if it can be avoided. I want to know what your other reason is."
Sören looked off to the side, and then he started humming the Jaws theme.
"Sören, I'm being deadly serious."
"Jæja, I know... and you know humor is how I cope." Sören sighed and looked down at the floor. When he looked up, his eyes were misty again.
"What is it? I know it's something."
"It's going to sound daft."
"I think you overestimate what sounds daft anymore, considering the three of us are reincarnated Elves from a fiction book in possession of three magic stones from said book, living with an Elf who was alive when the last Ice Age ended." Anthony's free hand touched Sören's face. "You can tell me."
"OK." Sören sat on a step, and Anthony sat next to him. Sören took a moment to gather his thoughts and then he said, "So, Nick woke up with flu symptoms on Thursday morning."
"Yes."
"On Wednesday, as you know, he and I went on a date. We went out to dinner and before that we went shopping. Nick wanted to go to antique shops."
Anthony nodded.
"One of those shops is this creepy place called Curious Goods. When I say creepy, there's the obvious that it tries too hard to look like something out of a horror movie, with overly dramatic dark lighting and dramatic furniture and decor but also the dude who runs the place is... a weirdo. Just really bad vibes. I didn't want to go in there but I didn't want to tell Nick no, because I thought this was just me being snobby about fake goth shit. Well... Nick went in back to look at some stuff and he was badly spooked by it, and he felt stupid for having that reaction, but now..." Sören shook his head. "This is what I mean, it sounds daft as fuck, but what if -"
"You think there was some sort of malevolent energy or spirit in the place that attacked him and that's why he's sick." The gears in Anthony's head turned madly, putting it together.
"Jæja. Like I said. That sounds crazy. I'm a fucking atheist, or I was, until recently. I don't like speculating on what else is real if reincarnation is real, if the Valar are real. I don't want to believe in ghosts and demons and witchcraft and all that shit. I'm a doctor, I'm a neurosurgeon. I'm a man of science. I know the flu is caused by a virus. But Nick had the flu shot, and none of the rest of us are sick - I mean, Mark can't get it, but you know what I mean. It..." Sören rubbed his face like an annoyed wet cat. "I hate even speculating on this, but -"
"But this is why you're hesitant to admit him, because you think if this was caused by magic or a demon, conventional medicine won't help him."
"Yes." Sören broke down sobbing again. "Fuck."
Anthony put an arm around Sören and began rubbing his back. It did sound crazy, but Anthony thought it also sounded true. He too was uncomfortable with the deeper layers of reality, but it seemed like they didn't have a choice but to peel back some more layers and examine them, at a time like this.
"It would really help to know what exactly happened when he went in the back room," Sören said. "All I know is he was creeped out. He wouldn't get into detail. So even though I suspect something attacked him, I don't know for sure because I wasn't there. I wish I had, like... video evidence or -"
Mark cleared his throat from the top of the second floor.
Sören scooted over and Mark came downstairs, carrying a towel. After he climbed off the bottom step, he leaned against the wall, his hands behind his back. "I couldn't help but overhear," Mark said.
"I take it you have an opinion," Anthony said.
"I think it's worth looking into further," Mark said. "It happens that I have something that isn't video evidence, but functions like video evidence." Mark moved his arms and showed them what he'd been hiding behind his back - he lifted up the towel and they saw something that looked like a crystal ball, made of iridescent violet-black glass. Instinctively, not thinking about it, Anthony reached out to touch it. The surface of the glass was warm, and it pulsed underneath Anthony's fingers.
"You have a palantir," Sören said, his voice hushed.
Mark nodded solemnly. "I have very few things from the Years of the Trees that survived this long, through everything. This is one of them. You made this, Atya." He moved the palantir in front of Sören, holding it out. "Go on, take it. Look and see."
Mark walked off - Anthony thought it was a bit silly to give them privacy considering he'd heard the discussion, but he realized it might also be to not break their concentration. Sören held the palantir so he and Anthony could both look into it. For a few minutes there was nothing, only the dark, shimmering glass. Then the glass sparkled with what seemed like millions of tiny stars, giving way to colored nebulas. And at last, there was the inside of the shop. It was even worse than Sören had described - it was cheesy, but there was nonetheless a sinister feeling. Anthony and Sören watched Nicholas follow a very tall man with waist-length white-blond hair into a back room, the back room filled with mirrors and crystal balls... swords and a spider-and-web-frame mirror on the back wall, above a statue of Baphomet on a table with many bowls and chalices. The vision drew them over to a wood statue of a dragon that looked like it had been made during the Viking era, except for two bejeweled eyes.
What do you think of that? the man asked.
The dragon's eyes flashed, and Sören and Anthony watched as a net of dark energy shot over Nicholas. As Nicholas startled and stepped back, the man put a hand on Nicholas's shoulder and sent out another pulse of dark energy.
"Tíkasonur, blóðugur móðurfokk helvíti," Sören snarled.
The vision quickly faded from the palantir. Sören looked ready to throw it in his rage, baring his teeth - Anthony snatched it away just to be on the safe side - and Sören's fists clenched. "Fokkið þessu helvítis kjaftæði, FOKK!"
Mark came over to collect the palantir. "I take it your suspicions have been confirmed."
Sören growled. Anthony would have been turned on if he weren't so upset.
"Fuck," Anthony said.
Sören nodded. "In a way, it would be easier to deal with if he hadn't been attacked. If it was just the regular, normal flu virus. At least then we could have him admitted tomorrow if he doesn't recover and they could maybe give him an antiviral and some fluids or something. But this..."
"Yeah." Anthony sighed. He felt once again like his world was crashing down around him... and like his brain was breaking. He didn't want magic to be real. He didn't know why someone would attack Nicholas, who appeared on the surface to be a harmless old man. Unless...
Anthony shivered, not liking the implications of this. It seemed that most people claiming to be capable of magic - like the witches on Tumblr - couldn't magic themselves out of a wet paper bag. Anthony still thought a lot of paranormal phenomena was fraud, like fortune tellers or psychics who were just people doing cold readings. He himself, as a lawyer, had mastered that art, paying attention to the little details - what he now understood as training himself to compensate for the ways being autistic made it harder to read others.
This was not someone LARPing on Tumblr. This was a man the same height as Mark - itself noteworthy, not many people were that tall, not even in Sören's home country of Iceland where people ran tall as a rule. A man with very long hair and a striking appearance, like an Elf. Or something similar. This was someone who knew what Nicholas was, probably because they were not usual themselves. Who could possess that sort of power?
Anthony made himself focus on the here-and-now. They could figure out who this guy was, and his motivations - what he knew, what he was hoping to accomplish - later. Right here, right now, Nicholas was ill and not getting better, and the fact that this was magic and not the flu suggested it might be deadlier than the flu.
Sören seemed to share that sentiment. "I don't know what to do for him." Sören gave a bitter laugh. "I can fix people's brains, their spines... I'm totally fucking helpless to do anything to fix this. To undo this... fucked up magic shit." Then Sören glanced over at Mark, gave him a pleading look. "I seem to recall you have some healing ability. Do you think..."
"I tried already," Mark said, with a frown. "I've tried a few times. I can't heal everything, anyway - I couldn't regenerate a new arm for my brother, I've had a couple human partners die of plague. There are limits to what I can do. I can try harder... I can sing a Song of Power... but I don't think that, on its own, will be effective. It needs something to go with it."
Sören stroked his chin, deep in thought. He closed his eyes and took a few breaths - if Anthony didn't know better, he would have sworn Sören was meditating. Then Sören's eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped. He made a strangled noise.
"Hm?" Mark's eyebrows shot up.
"The Silmarils," Sören said. "Even before Varda hallowed them, they were still... the manifestation of Light. In fact, blasphemous that it might be... they would have power without her hallowing." Sören shook his head and made a sneer of disgust. "Morgoth wouldn't have stolen them, you wouldn't have sworn the Oath as terrible as it was, Yavanna wouldn't want me to hand them over if they were just three shiny rocks. They have power. It's more than just the Light of the Trees. They're sparks of the Flame Imperishable."
"Yes," Mark said softly.
"It's crazy," Sören said, "but it's worth a shot. The Silmarils... and your song. Maybe the Light can dispel whatever the fuck it was that creeper did to him."
Mark and Sören went upstairs while Anthony waited at Nicholas's bedside. This was indeed craziness - the craziest thing Anthony had ever participated in - but they had to try something. Nicholas's breathing was more labored now, and tears came to Anthony's eyes again, not wanting to lose him. It felt like the four of them were each part of a greater whole, and for that to be ripped asunder was devastating, a wound that would never heal. Anthony found himself tenderly rubbing Nicholas's back, stroking Nicholas's cheek, noticing he felt hotter than before. Tears silently rolled down Anthony's face, heart breaking, soul screaming as a piece of it was being ripped out. He couldn't bear this loss, after everything else. It wasn't time. They had only just found each other again, after so long.
Mark came in lugging his harp, and Sören carried the glass egg that held the Silmarils. Sören set the glass egg down on the dresser where they kept their cellphones when not in use, and Anthony watched as the egg opened on its own and the Silmarils floated out and towards Sören. No matter how many times Anthony had seen the Silmarils fly in the air on their own, defying gravity, it never ceased to amaze him.
The room was much brighter now, and warmer, like five other lamps had been turned on. Nicholas made a noise of discomfort and squirmed under the covers. Sören climbed on the other side of Nicholas on the bed and pushed the covers back, exposing Nicholas in sweat-soaked pajamas. Sören took one of the Silmarils and handed it to Anthony. The stone throbbed in his hands and was warm to the touch without burning, like holding a hot plate of food. Rainbows flashed over his shirt and arms and pajama pants, and Anthony squinted against the glare.
Mark began doing scales to warm up, and when he signaled that he was ready, Sören rolled Nicholas onto his back, opened the first few buttons of his pajama top, and rested one of the other Silmarils against his heart. Nicholas instinctively reached for it, his hand settling atop it, which made Anthony smile through his tears.
The cats came over, all three of them, and joined Sören, Nicholas, and Anthony on the bed, purring in chorus.
Mark began to play, a progression of minor chords then major chords, singing in Quenya. Though Anthony did not speak Quenya in this lifetime he still somehow understood what Mark was singing.
Your heart knows the way
Though the trail might be dark
Your heart knows the light
And the light will lead you home
In the silence, remember the laughter
Remember the voices and the singing
Keep it burning like a flame
And that flame will light the way
There is no darkness greater than the light of love
Our love lights the way
Our love seeks your love
Our fire calls to your fire
There is no hatred that can prevail
Against the strength we share when we are strong together
We will find you, you will find us
We are bringing you home
Safe and sound
Where you belong
Mark's voice rang out like many voices. Anthony's hair stood on end, his skin gooseflesh. He felt himself breathing harder. Felt himself pushing, with every ounce of his will. Come on, damn you. Heal. Get better. Anthony started to break a sweat, his body tensing.
The Silmaril in Anthony's hands throbbed, beating like a heart... pulsing in the rhythm of Mark's song, as if it were acknowledging the power in it and amplifying it, somehow. Anthony watched as the Silmarils grew brighter and brighter, the room fading to white...
Just before everything flashed out, Anthony noticed Sören's eyes were glowing a pale silver, almost white, and Sören leaned in and tenderly kissed Nicholas's brow. The words Sören spoke next were neither English nor Icelandic.
"Oiala ar illumë melmenya."
chapter 17 | return to Learning To Fly | return to Other Tolkien Fic | return to index