(The "Canadian tuxedo" and mason jar are real; SemperViridis shooped the cowboy hat on.)
April 2020
Sören was back from his shift at the hospital at the same time DeKalb and Yeyette were getting in. They were unloading groceries from the van, and Sören went over to help them. As he walked alongside DeKalb carrying groceries inside, he noticed DeKalb looked surlier than usual, and with the Force he sensed mild agitation. "You OK?"
"Oh, yeah." DeKalb gave a wry chuckle. "It was just a madhouse in there. We've got a pandemic going on and almost nobody in that damn store was wearing a mask like they're supposed to be."
"Those poor workers," Yeyette said, her brow furrowed. "The customers are endangering them."
"Jæja." The pandemic hadn't been happening that long and Sören already had enough of putting COVID cases on ventilators, watching them code. "Fucking assholes."
They went out for another round of bags to take in. "That's not all, though," DeKalb went on. "People are hoarding, buying mass quantities of toilet paper. A lot of the shelves were bare and the store is usually well-stocked."
"And prices are going up," Yeyette said. "We're not poor, but beef is almost twice the cost of what it used to be."
Sören didn't like that at all. He still had lingering food security issues from when he was growing up and his aunt and uncle drank and were neglectful, leaving Sören to fend for himself. And when he was a poor university student, since he'd opted to go to school in the States instead of in Iceland where it was free, just to get away from his abusive family, and had supported himself as an exotic dancer and occasional male escort. Though he'd been living the good life as a doctor for several years now, his experience of scraping the bottom of the barrel still haunted him and made his anxiety spike whenever there was a slight concern about money. No, they weren't poor, but nonetheless, it sounded like there was potential for riots over food and supplies, and for the cost of living to go up even more.
That weighed on Sören heavily as the evening wore on, and especially as they ate dinner. About an hour after dinner, Sören stepped outside - sometimes going for a little walk cleared his head - and he found himself just standing and looking out at the field in the twilight. He folded his arms and rocked on his heels. The back door opened and Yeyette stood beside him, put a hand on his shoulder.
"Penny for your thoughts," Yeyette said.
"I'm sorry, I know I should shield better," Sören said, not wanting her to be even more stressed out by empathic feedback.
Yeyette shook her head. "Even if you shielded, you're still frowning as much as Palcë. Out with it, then. What is it? Bad day at the hospital?"
"No. Well... yes. Yes and no, but it's not that I'm, ah, frowning about." Sören put his hands on his hips. While he worried his idea might be seen as ridiculous, especially since this wasn't really his property, he just lived here, he decided he was going to share his thought as he surveyed the land around them. "I've been thinking about what you guys said earlier, with... the supermarket. The mobs, the hoarding, food prices going up. In Akureyri, where I grew up, I lived in town, but there were a number of farms nearby. My great-grandparents had one, they were the last generation of my family to be farmers. Anyway... I don't know a damn thing about farming, but it occurred to me maybe we should start using this as a farm. Not a big production, just growing a few staples - like potatoes." Sören smirked, thinking of Dara; Yeyette chuckled. "Maybe a couple fruit trees. Maybe some food animals - a chicken coop for eggs and chickens, a couple goats for breeding, a source of milk and meat. We'd still have to go to the store for some things, but relying on that even a little less would probably make a big difference."
"You're right." Yeyette nodded. "I never thought I'd ever be a farmer, but then, I never thought I'd be living in Indiana, of all places."
"You and me both." Sören laughed, relieved his idea wasn't shot down immediately. "I don't know though, it's... it's nice out here. Kind of reminds me of where I grew up, just without the fjord." And the alcoholic guardians.
"I guess there's a reason a lot of Scandinavians settled in the Midwest." Yeyette patted him. "I'll run the idea by the guys but I don't think any of them will have a problem with it. Knowing Victor, he'll likely find it prudent."
"Plus, you know, I think it might be good for everyone's mental health, a way to connect with nature when the world is so crazy and getting crazier." Sören could just see it in his mind's eye now, patches of potatoes, tomato vines, ears of corn. "Anthony loves gardening. And now he can grow his namesake, corn."
Yeyette snickered. "You're terrible."
"Takk."
_
A few days later, Sören went with DeKalb and Yeyette on a drive to Vincennes, out in Amish country, and back to procure a pair of goats. They would have to go back in a few weeks after the chicken coop was built, to get the chickens, but in the meantime, they had this and it was a start.
When they returned, there was much fussing over the goats, especially by Ryu - the goats allowed Ryu to pet them.
"What are their names?" Ryu asked.
Sören and Yeyette looked at each other, then DeKalb. "We haven't given them names yet," DeKalb said. "But I suppose we should hop to it." He gestured to Sören and Yeyette. "You go ahead, you picked them out."
Yeyette spent a long moment looking the dainty girl goat up and down and then she said, simply, "Jolie."
Sören's mind went blank when it was his turn to name the billy goat. "I'm bad at naming things," Sören said.
Maglor snorted. "Yeah, you named all seven of us Finwë." He grinned at Ryu. "Runs in the family, one of your sons named his dog Dog."
"Hey, at least this time my dog has a more creative name," Ryu said, and stuck his tongue out. Maglor put Ryu in a headlock and gave him noogies.
Sören laughed, not able to resist the trolling impulse - or the fact that he couldn't think of a better name than this. "Goatafinwë."
Nicholas pinched the bridge of his nose, looking pained, while Anthony shook with silent laughter. "You shan't name him that," Nicholas scolded.
"Shall. He's been named. Goatafinwë." Sören attempted a wink, which was more of a clumsy blink.
Nicholas's expression was sour, but his eyes were smiling; Sören knew he didn't hate this nearly as much as he was pretending to. Nicholas's velvet voice was in his mind, then. Don't change, Fëanáro.
_
The weeks passed, and April became May. The pandemic raged on, and even though Sören was exhausted by the time he got home from the hospital each day, helping with the farm chores was still a welcome respite, a way of self-soothing and centering: the repetitive motions that made the world seem to slow down, the feel of earth in his hands, the rich smell of it - even the goat manure had a pleasant, grassy smell to his nose... and there was something rewarding about watching the plants grow from seed, bit by bit.
Sören also found the goats adorable and delightful. He felt a small twinge of guilt whenever he thought about the eventuality of the goats' future offspring ending up on their table, but he knew they would have a good life and a humane death, not like factory farmed animals. He tried not to think about it that much, and it would be awhile yet before the pair had kids.
One day when Sören and Yeyette got out at the same time and came back together in the late afternoon, they saw Anthony, Ryu and Maglor playing what looked like a cross between hacky sack and soccer with Goatafinwë while Jolie was several meters away, resting. Goatafinwë bleated merrily as he headbutted and kicked the ball, and Sören smiled so hard it made his face hurt.
Anthony waved as he saw Sören and Yeyette approaching. "Hi!"
Sören loved seeing Anthony's face all lit up, the happiest he'd seen Anthony in weeks, who'd been stressed since the pandemic hit. "Having fun?"
"Yes, I think we're quite enjoying goatball." Anthony made a "come here" gesture. "Y'all should try it!"
Sören blinked, in disbelief of what he'd just heard. They'd been in the States since July of last year, not long enough for anyone to lose their accents, Anthony still very much sounded like he was from London... but he'd clearly reached a certain point of assimilation to use that word. "Y'all?" Sören's lips quirked, amused.
Anthony paused and the ball ricocheted off his chest. Anthony's face fell, realizing what had just come out of his mouth. "Er."
"My British husband says y'all now." Sören giggled. "What's next? Yee haw? Calling us buckaroos?"
The look on Anthony's face was priceless.
Sören couldn't stop teasing him about it later. As they snuggled in bed while Nicholas was taking a shower, Sören went for the grand finale. "What would your students say if they knew Doctor Cornelius Anthony Hewlett-Johnson, Ph.D., said y'all?"
Anthony narrowed his eyes.
"I don't know, Anthony, it's almost like you're becoming American."
Anthony rolled his eyes. "I am not bloody American."
"You live in America. From the look of things we're probably not going back to England anytime soon. And I mean, I went to uni in the States, then I lived in Boston, then Florida. I'm an honorary American. That means you're an American by osmosis. Or injection." Sören cackled.
Even in the dim lighting, Sören could see Anthony's cheeks turn pink at that last part - he didn't bottom often nor did Sören top often but when they traded roles, they enjoyed it very much - and Sören laughed harder before he kissed the tip of Anthony's nose. Anthony booped Sören's nose. "No, I'm not American."
"You live on a farm, and we're, ah, sort of on an adventure, out here in the Wild Wild... Midwest." Sören patted him.
"I can't be a cowboy, we've got no cows."
"We have a goat that will produce milk at some point. That's almost the same thing."
"Sören, I swear to god."
Sören gave him another little kiss and rested his head on Anthony's chest, listening to his heart beat. "OK. I'll drop it for now." He would think about an evil plan instead.
_
"For all the time I've been living in Terre Haute, I never even knew this place existed." Yeyette gave Sören an incredulous look as she got out of the car, before she looked out across the parking lot at Boot City. They pulled up their masks to go inside.
After teasing Anthony, Sören had done some poking around online and found Boot City, "Indiana's largest western outfitter". Sören was carrying a fedora Anthony had received as a gift from an aunt but never wore, though he'd still packed it for the trip to Indiana what seemed like forever ago, so Sören could compare hat sizes.
Sören had never seen so many cowboy boots in his life. He knew Anthony's shoe size, and Anthony did in fact own some boots, but Sören couldn't picture Anthony voluntarily wearing cowboy boots. It didn't stop there. There were vests, shirts, jackets, and chaps as far as the eye could see. Sören let out a low whistle as he looked around, feeling like he was completely out of his element.
A stocky middle-aged man wearing a brown cowboy hat, fringed brown leather vest with brown breeches, and a light beige shirt with puffy sleeves and shiny mother-of-pearl buttons, with a matching beige mask, approached. "Howdy, pardner. Can I help y'all find anything?"
My sanity. "We're just looking. Actually... I'd like to see the hats."
"Right this way." Then the man glanced over his shoulder as they walked across the store. "Y'all ain't from around here, are ya?"
"I'm from Iceland by way of England," Sören said. "I work at the hospital."
"Hm," the man said, and Sören didn't know if that was a good or a bad hm.
They arrived at the display of hats, and Sören peered at the tag on the inside of the fedora. When the man saw Sören was looking at the hat size, he gestured to the shelf of cowboy hats in that size. "Gotta say though, I don't think that's the right size for ya."
"It's not for me," Sören said.
"OK. Well, just holler if ya need somethin'."
Sören and Yeyette spent the next several minutes inspecting every hat in Anthony's size. "I can't believe we're doing this," Yeyette muttered.
"OK, but we're doing this for the lulz," Sören said. "And we badly need lulz right now."
"True. I'm surprised you're not getting him an entire outfit."
"I would need to get very exact measurements and he'd be suspicious. Plus, I can't see him getting all dressed up with the full outfit. Though..." Sören bit his lower lip, seeing the mental image clearly. "He'd look hot in leather chaps."
Yeyette cracked up and swatted him with the cowboy hat she was holding.
"Of course, if I told Anthony I got him chaps, he'd probably think I got him a pair of rentboys or something. 'I say, chaps! Pip-pip, tally-ho, jolly good!'"
Yeyette laughed harder, tears in her eyes. "Mon Dieu, Sören, he doesn't talk like that."
"No. Especially not now." Sören snorted. "Y'all. Y'all. I still can't even." Then Sören made it worse. "Jolly good, y'all!"
When they calmed down, they narrowed it down to a few selections and continued to deliberate over colors. Anthony wore a lot of navy blue, and grey - and Sören knew in Anthony's younger years he was a goth and prone to wearing black; Sören had seen the infamous "dressed up like The Cure" pictures from Anthony's late teens and early twenties. But Sören ended up choosing brown, because it looked more authentic, and he didn't think Anthony would wear it beyond the occasional joke anyway, so it didn't matter so much if it matched his outfits.
After they got home, Sören found a plain box to put the hat in, to keep the surprise until the last minute. He waited until everyone was home and dinner had been eaten before he gave Anthony a little squeeze and said, "I have something for you."
"Oh do you now." Anthony gave him a pointed look.
Not that, horndog. Or at least, not till later. "Wait right here."
Sören went upstairs and came back down with the box. Anthony's eyebrows went up. Sören sat down as Anthony opened the box. "I should have said 'I have something for y'all'," Sören quipped as the lid came off and Anthony pulled out the tissue paper to reveal the cowboy hat.
"Sören." Anthony gave him a stern look, but his eyes were laughing. He turned bright red, shaking, trying to keep the appearance of being annoyed. "Sören, what..."
Sören took the cowboy hat out of the box and put it on Anthony's head. "Yee haw."
"Oh, my word." Nicholas was also trying very hard not to laugh, and failing. "Anthony, my dear, that is... that is a look."
Sören glanced him up and down; now Anthony couldn't disguise his laughter, grinning as he gave in. Sören thought Anthony looked good in just about everything, but especially when he smiled like that. "10/10, would still do."
Anthony doubled over. "Jesus, Sören..."
Sören kissed his cheek. "You know what they say, save a horse, ride a cowboy."
_
A week after Sören bought Anthony the cowboy hat, he had his worst day at work yet.
He'd now seen dozens of deaths since the pandemic began - yes, some people who came into his ER survived and were eventually discharged, but many didn't make it. And no matter how many times Sören lost a patient, it didn't get any easier. Indeed, some cases were harder than others, like people with family members who didn't even get to say goodbye in-person because of the distancing precautions... and the young, healthy, no-pre-existing-conditions people who would have had so much life ahead of them, having strokes and seizures from COVID.
It was after another one of those days, where he'd lost a patient with hysterical, traumatized family, and another in their early twenties, that Sören felt like he was breaking. When he got home, after he washed up, he quietly marched past Anthony and Nicholas, not able to hug, not able to say a word, and went upstairs, changed, and sat in their study, where he just sat in silence, staring at the wall. Not really there... not really anywhere. He vaguely heard a call for dinner and he couldn't make himself move, like he'd forgotten how to use his limbs, plastered on the couch.
Nicholas finally came up to check on him. "Sören, my love. I put aside some food for when you're ready to eat..."
Sören felt himself nodding. Just the small movement of his head snapped him back to reality and he looked up at Nicholas with wide eyes.
"Do you want a hug, sweetheart?"
Sören couldn't make words. His mouth opened and no sound came out. Nicholas reached out and patted him, gently tousled his hair, and gave Sören a sympathetic look before he exited the study.
Sören leaned back in the chair. He wanted to cry - he wanted to scream, he wanted to rage - but the tears wouldn't come. Just an ache, feeling like he'd been wrung dry. He heard Nicholas and Anthony's voices in the stairwell but couldn't make out what they were saying, until the end when Anthony said, "I'll take care of it."
Sören closed his eyes, zoning out again, until his awareness was pushed back at the sound of footsteps in the room. Sören saw Anthony walking in with a portable CD-playing boombox, a relic of the 1990s. He raised an eyebrow. Anthony raised an eyebrow right back at him, and stepped out again.
When Anthony came back in, Sören was pushed back to reality all the way, noticing what Anthony had on. Anthony was wearing what people called a "Canadian tuxedo" - a jean jacket, jean shirt, and jeans... and the brown cowboy hat Sören had given him. In one hand he actually had a mason jar of iced tea with ice in it. Sören couldn't believe his eyes. Anthony raised the jar in salute, downed its contents, used the Force to set the mason jar down on the desk, and then hit the play button on the CD player. He came up to Sören and began to do an awkward, dorky dance.
Well, I walk into the room
Passing out hundred dollar bills
And it kills and it thrills like the horns on my Silverado grill
And I buy the bar a double round of crown
And everybody's getting down
An' this town ain't never gonna be the same.
Leaving his cowboy hat on, Anthony started to remove his jean jacket and unbuttoned his jean shirt.
Cause I saddle up my horse
and I ride into the city
I make a lot of noise
Cause the girls
They are so pretty
Riding up and down Broadway
on my old stud Leroy
And the girls say
Save a horse, ride a cowboy
Everybody says
Save a horse, ride a cowboy
Anthony took Sören's hands and ran them down his bare chest. Sören whistled appreciatively, starting to go hard. The hospital didn't exist anymore.
By the end of it Anthony was completely naked except for the cowboy hat, giving Sören a lapdance. Anthony was hard too, as he encouraged Sören to touch him, feel him, and Sören's hands slid all over his body, admiring, worshiping. Even with the cowboy hat on, dancing like a dork, Sören found him incredibly sexy. Perhaps especially with - Sören loved it when Anthony was like this, meeting his match for trolling and silliness. It was one of the reasons why they were so good together.
When the song was done, Anthony leaned in and gave Sören a deep, passionate kiss, his mouth sweet from the iced tea. Sören kissed Anthony back with all the fire of his being, and soon Sören was riding him on the couch.
Sören's climax shattered him, and at last, cradled on Anthony's lap, Sören fell apart, giving into the tears he hadn't been able to cry all day. Anthony rocked him and pet him. He took off the cowboy hat and used the Force to gingerly set it down next to them. "Shhhhh, it's OK," Anthony whispered. He rubbed his nose in Sören's curls and kissed the top of his head, arms tightening around him. "Let it out, darling. It's OK. I'm right here."
Sören wept and wept, until he couldn't cry anymore. Anthony continued to rock him. Finally Anthony said, "It was bad today, wasn't it?"
Sören nodded. "It was horrible." Sören looked into Anthony's eyes. "I was trained to save lives and it's... this is so out of my control. And not just in the ER but out there. More and more people are getting sick. I worry about bringing it home and infecting us all. I worry about what will happen to the world if so many people die." Sören snuffled. "It feels like... everyone is sick. I know that here, at home, you're not, but it's just..."
"I get it." Anthony was only giving instructions online at the moment as the university was closed with lockdown. "Not to the extent that you do, but."
"Yeah."
"But no, here at home, so far we're all fine. I'm not sick." Then Anthony picked up the cowboy hat and made it hop over, and attempted to wiggle the hat's brim like a mouth. He made the cowboy hat "talk" in a high-pitched voice with a horrible imitation of a Southern accent. "I ain't sick either, y'hear?"
Sören laughed so hard he started snorting. "Wow. Just wow." He shook his head. "We know the cat and the dog can talk, I hope I don't find out that hat talks for real."
"At this point, I wouldn't put it past the Force to troll us that way." Anthony gave the hat a look, then he laughed too.
"Well, if he's going to talk, whether it's by you or on his own, he needs a name."
Anthony rolled his eyes, but he smiled. "Oh god."
Sören picked up the hat. When Anthony realized Sören was serious about naming it, he said, "You had better not name it Hatafinwë -"
Sören had a gigglefit. "Oh damn."
"Give him a nice, normal name." Anthony facepalmed. "God, I can't believe we're having this conversation."
"OK." Sören thought for a moment and blurted the first English name that came to his mind. "George."
Anthony narrowed his eyes. "No, not George."
"Why not?"
Anthony shrugged.
In his mind's eye, Sören saw himself sitting on Anthony's lap, Anthony in a pinstripe suit, with Sören playing with a powdered wig like the kind barristers wore in English courts, calling it "George". Sören shook it off, wondering where the hell that came from - he knew Anthony had considered going into law at one point but chose archaeology instead - and then Sören grinned, feeling mischievous, playing on what Anthony had said about the hat not being sick. "Healthy George."
"Oh my god..." Anthony kissed Sören's nose. "You're a fucking brat, you know that?"
"So are you." Sören nuzzled him.
Anthony held him tight again, and resumed rocking him, just before he swatted Sören's ass.