"This is nice," Sören said, sipping his margarita as he watched the sunset fade to twilight, a deep blue with lingering gold and pink streaks in the sky.
"It'll be nicer when the food is done," DeKalb said. "I know how many brats you guys usually want..." He looked at Victor and Yeyette. Then he glanced at Sören, Nicholas, and Anthony. "What about you?"
"Two for me," Anthony said.
"Regular or jalapeno?"
"May I have one of each?"
"Yup," DeKalb said. It was Nicholas's turn next. "What about you?"
"Two, and if they could both be regular, that would be appreciated," Nicholas said.
"Not a fan of jalapeno?"
"I'm afraid I don't have much tolerance for spiced things. I get indigestion." Nicholas made a face like he'd sucked on a lemon.
"Meanwhile, Sören here is part-dragon," Anthony joked.
Sören nodded enthusiastically. "Three brats, all of them jalapeno if you please."
"You got it," DeKalb said.
Yeyette snickered. "The more things change... I remember when we used to go out for Mexican food and you'd order the hottest salsa to go with your chips and it still wouldn't be hot enough."
"Though, that little hole-in-the-wall place was fucking amazing," Sören said. "I'd love to go back there sometime."
"That was in your university days? Yeyette says you were roommates." DeKalb started loading brats on the grill.
Sören nodded. "Já, we were." Then he quickly added, "We lived together but we never..."
"She said that too, and I believe her," DeKalb said. "Though... you're, uh, bisexual, right? Not gay? And you didn't even try to..."
"Bi but I lean more towards men, yes," Sören said. "Oh don't get me wrong, Yeyette is a lovely lady... but when we became friends, I knew she needed just a friend, not yet another person treating her like a sex object."
"And vice versa," Yeyette said.
Sören sighed, remembering how he was a bit wild in his younger years... and had gotten roofied at a party. He didn't want to tell Yeyette's partners the sad story, but Yeyette knew, and so did Nicholas and Anthony.
"A lot of people have assumed we're a couple because of how close we are," Yeyette said, "and of course, Sören's ex Juniper was very jealous of me, to the point where she tried to forbid him to have any contact with me."
"Which should have raised a bigger red flag than it did," Sören said.
"That seems a bit controlling," DeKalb said. "Not to mention that it's not good she didn't believe you when you told her nothing was going on."
"The irony is that she cheated on him," Yeyette said.
Sören looked down. DeKalb turned around, a sympathetic look on his face.
"The bigger irony is that we had an open relationship," Sören said, "so long as we were up-front with each other about who we were seeing. Though, Juniper didn't want me seeing other women - men were fine - and Juniper lied to me about her side action. I came home one day and caught her in the act, and I'd had no clue what was going on."
"That bitch," Yeyette snarled.
Sören was grateful they were outside, not wanting the smoke detector to start going off. "Well, I'm rid of her now. And I've got two great guys."
"How did you guys meet?" Yeyette asked. "You never told me."
Sören's face burned - the reason why he never told Yeyette how they met was it involved a bit of TMI, and while Sören and Yeyette knew each other's TMI a bit more than most just-friends did by virtue of having lived together during university, nonetheless, there were certain subjects Sören didn't like to bring up around Yeyette. But he knew he wasn't going to evade the question so easily. He glanced at Nicholas and Anthony to make sure it was OK to discuss, and they both nodded. Sören gave a little clear of his throat and he said, "FetLife."
"What?"
"It's... kind of like Facebook for kinky people," Sören said.
"It was Anthony's idea to sign up," Nicholas said, looking a bit sheepish.
Sören went on, "They were two gay doms in a committed relationship looking for a submissive to share, so we started talking and eventually they came out to Florida for a little vacation, so we could meet in-person, and we clicked even more offline. They had been looking for just a play partner initially but we all caught the feelings and it got more serious than that, serious enough that they told me I could live with them when I left Juniper."
"I see," Yeyette said.
"I'm sorry." Sören's face burned even more. "I mean, I could have made up some bullshit like 'we met at Disney World!' but..."
"No, it's all right." Yeyette patted him. "You're consenting adults, and so long as you're all happy..."
"Very much so." Sören beamed at his partners; Anthony affectionately tousled Sören's curls and Nicholas leaned in to kiss Sören on the cheek. Sören skritched Nicholas's beard, making Nicholas smile, and then Sören booped Anthony's nose.
It only seemed fair for Sören to ask in return - and finally resolve his curiosity about how Yeyette had ended up in Indiana, of all places. "So now I have to ask how the three of you happened," Sören said. "And how Indiana happened."
"Well..." Yeyette looked at Victor, then DeKalb.
"It started with a laboratory accident," Victor said. "I used the Force to save lives... and of course, ended up exposing myself. Which led to Yeyette inadvertently exposing herself. We were sitting at home having coffee sometime later, and soldiers stormed the house."
"Operation Candledark," DeKalb said. "Also, the last straw of last straws. It was bad enough to go fight an ethically dubious war in the Middle East. I didn't approve of our government just rounding up civilians - both our own and people in other fucking countries - and hauling them away to use them like lab rats... or walking weapons. I really didn't approve of them sending someone like me on a mission like that, treating them like fucking terrorists just for existing. I resigned my commission, though first, I was told I could do some good. Help get their things over from France, while I had the power to do so."
"After we had spent some time in a... facility, we were relocated by the United States government," Victor said.
"As they do with known Force sensitives, well, the ones they're not using as guinea pigs," DeKalb said. "Someplace with a lot of people, like New York City, risks a very public incident with a lot of witnesses. Someplace way out, like Utah or Wyoming, risks being too peculiar to fit into the community, or too far away from civilization in an emergency, which also risks a public incident with witnesses. So Indiana is that happy medium between too many people around and too few."
"I would not quite call it happy," Victor quipped.
"No," DeKalb said. "Anyway, I hit it off with Yeyette and... got to go where they went. The government found work for me here, as a ranger."
Sören let out a low whistle. He considered himself very lucky that thus far, his Force sensitivity had not been exposed. He'd been careful, but he'd had some close calls. He also felt terrible for Yeyette, Victor and DeKalb, knowing how traumatizing that must have been for Yeyette and Victor, how demoralizing that must have been for DeKalb, for the country to betray the values that had sent him into the service. "Jesus, I'm sorry."
"We make the most of it," Yeyette said. "I wouldn't have chosen Indiana, personally, but... home is where the heart is." She reached out to put a hand on Victor's arm, and a hand on DeKalb's shoulder. DeKalb leaned down and kissed the top of her head, and Victor gave her a squeeze.
"And you guys aren't..." Victor and DeKalb hadn't registered on Sören's gaydar at all, but he didn't like to assume.
"No," DeKalb said. "I'm straight."
"Hi Straight, I'm Sören." Sören had to.
DeKalb gave him a look.
"I am also heterosexual," Victor said. "Yeyette and I have an arrangement that I suppose the people of FetLife would call 'stag and vixen', though with equal power in the relationship."
"Ah, OK." Sören nodded. "That makes sense. I wasn't judging, anyway."
"Didn't think you were," DeKalb said. "Brats are almost done."
When the brats and burgers were ready, DeKalb loaded plates and served everyone one at a time. As DeKalb got his own plate, on his way to sit down he paused, looked down at the ground and frowned. "Fucking hell," he snarled.
"What happened?" Yeyette asked.
DeKalb looked at Sören, Anthony, and Nicholas. "Remember how I was telling you our neighbors - the ones with the huge cross on their lawn -"
"And seven kids," Sören said.
"Let their dog shit everywhere?" DeKalb lifted his leg and pointed to his shoe, which now had dog doo on it.
Before Sören could express sympathy, DeKalb marched towards the house. Sören hoped DeKalb wasn't so disgusted by the dog shit he wasn't going to be able to eat, but a few minutes later DeKalb came out with a camo-green megaphone that said US ARMY on it. DeKalb stormed to the edge of their property and they watched as DeKalb raised the megaphone to his mouth and hollered: "HEY! BUSCHES! I JUST STEPPED IN DOG SHIT! AGAIN! I WAS UNITED STATES ARMY AND WHEN I PUT ON THAT UNIFORM TO FIGHT FOR YOUR FREEDOM, IT WAS NOT THE FREEDOM FOR YOUR GODDAMN DOG TO SHIT EVERY GODDAMN WHERE! THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING BEFORE I WRITE YOU A CITATION FOR NOT OBEYING LEASH LAWS!"
DeKalb walked back over, a surly expression on his face. Sören noticed he'd cleaned the dog shit off his shoe; Sören smelled hand sanitizer as DeKalb sat down. DeKalb tore into his burger like it had personally offended him and he was biting it to death.
"Can you do that?" Anthony asked. "Write them a citation, I mean."
DeKalb nodded. "Part of my job with DNR. I haven't so far because I haven't wanted to start trouble with the neighbors, but this is, no joke, the fourth time this week I've stepped in that dog's shit... and that's just this week."
"They shouldn't be allowing their dog to run around unleashed on your property," Nicholas said. "That's disrespectful."
"And rude that they don't pick up after the dog," Anthony said.
"Oh, but you know, Jesus taught 'love thy neighbor as thyself,'" DeKalb said. "They're either fucking hypocrites or their house has piles of dogshit."
Sören made a face, but continued eating.
_
Despite the exhaustion of the long flight, Sören always had trouble sleeping his first few nights in a new place. When he finally got to sleep, his bladder woke him up after a couple of hours. Sören went down the hall to the bathroom and when he turned on the bathroom light, he gasped at what he saw - Eugène was perched on the toilet, peeing in it. Eugène gave him a grumpy expression, and Sören reflexively closed the door.
A few seconds later Sören felt like an idiot, knowing he'd trapped the cat in the bathroom. He heard the toilet flush, and just before Sören could open the door, it opened on its own and Eugène came trotting out.
He's not only toilet-trained, he flushed the toilet and he opened the door. What the fuck.
Sören did his business, and realized this probably accounted for Yeyette's reaction when Anthony had offered to clean the catbox, and Yeyette seemed uncomfortable. Sören still couldn't believe it - he pinched himself to make sure he wasn't still dreaming, and splashed cold water on his face. He wondered if he was hallucinating.
He went downstairs. Even though his bladder had woken him up and he knew drinking something would probably make him have to go again in a few hours, his mouth was cottonball dry now, and he was shaking just a little, heart beating faster. What the fuck is this. What the fuck...
Yeyette was sitting at the kitchen table in a bathrobe. "Oh," Sören said. "I didn't realize you'd be up -"
"Sometimes I have trouble sleeping, or staying asleep," Yeyette said.
Sören nodded. He imagined she'd had a rough time after the Operation Candledark raid, not to mention everything he knew about her life. He poured himself a glass of ice water from the pitcher, and noticed the pitcher was getting low. He walked over to the tap and turned it on, and the smell made him grimace, like rotten eggs.
"The water quality out here is terrible," Yeyette said. "It's bad in all of Indiana from what I hear, but it's really bad in Terre Haute. I'll show you where the bottles are." She waved her hand and one of the bottom cupboards opened, where there were gallon jugs of water. Sören used the Force to lift one, and once it was on the counter he opened it and poured it in the pitcher. Then he walked back to the fridge and put the pitcher in.
Sören sat back down at the table with his glass of ice water. "Yeyette, can I ask you a question? It's going to sound completely mad, but..."
Yeyette gave a thin smile. "After everything I've seen, probably not."
"OK." Sören took a deep breath. "Am I losing my mind, or can your cat use the toilet? And the Force?"
Yeyette threw her head back and laughed, and then clapped her hand over her mouth, realizing her laughter was loud, not wanting to disturb the house. Then, hand over her mouth, still shaking with silent laughter, Yeyette just nodded. She took her hand away from her mouth; Eugène was walking in the kitchen now, tail raised, and he ran over when he saw Yeyette and hopped on her for pettings, purring loudly. "He can," Yeyette said. "I thought it was better to show you than tell you, since, yes, it does sound completely mad."
"Wow," Sören said. He leaned back in his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's... something."
"He's a very talented boy," Yeyette said. "He's helped keep me sane through everything."
Sören patted Yeyette's hand. "I'm sorry about... well. All of this. I wish there was something I could have done -"
"I don't know what you could have done to prevent it." Yeyette gave a resigned little shrug.
"I still... feel bad." Sören sighed. Then he raised an eyebrow. "Are we putting you in any danger by being here?"
"No, I wouldn't have agreed to the visit if you were, or I would have asked you to stay in a hotel rather than with us." Yeyette skritched Eugène behind the ears, and Eugène leaned into the touch, purring louder, then nuzzled her hand. "I'm more worried about you than I am about myself."
"With the government?"
"No... well... mostly no. The three of you seem to have managed not to show up on their radar so far. What I mean is Serena." Yeyette scowled. "I can't tell you not to have a relationship with her, but it seems really off to me that after all this bugging you to come see her for months, when you finally show up in Indiana she can't get even just an hour or two to meet you. That doesn't seem shady to you at all?"
Sören frowned. He was disappointed, but he also understood from his career as a doctor what it was like to not have much free time. It was going to be quite an adjustment after three months of vacation, to go back to London and the NHS. "I don't want to be too needy."
"Something Juniper called you." Yeyette narrowed her eyes. "An hour of Serena's time isn't too needy."
"Well... she'll get some time off in a few weeks. And I'll see where things go. I mean, it's not like she and I are gonna live together, so already it's not like the Juniper situation."
Yeyette shook her head. "I just don't want to see you get hurt again."
"I know. But I'm a big boy."
Yeyette smirked. "Hi A Big Boy, I'm Yeyette."
Sören kicked her under the table.
_
Sören woke up again with a start, just before dawn.
Since he was four years old, he'd had a recurring nightmare about burning to death, going up in smoke and ash. As far as he knew, he hadn't been exposed to anything like a neighbor's house burning, or another fire in town, or something on television, at that age. And when he was a teenager the dreams began to evolve, a pack of demonic creatures with flaming whips ambushing him. That, he knew, could be symbolic of his experience with being bullied in school, getting beaten up more than once, but it felt like more than that. And when the dreams evolved further, a woman among the fire demons, delivering the death blow, Sören had chalked that up to the problems in his relationship with Juniper, even though it still felt like more... much more intense and realistic than his other dreams.
Those dreams had mostly stopped since he'd moved in with Nicholas and Anthony. He still occasionally had strange dreams - forging swords and weapons, crafting fine jewelry, making love with men who looked like Nicholas and Anthony but Nicholas was young, clean-shaven, and had a flood of dark hair and startlingly blue eyes, and Anthony was blond. But he'd had a welcome respite from the burning dreams.
Until now.
Now he was sweating, gasping for breath. The room was too hot - the lingering feeling of the fire taking him - and he had kicked off the covers. Nicholas and Anthony both sat up, and Sören knew they could feel it across their Force bond. They both held him and rocked him.
"It's OK, sweetheart," Anthony said, petting Sören's curls.
Nicholas kissed Sören's brow. "Daddy's here, darling."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you..." Sören snuggled into Nicholas's shoulder, and leaned into Anthony's touch.
"As you know, I am an early riser," Nicholas said. "I was planning on going for my usual morning walk. I know you aren't a morning person, but you're welcome to join me if you think it would help."
Sören nodded. "Some fresh air might be good." Sören swore he could smell smoke, and he was sure the fireplace wasn't going, since it was July; the smoke from the grill had been gone for hours.
Anthony went down the hall to visit the bathroom and he quickly came back, a confused look on his face. "Er," he said.
"Hm?" Nicholas's eyebrows shot up; he had spent a good portion of last evening putting everyone's clothes away and now he was going through the drawers, getting an outfit together.
"The cat..." Anthony blinked slowly, like he had witnessed something disturbing. "The cat... can..."
"Use the toilet," Sören said.
Anthony folded his arms and cocked his head to one side. "You knew?"
"I found out in the middle of the night."
"He was doing a number two," Anthony said. "The bathroom door closed right after I found him."
"I'm guessing he's used to not having to close the door when he's up here." Sören patted him. "He's toilet-trained and Force-sensitive."
Anthony sat down. "OK."
"I mean, if humans can be Force-sensitive it makes sense some animals are too. Though it was unsettling, when I saw what I did last night." Sören patted him again.
"Makes you wonder what other weird things we're going to see," Anthony said.
Sören snorted. "This is Indiana. How weird could it get?"
"This is the same state that produced Michael Jackson," Nicholas quipped.