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return Sven arrived on Earth in the middle of the night and Lance, being the friend that he was, came and got him and took him home and showed him his bed and where the bathroom was and then left Sven to fall on the wonderfully large, soft, empty, downy bed. Sven slept for three straight days, getting up only to piss and drink some water and shuck his travel-stained clothing. He thought he dreamt, but he wasn't sure; he thought that perhaps he was only feeling and not seeing whatever it was his mind was trying to say. He didn't really care, though, because sleeping on this big, empty bed was just . . . wonderful. When Sven finally came back to the conscious world, it was to the smell of bacon and pancakes and coffee. Keith was making breakfast and that made Sven happy, because when Keith cooked there was a good chance that whatever produced was going to be edible. Strange, maybe, but edible. The kitchen was full of light and air and heat. Sven's feet slid slightly on the cool granite as he walked to the little table in the nook. Beyond the big windows a bird sang in an old tree, melody flying away into the brilliant air of a late summer morning. Sven smiled a real smile and rocked his chair back, tipping himself until his knees caught the edge of the table and kept him from falling onto his back. "Recovered from your coma, I see," Keith said, over his shoulder. There was a smudge of flour on his forehead, and blueberry stains on his lips and fingers; he had an easy, honest smile on his face and a sparkle in his eyes. He leaned against the counter, one hand resting on a hip as he half-watched the pan and Sven thought that this was the first time he had seen Keith look so relaxed in a very long while. "I hope you're hungry. I think I may have gone overboard with this whole domestic thing." "Mmm," Sven said, surveying the piles of flapjacks. Keith flipped a pancake into the air and caught it neatly in the pan. "There's blueberry, chocolate chip, crasin and plain." Keith pointed the various stacks out with his spatula. "The maple syrup is in the microwave, the butter's in the fridge, and Lance is at the store getting some OJ." "Mmm," Sven said again. He watched Keith and thought that it looked like the other boy had lost some weight recently. It wasn't so much that Keith looked drastically thinner than he had on Arus, as it was that his jeans didn't quite fit. They seemed slightly too big, sliding down Keith's lean body to rest just below the smooth swell of the top of Keith's ass. Sven could see the little ridges that were Keith's hips, and the top of the shadow-like path of dark, wiry hair that led down from Keith's belly button and disappeared beneath the waistband of Keith's jeans. It took Sven a good moment to realize that the fact that he could see these things -- the ridge of his hips, the teasing curve of ass, the dark line of hair -- meant that Keith wasn't wearing any underpants. In his defense, it had been nearly fifteen years since Sven had seen a half-naked man who was walking around without any underwear. He certainly hadn't seen any men in a sexual way during his marriage to Romelle, not even in the last six, miserable, wretched months when they had spent every waking hour shooting poisonous, hateful barbs at each other. But, suddenly, the sight of Keith standing in the morning light and hitching his pants up as he flipped flapjacks and tried not to get batter all over the counters flamed through his mind right into the part of his brain that controlled sexual desire and took him down old, mostly forgotten pathways. Memories rushed through his body, his mind; the rasp of stubble across his stomach, the feeling of pulsing heat in his mouth, in his body; having to tilt his head up in order to be kissed. He was left breathless by the intensity, because he had been sixteen the first time he ever kissed another man, and twenty-two the last time he slept with one. And here he was, a good thirty-seven years old -- thirty-eight in a few months -- and he was sitting at his friend's breakfast table as hard as a rock, all from a few hazy memories. Sven let his chair fall forward and thump on the stone floor, scooting in until the table hid his erection. Aroused though he was, Sven still had some propriety and showing off that arousal in Keith's kitchen was probably not something Ms. Manner's approved of. Besides, he could hear the rumble of a car and while Keith probably wouldn't mind that Sven was in an awkward way, Lance certainly would mind and Sven didn't want to start his day with a disgruntled Lance. So he looked down into his coffee cup and thought about fjords until he had calmed down. And it was a good thing he knew how to turn his blood to ice, because if just seeing a hint of Keith's pubic hair made him desperately hard, he probably would have messed his pants at the sight that greeted him when he looked up. He thought, for a moment, that Lance was trying to perform a tonsillectomy with his tongue, but no. That was just how Lance kissed -- it had been a long time since Sven had kissed Lance, had been kissed by anybody with quite that much . . . hunger. When he tore his eyes from their faces, from the view of two darkly pale boys kissing in a pool of morning sun, and looked down, Sven had to start thinking about his fat fifth grade teacher. Naked. Because while Keith's hands were twined in Lance's hair, Lance's hands were sliding down beneath the waist of Keith's jeans and. Ah ha. This was why Keith didn't have any underwear. "Well," Sven said, after enjoying his moment of voyeurism. "As much as I'm enjoying the morning show, I think I smell burning pancakes." "What?" Keith turned -- or at least tried to, but Lance pulled and squeezed and Keith was almost distracted. Sven had to give Keith a lot of credit for that, because even after all this time he could still, mostly, remember just how mind blowing Lance's distraction techniques could be. "Lance." Keith kissed the tip of Lance's nose and pushed, slightly, on Lance's chest. "I'm going to make you eat the burned ones." Lance rolled his eyes, but let go. "Fine. But you know Sven's only saying that because he wants in on the action." Keith laughed -- giggled, really -- and Lance winked and Sven was pretty sure that it was a joke. * Lance had a pool. Sven hadn't known Lance had a pool. Hells bells, Sven hadn't even known that Keith and Lance weren't actually living together; or indeed that the house he was staying in was Keith's until one morning Lance had suddenly smacked his head and said, "Shit, I need to check on my fish." So they had finished breakfast and then headed off for the one block drive to Lance's house. Sven wasn't quite sure why they didn't just walk. But Lance had a pool, which was stupid, since he and Keith lived on an island and had the booming ocean for a backyard, but he wasn't about to question it. He wasn't about to question anything at the moment, since the combination of warm sunshine and cool water and being naked in this glorious heat had reduced him into a melting blob of happiness. It had been damn hard to have a nude sunbath on Pollux. The water was cool against his fingertips and the sun was sinfully warm and the sun-warmed concrete beneath him soothed all the old kinks and scars that had accumulated over sixteen years of military service, and Sven was steadfastly refusing to think about the fact that he hadn't been laid in almost two months. He also wasn't thinking about the fact that Lance and Keith had become achingly handsome during his absence. He definitely wasn't thinking about the way the sun caught the droplets of water in Lance's hair, turned the normally mildly exasperating brown mop into a fine net of gems. "No. Fuck. Lance, stop--" Not looking, not looking, Sven repeated to himself, mostly because there wasn't a table to hide behind this time. Not looking at all. "Sven! Help me!" A hundred and sixty pounds of wet, squirming, firm, warm Keith landed on Sven's stomach. "herk," Sven said, and then "Ow" because Keith was sitting right on the spot where the sword that had almost killed him had entered his body. Still, pain was probably good at this point because it got his mind off the fact that he was naked and Keith was slick and beautiful. "Sven, save me. C'mon man, be a hero!" Keith rolled off and tried to cower behind Sven, which was admittedly difficult because Sven was about as flat as three-dimensional person could be, particularly after Keith had landed on him. Still, Keith managed to do it somehow and if Sven hadn't been feeling ill from pain he would have admired the other man. "Ugh," Sven said, instead. "You're not getting away that easily, Keith," Lance said. Keith 'eeped' and took off. Lance leaped over Sven's prone form and chased after him. Sven decided that now would be a good time to just like still and contemplate whether or not putting up with Romelle's insanity would've been better than this. Particularly when he heard the soft giggling that indicated that Keith had let Lance catch him and they had moved from playful horsing around to active making out. He closed his eyes and wished he could close his ears too. * It had been three weeks since he returned to earth, and Sven was beginning to worry that he'd overstayed his welcome. Not that Keith or Lance were saying anything. In fact, Sven was beginning to think that they were rather enjoying having him around, largely due to the fact that they now had a house sitter at their beck and call. No, the problem really stemmed from the fact that every night Sven would have to watch as Keith and Lance made their way to bed together. Together. And he would head to back to his comfortable, beautiful guest bedroom alone. He had been married to Romelle for ten years, and even though their marriage had gone sour in a bad way, they had always slept in the same bed. He had courted her for nearly a year before that, and he had grown used to having another person beside him as he relinquished himself to the dark corridors of sleep. Even though they were close to killing each other right now and not even their children could make them see things through, Sven still missed her presence at night, the smell of her hair and the press of her warm body against his. He had loved her, once, and that wasn't something he could say about many people. Sure, he had had his fair share of partners, many of whom he had even been very fond of. But he had only loved four people in his life and three of them were men. Which really should have told him something, but honestly he had thought that Romelle was The One. And in the defense of his waning heterosexuality, he had only been with four men while his female conquests were nearing triple digits. It had been seven months since he'd last had sex, what with the fighting with Romelle and the fact that he couldn't possibly bring somebody home while he was staying in Keith's house. But some nights when he went to bed early he could hear them, sometimes, because Keith's bedroom was directly above his and they were, well, they were together and they had never exactly had a dull sex life. Both together and apart, come to think. And this healthy sex life had the unhappy side effect of driving Sven crazy with need. He could see them so clearly in his mind, and it hurt him more than anything else because he missed . . . he missed something. Maybe it was love or friendship or his ill spent youth. Or maybe it was because he was regretting the divorce. Maybe if he had just been nicer, or worked harder, or been something other than himself he could still be sleeping in Romelle's bed, instead of here. Alone. He needed to get out of here. Above him, there was silence and while that should have pleased Sven because it spared him the noise of Keith and Lance's lovemaking, it hurt him instead. Silence meant that the other part of love--the better part, in Sven's opinion--was taking place. It meant that Keith and Lance were wrapped together in sweet slumber, safe within the arms of love, secure in the knowledge that they had found that one person, that solitary sole that would love them and care for them and protect them with their last breath. Sven had thought he'd found that with Romelle, but maybe what they had was mutual self-interest and they had protected each other in the night only because there was a better chance of survival if there were two of them. Or maybe it was because death lent a wicked edge to sex and when they had stopped looking over their shoulders for snipers they'd realized that without the threat of death they didn't even have sex in common. Well, there was no use thinking. Thinking only led to more thinking and less sleep and a sleepless Sven was a cranky Sven. Or so many had told him. So, instead of thinking he got up out of bed, 'borrowed' Keith's motorcycle, headed for the nearest bar and got good and properly smashed out of his mind. When he woke up the next morning, he had a blinding headache, a hotel bill, a cute and eminently fuckable young girl who kissed him on the way out the door and slipped a phone number into his wallet, and half a dozen voice messages on his cell phone from Keith. Most of them were harangues about Sven's 'borrowing' of Keith's precious motorcycle, but a few of them were filled with concern for Sven--where he was, how he was feeling, when he was coming back, the state of his immortal soul. All of which brought on the guilt. Lots and lots of guilt. Which was a large part of why, when Sven managed to get his eyes to stop crossing, he came home bearing wine, orchids and wearing as much protective gear as he could. Lance said that Keith had changed, but Sven wasn't going to take anything Lance said at face value. After all, there was that time Lance had said that he was going out for a quick drink down at the pub and took six weeks to get back. But instead of going postal on Sven for unauthorized usage of his bike, Keith smiled prettily, put the wine on the counter and took the flowers out back to be planted. Sven stared at his former commander's rapidly disappearing backside with the expression of a man who has just received the Governor's pardon. "Huh," Sven said. Lance came up behind him, a weird, slightly confused smile on his face. "See? I wasn't lying when I said he changed." He patted Sven on the back and then followed Keith out, hands stuffed in his pockets. * A week went by and Sven spent his time honing his brooding skills. He had always gotten high marks in brooding, though, so he actually spent most of his time secretly watching Keith and Lance. Which automatically sent him into brooding mode. Thus, the honing. It was the beginning of fall, now, and Sven found that his brooding was greatly enhanced if he sat out on the edge of Keith's deck and watched the sun set over the sapphire blue ocean, turning the water the same fiery red as the leaves on the nearby trees. Which was where Keith found him, smoking a cigarette and nursing a bottle of beer. Keith plopped down beside Sven and snagged the bottle, putting it to his lips. Sven watched the movement of Keith's throat from the corner of his eye for one breathless moment before turning away and squinting into the light of the setting sun. "So, Lance says you're fine," Keith said. "But I don't think you are." "Why not?" "You're doing some serious brooding." Keith swung his legs idly and fished a cigarette pack out of his pocket. He lit it off the stub of Sven's and took a long drag. "Well, more brooding than usual." "So?" Sven shrugged, plucked Keith's cigarette out of his hand. "I just got divorced. I think I'm entitled to a little brooding." "Uh huh." They sat in silence for a long moment, passing the cigarette back and forth until it was no more. "Here's the thing," Keith finally said. "You've been moping, lately, and not healing. And I don't know what to do to make you get better, because you're acting really weird around us." He turned and looked at Sven. And then he sighed and grabbed Sven's chin and forced the Swede to look at him. "I want to help you, Sven. We both do." "Look, if I'm becoming a burden or anything--" "It's not that. It's." Keith waved his hands, and Sven leaned back to avoid being hit. "It's just that I hate to see you so sad and broody." "Sorry." Sven looked down at his knees and then out at the ocean. "I just. I'm lonely. I want." He sighed, looked up at the darkening sky, tried to find the words to express what his soul knew. How could he say that he missed having someone poke him in the ribs when he started to snore? Or the silly fights about cold feet in bed? Or the way love had filled all the empty places in his heart and made even morning breath bearable? He looked at Keith, helpless, lost in the inadequacy of language. But Keith knew. "I see. I thought it was something like that." Keith moved closer, leaned in until his honest, earnest face was all Sven could see. "Listen, Sven. Lance and I. Well, we had a talk. And we both love you, want to love you." Keith's eyes were dark and open, full of honesty. And now Sven was speechless from the magnitude of the gift being offered to him. "I." He took a deep breath, tried again. "Keith." "Shh. You don't have to say anything now. Think about it." Keith leaned forward and kissed Sven, gently, caressingly. Almost involuntarily Sven reached out, gathered Keith into his lap, pushed forward into the kiss. It had been so very long, but Keith tasted exactly the same, felt the same, moved so seamlessly with him that it seemed that only a day had passed since they had last done this, and not twenty years. And Sven was tempted, so sorely tempted, to take Keith up on this offer, to kiss him and love him and move within him just like he had in the old days. He had dated Lance longer, but he had always loved Keith more. Which was why he forced his body to let go, to pull away when all it wanted to do was bury itself in Keith forever. Because he had seen the way Keith looked at Lance, and he knew that a love like that wasn't meant to be shared; though Sven had dated them both once upon a time, he had known even then that neither would look at him with such absolute love. He knew, too, that he and Lance couldn't share Keith--wouldn't share Keith--and he loved Lance more than he loved himself; he couldn't hurt Lance like that. He was sure that Lance was only willing to share because he knew Sven, and knew that Sven would never agree to this plan, never accept this precious gift. But there had been a moment when Sven had been tempted. Oh, how he had been tempted. He carefully removed Keith from his lap instead, and stood up and leaned against the rough wooden railing of Keith's deck. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself down and let the ice in his veins do its work. Behind him, he could hear Keith stand, and he turned then. "Keith. I can't," he said. "It's not. It wouldn't be fair, to anybody." He grabbed Keith's hand, held it tightly, thanking him for the offer in the silence of action. "Okay." Keith smiled and shrugged, and Sven was amazed to see that there were no hard feelings at all in Keith's eyes. "It was just a thought. Now, are you done brooding for today?" "Nah. I've got a few more hours of daylight left." Sven smiled as Keith left, and pulled out his cigarettes. He lit one and watched it burn for a while, thinking about what had happened. Keith was right. He wasn't healing. He wasn't moving past Romelle, past the pain and loss; coming here had only allowed those feelings to stagnate and grow gangrenous. He was still bitter and angry, and wallowing in self-pity over loves lost wasn't helping him get over that bitter anger. He loved Keith and Lance, but that love was old and gone, and even when he had kissed Keith the passion that had burned him in the old days had been dimmer, less painful, less consuming. Friendship was nice, but Sven had always been lonely for love. "Huh." He flicked the butt of his cigarette over the railing and stood. He stretched, reaching high, high, higher until his shoulders popped and his back relaxed. "I guess it's time to move on." * Sven wandered into the living room a little after eight the following morning, drawn by the noise and the smell of popcorn. He scratched his chest and leaned against the back of the couch where Keith lay, a bowl of popcorn resting on his stomach. "Morning," Keith said. "Popcorn? Breakfast of former champions." "Nah." Sven lifted Keith's legs and sat down, letting Keith's feet rest on his lap. "Listen. I want to thank you for yesterday and for putting me up and listening to me bitch about Romelle." Keith grinned. "No prob. It was nice to have a permanent house sitter." Sven smiled, briefly. "Yeah, well, I think that it's time for me to go." "I thought so." Keith reached over to the coffee table and grabbed a small address book. He flipped through it until he found the name he wanted, and then he tossed it to Sven. "Here. Hunk's address and phone number. I think he's starting a security business. Anyway, I'm sure he's . . . lonely too." Sven raised an eyebrow and Keith grinned. "I've seen the way you two look at each other. Anyway, I already called him and told him you were thinking about looking him up. He sounded very excited." "When did you call him?" "Yesterday." Keith popped some popcorn into his mouth and chewed noisily. Sven stared at the T.V. without actually watching for a while, mulling over what Keith had told him. "You knew I was going to leave soon." "Yup." "So, yesterday." Sven struggled to find the words. He had always been bad at expressing himself. "When you kissed me. Did you . . . did Lance. Did you even talk about it with Lance?" "Nope." Keith grinned and Sven just had to smile back. "Lance would have just been possessive. You know that." "But what if I had said yes?" "But you didn't." Keith put the popcorn aside and sat up suddenly. His face was serious and for the first time since Sven had come here, he thought that Keith looked like his old self. "Listen, Sven. Lance and I will always be here for you, but right now we're not what you need. Go out, have fun, get laid. Go see Hunk. Even if there's nothing between you, at the very least you'll have a job and be busy." "Bored with me already?" Sven asked. "Yup." Keith grinned. "But you're bored with us, too. You've been bored with us for a very long time." "Yeah. I guess you're right." "Good." Keith lay back down and grabbed his popcorn. Sven smiled. Even though he was leaving, it finally felt like he was coming home. |