Arjan plopped down to sit on the bed and eyed the little room with obvious satisfaction. Loren, who was just dragging his backpack in through the door, had to agree with his friend.
Getting the extra stuff out of the room had only taken them a quarter of an hour, and rearranging it had been equally simple: they'd just piled everything in an inconspicuous corner of the apartment and thrown a large, brightly colored blanket over it. Loren was sure that his mother would've had a few things to say about such straightforward problem-solving methods, but he shrugged the thought away. His mother was hundreds of miles away and therefore had very little say about how things were run in an apparently all-male household occupied by an artist.
And in any case, he wasn't going to complain because now they had a place for themselves. It was pretty austere, but then, what did they actually need? The most important thing was the bed, and that they had. It was low, only about one and a half feet above the floor, and definitely not nearly a full-sized double, but still wide enough for the two of them to sleep in comfortably. There was also a small table placed beside the bed, and an old trunk that had proved to be empty – probably because it had at some point in time been buried underneath some other things thrown over it – and would make a good storage for their clothing.
Loren debated with himself whether it would be advisable to sit down as well, and decided to brave it. His legs were getting decidedly tottery and he knew already that getting up from the low bed would be tough, but he gingerly lowered himself on it anyway and sighed.
"What do you think of my father?" Arjan asked, eyes glinting. Loren glanced at him in desperation.
"What I think of him? I've only just met him! Well, I think I like him, even though he seems to say the most outrageous things."
"Dad's pretty outspoken all right," Arjan chuckled. "But I'm afraid you haven't heard anything yet. Oh well, I promise to kick him if he's making you too uncomfortable."
"Is it really all right to talk like that, though? Even though that girl was in here?" Loren was incredulous. "I mean, we're still in Revnash, so being gay is illegal here as well!"
"Hey, it's illegal in Beltrionas, too," Arjan pointed out. "And yet, where's Her Majesty's special police? There's none there, there's none here. So what's the difference?"
"At least we don't talk about it," Loren insisted. "You shut up about it and be just like everyone else, and you're safe."
"Ah yes." Arjan sneaked an arm around Loren's waist and squeezed. "I know, basically it's the same here, too. But on the other hand, there are lots of people in Saygorr, especially up here in the more bohemian quarters, who have moved to Saygorr because they've heard that this is a safe place in that respect. So being gay is nothing weird, and especially among friends we don't make a secret of it. Of course we don't walk about hand in hand on the street and such, but anyway."
"You mean I just need to get used to it, right?" Loren sighed. "Okay, I'll try... hey, cut that off! The door's open!"
Arjan obediently stopped nibbling at his ear and pressed a kiss on the side Loren's jaw.
"As if Dad hadn't seen something like this before..." Then he dropped his voice. "But, hot damn, I'm surprised."
"At what?"
"Reonn. I mean, I've always known Dad swings both ways, but – half a year? That's an achievement!"
"He's had boyfriends before?" Loren was incredulous but Arjan just nodded.
"A few occasional ones, but it's never lasted long." Arjan scratched his neck thoughtfully and then added: "Not that any of his women would've been around very long, either. I'm not sure if this is the longest-standing relationship he's ever had, but pretty close to it anyway."
"What about your mother then?" Loren asked, realizing that for some reason he'd never inquired deeper into this mystery. Arjan laughed.
"My mother? Oh no, they never even lived together! I was this little accident that happened. Anyway, Dad has always said that as soon as she came to tell him that she was pregnant and what was he going to do about it, he instantly knew that he wanted to have me."
Arjan lay down on his back and stretched luxuriously on the bed. "My mother didn't, she was a cabaret singer and would've rather done something to get rid of me, but Dad persuaded her to have me and then hired this girl to be my nanny. I think I've last seen my mother when I was about five."
"Oh." Loren pondered about this for a while and then crawled beside Arjan. "I see, I think. Well, Reonn seems nice as well."
"He does," Arjan agreed. "And he's unlike any one of the guys Dad has ever been with before. I'm curious... hey, was that the door?"
It was. By the time they had scrambled up from the bed and made it to the part of the mostly wall-less apartment that by common consent was called 'kitchen', Reonn had already whisked four plates on the table and was busy digging up some utensils from a drawer. A large clay pot was sitting in the middle of the table and looking mysterious, with some delicate tendrils of steam sneaking out from underneath its tight lid.
Karos flashed the boys a welcoming grin, large hands working deftly with a bottle of wine. The cork came off with a muted 'pop' and he reached out to take some glasses from a rack.
"This must be celebrated!" the man announced as he filled the glasses generously and handed two them to the boys. "That my very own son is back home, and complete with a partner!"
"He's missed you, you know," Reonn put in with a wink, and Arjan fought to keep his pleased smile from getting altogether too broad. "You should've seen that shit-eating grin whenever he's been looking at those sketches you've sent!"
"Well, I'm really proud to see how good the are," Karos said and raised his glass. "Now, let's drink to a happy homecoming! You are happy to see me, aren't you, son?"
"Of course I am!" Arjan laughed. "I have missed you too, Dad, and no mistake."
"Bah, he just likes to hear stuff spelled out to him," Reonn grinned. "But now, would you please place your asses on those chairs, see, the ones over there, and get started with dinner? Frankly, I'm starving."
The others complied, and for a good while the only sounds to break the silence were the sounds of eating. Loren, who had been more than a little suspicious about seafood when he and Arjan had first reached the southern coast several months ago, was now happily digging into his portion of the casserole and looking delighted when he found a particularly large piece of crabmeat on his plate.
Karos didn't altogether forget eating, but several times he just stopped and looked at the two young men sitting on the opposite side of the small table, beaming happily over his glass of wine.
"Seems that I didn't underestimate us at all," Reonn observed, nodding towards the nearly empty pot as he wiped his own plate with a piece of bread. "Their guess was that we'd be eating the same stale casserole for the next three days, but I told them that four grown men with a healthy appetite would polish the whole thing off within half an hour. And I was right."
"Did you ask how much we owe them, by the way?" Karos asked. Reonn looked at him, eyebrows climbing towards hairline.
"Owe? The Honey Pot? Not a single crown, silly! I just got paid last week, remember?"
"What do you do for a living?" Loren asked, not really knowing what he should prepare himself for.
"He's a carpenter," Karos said proudly. Arjan gaped.
"Carpenter?" he echoed.
Reonn nodded. "Yeah, a carpenter. Building stuff, you know."
"Oh, I know," Arjan said. "It's just that – well, then I'm really intrigued to hear how the two of you have met, because I know that Dad's usual haunts are rather... uh... artist-dominated."
"Isn't that obvious?" The corners of Reonn's eyes creased with laughter. "Or have you forgotten what those skylights used to look like, before you left?"
"Wait – so it's you who's rebuilt them?" Arjan exclaimed. "Sure, of course I did notice that they look far better than they did, and also close much more tightly, but I was going to ask about that later."
"One of them developed a real leak and I had to do something about them," Karos said. "So I went to this labor exchange agency on the Third and asked for a carpenter, and a few days later Reonn came to call."
He glanced warmly at the tanned man next to him. Arjan had been about to say something but decided to hide instead his surprise behind the glass of wine. Loren made a mental note to ask him more about this; clearly he was seeing his friend's handsome father act in an unusual way.
"But you, Loren," Karos turned his attention to the blond boy, "of course Arjan has written to me about you so I already know something about you, but won't you tell us some more?"
Loren blinked. "Uh, sure – but what would you like to know?"
"Anything." Karos spread his arms. "What is it like in Beltrionas? What's your home like? Was it difficult to make up your mind to leave with Arjan? What do you miss about your county, or do you miss it? Will you sometimes pose nude for me?"
Loren couldn't help bursting into laughter, and the others laughed as well.
"Dad, you sure know how to be pushy!" Arjan guffawed, but Karos just shook his head.
"I'm not pushy, and I'm not asking questions that I don't want to hear answered. Come on, Loren, don't be shy! I can't believe that you really are."
"I don't think I am," Loren admitted. "Actually, I'm not at all shy. It's just that I haven't been in this kind of a situation before – I mean, well –"
"Meeting your boyfriend's father and his bedfellow for the first time?" Reonn put in. "Something of a tricky situ– ouch – especially as said bedfellow doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut, yeah, yeah, I'll be quiet!"
"You'd better," Karos said, hand still resting somewhere on Reonn's person under the table. Loren squished the urge to peek.
"It would be awfully hard to be shy," Arjan added, "considering that his family runs the biggest inn in Triell!"
"That's right," Loren said. "I've grown up in an inn, and this is Triell we're talking about. It's not a huge big city as such, but it's in the crossing of several big roads, and then there's River Eryon and all the canals. Lots of coaches and ships and barges, lots of people traveling. It was a fun place to live in."
"And still you decided to leave?"
"Well, I got so curious when I met Arjan and he told me about all the places he'd seen." Loren slowly turned his glass around, watching how waning light played in the wine. "And I had been sort of feeling that maybe I didn't want to stay all my life working at the inn, especially as there's already my two elder brothers and my sister and her husband who all work there. It's not as if they'd absolutely need me there. I don't think I meant to come all this way, though... just see around a bit."
"That's right," Arjan confirmed. "It just sort of happened. We'd travel to some place, and find something to do there to earn our upkeep and get some money to travel onwards a bit..."
"I can do most everything they'd need in an inn," Loren said. "Looking after carriages or horses or other animals, clean rooms, help in the kitchen, you name it. I've been doing most everything anyway."
"I wasn't being lazy, either," Arjan hurried to add. "Anyway, that's how we've come this far!"
"And boy, am I glad you have!" Karos smiled to both of them and filled their glasses.
Loren felt Arjan's knee press against his leg under the table and couldn't help smiling. All the walking and dinner and wine had made him slightly drowsy, and he decided that he definitely liked Saygorr and Karos and Reonn and –
"What?"
"Dad, behave!"
"I merely repeated my question about whether he would sometimes pose for me nude?" Karos looked totally innocent despite Arjan's mock-serious glowering. "And you'd better get used to the question, both of you – you know it yourself, son, that all the artists around here will be falling over themselves to ask the same thing! What, did you think that nobody but you could see that inside those clothes is a body worth sketching? Hmm?"
"He's told me so a few times," Loren murmured, trying to look demure. In fact the suggestion tickled him inside; he wasn't quite sure how he'd feel about actually taking his clothes off in front of his boyfriend's father, but something about the man's directness encouraged him.
Karos burst into laughter.
"I bet he has," he guffawed. "Oh, I bet he has! But no worries, Arjan my boy, I promise I won't press the point, and definitely not today. Let's get you properly settled in first."
"How is everyone's dinner settling in, by the way?" Reonn asked and pushed himself up from his chair. "You see, of course I got us some dessert as well, and I was just wondering if you'd feel up to it already?"
"What've you got?" Arjan asked, then let out a little howl of pleasure when Reonn pulled a large cherry and meringue pie from the cupboard. "Can't be! My favorite!"
"I know," Reonn said as he slid the large plate on the table. "We just can't have meringue pie without this man here sighing and mentioning that it's your favorite dessert..."
Karos shot him a half-hearted glare, and Loren nearly giggled as he watched how Arjan tried not to drool on the table. Yes, this was going to be just fine.
