Jay literally watched Ansgar help Dee sit down on the bed and Mikkel, without wasting a precious second, curl up next to him. Quite possibly while asleep, given how quiet Ansgar was talking.
It was kind of cute. Though Jay wished the adorableness was under somewhat better circumstances.
He came over to the bed and kissed Dee gently on the forehead. "I hear you've had quite a day. You could have called me."
"... Didn't think it was that bad..."
"And when it was?"
Dee looked away. It turned very quickly into a rhetorical question. Dee would rather die than seek medical attention, obviously. Jay sighed, but he didn't hold it against his fiance. He never could.
"Feeling a little better now, at least?" he asked.
"Mmhm..." Dee nodded, and Jay could tell he was actually being honest about it. "They made tea... It helped."
It was cute but to Ansgar this meant so much more. He didn't interrupt but he'd be there for Dee and now probably his brother would too.
"My brother wants to talk to you about the teas." Ansgar mentioned. "When he's awake."
Ansgar was so happy to see his brother calm and relaxed around newer people. He did wonder if Dee's weaker, thinner body reminded Mikkel of Rik and the years he'd taken care of their cousin. He didn't know and wasn't going to ask.
"Of course." Jay smiled softly. "It looks like I'm going to need the recipe."
And speaking of food... since Dee was at least feeling a little better, he didn't feel so bad mentioning it in front of him.
"Do you want me to bring you anything? There's strawberries sitting on the counter in the kitchen. Not sure if you're feeling up to that, though." he glanced up at Ansgar. "I got some chocolate sauce for you, should be warmed up. If you want to dip them in it."
Dee shook his head. "I don't think I want to jinx it... Still surprised that the tea stayed down..."
"Okay..." he leaned in to kiss him again. "You try and get a little rest. I'm going to grab a bite."
Jay was hungry, and it might be the only way he was going to get Ansgar to accept the offered dessert. Or anything, really. Hopefully, the Kuro drummer wouldn't feel self-conscious about it if multiple people were enjoying it.
"Mikkel wanted you to talk to the doctor and make sure nothing was going to interfere with Dee"s infusions." Ansgar mentioned. They were basically giving medicine after all, even if it was just medicine to relieve symptoms so he could rest and get better.
"You can snuggle with this one." Ansgar ruffled Mikkel's hair and the younger Dane grouched in his sleep. "It's like having a boney teddy bear." The drummer grinned because Mikkel was a similar, though more muscled, version of Dee's build.
Ansgar did get up to follow Jay. Mikkel was a light sleeper so if Dee got up or anything it would probably rouse him.
“That’s always good thinking.” Jay agreed with Ansgar and Mikkel’s line of thinking. Too often, people forgot that even the most natural things could react with medications. Grapefruits were worse than a lot of drugs in that regard.
He couldn’t help but chuckle softly at the brothers.
“I snuggle with mine every night. 11 stars out of 10, highly recommend.”
Ansgar giggled quietly as they left the room. "My brother must have good ratings too."
Of course, Ansgar was very similar in that respect sometimes but he wasn't as outgoing as his younger brother.
"He'll be good for Dee, I think." Ansgar mentioned. If Mikkel took to Dee like he appeared to be then Dee might find more comfort and someone who would encourage him to rest.
There was a slight twinge if jealousy in seeing someone else snuggle up against his fiancé. Jay wanted to be in that spot right now, and someone else was. But he also knew that Mikkel wasn’t making any kind of advance. This was entirely platonic and simply about comfort.
That, and Dee actually trusted them with something akin to medicine. Navigating medical decisions was like ballet dancing on a tightrope over a volcano during an earthquake. The magnitude of this act alone could simply not be ignored.
“You both are. He willingly took something to ease his symptoms, instead of just toughing it out.” Jay was impressed, but he was still protective of Dee. “He obviously doesn’t consider herbal remedies on the same level as drugs. Which might be good or bad, depending on what they are or what they’re for. I’m definitely not an expert in alternative medicine.”
With time, Jay and Dee would learn how the Danes were, especially the youngest of them. Physical contact with trusted people was important to them.
Ansgar grinned. "Mikkel has a way with people."
Ansgar nodded. "Vars is teaching Mikkel to think of it as medicine. He'll watch out for Dee." The Dane was confident in that because his brother cared very deeply for those people he trusted.
“That’s the understatement of the century.” He scoffed as he opened the dipping sauce for the strawberries. “He sold more merch after our first show than I thought we’d sell in a month. AND he got Dee to take something? I should hire him on the spot before someone beats me to it.”
Jay plucked one of the strawberries out of the package and dipped it right into the chocolate.
“But yeah, I’ll ask Dee’s doctor about the tea, and about any other herbal supplements he might recommend or avoid.”
The new generation of biologics were almost like miracle drugs, custom-tailored to avoid allergic reactions, not immunosuppressive, remarkably few side effects. Drug interactions had been relatively rare too, but they could still happen, and the last thing Jay wanted was for Dee to be the one who discovered one.
"That in there is quite a thing." Ansgar replied. "Mikkel doesn't trust men."
Perhaps it was a a miracle on both sides of the equation. Once Jay started eating then the Dane took one of the strawberries.
"Maybe go to Vars and get a list of what he keeps in his apothecary? He's the one teaching Mikkel." Ansgar figured Jay might as well go with a full list so that they could know what was safe and what wasn't all at once. "I know Mikkel was already avoiding things that effect muscles."
For not being very trusting of men, Mikkel was curled up against one like a cat. But Dee wasn’t really your stereotypical man.
“Well, the theory that Dee’s secretly a siren has yet to be disproven.” He laughed as he slid the dipping sauce over.
Apothecary sounded as anachronistic as siren did fantastical. But the former was at least true. And getting a full list would definitely be the best option.
“That’s good.” Jay nodded. His voice softened. “Dee came a lot closer to a point of no return there than I think either of us want to admit. Enough to impact his bones, his heart… Not to a degree that anything else needs to be treated right now, thank God. I don’t even want to think about how Dee would have reacted to that. But those are things we definitely don’t want to exacerbate.”
"It's not a siren." Ansgar looked down at the half eaten strawberry. "My brother was 8 when he started looking after Rik when he was injured. He used to sleep like that next to Rik when he was sick."
It would have been nice if it was something as fun as a siren song but Ansgar didn't go into the reasons or the whys. It was enough that Mikkel cared for the sick.
"Mikkel cares for people. He won't want anything to happen to Dee." Ansgar trusted his brother. He might be a brat, rebellious, annoying, but he cared. It was amazing to Ansgar that after everything his baby brother still had that sweet heart inside even if he had a fortress around it sometimes.
It would have been nice were sirens to blame. Jay could hear the way the drummer’s tone shifted.
“That happened more than it should have, didn’t it…”
He knew the Soeren boys, like Dee, had escaped some pretty horrific things at home. Different horrors (and likely over a much longer period and from a much younger age), but horrors nonetheless. He didn’t know many of the details, nor did he want to pry. Like with Dee, he wanted only to create a safe and supportive space.
“You don’t ever have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” He encouraged. “But if you need to, you’re safe here.”
Ansgar set the strawberry down and nodded. He didn't even know how much happened, not completely.
"In our family boys are useless. Rik's talent protected him but.. when Mikkel was born..." Ansgar shook his head. "My parents never held him, never fed him. My sister and I kept him alive."
If Jay thought about the ages he would realize that his drummer was caring for an infant at five or six years old. Ansgar frowned and shook his head again before glancing back toward the bedroom. "We all ran but he was too young and what they did for those three years before we could get him out."
Ansgar could only shrug. "We don't know but Torden picked him up off the street once and they had tried to beat him unconscious so Rik's father could give him to a friend for a political favor."
Ansgar, and Rik, both knew Mikkel's pretty face was a blessing and a curse. It let him get out of that house sometimes, make money, but it also made him a target for things that Ansgar didn't even want to think about.
"He's a better person than any of the rest of us." Ansgar believed that. He knew his brother had endured things that would break people and here he was still fun-loving and caring. "Dee's safer in there with him than anywhere else." Ansgar believed that in the very core of his soul.
A target for things similar to what happened to Aarne. Or worse. The whole 'political favor gift' just about bordered on unspeakable. Jay's eyes widened.
His heart really did go out to Ansgar and his family. They'd survived some absolute nightmarish situations. There weren't words for that.
"Just like I always promise Dee, you're safe here. All of you are."
And if Ansgar wanted a hug, Jay would be happy to oblige. (If he weren't feeling like crap, Dee would easily do the same.)
Ansgar looked down and sighed while shaking his head. "I don't know that he will ever feel anywhere is safe."
Ansgar picked up another strawberry to give him something to do with his hands. "He came here last year and almost took Mikkel and Rik." Ansgar took a bite of the strawberry and looked up at Jay trying to smile the best he could. "We appreciate it though even if we can't always believe it."
That was the honesty of the situation, especially for Mikkel and Ansgar who were so newly free of the nightmare.
[yeah, I know it’s the wrong person’s icon, but I don’t have a good shot of Jay making that face…]
“He?”Jay asked before he could fully put two and two together.
This, on top of the anecdotes shared in the limo ride to waffle house, made Jay really pause. Suddenly, hiring an entire gang to be your security detail didn’t sound so odd.
“From the look of it, I think everyone here would fight tooth and nail to keep that from ever happening again.”
"Rik's father." Ansgar clarified and then focused on eating strawberries to distract himself.
He sighed heavily. "My uncle is wealthy and a politician. It's hard to accept people fighting when we.. I know what he does when people get in his way."
It was a hard place to be. All the Danes loved and appreciated the people who would come to their defense. However, they also had moments of wanting to send them away to keep them safe. They worried about it.
"I'm glad Mikkel is getting a chance for some schooling." Ansgar wanted to get back on a good topic. He didn't like speaking about the darker points for too long.
Call him sheltered by wealth himself, but Jay couldn't fathom something like that that even happening here. It was probably a good thing the conversation started to shift.
Ansgar winced as he set aside the strawberry stem. "Everything?" the drummer spoke the words slowly.
"You don't understand. He wasn't allowed, or couldn't go, to school. My brother barely knows how to write." Worldly as Mikkel was, he wasn't book smart the way someone who had any schooling could be. Ansgar briefly wondered if that is why he got along so well with Vars, someone else who struggled with writing and reading? That thought went by the wayside.
"Torden has been teaching him to read and write for awhile now." Ansgar thought that was good because the older Dane had the patience of a saint which wasn't ruffled by Mikkel's childish frustration. "When you talk to him about things it is all memory. I don't think he's read much past kids books."
It might have been a serious discussion but he started to laugh anyway. In part, he could hear his brother having some bratty, sassy comeback to that comment.
"He can count money. Stripping taught him to do that years ago." Which was an honest answer. "He's worked since he was 13 in a job that is all about luring people in and convincing them to give you money. He could probably convince them to give you their clothes too if you wanted."
The Soerens had long ago gotten over the idea of Mikkel being in an adult industry too young. He was safe enough and street smart. It was a situation of do what you had to in order to survive and sometimes it was questionable but still necessary.
He glanced back toward the master bedroom. Both Mikkel and Dee must have been sound asleep. Everything was so quiet.
Thirteen year olds should be learning to count money from their allowances. Or maybe by being class treasurer. Something like that. Never mind the fact that they shouldn't be taking their clothes off for the pleasure of strangers.
Jay thought for a moment, and then boldly declared, "If he wants a job working the merch table on commission, I'll hire him."
"He took our sister's ID, and mine, to get an audition. He was safer at the club with all the other girls and the bouncers watching out for him than he ever was at home." Ansgar realized it wasn't easy for a person from a more normal life to understand. Sigurd still blew up over things from their past and that might never change.
"I'm sure he would work your table." Ansgar knew his brother liked to work, at least when he was good at it. He shrugged. "My brother enjoys what he does. He likes living as a girl and dancing. He deserves to do what makes him happy. He deserves to be happy after what's happened."
Ansgar was staunch about that part of Mikkel's life. The moment stripping didn't make his brother happy, he would be the first one to get him out. But now, he saw him happy and Fredrik and Sigurd seemed to enjoy his work too. Those were the things that mattered more than what the job was.
He wasn't kidding when he called Mikkel the best salesperson he'd ever met. He'd be a fool not to offer him a job.
Plus, if Mikkel had a job with Kuro, he'd not only be making money without having to strip for it, he'd also be on the road with Ansgar. The drummer would know that his brother was safe, because they'd be together, looking out for each other.
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oprorsk_sode) wrote2021-11-04 12:54 am
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It was kind of cute. Though Jay wished the adorableness was under somewhat better circumstances.
He came over to the bed and kissed Dee gently on the forehead. "I hear you've had quite a day. You could have called me."
"... Didn't think it was that bad..."
"And when it was?"
Dee looked away. It turned very quickly into a rhetorical question. Dee would rather die than seek medical attention, obviously. Jay sighed, but he didn't hold it against his fiance. He never could.
"Feeling a little better now, at least?" he asked.
"Mmhm..." Dee nodded, and Jay could tell he was actually being honest about it. "They made tea... It helped."
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"My brother wants to talk to you about the teas." Ansgar mentioned. "When he's awake."
Ansgar was so happy to see his brother calm and relaxed around newer people. He did wonder if Dee's weaker, thinner body reminded Mikkel of Rik and the years he'd taken care of their cousin. He didn't know and wasn't going to ask.
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"Of course." Jay smiled softly. "It looks like I'm going to need the recipe."
And speaking of food... since Dee was at least feeling a little better, he didn't feel so bad mentioning it in front of him.
"Do you want me to bring you anything? There's strawberries sitting on the counter in the kitchen. Not sure if you're feeling up to that, though." he glanced up at Ansgar. "I got some chocolate sauce for you, should be warmed up. If you want to dip them in it."
Dee shook his head. "I don't think I want to jinx it... Still surprised that the tea stayed down..."
"Okay..." he leaned in to kiss him again. "You try and get a little rest. I'm going to grab a bite."
Jay was hungry, and it might be the only way he was going to get Ansgar to accept the offered dessert. Or anything, really. Hopefully, the Kuro drummer wouldn't feel self-conscious about it if multiple people were enjoying it.
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"You can snuggle with this one." Ansgar ruffled Mikkel's hair and the younger Dane grouched in his sleep. "It's like having a boney teddy bear." The drummer grinned because Mikkel was a similar, though more muscled, version of Dee's build.
Ansgar did get up to follow Jay. Mikkel was a light sleeper so if Dee got up or anything it would probably rouse him.
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He couldn’t help but chuckle softly at the brothers.
“I snuggle with mine every night. 11 stars out of 10, highly recommend.”
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Of course, Ansgar was very similar in that respect sometimes but he wasn't as outgoing as his younger brother.
"He'll be good for Dee, I think." Ansgar mentioned. If Mikkel took to Dee like he appeared to be then Dee might find more comfort and someone who would encourage him to rest.
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That, and Dee actually trusted them with something akin to medicine. Navigating medical decisions was like ballet dancing on a tightrope over a volcano during an earthquake. The magnitude of this act alone could simply not be ignored.
“You both are. He willingly took something to ease his symptoms, instead of just toughing it out.” Jay was impressed, but he was still protective of Dee. “He obviously doesn’t consider herbal remedies on the same level as drugs. Which might be good or bad, depending on what they are or what they’re for. I’m definitely not an expert in alternative medicine.”
Either they were, or they knew someone who was.
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Ansgar grinned. "Mikkel has a way with people."
Ansgar nodded. "Vars is teaching Mikkel to think of it as medicine. He'll watch out for Dee." The Dane was confident in that because his brother cared very deeply for those people he trusted.
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Jay plucked one of the strawberries out of the package and dipped it right into the chocolate.
“But yeah, I’ll ask Dee’s doctor about the tea, and about any other herbal supplements he might recommend or avoid.”
The new generation of biologics were almost like miracle drugs, custom-tailored to avoid allergic reactions, not immunosuppressive, remarkably few side effects. Drug interactions had been relatively rare too, but they could still happen, and the last thing Jay wanted was for Dee to be the one who discovered one.
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Perhaps it was a a miracle on both sides of the equation. Once Jay started eating then the Dane took one of the strawberries.
"Maybe go to Vars and get a list of what he keeps in his apothecary? He's the one teaching Mikkel." Ansgar figured Jay might as well go with a full list so that they could know what was safe and what wasn't all at once. "I know Mikkel was already avoiding things that effect muscles."
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“Well, the theory that Dee’s secretly a siren has yet to be disproven.” He laughed as he slid the dipping sauce over.
Apothecary sounded as anachronistic as siren did fantastical. But the former was at least true. And getting a full list would definitely be the best option.
“That’s good.” Jay nodded. His voice softened. “Dee came a lot closer to a point of no return there than I think either of us want to admit. Enough to impact his bones, his heart… Not to a degree that anything else needs to be treated right now, thank God. I don’t even want to think about how Dee would have reacted to that. But those are things we definitely don’t want to exacerbate.”
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It would have been nice if it was something as fun as a siren song but Ansgar didn't go into the reasons or the whys. It was enough that Mikkel cared for the sick.
"Mikkel cares for people. He won't want anything to happen to Dee." Ansgar trusted his brother. He might be a brat, rebellious, annoying, but he cared. It was amazing to Ansgar that after everything his baby brother still had that sweet heart inside even if he had a fortress around it sometimes.
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“That happened more than it should have, didn’t it…”
He knew the Soeren boys, like Dee, had escaped some pretty horrific things at home. Different horrors (and likely over a much longer period and from a much younger age), but horrors nonetheless. He didn’t know many of the details, nor did he want to pry. Like with Dee, he wanted only to create a safe and supportive space.
“You don’t ever have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” He encouraged. “But if you need to, you’re safe here.”
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"In our family boys are useless. Rik's talent protected him but.. when Mikkel was born..." Ansgar shook his head. "My parents never held him, never fed him. My sister and I kept him alive."
If Jay thought about the ages he would realize that his drummer was caring for an infant at five or six years old. Ansgar frowned and shook his head again before glancing back toward the bedroom. "We all ran but he was too young and what they did for those three years before we could get him out."
Ansgar could only shrug. "We don't know but Torden picked him up off the street once and they had tried to beat him unconscious so Rik's father could give him to a friend for a political favor."
Ansgar, and Rik, both knew Mikkel's pretty face was a blessing and a curse. It let him get out of that house sometimes, make money, but it also made him a target for things that Ansgar didn't even want to think about.
"He's a better person than any of the rest of us." Ansgar believed that. He knew his brother had endured things that would break people and here he was still fun-loving and caring. "Dee's safer in there with him than anywhere else." Ansgar believed that in the very core of his soul.
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His heart really did go out to Ansgar and his family. They'd survived some absolute nightmarish situations. There weren't words for that.
"Just like I always promise Dee, you're safe here. All of you are."
And if Ansgar wanted a hug, Jay would be happy to oblige. (If he weren't feeling like crap, Dee would easily do the same.)
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Ansgar picked up another strawberry to give him something to do with his hands. "He came here last year and almost took Mikkel and Rik." Ansgar took a bite of the strawberry and looked up at Jay trying to smile the best he could. "We appreciate it though even if we can't always believe it."
That was the honesty of the situation, especially for Mikkel and Ansgar who were so newly free of the nightmare.
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“He?”Jay asked before he could fully put two and two together.
This, on top of the anecdotes shared in the limo ride to waffle house, made Jay really pause. Suddenly, hiring an entire gang to be your security detail didn’t sound so odd.
“From the look of it, I think everyone here would fight tooth and nail to keep that from ever happening again.”
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He sighed heavily. "My uncle is wealthy and a politician. It's hard to accept people fighting when we.. I know what he does when people get in his way."
It was a hard place to be. All the Danes loved and appreciated the people who would come to their defense. However, they also had moments of wanting to send them away to keep them safe. They worried about it.
"I'm glad Mikkel is getting a chance for some schooling." Ansgar wanted to get back on a good topic. He didn't like speaking about the darker points for too long.
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"Oh? What's he studying?"
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"You don't understand. He wasn't allowed, or couldn't go, to school. My brother barely knows how to write." Worldly as Mikkel was, he wasn't book smart the way someone who had any schooling could be. Ansgar briefly wondered if that is why he got along so well with Vars, someone else who struggled with writing and reading? That thought went by the wayside.
"Torden has been teaching him to read and write for awhile now." Ansgar thought that was good because the older Dane had the patience of a saint which wasn't ruffled by Mikkel's childish frustration. "When you talk to him about things it is all memory. I don't think he's read much past kids books."
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That was not the answer Jay was expecting.
"...You're telling me the best salesperson I've ever met in my life is just now learning how to read and write?"
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"He can count money. Stripping taught him to do that years ago." Which was an honest answer. "He's worked since he was 13 in a job that is all about luring people in and convincing them to give you money. He could probably convince them to give you their clothes too if you wanted."
The Soerens had long ago gotten over the idea of Mikkel being in an adult industry too young. He was safe enough and street smart. It was a situation of do what you had to in order to survive and sometimes it was questionable but still necessary.
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He glanced back toward the master bedroom. Both Mikkel and Dee must have been sound asleep. Everything was so quiet.
Thirteen year olds should be learning to count money from their allowances. Or maybe by being class treasurer. Something like that. Never mind the fact that they shouldn't be taking their clothes off for the pleasure of strangers.
Jay thought for a moment, and then boldly declared, "If he wants a job working the merch table on commission, I'll hire him."
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"I'm sure he would work your table." Ansgar knew his brother liked to work, at least when he was good at it. He shrugged. "My brother enjoys what he does. He likes living as a girl and dancing. He deserves to do what makes him happy. He deserves to be happy after what's happened."
Ansgar was staunch about that part of Mikkel's life. The moment stripping didn't make his brother happy, he would be the first one to get him out. But now, he saw him happy and Fredrik and Sigurd seemed to enjoy his work too. Those were the things that mattered more than what the job was.
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He wasn't kidding when he called Mikkel the best salesperson he'd ever met. He'd be a fool not to offer him a job.
Plus, if Mikkel had a job with Kuro, he'd not only be making money without having to strip for it, he'd also be on the road with Ansgar. The drummer would know that his brother was safe, because they'd be together, looking out for each other.
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