Chapter Text
Though Severin's daughter Tamyra had offered to let Severin and Dooku stay in her home as long as they wanted to, Severin didn't want to impose - nor did he want to have to keep his voice down when he and Dooku made love. After a few days in Tamyra's home, Severin and Dooku moved, with their two cats, into a lakeside villa with a garden near a patch of woods, which was everything they wanted.
Tamyra insisted on throwing them a housewarming celebration, and now it was time that they were going to meet Tamyra's partner. Though it was the norm for El-Aurians to be bisexual, Severin had only known Tamyra to be with men, so he was surprised when his daughter's plus-one was a human woman about Dooku's age - tall, short steel-grey hair, green eyes, handsome rather than pretty.
"Dad, Yan, this is Elaine Hewlett-Johnson," Tamyra said, as Elaine came forward to embrace both of them.
"I'm so happy to finally meet you. I've heard so much about you," Elaine said, taking Severin's hand.
"Oh no," Tamyra hissed under her breath.
"Hi So Happy To Finally Meet You, I've Heard So Much About You," Severin said, not able to help himself.
Tamyra and Dooku facepalmed in unison, while Elaine laughed.
Severin replicated them all mojitos, a drink he'd enjoyed on Earth, and got to know more about Elaine. She was from London, and was a widower - her husband was on a supply ship that had been destroyed by Klingons during the war two years ago. Their only son had joined Starfleet because of his late uncle, a hero in the Dominion War, and was a scientist at the Daystrom Institute, working at the Alpha Eridani branch; he'd insisted she leave Earth and come stay with him, and she had met Tamyra. After some months as friends, they had become more than that, with her son's blessing.
"My son will be arriving shortly," Elaine said. "He also wants to meet you."
Anthony Hewlett-Johnson arrived twenty minutes later with a tree for Severin and Dooku to plant in their garden, a traditional Eridani gift. His eyes were as green as the leaves of the tree, and his smile took Severin's breath away. Anthony was young - about thirty-five - and boyishly handsome, with chiseled features, short dark hair, tall, slim and broad-shouldered. Severin liked looking at him, and listening to him, and he would have been more self-conscious about Dooku sensing that, except he could tell Dooku was also stealing glances at him.
Severin cornered Dooku at the replicator and spoke into his mind. Remember that I told you way back when my wife and I used to share partners sometimes? You and I never got to have any threesomes while we were together. Might be fun to try.
It was bold, and Severin knew Dooku was taken aback, but he knew the alternative was dancing around the interest for the next few months or maybe even years. Dooku's eyebrows shot up. Are you proposing we... seduce him?
Well, maybe not tonight, not in front of his mother, but... sometime soon. Unless you think he's not attracted, I don't want to scare him.
Oh, he's attracted to both of us. Dooku's face was pink. But what will your daughter think? And his mother -
Tamyra would just want us to be happy. It's not that weird, by El-Aurian standards. Severin shrugged. So anyway, let's make that our little project. A to-do list, if you will. Severin leered, putting the emphasis on "do" in "to-do list".
Dooku chuckled. You're incorrigible.
Thank you. Severin and Dooku wandered back into the living room with more drinks. Severin took a seat on the other side of Anthony, admiring his hands with their long, elegant fingers, wondering about what they would feel like... what they would look like, wandering over Dooku's body.
"The tree is really lovely," Severin told Anthony. "Thank you, again, that was thoughtful of you."
"If you like the tree, you should see the grove where it came from," Anthony said. "Maybe I can take the two of you sometime?"
Severin had a feeling "take the two of you" was loaded with innuendo. Severin smiled. "I'd like that. We've got a whole new world to explore."
Dooku almost choked on his drink, and Severin glanced over. "Are you all right, dear?"
Dooku nodded. "I'm fine. That just reminded me of something somebody told me once." Dooku raised his glass. "To new worlds. New lives."
"Seeing the groves of those kinds of trees isn't just aesthetic," Tamyra chimed in, "but after I moved here I learned about the history of this place. It's called Eridani after a translation of the name given by its original inhabitants... Arda. Those kinds of trees were sacred to them. They left poetry behind asking people to keep visiting the trees, and remember them."
A frisson went down Severin's spine. He didn't know what to make of it, but it felt like pieces were falling into place that he didn't even know were missing. "Well, here's to sacred spaces." He raised his glass too, and now so did Anthony.