Chapter Four #2
“Standing around suspiciously with no clear purpose.”
“Damn it.”
Urien reached for the phone. “Let me see that list.”
“‘Make eye contact but don’t stare,’” Mabon read. “How long is eye contact before it becomes staring? Is there a timer?”
“‘Smile warmly.’” Rux practiced a smile. It looked feral. “Like this?”
“No, no, not like that. You look like you’re about to eat someone.”
“I’m smiling.”
“You’re baring your teeth. There’s a difference.”
“How do humans smile without looking threatening?”
“I don’t know! We’ve been alive for centuries, and apparently, we never learned.”
Urien grabbed the phone and kept reading. “‘Don’t be too available. Maintain some mystery.’”
They all stared at each other.
“We’ve been searching for him for a hundred years,” Mabon said flatly.
“We’d wait in the rain for him,” Rux added.
“We’d burn down the world if he asked,” Urien finished.
“So...the opposite of mystery, then.”
“We’re very bad at this.”
Mabon snatched his phone back and kept scrolling with increasing desperation. “‘First date ideas: coffee shop’ - he works there, no. ‘Movies’ - can’t talk to him, no. ‘Walk in the park’ - we already followed him home, definitely no.’”
“What about cooking for him?” Rux brightened. “I could make that torte. Everyone loves my torte.”
“‘Would you like to come to our secluded estate where three strange men will feed you elaborate desserts’ sounds like the beginning of a crime documentary.”
“It’s romantic!”
“It’s suspicious!”
“Humans are very complicated,” Urien muttered.
“It gets worse.” Mabon turned his phone around. “Look at this article. ‘Red Flags to Avoid: Love Bombing.’”
“What’s love bombing?”
“Apparently, it’s when you overwhelm someone with excessive affection and gifts early in a relationship.”
Rux blinked. “But...but that’s courting. That’s literally what courting is.”
“For dragons. For humans, it’s a ‘red flag’ and a ‘manipulation tactic.’”
“So we’re supposed to court him, but not too much? Care, but not too obviously? Give gifts, but not expensive ones? Show interest but maintain distance?” Urien’s eye twitched. “How does this species reproduce?”
“Very slowly and with extensive therapy, from what I can tell.”
Rux slumped in his chair. “Maybe we just wait for him to notice us?”
“He saw us get rousted by police outside his workplace. I think he’s noticed us.”
“Noticed us badly.”
“Very badly.”
Mabon set down his phone next to his coffee mug. “Alright. New plan. We have to learn all we can about Sam. His actual interests, his actual needs. We observe…”
“We already tried observing. It led to law enforcement.”
“Discreetly. We observe discreetly. Then we approach him like normal humans.”
“But we’re not normal humans.”
“He doesn’t know that yet.”
“So we lie?”
“We omit. That’s the difference.”
Urien rubbed his temples. Dragons had been courting mates for thousands of years.
They’d honed the art of display, of proving worth through magnificent offerings and demonstrations of power.
And somehow, none of that translated to asking one human with freckles and glasses if he’d like to get coffee sometime.
“I hate this century,” Rux announced.
“The internet says we should try being friends first,” Mabon offered weakly.
“Friends?” Rux looked horrified. “FRIENDS? He’s our MATE, not our…”
“It’s a starting point.”
“It’s an insult to the bond.”
“It’s better than getting arrested again.”
Urien stood, chair scraping back. “I’m going to the garden. To think. And possibly set something on fire.”
“The roses or your problems?”
“Yes.”
He left his mates arguing about the difference between friendly interest and obsessive stalking, his dragon growling irritably in his chest - a hundred years of searching and they couldn’t even figure out how to say hello.
/~/~/~/~/
Three hours of pruning later, and Urien hadn’t come to any resolutions, so he joined his mates in the study.
His dragon was sulking, and no amount of rose trimming had eased the edginess running up and down his spine.
Now, gathered in their favorite evening refuge, the triad faced the same impossible problem.
How to court a human who didn’t know dragons existed.
Rux shoved back from the table, pacing to the window overlooking the darkened gardens. “We’re dragons. We should be giving him...magnificent things. Proof of our worth, and his.”
“Rubies the size of chicken eggs?” Mabon’s tone dripped skepticism.
“Why not?” Rux spun, his diamond earrings catching the firelight. “One from each of us. Show him the quality of his mates. The size of our hoard. Dragons have always…”
“Terrified humans with ostentatious displays of wealth?” Mabon pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, historically that’s worked brilliantly. Very romantic. Nothing says, ‘I care about you’ like gemstones that could fund a small government.”
“It shows we can provide.”
“It shows we don’t understand modern economics or basic social norms.”
Urien cleared his throat before Rux could set something on fire. “What if we start smaller?”
Both mates turned to look at him.
“Smaller how?” Rux crossed his arms. “Rubies the size of quail eggs?”
“Gold coins.” The idea had crystallized during his time among the roses, his dragon gradually settling as the plan took shape. “Simple jewelry. Nothing ostentatious. Traditional courtship, but...scaled appropriately.”
Mabon tilted his head. “You want to give him money.”
“No. Yes. Not exactly.” Urien leaned forward. “Think about it. Dragons have used the same courting system for centuries. We leave offerings, and in doing that, we demonstrate our ability to provide through the quality of our hoard.”
“We established that showing up with priceless artifacts makes us look insane.”
“So we don’t show up.” Urien’s heart stone heated beneath his shirt. “We leave them at his cottage, anonymously at first. Let him find them, appreciate their value without the pressure of three strange men looming over him.”
Rux stopped pacing. “The secret admirer trope, you mean?”
“Tradition,” Urien corrected. “Dragons have always left offerings for their chosen mates. Let our gifts speak for us. Once he understands what we’re offering, the magnitude of our devotion…”
“He’ll call the police,” Mabon interrupted. “If Sam finds gold coins on his doorstep from an unknown source, he’s not going to think ‘how romantic.’ He’s going to think, ‘which criminal organization is using my cottage for money laundering?’”
Damn, Urien hadn’t considered that.
“Okay, but…” Rux gestured sharply. “What if we leave a note? ‘These are gifts, not crime proceeds, please don’t call law enforcement’?”
“That’s exactly what someone committing a crime would write.”
“Then what do we write?”
“Nothing that references crime.”
“‘Dear Sam, this gold is legitimately sourced’?”
“Still sounds like crime.”
Urien stood, moving to the sideboard where a decanter of whiskey waited. He poured three glasses with hands that remained steady through sheer force of will. His dragon prowled restlessly beneath his skin, frustrated by the complexity of modern courtship.
“Property deeds,” Mabon said suddenly.
Urien and Rux both stared at him.
“You just finished explaining why mysterious gifts are suspicious,” Urien said slowly.
“No, I mean…” Mabon sat up straighter. “What if we give him something practical? I could transfer ownership of one of the cottages near the coast. That offers security and stability, which is valuable without being creepy.”
“You want to give him a house.”
“A cottage. A tiny cottage.”
“That we own.”
“That we’d transfer to his name, free and clear.”
Rux and Urien exchanged glances.
“Mabon,” Urien said carefully, “using your idea from earlier, imagine you’re a barista who lives in an inherited cottage. One day, you receive legal documents transferring ownership of a coastal property worth - what, half a million dollars?”
“Closer to seven hundred thousand, actually. It’s right on the cliff…”
“From complete strangers.”
Mabon’s enthusiasm dimmed. “Ah.”
“You’d panic,” Rux finished.
“I’d assume it was a scam,” Urien added. “Or a mistake, or both.”
“Or a very elaborate murder plot,” Rux said cheerfully. “‘Please come to this isolated coastal cottage we’ve given you, definitely not so we can harvest your organs.’”
Mabon slumped in his chair. “I hate that you’re right.”
Urien returned to his seat, whiskey in hand, passing out the other two to his mates.
“So.” Rux accepted his glass from Urien. “No rubies. No gold coins. No jewelry. No property deeds. What exactly can we give him?”
“Flowers?” Urien tried.
“From three men he doesn’t know?”
“People send flowers anonymously all the time.”
Mabon considered this. “Actually...that’s not terrible.”
Rux’s head swiveled. “Really?”
“Think about it. Flowers are traditional and non-threatening. We could leave them at his doorstep with a simple note. Nothing elaborate, just...a gesture.”
“What kind of note?” Urien leaned forward. “We already established that anything we write sounds criminal.”
“‘From an admirer,’” Mabon said. “It’s simple, classic, and doesn’t require explanation.”
“And when he wants to know who his admirer is?”
“Then we’ve created an opening for conversation.” Mabon’s analytical mind was clearly working through the logistics. “We can go to the coffee shop, mention we heard he’d received flowers, and gauge his reaction.”
Rux frowned. “Won’t he think it’s suspicious that we know about flowers left at his private residence?”
Silence fell.
“Damn it,” Mabon muttered.
“We’re back to looking like stalkers,” Urien said.
“We ARE stalkers,” Rux pointed out. “We followed him home and watched him through his windows.”
“We observed him from a reasonable distance.”
“Through binoculars.”
“You said they were for bird watching.”
Urien took a long drink of whiskey. It burned down his throat, and did nothing to calm his dragon.
“What if,” he said slowly, “we leave gifts that don’t require explanation? Things he’d simply...appreciate. Things he could use or enjoy.”
“Like what?”