6. Dennis #2
“Well, I mean,” Dennis stammered, “I would. I’m not someone who expects people to kowtow to me. But just…you know, it works better if we get along.”
“Hmm.” Bjorn accepted a new bottle of beer from the bartender and played his long fingers over the label. “Getting along is a two-way street. She can’t get along with you if you don’t get along with her. And besides, would there be a reason for her to not get along with you?”
He considered that. Was he ever mean to Myrah?
No more, and probably less, than he grumped at anyone else.
And she knew him well enough to let it roll off her back.
“I…guess not?” he ventured warily. “I mean I can be an asshole, but she knows that about me, and she still mar-” He cut himself off abruptly, hoping he wasn’t blushing.
Was it appropriate to talk about your previous marriage to someone who was - could be - wanted to be - your next relationship?
Bjorn raised his eyebrows. “She what?” he prompted.
“Oh, uh.” He scratched the back of his neck self-consciously and sighed. “She married me anyway.”
Bjorn’s eyes shot so wide Dennis wouldn’t have been surprised if they popped out and rolled away. “You’re married?” he asked, aghast.
Dennis flapped a quelling hand at him. “No! No, I’m not married.
Not anymore. We got divorced…oh, nearly ten years ago at this point.
We’re still friends, though.” Was Bjorn going to think that was weird?
A lot of people thought that was weird. “Good friends,” he clarified deliberately, already stiffening his back against the inevitable protests.
“Good friends,” Bjorn repeated, sounding a bit dazed.
“Okay.” He shook his head as if to clear it.
“And you’re still friends. So, see, you do have friends!
And I bet if you were married, then she does love you, even if she’s not still in love with you.
” He stopped there, a satisfied smile on his face, as if to say checkmate.
Dennis grunted. Fine. Fine, he had a friend. But more than one? Ehhh. “She’s pretty much it, though,” he felt obligated to explain. “I don’t…get out much. Mostly I’m at the Retort, and when I’m at the pub I’m working, not hanging out.”
Bjorn had foam on his lip again, and Dennis fought the urge to reach over and thumb it off. Instead, he focused his eyes on a spot in the middle of Bjorn’s forehead and tried to keep this sudden longing to touch off his face.
“Well, that’s no good,” Bjorn said firmly. “We’ve got to get you a social life! You can’t just be all work, work, work all the time.”
“I think you’ll find,” Dennis said, smiling slowly, “that I can. Got years of having done it as proof.”
“Pfft.” Bjorn waved a dismissive hand and took another slurp of his beer. “Now you’ve got me.”
“I’ve got you?” Dennis asked, and how had that come out flirty instead of horrified, like he’d intended?
He tried again: “Uh, I mean, I’ve already established that I don’t think we’re mates, or even if we are,” he added quickly when Bjorn opened his mouth, “I’m not in the market for a mate anyway.
So you’re not going to be able to force me to make friends. ”
A flash of hurt crossed Bjorn’s face, but before Dennis could react to it, it had been cleared away and replaced with a challenging smile. “Oh, you’re not getting rid of me that easily,” Bjorn assured him. “Even if you don’t want to be my mate, I still want to be your friend.”
“You don’t even know me!” Dennis protested, throwing up the hand that wasn’t clutching his drink.
Bjorn shrugged. “Big flashing red arrow from the fates, remember? We’re compatible, whether as mates or friends. Though,” he added, eyes darting away, “I don’t usually want to kiss my friends as bad as I want to kiss you.”
Gulp. At least he wasn't the only one. Dennis forced a laugh he wasn’t feeling. “How many of those beers have you had?” he tried to tease, but it came out sounding a bit plaintive.
Bjorn glanced down at his bottle. “Only the two. I assure you, I’m entirely sober while standing here stating that I both like you and would like to kiss you. But no obligation,” he added hastily when Dennis opened his mouth. “Just…sharing my feelings. For the sake of full disclosure.”
Dennis shut his mouth, then sighed and took another sip of his drink. Just as he was doing that, someone bumped his elbow, hard, and jolted his arm. A little wave of Jack and Coke jumped out of the glass and onto his collar and Dennis yelped reflexively.
Before he could react any further, he was yanked behind Bjorn, Bjorn’s clothing burst apart, and a growling brown bear stood in front of him, facing the terrified-looking guy who had presumably been the one to bump him.
Well, shit. This had been what happened in his own bar when shifters came in with their mates: shifted chaos. Dennis patted Bjorn’s hairy shoulder soothingly. “Hey, it’s fine, big guy. I’m fine. No harm, no foul.”
Bjorn directed a quick snarl over his shoulder at Dennis and then focused on the hapless bar-goer again, snarl intensifying.
Fucking men and their testosterone. With a sigh, Dennis slipped out from behind Bjorn and inserted himself between the bear and the man he was challenging, facing the human.
“You’d better go,” he advised, waving a hand toward the exit.
“He’s not really going to attack you -” he thought.
“- but I don’t think he’ll relax until you’re away from me. ”
The man huffed. “All I did was bump you! I’ve got a drink ticket to spend!”
Bjorn growled. Dennis slapped him on the shoulder reprovingly. “Down, boy.”
A loud huff from the bear, this time.
The man who’d elbowed him sighed and looked from Dennis to Bjorn for a second. “Look, just let me get my drink, and I’ll take it back to my room, ok?”
“That’s fine,” Dennis said before Bjorn could interject with any more grumbling.
“Bjorn and I will just stand here. Quietly. Like civilized people who don’t hulk out at the drop of a hat.
” And this was exactly what he’d been afraid of when Bjorn said they were mates: the random hulking out, the growls, the intimidation of anyone who got near him.
Dennis did not need that shit in his life.
The man nodded quickly and turned his attention to the bartender. “Bulleit, on the rocks. Actually…” He glanced over his shoulder at them. “Make it a double.”
The bartender nodded and went to work, leaving the three of them standing there in uncomfortable silence broken only by Bjorn’s occasional huffs and growls.
Dennis, his hand still on Bjorn’s arm - arm?
Forelimb? - gave it a soothing rub. “Why don’t you try to change back, big guy?
If you’re human, we can grab a table to talk at.
” Did he want to do any more talking? No, not really.
But did he want to get this fucking enormous, furry, protective bear away from the bar before anyone else bumped into them? Yes, yes he did.
Bjorn wrinkled his nose and closed his eyes. Did you know bears had eyelashes? Neither had Dennis, before this very moment! If a bear could be said to be making a face of concentration, that’s what Bjorn was doing now. Trying not to hold his breath, Dennis waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Bjorn did not change. Finally, he opened his eyes and grunted something resembling a negative.
“No go?” Dennis guessed.
Bjorn shook his shaggy head.
“Damn.” He sighed. “Well, I guess we’d better head back to the room. Ain’t nobody going to serve beer to a bear.”
Bjorn looked mournfully down at the beer bottle he somehow still had clutched in his claws.
He attempted to bring it up to drink from it, but succeeded only in pouring beer down his chest fur.
With a growl, he tried to put the bottle down, but used too much force.
It shattered against the edge of the bar, startling Dennis and everyone else within close earshot.
“Hey!” barked the bartender, looking up to see what the noise had been. “What the hell, dude?” He spotted Bjorn then and his eyes widened. “And there’s no shifting permitted in the bar area. Human only, my dude, so change back.”
Bjorn made that mournful grumble again and shook his head, which Dennis took for an expression of Would love to, buddy, but…
So he took it on himself to explain: “He’s not actually able to control his shifts currently.
Didn’t see this one coming. But we’ll get out of your way.
Sorry about the, uh…” He gestured at the broken glass.
“Mess.” And then he clamped his hand down on Bjorn’s arm and started towing him toward the doorway that led from the bar into the hotel’s lobby. “C’mon. Time to go back to the room.”
Bjorn huffed and puffed his chest like he was about to protest, but then his eyes fell on the broken bottle and he subsided and allowed himself to be dragged away.
And if Dennis felt just a little absurd, at 5’11” and dragging an eight-foot bear that outweighed him by at least 600 pounds around a hotel lobby… well, that seemed fair enough.
Bjorn shifted again in the elevator on the way up to the floor, his nude form eliciting a horrified gasp from one of the elderly ladies they were sharing the elevator car with and a lascivious purr from the other one. “Oh, hel-lo, big guy,” breathed the purring lady, staring directly at his ass.
Bjorn, apparently oblivious to her tone, looked over his shoulder and gave her a bright smile. “Hi! I’m Bjorn, and this is Dennis.”
Dennis covered his eyes and tried to pretend this wasn’t happening.
“Aw, c’mon,” Bjorn cajoled, tugging at the hand he had over his face, “smile and say ‘hi’, Dennis!”
Dennis managed a grimace that might have resembled a smile. If you squinted and assumed a whole lot of good faith. “Hello, ladies.”
Purring lady grinned at him. “Hi! I’m Doris. This is my sister, Imogen. Immie!” She elbowed her companion, who was determinedly staring at anything but Bjorn’s body. “Be nice and say hello!”