2. Cold

David wrapped his arms around his torso and let out a long breath through his mouth. He'd never been on a plane this long. The trip from Vegas to San Francisco was just fine; he'd made that one a couple of times already. California to Seattle was just fine as well. But the flight from Seattle to Oslo was a very long, long, long trip. Greg had slept through most of it. David rolled his eyes – lucky bastard could probably sleep through anything. But David was a bit to susceptible to the queasy uneasiness of the flight's dips and bumps that he couldn't close his eyes for more than two minutes without feeling the need to fight back the bile that built up in his throat. So he was just grateful that his partner felt bad enough about his situation to give up the window seat.

Greg was leaning over David now, looking out the window. The morning sky shown golden peach above the horizon sky and Greg's eyes were flared with a little boy's joy.

"I've never seen the ocean so blue," he said.

"Yeah, well that's the Atlantic for you," David said dryly. Greg tore his excited eyes away from the arctic view of the islands passing beneath them and looked tenderly into David's eyes with a pitiful smile.

"Are you feeling any better?" He asked. David snorted bitterly, the flight attendant glaring strangely at him as she walked by until David sneered and scared the poor girl away. "Would it help if I told you how glad I am that you decided to come?"

"No," David said, letting his mood simmer and bubble. Greg, however, found it hilarious.

"Come on, we're almost there," Greg said.

"And then it's just a luxurious eight hour ride to Veggie-Soy," David grumbled, shaking his head. "I can't believe you talked me into this."

"It's Vågsøy; you just mispronounced it because you're grumpy," Greg said with a smile. David glowered.

"I don't understand why you're so happy – this is supposed to be a funeral trip," David said.

Greg's smile faded a bit, and his affectionate stare fell, staring through David's chest. David immediately scolded himself for the comment.

"Look, I'm sorry – I didn't mean that," David said. Greg smiled, but it wasn't the same now. It was just a smile, not his smile. He wrapped his arms around Greg's shoulder and pulled him close. "I'm sorry, that was a dick move on my part. Can you forgive me?"

"You have to be really nice to me for the rest of the trip," Greg said. David smiled and rubbed his shoulder.

"I promise," David said. He looked out the window and savored the feeling of Greg's warm frame in his embrace. No matter how nauseous David felt – and he was nauseous – feeling Greg at his side, in his embrace, could cure anything. He may even write to the American Cancer Society to have them test his hugs on terminal patients just to see if Greg's affection could cure their afflictions as well.

"So, tell me about Veggie-Soy. What's it like?" David asked, trying to lighten the mood for Greg's sake.

"I don't know," Greg said. He sighed contently against David's chest and stared out the window into the hues of the light sky. "I've never been."

"But I thought that you were close to your Mama and Papa Olaf?" David asked curiously.

"Well, that was before they moved back to the 'Hjemlandet'. I haven't seen them in years," Greg said. "Papa Olaf kept asking me to come see the farm, said it had been in the family for generations. But I never had the time. 'But this year,' I said, 'this year I will make the time'. Now he's dead, and he won't know that I ever made the trip to see everything he wanted me to see. And that's just… sad."

David squeezed Greg a bit as his lover began to bring himself down. He wanted to take Greg's mind away from sorrow, and an idea flicked on inside of his head.

"Hey, why don't I teach you some Norwegian phrases?" David asked.

Greg sat up and pulled away from him, glaring at David with the strangest look he'd ever given.

"You? What do you know about the Norwegian language?" Greg asked.

"The essentials. I've been studying up on them to be prepared when we go exploring the town," David said.

"Okay, teach me something."

"Skolebrød," David said. Greg furrowed his brow with a surprised grin on his lips.

"What's that?"

"School Bread – it's a type of pastry," David said.

"Okay, something else," Greg said.

"Rømmegrøt," David said.

"And what's that?"

"It's… another pastry," David said.

Greg laughed, filling the moment up with his light. David loved the feeling of being able to make Greg laugh. No accomplishment or accolade in his career ever came quite as close to the feeling he got just by knowing that he was responsible for even a moment of Greg's happiness.

"The essentials, huh?"

"I just needed to know what I'd be eating between hot monkey-sex," David said. Greg shook his head and chuckled. He settled back into Greg's side and closed his eyes.

"Thanks for being here," Greg said in a low, tired whisper.

"Of course," David said. He opened his mouth to continue, but his jaw tightened up and a queasy feeling rolled in the pit of his stomach. "Happy to be here." He managed to get that much out of his mouth, but the moment had turned sour for him as that wasn't at all what he wanted to say.

"David, we're here," Greg whispered. David stirred a bit, lifting his head and glancing around. His nose and ears had lost most their feeling hours ago, which he knew was probably going to lead to him losing them. He knew that Norway was going to be cold, but not this friggin' cold! Even bundled in a long pea coat, gloves, and a scarf, nothing could seem to keep out the bone chill.

The cab had stopped in front of a very old, beaten down farm. David looked around the frosty fields. There wasn't another house around in sight, just tall firs all around.

David grabbed their bags out of the trunk while Greg paid the driver. As the car drove off, David looked down at Greg at his side and smiled back at his partner. But as the screen door from the house squeaked a few yards up the path, and Greg's excitement flared up, David froze in his spot as he came to a sudden realization; something he'd somehow overlooked during all of his planning and preparing.

Oh, God. I'm meeting his family.

Greg ran up the path to greet a young lady who'd just emerged from the house and flipped on the porch light.

I'm meeting his family… As his…

Well, David didn't know just what he would be to Greg on this trip. Somehow David doubted that Greg had mentioned anything about being in a homosexual relationship to his estranged family around the world. Somehow he figured that detail probably wasn't really something that would pop up during their phone calls. But did they know? What would they think of David? It was one thing to be judged by their co-workers, but by strangers? More importantly, Greg's family?

Oh, God. I'm meeting his family.

He realized that he was beginning to hyperventilate, and quickly picked up his bags form the moist soil beneath his feet and quickly traipsed after Greg to shake the dread that was beginning to flood his body.

"Svana!" Greg ran happily up the porch steps, dropped his bags and picked up the young woman, swinging her around. They laughed together. David felt a little more at ease to see Greg enjoying his first moments.

"I'm so happy that you're here," Svana said. Her eyes fell on David as he stepped into the light. He smiled – uncomfortably – as she sized him up. He didn't want to know just what kind of assessments were running through her mind.

"Who is this?" She asked.

"This is the man that I've been telling you about," Greg said. "David, meet Svana. She's my first cousin on my mother's side. Svana, meet David."

She reached out her hand warmly, and David shook it gingerly.

"You were right about his eyes," she said.

"Right about what? What about my eyes?" David asked suspiciously. Greg smirked and patted David's back.

"Nothing, just something that had come up during idle chit-chat," Greg said.

Svana stepped aside and ushered them inside the house. Greg stepped inside first, and David followed sheepishly. He looked around. The walls were literally covered form ground to ceiling with picture frames.

"Greg, why don't you come with me to the kitchen and David can take your bags up to the guest room," Svana said. "It's just up the stairs, the second door to the right."

David smiled courteously and stared after them as they walked down the hallway, talking and laughing. He didn't appreciate getting stuck with all of the labor of carrying their bags upstairs, but he huffed and picked up Greg's bags first. David walked up the stairs quietly, surveying the upstairs hallway and checking out his surroundings. The first door on the left was the bathroom. Good to know. The first door on the right was closed, though a knitted plaque reading 'Mama & Papa' tipped him off enough. The second room on the right was a very modest guest room.

David stepped inside and took a quick look around. On the east wall there was a twin sized bed, and on the north wall a large four pane window. He sat Greg's bags down and sat on the bed. Well, it was definitely firm. His back may survive the trip yet. He laid back and stared up at the water-stained ceiling, which looked as though it hadn't been scrubbed in at least a decade. That sent David's skid crawling and he sat up.

He noticed the second left door across the hallway, crack a bit. He stepped across the hardwood floor and pushed the door open, looking around. An entire room dedicated to plaques mounted with antlers and deer heads. Some plaques had buck heads as big as half of David's body with eerie black beady eyes. Other mounts were just antlers sticking out of the wall, some longer than David's arm length. The room gave him a dark feeling in the pit of his gut as all of this strange death was staring back at him. Strange because they still looked very much alive.

He turned around to leave and screamed at the horrific shadow standing in the doorway. What stood out at first was the large fanned mane of feathers, and big soulless eyes above a sharp-toothed frown. It was a mask, something beaked like an eagle but painted over to look like some twisted crying demonic whale or something sinister. The figure dropped David's bags at his feet and then turned, vanishing form the doorway. David hesitated to even go near the doorway to grab his bags, but eventually he leaned out into the hall and glanced around. Gone.

A sandy head popped up the stairs as Greg made his way up to the second floor.

"Come downstairs, I want you to meet my Mama Olaf," Greg said.

"Have you seen the Dahmer Shrine in there? It looks like the place that fathers bring their kids when they want to turn them into serial killers down the road," David said.

"Papa Olaf was an avid hunter," Greg said. He shrugged it off. Of course he did. But David couldn't.

"We are going to be sleeping across the hell from that room!" David hissed.

Greg laughed and snaked his arms around David's waist. "I was under the impression that there would be much sleeping."

Greg finally took David serious after David's chagrin deepened and his pale complexion began to turn rosy.

"Look, just put it out of mind for now. I'm on my family's farm, with my family, and I want you to experience this with me," Greg said.

David bobbed his head to the left, and then to the right as his body followed suit like a snake of debate. Finally he shook the room out of his mind for Greg's sake and put on a smile.

Greg skipped down the stairs like a little boy on Christmas. David followed behind slowly, the weight of his fear of judgment dragging his ankles down like a bloated drowning victim. His palms grew cold and sweaty, and his face sallow. He followed Greg down the downstairs hall, making a sharp left at the end into the kitchen

Yellow wallpaper. The first thing David saw when he walked in was garish, sickeningly yellow wallpaper. And of all the only decrepit wood and paper in the rest of the farm, this one had to be brand new – bright, blinding, brand friggin' new yellow wallpaper.

"Come, meet our grandmother," Svana said, breaking his attention by grabbing his arm and pulling him to the dining room table where there sat a bitter old woman. A bitter, calloused old woman. This visit just kept getting better.

She stared at him with a scowl permanently slapped to her face. Her large, milky eyes bore into him like a vulture, and her hollow cheekbones narrowed off into her pointy chin.

Svana said something in Norwegian to Mama Olaf, and she murmured something in return, eyes never off of David.

"She says that you're welcome to stay here," Svana said.

"Ask her what she's going to do with the murder room," David said. "I know a guy who can install a leather dungeon if she's looking."

Greg elbowed him in his ribs – bruising, David noted – and quickly told Svana not to translate that, explaining that it was a joke.

Then the calm, tranquil zombie that was Mama Olaf grew livid and started spouting out a slew of words, pointing at David with her skeletal digits. He noticed how long and jagged Mama Olaf's nails were, golden and crusted – most likely a tinea fungus. He took a quick step back and brought his hands up just in case he needed to swat away a lunged attack. Greg put a hand on his shoulder and used the other to rub him chest to calm him down. David couldn't resist Greg's touch, and he did calm down, but he remained alert enough to make a quick dash.

"What is that? What's she saying about me?" David asked Svana. The girl looked at him awkwardly, shuffling from foot to foot.

"Why don't we just go upstairs and start unpacking?" Greg asked. He basically pushed David out of the kitchen as David stared right back into Mama Olaf's with a matching sneer. When they reached the banister of the stairway, Greg pulled David close and tried to capture his attention. Once David locked onto Greg's, he took a few deep breaths and calmed down.

"Are you all right?" Greg asked.

"Murder room, and a batty old lady – I'm beginning to understand why we're here," David said with a scathing bark.

He quickly regretted the comment once he remembered that they weren't talking about a murder investigation. This was Greg's family, and he saw how much that assessment had cut his partner.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to antagonize your grandmother like that," David said.

Gregg patted his chest and pulled David into an embrace.

"Look, don't worry about it. She's a lonely old woman who just lost her husband. She probably feels weird and defensive with a stranger being present during her most vulnerable moments."

"Thanks for the excuses, but I really was acting like a jerk," David admitted. He placed a quick kiss on Greg's forehead before pulling away. "I promise to behave during the rest of the trip."

"It'd feel strange if you did," Greg said.

David shook his head in confusion and mild bemusement.

"So you brought me here to be crabby?" He asked. Greg laughed and pinched his cheek.

"It's one of the qualities I find cute about you," he said. And as adorable as Greg was when he looked up at him and patronized him, David still swatted his hand away. Greg simply laughed.

"Hey, uh, I've been meaning to ask you – does your family know exactly who I am?" David asked. "I mean, aside from your friend and co-worker? Do they know…?"

"Svana knows," Greg said. "I talk to her about everything. We've been really close since I was seven. She moved back to Norway with her parents when I was fifteen, but we still talk on the phone all the time."

"And you talk about me?" David asked. He felt a little flattered and a bit worried as well.

"We talk about everything from relationships to dishwasher tablets," Greg said.

"So that comment about my eyes – what did you say to her?" David asked shiftily. Greg laughed.

"You don't like being the topic of conversation, do you?" Greg asked playfully. "Afraid that I might be painting a shady picture of you behind your back?"

"Greg, I'm begging you – what does Svana think of me?" He asked.

"I think you're wonderful, and she says if I think you're wonderful then she thinks you're wonderful," Greg said.

David laughed sardonically at that rhetoric. Then he saw Svana's slender frame emerge from the kitchen with an apologetic smile on her pouty lips.

"I'm so sorry about that, David," she said. "She's just very tired, you know. The thought of having to keep up this place on her own has taken a lot of energy from her."

"It's fine. Let bygones be bygones, I say," he said. At least on this occasion he would put that motto to practice.

"Greg, can I speak to you alone?" She asked.

"Say no more," David said with a gracious bow of his head. "I'll go upstairs and start unpacking and you can join me there when you're done."

Greg thanked him with a sincere smile. David made his way up the stairs and into the guest bedroom, ignoring the room of torture across the hall. He hoisted his suitcase up onto the mattress and began filling up the empty dresser next to the closet with his neatly folded clothes.

Then he heard Greg's voice rise a little in excitement: not the good kind. David sat down the shirt he'd been placing on a hanger and quietly made his way down the hallway, near the stairs.

"How can she know that she doesn't like him if she just met him?" Greg asked.

"She says that he'll steal your light," Svana said.

"Now it all makes sense," Greg said. "This is more than just about Papa Olaf."

"She says that you're the last one," Svana said.

David sat at the top of the stairs, quietly, and stared down at the scene; Greg leaning against the wall and Svana with her hands on her hips.

"She said that she had hoped to convince you to stay here during this trip, but that David has ruined everything," Svana said.

"I can't believe her," Greg said. But he wasn't angry. He just seemed completely amused and found the situation comical. "Even if David wasn't here with me, I wouldn't stay. I have a life and a career; I can't just drop everything for the pursuit of exploring some inherited 'power' on a dairy farm."

Svana laughed with him and gave him a hug.

"I'm sorry that she reacted that way," Svana said. "But I'm sure that David and Nana will warm up to one another."

"I doubt it, but thanks for the optimism," Greg said.

David arose slowly and made his way back to the room. It was only a moment later that he heard Greg's light footsteps enter the room with him. He heard the door close behind him. As David leaned over his suitcase, Greg's warm arms wrapped around his stomach and chest form behind.

"I think I sense a bad mood coming on," Greg whispered.

"Bad mood? Who's in a bad mood?" David asked lightly. He was just grateful that Greg couldn't see his face; he was having a bit of trouble hiding his mood in that area. "I am just fine."

Greg leaned around David's body and looked down at what David was up to, and then rubbed David's chest to prepare him for the interrogation coming his way.

"Why are you wearing rubber gloves?" Greg asked. "And why is there a cleaning kit in your bag?"

"Have you seen this room? Just take a look around and there's your answer," David said.

"You brought a cleaning kit to my grandparents' house even before you'd seen the room," Greg said.

"Farm – your grandparents' farm," David corrected him. "Dust, grime, and weevils – I do not want to have dreams of creepy crawly things because real ones are wiggling their way under my clothes in my sleep."

"David," Greg said his name tenderly, and a little bit humorously, and closed the cleaning kit. He sat on the bed and pulled the latex gloves off of David's hands, much to his older lover's dismay. "I thought that this would be as much a vacation for you as it is for me, not just a funeral. Family bonding, that sort of thing."

"Family bonding?" David spat mockingly. "I'm sure that's not what Mama Olaf had in mind when she saw me walk into that kitchen."

"That's a long story, and it's got nothing to do with you in particular – not really," Greg said. David mumbled a very heated disagreement under his breath. "If I had known that you would be this miserable here on your first night I wouldn't have pressured you to come. I'm sorry I asked."

Great. Now Greg was feeling guilty over David's problems, which always made David worse than when he'd actually done something wrong. Because it was him who had Greg blaming himself, regretting that David came along.

"If you want, we can leave right after the funeral tomorrow," Greg said. He looked at David hopefully, waiting for his scorn or his praise. But David closed his suitcase, sat it on the floor, and took his place on the bed next to Greg. He took Greg's cheek into his palm, the touch of his soft skin over sturdy bone like a satin-draped Michelangelo's David. All anger and moody stewing had left David's body through every pore when he looked into Greg's eyes, framed by thick lashes.

"We're not going anywhere tomorrow," David said. Greg seemed to perk up at David's permission to stay, as though he'd been seeking it the entire time even though he didn't need it. "We're going to stay in this house for the next few days, we're going to hear a bunch of crazy Norwegian family stories and tall tales, we're going to get to know your heritage and we're going to love every moment of it."

And just like a light switch, Greg's miraculous smile returned to his face and David sighed with relief.

"I think you are the most amazing man I've ever met, David Hodges," Greg said. "Despite your natural instincts to rant, rave, and get as far away from this place as humanly possibly, you're willing to put up with it for me."

"Always," David said.

Greg let his hand rest on David's thigh as he leaned in to kiss his partner with all the affection Greg possessed. It was so warm, so pure, that his kisses always seemed to leave him stunned, dazed and breathless. David deepened the kiss by leaning into Greg and tilting his head to one side so that he could savor the taste of his young saint. He tangled his fingers into Greg's hair to keep them locked.

Greg leaned back on the bead, resting his head in his pillow as he pulled David by hand to rest over him. David was drunk on every sweet breath, every whimper and moan, and every firm grip and embrace Greg's arms and legs would have on his body. His body was white hot in the cold wintery room, their breaths joining the hot wispy tendrils of steam coming from their bodies. They held each other tight under the covers as clothes were discarded like rags into the floor. And Greg, as always, was the one begging David to go further. David lived for those moments, just knowing that Greg wanted every inch and ounce of his being as much as the first time.

The light sensations of Greg's fingers trailing from David's neck to the small of his back felt like the light, pure touches of a shower. This light touch met with the firm and rough grips of Greg's palms as he kept pulling their bodies together. As bruising as it could sometimes be, David pulled back because he and Greg could never be close enough in his opinion. When Greg's tongue wasn't writhing in ecstasy inside of David's mouth, his lips and teeth would be nibbling on his ear lobes in fondness, breathing hot moist air against his cold skin.

And when he pushed himself inside of Greg, carefully as only a lover could, he could the tight sensations to be even warmer than usual – maybe from the cold night air, maybe from this passion between them. Greg gasped and moaned, biting his bottom lip as David watched his face; his eyes were closed, and his lips were parted. His jaw would move only slightly as he groaned, and when he asked David to keep going he couldn't help but oblige.

The hazy silver mist outside the large window cast Greg's face in pale light as it reflected the moon, and David wondered, even now as he thrust himself inside of such unequivocally exquisite beauty, just what it was that Greg saw in him that no one else seemed to be able to see. Greg's arms wrapped even tighter around his shoulders and his moans rose in tone and pitch as his body shuddered beneath him. David felt Greg's warm, slick and thick essence poll between them, and David stopped as he felt more and more pour form Greg's throbbing stirs.

After Greg's body relaxed a bit and he finally opened his eyes, he found David's amused smile staring back at him.

"That doesn't happen very often, at least not without my helping hand in the equation," David said, not bothering to hide his self satisfaction at this accomplishment. "What set you off this time?"

"You," Greg said. "I guess you just opened up a different side to me that I found very arousing."

"The 'grin-and-bear-it-for-his-boyfriend' Hodges?" David asked jokingly.

"Just stop talking and keep going," Greg said. David quirked a curious brow.

"Aren't you finished?"

"It's not about sex," Greg said. "I just need you to keep going. I want you to finish – I need you inside of me."

David wondered what had kept his mood so passionate post-coitus, but he pushed inside again and again as Greg stroked his hair and face. David locked his lips onto Greg's ignoring the strange slimy feeling between their torsos that was really just distracting more than arousing or disgusting. But as his hot elation and bliss grew and grew inside of his chest and loins he forgot all about the mess between them and focused on the pleasurable feeling of pressure building up below until it finally released with a grunt and left him trembling on top of the object of his affections.

Greg kept stroking his head and hair as David caught his breath.

"I think it's time for a shower," Greg said. David laughed; that was an understatement.

The shower was just as much a part of the passion experience with Greg as the sex was, but unfortunately there wasn't much hot water to be shared as it ran completely cold in less than five minutes. But he stood there with Greg in his arms, letting the water beads run down their bodies long after the water had been turned off.

David woke up with a jolt. He couldn't even remember having a dream; something just woke him up with a violent tremble shooting through his freezing body. Greg stirred for a moment, and David braced himself to see if he'd woken Greg up with him. But Greg didn't make a sound and curled back up, burrowing deeper into the blanket. David relaxed with relief and slowly crept out from underneath the covers to go find some warm clothes to bundle himself in. Back in Vegas, he could sleep in his boxer-briefs with Greg in his bed and that would keep him warm enough. In Norway during December, however, that was not the case. David found a pair of seats and a tee-shirt, clumsily slipping on a pair of socks mid-step as he made his way to the window to look out over the fields in the night. The moon seemed far away here, and the cold wintry air kept the land misty. But the moonlight wasn't the only light to be found.

Down in the yard, three figures walked along the frozen soil. Two figures held burning torches, those freaky bird-whale costumes. One led, and one fell behind, while the middle figure draped in a black cloak held its head low as its long, straight white hair fell down its back.

The middle figure stopped, and the others stopped with it. The black robed figure lifted its head and looked up into the guest bedroom window, directly at David. He could see Greg's grandmother's features, but only barely as her entire face was painted black and white, fashioned after a skeleton. Her cold, milky stare vanished when she turned her head and they continued on their way.

David froze, partly from being caught in her eerie sight but mostly wondering what the hell Greg's Mama Olaf was up to out here in Old Norse country.