Chapter 13

Harlow guided Lennard, who was followed by Niko dragging Brodil, as they all entered the clinic. Niko waved awkwardly at the people who had gathered outside.

"Well, I'm glad I got the door fixed this morning," Niko said as he plopped Brodil's unconscious body onto the exam table. "The show would have continued if those people outside could stand and watch through the doorway. Bad enough your window is at eye level. Maybe I could put in a skylight?" Niko thought out loud.

Harlow and Lennard exchanged a look. They were both still shaken up by what had happened, but they were grateful to Niko for helping them.

Lennard instinctively went to the shelves in the examination room and gathered supplies. Harlow came up beside him and led him to a chair, taking the supplies and setting them on a moveable table near the seat.

"Sit, let me take a look at your arm," Harlow said softly to Lennard. "It'll need to be cleaned and I'll need your eyes to make sure I don't miss anything."

Lennard nodded and sat down. His comprehension of what had happened was becoming less hazy. His eyes moved over to look at Brodil lying on the exam table. A brief look of anger, then compassion crossed his face before he looked back to Harlow.

"I..." he started to say. "I did that, didn't I?"

“Yeah, you did,” Harlow tried to reassure his lover. “But he’s not dead, so don’t worry about it.” An idea came to him then and he extended his tail to meet Lennard’s.

The large man recoiled for a second before realizing what was going on, then relaxed and wrapped his tail around Harlow’s in turn.

A wave of anger and confusion washed over Harlow as their tails entwined, but he remained focused on Lennard’s arm to keep his mood from changing too. Harlow allowed the emotions to wash over him, then he expelled them. He knew the negative emotions would serve no purpose now; they were better dealt with and gone.

Instead, he began pushing calmness and understanding through to Lennard. He had kind of felt how to do this while in the tub last night, and it seemed to be coming naturally now. Harlow actually wondered if it had something to do with the sensations he felt during The Bonding, the wall within his mind that crumbled and opened up a new place in his mind.

Harlow looked up and Lennard's expression slackened. The negative emotions he'd been dealing with withdrew, and his muscles relaxed. A tune Harlow had heard Lennard hum a few times came into his mind, and Lennard began humming it.

Harlow had watched Lennard remove objects from people's flesh numerous times, but had never done it himself. He knew the first thing to do was to wash the area, but before he could get the words out, Lennard spoke to Niko.

"Can you hand me the sterile water from the shelf there?" his right hand pointed to the exact spot Harlow was looking.

A strange and impossible thought crossed Harlow's mind. Before he could think twice about it, he thought about the large bowl under the sink to catch the debris in and "sent" it to Lennard.

"I will also need the large bowl under the sink to catch the debris," Lennard said to Niko as he turned to fetch the water.

Harlow was flabbergasted. Had he just sent his thoughts to Lennard? He looked up to Lennard's face and "sent": Look at me and smile.

Lennard turned his head toward Harlow and a large, goofy smile crossed his face. "Do you know why I just did that?" he asked after a moment of staring at Harlow.

One last experiment, and I'll know for sure, Harlow thought to himself. Then, he sent a mental message to Lennard: I think I can talk to you through our tails.

Lennard's eyes widened as he whispered, "Did you really just say that?"

Niko placed the bowl on the table with a clack and said, "You two lovebirds whisper to each other on your own time, right now it's time to get this mess cleaned up."

Both of them were startled by the sound and looked up at Niko with wide eyes and slanted smiles. "Yeah. Sorry," Harlow apologized.

He looked at Lennard and said, "Lennard." Instead of finishing the sentence out loud, he mentally told Lennard what to do. Lennard moved the bowl underneath his arm. "Yes, do that," he said out loud.

Niko looked at Harlow and Lennard with a questioning gaze, but asked, "What should I do with this guy?"

Lennard spoke up. "He's fine where he is," he said to Niko. "If he wakes up before I'm finished, then knock him out again." A wicked smile came over Lennard's face as he spoke.

The smile was mirrored by the twin, and he said, "With pleasure." He rubbed his hands together and walked over to the unconscious man.

With the help of the telepathic bond Harlow had somehow established, cleaning, removing the glass, and then bandaging Lennard's arm went extremely well. They both felt the pain as Harlow had to dig into Lennard's flesh to find a particularly evasive shard of glass. That part was less than pleasant, but overall their mood at discovering this ability was ecstatic.

They moved to check on Brodil after finishing with Lennard's arm. They could have maintained the tail connection, but they weren't sure what to tell Niko.

Brodil had a broken hand and jaw, and most likely a rib or two. Lennard set the fingers, pulled the jaw back into place, and wrapped the man's chest tightly. He then administered a tincture of Elena flower and Greywood bark to help with the pain and to keep him asleep for a while so they didn't have to deal with him. He would wake up a lot more sober, and hopefully less irate.

Niko and Harlow moved Brodil's limp body to the recovery room before sitting down with Lennard in the waiting room. Niko took the spot unoccupied on the couch and Harlow was pulled down onto Lennard's lap.

"This is a little degrading," Harlow thought, but his thigh rested on Lennard's crotch and he was able to get a sort of side hug out of the position, so didn't have an issue.

"So," Niko paused for dramatic effect, "I need explanations."

They looked at each other, then back at him. "I'm not sure where to start," Lennard replied.

"How about where you've been all morning, then all the way until you two learned to talk telepathically together," Niko said with a sly grin.

Both Lennard's and Harlow's eyes went wide at the statement.

"Oh come on, you know me and Neko can do it. It wasn't difficult to see the same thing happening between you two," Niko said with a roll of his eyes. "Now, where have you been all day, and why is your pops here, Harlow?"

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Lennard did most of the talking, Harlow adding a bit here and there as they retold the story of their day to Niko. In return, Niko informed them of how he came over this morning to fix the door, only to find everyone had already left. He had completed his work and went up to The Hard Rock for lunch, only to find a crowd gathering when he returned.

The three, or maybe four, to be more accurate, since they now knew Niko and Neko were always in contact, all speculated on Lennard's subconscious rage as well as Harlow's obvious psychic abilities.

Sure, here is the edited version of your story:

"Kinet, when he healed Harlow, told me he felt like we were somehow important," Lennard said, looking at the floor. "I didn't believe him at the time, thought he was just pulling my leg or buttering me up or something."

Niko's eyes went loose for a moment as Neko talked to him telepathically. "Neko says Luchorpan are Fairy-Folk and extremely long-lived as well. He may know more than he's letting on and he may be right."

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Oh come on," Lennard protested. "I'm turning fifty-one this year, my days of adventuring or whatever are over. I'm a homebody, I like cooking and eating a nice dinner, I don't dream about finding treasure and swashbuckling anymore. It can't be."

Neko looked at the big man and raised an eyebrow. "You say that, but the way you plowed Brodil out just now says there's plenty of fight left in you, especially when it involves Harlow."

Lennard turned to Harlow and his lip perked up on one side, giving him a goofy smile. "Yeah, when it comes to him I suppose." He took a beat then continued. "I really can't do that again though. It's not a good place for me."

Harlow and Niko both noticed that there was something more than what Lennard was letting on, but didn't push the issue.

Niko kept on the subject, however, and discussed how their ancestors as well as other species could sometimes develop what was called "the beastial state." He said that it had been used often by warriors, who learned to control it and harness its strength without losing themselves.

"They also tended to kill anyone or anything around them," Lennard pointed out, ending the subject.

Harlow had done some studying, but history wasn't one of the subjects he knew much about. As Niko and Lennard began talking about names of people and places he had never heard of, his mind began to wander.

"Harlow," Niko said, bringing Harlow back from the brink of falling asleep. "Aren't those your things out front?"

In the activity since returning, he had once again forgotten about his clothing chest. "Oh, yes it is," he said, silently wondering to himself whether forgetting his things so easily was a sign of their actual unimportance to his life now.

"Maybe you should move them into the house," Niko prompted.

"Uh, yeah. I guess I should," he responded. With a pat on his backside from Lennard, he stood up and made his way to the door.

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Harlow opened the door, then closed it behind him. He picked up the wheelbarrow and wheeled his chest back to the house. He left the metal frame outside. He dropped the chest on the floor of the living room.

He stood and looked around the small house, wondering where he should put his things. "I should probably wait for Lennard to tell me," he thought to himself. "I don't want to mix my things in with his. He may not like that."

He spoke to the plants in the living room, since he was alone in the house. "Can I call this my house now?" he asked himself.

He thought about it for a moment. He had been living with Lennard for several days, even though he wasn’t conscious for the entire time. But even before Lennard had asked him to move in, he felt more at home here and at the clinic than his own home.

"Yeah, I think I can call this home," he said out loud and smiled. The simple thought elevated his mood and he looked at the small house with happy eyes.

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“Now that he’s gone, Lennard, we need to have a little chat.” Niko said once the door closed.

“Now that he’s gone, Lennard, we need to have a little chat,” Niko said once the door closed.

Lennard’s eyebrow raised in curiosity. “What do we need to chat about Niko?” He asked.

Niko pulled a small pad of paper and a pencil from a pouch at his waist. “Ok, so Neko and I have a theory, actually more of a probability now with the things we’ve learned today,” Niko continued.

Lennard nodded his head, thinking he was talking about the addition to the house. “Go on.”

“We think The Bonding you performed with Harlow was doomed to this outcome,” Niko began. “Ok, maybe doomed is a bad choice of word, but it was inevitable. Since he has the ability to manifest a psychic ability, the probability of the bonding affecting you is almost one hundred percent.”

This caused Lennard to pause for a moment and look at the twin dumbfounded. This conversation definitely wasn’t going in the direction he had thought it would. The paper he held in his hand came up and he started scribbling some numbers and drawing two stick people, one with a round body.

“Ok, first off,” Niko continued, “Neko and I have been researching this subject for years now because we don’t have anyone to bond with Mika. That creates an obvious problem as you can understand.” Neko looked at Lennard with a look that said, “Look at your current circumstances.”

Lennard nodded. “I understand,” he said.

He continued, "Good, we had gone through multiple scenarios involving close adult females performing The Bonding as well as making the attempt ourselves, but with each different scenario we encountered references to others who had tried the same thing."

"In each attempt the bond was... less than successful, shall we say? Some created physical bonds, others went almost immediately into an addiction and dragon chasing scenario."

Niko continued. "The best circumstance we could find was a reference to an old royal house who had betrothed their daughter to a neighboring royal house in order to ally themselves against the Marana Horde, but that's not important."

Niko shook his head to get himself back on track and continued. "The families required the would-be bride and groom to spend a two-week period with each other so that they could learn about their would-be partner and determine if they would be truly compatible or if their marriage would remain a state affair."

Neko paused for breath. "Quite the mouthful, right?"

He continued. "Anyways, as children will do, they messed around and somehow performed a successful Bonding with each other. The male apparently had found someone with the proper wording and the Bonding was performed."

"The two were mated of course and stayed faithful to each other until they both died in each other's arms."

Niko’s eyes went vacant for a moment. "Yes, I know brother." Niko spoke to the air as well as his twin. Lennard wasn’t privy to what Neko added to the conversation.

"Anyways, we determined that by mating Harlow and Mika properly, and teaching them how to complete the ritual, it would be the best chance for both of them."

Lennard raised his hand to his chin. "So I messed that up good. I'm sorry Niko, Neko. I didn't mean—"

"It's fine Lennard, that's not the point I'm making here." Niko waved his hand as if to shoo a fly away. "What I'm getting to is that neither of the kids in the story had a high affinity for empathy. The bond they created was almost completely physical."

"If we would have had Harlow perform The Bonding to Mika, there's a very good chance she would have turned into nothing more than a slave to Harlow."

The phrasing Niko used took Lennard by surprise. "A slave?"

"Yes, pretty much." Niko said. "Someone who has a strong psychic ability can unknowingly take control of the person they are bonded to." Niko paused here and looked seriously at Lennard.

"He's actually lucky you bonded with him, I don't think anyone, especially not the creep in there," he pointed to the recovery room, "would have any control over themselves afterward."

“What are you talking about Niko? That isn’t how The Bonding works.” Lennard argued.

“Not normal bonds, no. But we now know Harlow isn’t normal now. He has a mask, Lennard, do you know how rare those markings are, especially so symmetrical?”

Lennard scoffed. "That's just an old wives' tale."

"There are always truths in traditions, Lennard," Niko countered. "And seeing him now, the mental talent he has pretty much confirms it, don't you think?"

Lennard harrumphed but didn't speak.

"Neko has been looking at documents about The Bonding involving people with strong mental abilities," Niko continued. "Most end up with either the person performing The Bonding dead or becoming subservient to the receiver of The Bonding."

He stopped again and looked off into the distance. He came back from his telepathic conversation and looked at Lennard seriously. "Since your personality hasn't changed, other than you getting all lovey-dovey with Harlow, we think you'll be fine."

"Wait, what?" Lennard all but yelled.

"According to The Book of Bondage and Matriarchism by Domatria Slaamastre, when someone with little to no empathic abilities is bonded to someone with strong psychic abilities, they will die almost instantly. The survivors go through major personality changes, becoming subservient and extremely docile," Niko said matter-of-factly.

"The bond between two individuals both with strong psychic abilities suffers only minor changes in personality, generally a strong sexual desire between the two. Luckily, they are unaffected in other ways."

That was not a book Lennard was familiar with, although the title sounded interesting. “So what you’re trying to tell me is that when I performed The Bonding on Harlow, his mental abilities somehow reversed the ritual and affected me instead?”

“But you also think I have some strong mental ability as well and that is what kept me from becoming Harlow’s sex slave?” Lennard asked Niko in a distressing tone.

Niko was leaning forward with his doodles to show Lennard a visual representation of what he and Neko were trying to explain. But upon hearing Lennard's explanation, he stopped doodling and a frown came over his face.

"Yeah, that's pretty much it," he said, withdrawing the paper with his drawings on it. "I guess I didn't need this after all," he said, a little embarrassed. He put the paper back in his pouch.

Lennard chuckled. "Sorry to have enough brain power to keep up with you two."

Niko chuckled a little as well. "Yeah, well most people around here would need the visual aid and still wouldn't get it." They both chuckled.

"To bring it all together, Lennard, because of you, we kind of dodged an arrow with Mika and Harlow. You, on the other hand, are probably the only person in this town who could have bonded with him without dire consequences." Niko patted Lennard's hand.

"Knowing Harlow, I don't see him dealing with a sex slave situation, so you basically saved him from that as well," Niko concluded. "You did the right thing, and while it may not have been what you expected, you helped a lot of people, like you always do, big guy."

Knowing all of this helped Lennard come to terms with the feelings he developed for Harlow. Even with the vision they shared, he felt the feelings of attraction to him had developed more quickly than they should have.

"But I don't have any psychic abilities," Lennard countered.

Niko stared blankly for a moment, communicating with his brother. "Neko thinks that you may start developing some though, the same way Harlow is. The Bonding probably opened up the part of your brain that controls that."

That seemed both plausible and far-fetched. Lennard had never had a high affinity for empathy while in direct contact with someone else's tail. He thought he knew his brain and body pretty well, but couldn't totally deny the possibility.

Lennard flushed and patted Niko's hand in return. "Thanks, Niko, Neko. I appreciate your help."

"Now you aren't going to tell me next that I am supposed to be some kind of hero, are you?" he asked with a smile.

Niko chuckled and shook his head. "No, I can't tell you that part. But if anything, Harlow would probably be the hero. You'd be the sidekick." Niko winked and laughed.

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As Harlow came back into the clinic, Lennard and Niko were laughing at something Niko had apparently said. The door closed behind him with a click, and Lennard looked around the corner to see him approaching.

"Get everything put away?" Lennard asked.

"I wasn't sure where to put my things," Harlow said. "I didn't know if I should mix our things or not yet."

Lennard chuckled again and beckoned Harlow forward. "It's our place and things now. You're not gonna get rid of me, and I'm not letting you go, okay?"

Harlow nodded, a smile crossing his face.

"So, you two, speaking of 'your' place, should we go figure out the details for the new room?" Niko asked.

"Yeah, let's do that," Lennard said as he pushed himself up from the couch.

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The three of them went over to the house and Niko confirmed some measurements and wrote down some notes.

"So here, between the kitchen and bathroom, you'll put the stairs?" Harlow asked.

"Yep, there's just enough room. Well, maybe not for Lennard, but normal people will fit just fine," Niko said, lightly nudging Lennard in the arm with his elbow. He barely missed the bandages. "Oops, sorry Len."

Lennard hadn't even flinched. His arm looked worse than it was, and the sprig of Wenetta he held below his tongue helped dull the throb.

"And the upstairs room will be just a bedroom?" Harlow asked.

"Unless you need something else up there," Niko replied.

Harlow looked at Lennard, who answered nonchalantly, "I can't think of anything. It's mostly just for looks."

The big man was obviously thinking about something else.

Both of the other two men looked at Lennard, wondering where their friend had gone.

"Lennard, you okay? Is your arm hurting or something?" Niko asked.

"What? No, I'm okay. Just rethinking some of the stuff you were telling me earlier," Lennard said, coming back to the present.

"How much did I miss?" Harlow asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I'll tell you later, Harlow. It's not urgent," Lennard said and patted the boy's back.

"Actually," Niko cut in. "Since I know you'll be discussing it later anyway, would you be open to a little experiment?"

The partners looked at Niko inquisitively.

"What are you proposing?" Lennard asked.